Group 20 - Amy , Mary , Michaela & Tharek: Evaluation Q1 - In what ways does your media product use ,develop or challenege forms and conventions of real media products?

When producing our music video , we got a lot of inspiration and ideas from looking at existing music videos. The effect of this enabled us to look at the forms and conventions primarily found within R n B , Pop genre music videos. With this we were able to take elements / ideas from existing music video's and build upon / change some of the ideas so it would follow the stereotypical forms and conventions found within the R n B , Pop genre.

The conventions that are generally found within Pop /R n B videos include:

Use of close ups of the artist
A Narrative which sometimes refers to a girl/boy
Element of colour
Choreography
Visual Motive that sometimes correlates to the lyrics of the song
Performance base track

Some of the conventions listed above, were noticed in a number of music videos that we looked at from artist from a variety of genres such as: Ed Sheerman , Mark Ranson , Ndubz , Tiao Cruz and The Saturdays but mainly looked at artist who conveyed the R n B , Pop genre such as : Jessie J, Pixie Lott , Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen , Pink and The Sugababes. The effect of this allowed us to look at the conventions music videos follow and what conventions R n B, Pop genre followed.

We released that we were going to have a female lead singer , so we selected videos that had this. We then had a look at the forms and conventions of woman within music videos using Laura Mulveys theory on the ideas of representation. Laura Mulvey theory illustrates the representation between both men and women in music videos. She quoted that :
" In a world ordered by sexual imbalance , pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/ female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto female figure which is styled accordingly."
I noticed that it was a convention in R n B for woman to be portrayed as:

Sexual icons
Objects to men
Seen wearing skimpy clothes and lingerie
Reinforces the idea of sex
Close up of body parts e.g Breast , bum , waist etc...

This convention is generally found within Male R n B videos such as Dizzee Rascal -'Holiday' and 50 Cents - 'Candy Shop'

Artists such as Jessie J and Lily Allen break away from this convention by including shots that show the artist full body , wearing outfits that don't expose or reveal to much of their body parts or reinforce the idea of sex within the overall video or lyrics.

With this information , we were able to explore the prime conventions generally found within female artists videos.

I feel that our music video challenged the convention of not using a male icon as the focal point or incorporating a male figure within our music video , which is a prime convention generally Incorporated within R n B , Pop genre videos. Our music video portrays the message of a girl being care free , having fun and enjoying life to the fullest. We were influenced by several videos which conveyed this same message within their music videos.

Which videos were you influenced by and why?
The following three music videos influenced me : Pink - 'So What' , Lily Allen -'LDN' and Jessie J ' Who's Laughing Now'. I felt that we could incorporate some of the ideas seen within the three videos into our video.

The 'So What' video illustrates the different problems the artist Pink faces ie. starting a fight with her ex , starting a fight with the guy in the guitar shop and destroying the shop and illustrating that she doesn't need her ex to still have fun. The crazy scenarios shown are illustrated in a comical way through the use of props , added extras , bright colours and use of camerawork. In our music video, we incorporated similar elements such as use of props to illustrate the lyrics of the song in a fun way. In some parts within our music video , we added comical actions when our artist 'Messie M' broke out and began to do random dances and pull funny faces. This was to show that she is a care free character, having fun and enjoying life. Another feature , that we included within our music video was the use of choreography which was a feature seen within the ' So What' video.

Lily Allen's 'LDN' music video illustrates her walking along the London streets in a comical way as she happily skips along the pavement. As she passes one part of the colourful street an desaturated effect is used to reveal the ' real side' to London illustrating many negative issues seen within the London streets. We were able to borrow conventions from this video through the use of editing and mise-en-scene. Through editing we Incorporated the use of playing around with effects. The mise-en-scene shown in Lily Allen's video illustrates a contrast between the dull London mise-en-scene to Lily Allen's bright red dress and converses. In our video we Incorporated the same convention , showing a contrast between the dark location seen at the beginning of the video to the different colours of the domino pieces. The visual style seen in Lily Allen's 'LDN' influenced me on possible effects that I wanted to see within our music video. I was able to illustrate a similar visual style by using a Colour Correction effect. A similar effect is used within the 'LDN' video as a desaturated effect is used to desaturate the surroundings when Lily walks along the pavement.

We were influenced by the mise-en-scene, visual style and camerawork seen in Jessie J's - 'Who's Laughing Now' video. Jessie J uses bright colours and wears funky clothes so we wanted our artist to reflect that same brand/ image look. We watched a variety of Jessie J videos and saw that she wore really bright , out of the ordinary clothes and her makeup was really different so we were inspired to incoporate this for our artist. Also in the music video the editing matched the beat of the song and when it cut it would cut to a completely differnt scene so it keeps the audience entertained.