Evaluation 1 (PLAN)

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product was a Music Video, Digipak and Advert for the song ‘Save The World (Tonight)’ by dance group Swedish House Mafia. To get some ideas we looked at existing videos from similar artists, such as Eric Prydz, Jason Derulo and Kid Cudi. These gave us a good idea of the general conventions of a Dance Music video. However we also looked at videos from other genre, looking at the conventions that were present in the majority of the videos. We saw that in a lot of the videos there were a lot of meat shots, a large number of shots and a mix of both a storyline and performance. We looked at two theorists in detail whilst planning this media product and they were Andrew Goodwin and Carol Vernallis who both looked at music videos closely and had theories about them. Goodwin says that there are 5 key concepts of music videos are:
• Thought beats
• Narrative and Performance
• Star Image
• Relation of visuals to the song
• Technical aspects of the music video

Thought Beats are the images you see on the screen that can relate to the sounds that you can hear through the music. It is used a lot in dance videos and similar genres like grime and hip-hop. In these type of video it is usually done by and aesthetically pleasing female, to grab the audiences attention. A good example of this is in the videos for Call On Me by Eric Prydz and Star Guitar by The Chemical Brothers.
Narrative and Performance is where you mix the showing of a storyline and the footage of a band playing their instruments and singing the song (lip syncing). This is usually done in videos for indie/ rock because they usually like to show themselves in a live situation, but also try to put a story to the song they are releasing. A good example of this is Weightless by All Time Low or If Today Was Your Last Day by Nickelback.
Star Image is a technique used by a lot of bands to promote not only themselves, but also their lead singer as his/ her own unique brand. This is a good technique to use because the lead singer of bands usually has an aura around them, were people watching the video look up to them and having them prominently in the video will only help sales. A good example of this is Misery by Maroon 5.
Relation of visuals to the song means that in the video they show what the singer is singing about. For example if the singer sings ‘I’m walking down the street’ the video will show him walking down the street. A good example of this is T.G.I.F by Katy Perry. This However they could also be less literal meanings, for example if the singer is singing about missing his girlfriend the video may show him at home alone. An example of this is Here Without You by 3 Doors Down.
Technical Aspects Of A Music Video are the basic things that hold the music video together. These are speed, camera movement, editing and cutting. These are the things, which act as the basis for the whole video. The extra things that are important are mise-en-scene, lighting, colour and the beats in the song. The whole surroundings of the video are important to give the right impression, for example you would have bubblegum pink walls and glitter in a heavy metal video. An example of when the mise-en-scene has been considered well is in the video for Oh No! by Marina and The Diamonds.

Vernallis says that there are 4 key concepts to a music video:
– Narrative
– Editing
– Camera Movement
– Diegesis
Narrative
She says:
– The video is a visual response to the music
– There is not necessarily a balance between narrative and performance
– The narrative is not always complete – it may be a partial, fragmented narrative
– The structure of the video may appear disjointed
– Something drives the video forward, but often it is not the narrative. It could be the music, the performance, a mixture or some other element
– There may not always be a clear resolution (closure) at the end
– The video may pose questions that it doesn’t actually answer
– There may be a narrative or theme running through the video, but in a montage style.

Editing
She says:
– Editing may match the musical phrases or the beat
– The video may break or disrupt many of the ‘rules’ of continuity editing – this is a clear convention of music video editing.
– Editing may become ‘foregrounded – the edits may be really obvious, to draw attention to themselves as opposed to invisible, continuity editing
For example, you may see:
Jump cuts, Breaks of the 180 degree rule, jumps in time and space, Extreme changes in pace, Juxtaposed frames, style of editing that runs through the video.

Camera Movement
She says:
• When it comes to shot types, extremes are very common.
• The style of framing and movement may run through the video and is distinctive to that video
• The camera may move in time with the music
• The camera may move on the lyrics
• The master shot (or other establishing shots) is used frequently, as are close-ups

Diegesis (The world of music videos)
She says:
• The diegesis may be revealed quite slowly
• Actions are not necessarily completed – they may be disrupted or interrupted in someway
• Character or object movements may move to the music
• There may be gaps in the audience’s understanding of the diegesis – in time and space, music, performance and narrative
• Some frames may be more important than others

Our music video uses Goodwin’s theory that a music video has the 5 concepts and has shown the parts, Thought Beats, Narrative and Performance, Star Image and the technical aspects of the music video.
We use thought beats in the parts filmed in a cafeteria and also when in one of the studio scenes, when the music is building up towards the chorus.
We used a narrative and performance structure for the video because it meant that we could have both a story told, but also makes it clear that it was a music video. We did this by shooting scenes in the studio and showing the members of the group playing instruments and recording the song into a microphone.
We used the Star Image part of the theory by using what we portrayed as the lead singer in almost all of the shots and also in the parts where we were recording the studio scenes. This was important because it meant we could sell the song and video through the star brand that we hoped to create by using this technique.
We looked very carefully at the technical elements of the video, creating good mise-en-scene and hoping that we had framed the shots correctly, giving them the meaning that we wanted to. We also looked at colour and lighting, ensuring that the video matched both the genre and pace of the song. This was important; as it was a dance song, and both the narrative and performance parts of it had to match this or the video would look very out of place.

We also used parts of the Carol Vernallis theory when it came to camera movement in particular. For example, we used jump cuts and extreme shots, like close ups to portray our story and to enhance the star image that we wanted to show. We also used her theory that the cuts and beats that you can see in the video and we tried to do this in the video. This was evident at the beginning where the cuts and the zooms all matched the ‘sweeping’ sounds that you can hear in the original song. As well as this we also incorporated the idea of extreme changes in time and space. We did this when we put a slow motion effect on the video to show the hero saving the people and obviously time couldn’t really slow down like that so this was a part of surrealism as well, which was another theory that we looked at. Surrealism is shown well in Drunk by Ed Sheeran, which shows a cat talking, playing the PlayStation and drinking cans of beer and cider, which you wouldn’t really expect to see.

We also challenged one of Goodwin’s theories because he says that music videos should have a relation from the song to the video that you see. However, we don’t have any of the literal meanings, in as much as there isn’t a point in the video that the song sings something while the character is doing it. There are some less literal parts to it, for example when the music says ‘Who’s gonna Save The World?’ it shows you him saving someone, but this isn’t as you’d expect from this theory. Similarly Vernallis talks about a ‘Master Shot’ which is used to bring back the story to a certain point but in our video we don’t really portray a certain point that shows a definite ending to the song, so we challenge her ‘conventions’ in this way.