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

For this particular question I will be discussing the code and conventions of a music video and whether we followed them or challenged them. In some shots we believed that we have met some code and conventions, were as in others we are completely original.

I will be taking you through our music video for the significant shots explaining why we made certain decisions and how those decisions helped us to achieve our outcome. I will also be making intertextual references to Justin Bieber’s Baby.

These images represent some aspects of the codes and conventions of a music video. Also in the genre we have chosen which is a POP/RnB/Soul. These are things that the audiences expect to see. Such as dancing girls, certain logos of brands. In a way a type of advertisements. For example many youngsters look up to certain stars and if a star is to have something they are more likely to want it to become more like them.

Codes and Conventions of a POP/Soul soundtrack or music video based upon Goodwin’s analysis.

Before we made our music video, we did a lot of research into other music videos of the same genre (POP/Soul ). This was so we could see what the typical conventions are for these videos, and how we could follow these, so the audience would be able to recognise our product for what it is. . According to Andrew Goodwin's music analysis a POP music video should have either an stage performance or an dance number. Furthermore he suggested that the best way to figure out what genre a music video is you should look at its characteristics and the relationship between the visuals and the lyrics. He also stated that you should look at the relationship between the visuals and the music, either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting.

Once we had heard the tracks produced by out artist had decided that he would fit into the POP/Soul genre. This is because he is able to get his voice to a high pitch which for a male artist is very hard. I had decided to compare him to Justin Bieber as, he also started of young and he had a similar fan base. With this we believed that our artists main fan base would be females aged between 12-15, this is because he comes across as a very feminine friendly.

For our music video we had decided as a group that we wanted to have both a performance and a narrative piece . To show the distinction we had edited in such a way that the narrative piece would be in black and white so it is clear to the audience that it is a flashback. In Justin’s video it is all performance there is no narrative element.

The idea for this opening shot had been taken from Ludacris - Runaway Love ft. Mary J. Blige.This is the opening shot for our music video. Here we thought that we had challenged the codes and conventions of a music video by putting credits at the beginning of the track. However we were proved wrong.After some extensive research we had found that quite a few music videos had credits at the beginning. But the difference in theirs and ours was that with their credits they had a image in the back of people walking or scenery. In others the music video had already started.

This is our establishing shot of our music video. We had chosen this image because it was the starting of our performance sector. We wanted to show that by being here he is no longer afraid and can face his fears. By having South Bank Skate Park as our entrance to the video, we are following the codes and conventions of a music video as their opening sequence is the shot of the area where vast majority of their music video is shot. However ,we challenged the codes and conventions of a music video as our video has a very slow start and does not jump straight in. As it does in Justin’s video, as its him with the big buildings and a large guitar.

For this shot we had decided to keep his face hidden because we wanted to create some sort of suspense. In this we wanted to show how he is now a more mature person who had grown up and travels around in big cars. For these shots we wanted to keep the suspense running . The suspense of where the artist is going , why is he going there and what is he going to do. In this shot we have challenged the codes and conventions as we have hidden the identity of the artist ,where as in mainstream videos the first shot that they show is normally the artist. As they have in Justin Bieber's Baby , we see the artist right at the beginning. Furthermore an important convention in a music video is eye contact., because it is an good way to connect with the audience. In Justin’s video he gives eye contact as soon as the video start. On the other hand in our video Leyton dies not give eye contact until the the end of the video. In this shot we wanted him looking into the river as wanted to portray him as a person who knows what he wants. We wanted it seem as he was in a way looking at his future. He was thinking about his life and how he as ‘grown up’.

In these shots it was the first verse of the song. Where he is talking about how the world has changed and what he makes of it. We had shot this in a skate park as we wanted to show that not everything is bad that even in a place were people think only low life's come and hang, there is such beauty. The shot of the watch is there because it symbolises the bad times that have left him behind and the good times that there are to come. Based on the lyrics it suggests that he is ‘alone in the world’ and that the time if moving faster then him. The next shot show people bullying him for who he is for being' alone’ . They are taking the mick out of him for being someone else, for not being like them.

We use the codes and conventions of a music video here as we had grey scaled these shots to suggest to the audience that we had gone back in time to when the artist was younger. We wanted to place flashbacks in the music video to show how he has over come the young age and to complement his lyrics which suggest that “when we were younger things were different from how it is today”, with this we wanted to show how things are different. Hence the establishing shot of him coming out of a BMW car. Another shot shows him being bullied by his step-father. But in the third shot he had fought back which resulted in him being pushed to do more work.

Mise-en-scene

The word ‘Mise-en –scene’ means what is contained within the camera frame. Under this comes different aspects. Firstly we would consider the location. Why we have chosen, south bank skate park and a home. We had chosen south bank skate park to shot the performance piece because we wanted to show that he is not like typical teenagers his age. That he has dreams and aspirations to which he must follow. The shots of him looking into the river was to show how he is a calm a collected person. How he sees his future, just by looking for it. In this we have used codes and conventions as the location is normally chosen to do with the track, as in Justin Bieber's Baby. It was an up beat track about teenage love which was shot in a bowling ally.This was to show that this is where youngsters hang out. For Leyton’s video, South bank was a good place as people his age like to Skate all day . We were trying to create an binary opposition between him and the typical teenagers. The second location was a house. We thought that this would be the perfect place to shot the flashback scenes as its the house and the mistreating of a child would never take place in a public place. To show how he grew up and what helped him become the person he is today.

The costume also comes under Mise-en-scene. In a mainstream POP/Souk music video the artist usually dress in baggy jeans and hoodies . But we had decided to dress Leyton up in smart yet casual cloths so that he doesn’t differ that much from his peers but enough to show that he a mature person for his age. This dress sense for the video for me was influenced by Justin Bieber’s Baby as he is dressed in casual clothing however he portrays a smart and collected person.

For our music video Leyton had two costumes. One which he had worn for the performance , which was the shirt and jeans. The other was a plain white T-shirt and jeans. We had asked him to dress this way, as we wanted to show him in a younger form. In which he was being hurt by his step-farther. In Justin’s video he wore two costumes as well, but the difference was that he has just changed his style a little bit. For example one jacket is black the other grey but the he has worn them is the same. Which would be with dark blue jeans and a top inside his jacket and a chain.