Media Evaluation 1, Part 2

In what ways does your media product use, develop

or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?

For the fantasy side of the story we chose to use an obvious symbol of the Alice in Wonderland dress. We found this symbolic as in the Disney film; Alice leaves the actual world and enters Wonderland. We looked at this idea as escapism in our video with our artist running over the

park towards her Wonderland/fantasy and away from her actual world/reality although we did challenge the Pop conventions by using this costume as other music videos that done a similar

thing were much more subtle in their costumes and locations, for example, Taylor Swift’s ‘Love Story’ features a Romeo and Juliet intertextual reference in the video and the lyrics but was much more subtle than our Media Product where the costume was very obvious. I think

because of this our video also attracts a younger audience

The costume Imogen Fall wore over the park (coat and boots) was also selectively picked as we had already taken photos for the DigiPak in this outfit and as a distinct feature of our artist was her hair colour we felt the navy colouring gave off an autumn feel, linking her name ‘Imogen FALL’ (American term for autumn), the video and our DigiPak all together.

We stuck with this obvious fantasy idea for the DigiPak and the Website as well in the hope that we would also be appealing to a younger audience despite the more older

themes in the music video and behind the obvious lyrics. I think its successful in the fact that all women of any age can relate back to the notion of fairytales as they were all

little girls at some point so I think by incorporating this not only did we appeal to perhaps a slightly younger audience than intended but also a slightly older as they can

relate back to the main themes.

To link our music video in with our website, we chose to put a vintage effect on one of the shots to match the appearance of our website.

Not very clear in the picture screen shot but on our websites we have a vintage effect on the page. Using the ‘Super 8’ app on an iPhone, we created this same effect on this shot in our music video which can be seen more clearly.

In many music videos locations can be an important way of presenting a storyline and complimenting the artist as well. We chose our locations for our video practically and

purposefully. The park, outdoors, pretty scenery was symbolic of her escapism route – fantasy and the shots taken indoors in a homely setting proved her reality. The shots of Imogen Fall

singing in her bedroom or the shots taken at my dressing table I think reached out to our target audience as most girls of that age spend a lot of time in their bedrooms when feeling sad or

unhappy so think they could probably relate to that. Looking at these two shots in comparison you can clearly see the image we were aiming for but using our rubbish camera, low budget and

filming during the wrong time of year in order to meet the deadlines limited this and made it look much more dingy and dark than we had planned.

As our song was of the pop convention we did use the convention of the visuals matching the lyrics for many shots in our music video. This was picked up on in our audience feedback and approved of! Even shots where the visuals wasn’t matched or contrasted with the action they were edited and timed for dramatic effect, for example on the line ‘Wait for it’ Imogen Fall is seen slamming her engagement ring on the table and walking out symbolising that she isn’t waiting for him anymore. We think this gave more definition to the music video and really

made certain shots stand out.

Shot for the lyric ‘I didn’t feel the fairytale feeling’, Used this as felt it was symbolic

of a fairy-tale book and we shot a close-up of the word ‘Princess’ as a character from

a fairytale.

Shot for the lyric ‘So we can make perfect shapes’, Used this as it was

very matched to the lyrics.

Shot used for the lyric ‘If stars don’t aline’ This was our reverse

shot which had all the stars form a heart shape, matching

the lyrics.

Shot used for the lyric ‘If it doesn't stop time’, we felt this linked in with our ‘Alice in Wonderland’ theme in the video and brought the lyric to

life.

The photograph of Imogen Fall and her fiancée was an important symbol in our music video as there was a shot of her

taking the photo down from her dressing table and then again ripping it up –

symbolising the end of their relationship. In Katy Perry’s music video ‘Thinking of You’ the photo of her late partner is very symbolic and in our devising process we watched this and other pop music videos

to look for the symbols used within.

We wanted the opening of our video to start the narrative straight away and start with action. After watching P!NKs ‘Please Don’t Leave Me’ we come up with the idea of beginning our video on a negative note through an argument. As another symbol

we chose to smash the wine bottle to symbolise the end of the couple’s happy

times together and that they are approaching the end of their relationship.