Question 1

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

After our video was finally completed we uploaded it to our blog and gathered everyone in our media room to watch it. As far as we could see they were all enjoying it and they all commented on how professional it looked.

When researching we looked through music videos to look at the forms and conventions of music videos today to help with ideas and find key features we need to include. When researching as a group we looked through the statements made by Andrew Goodwin's theory of music videos. His statements pointed us in the right direction of what to include.

Andrew Goodwin

Relation between the visuals and the song - thought beats, seeing the sound. Close ups are essential. Music videos create and enhance star image. Technical aspects.

The conventions that we used in our video are;

Technical aspects
Star image
A narrative performance

In conclusion I think music videos would not have the power to attract without:

Lip syncing/ close ups/ accurate editing/ camera movements that enhance the music/ a clear interpretation and amplification of the lyrics/ iconographic mise en scene.

How have we achieved this??

I am going to look at some of my favourite shots from the video and analyse how we encorporated these conventions into our final product!

Correlation between lyrics and visuals
As you can see from the printscreens below, we aimed to correlate our video with the name of the song, 'Pieces'. Throughout our video we based it around the idea of 'pieces' of a puzzle, where our main character would find the pieces and put together a puzzle which he solves to discover his lover is cheating with another man, his bestfriend.

When we created our storyboard for the music video, we considered what the lyrics meant as a group before deciding what the music video was even going to be about. Therefore, it was important for us to emphasise the name of the song in the video.

Editing

In this particular part of the music video we have desaturated the shots because the shot is meant to show an activity of the past. The shot shows a photo which by changing the shot to be in black and white it makes it seem dated. We also added a flash and changed our moving film into a still image.

Throughout the video we ensured that the audience are 'hearing what they're seeing'. Therefore we made the editing of the video show this. The song 'Pieces' has changes of pace throughout which meant the pace of the editing changed dramtically throughout. The begining of the song presents a slow place, therefore the use of dissolve transistions such as cross disolves empasised the slow editing. The cross dissolves when the song commences suggests the shot is a flashback.

However the postion and body language of the characters indicates that his memory only allows him to remember the less happier times of their relationship. The quick short cuts created a intense situation, this is also emphasised by the use of the strobe light.

Star image and close ups

Throughout the video we aimed to make the camera privilege the artist by the amount of screen time he has. Although our narrative story is told throughout, the camera emphasises the main artist, this is demonstrated by lip syncing.

Desaturation of our opening shot at the beginning of the scene emphasies the mood of the artist, creating a dull atmosphere. The lighting was a techincal aspect to our music video; the use of the strobe light, linked with the pace of the music, creating a frantic atmosphere.