James - Evaluation Question 1

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

Our music video and print work both conform and break different conventions of the genre that they are made within. The form of a music video is often made up of visuals that have some link to the lyrics and some type of performance shots. Our work clearly includes both of these aspects and therefore is clearly a music video.

Conforming to Conventions
The video conforms to the conventions of its genre in many ways. After researching into the ‘indie pop’ genre we found that one very common feature in videos of this genre is the presence of band performance shots. It was for this reason we decided to make the majority of our video either as band performance shots or just the lead singer lip-synching in different locations. Performance shots are common in this style of music videos because through first person mode of address the audience feel like they are connecting to the artist in the video and so the ‘fourth wall’ is being broken. To really make this connection meat shots of the artist looking directly into the camera are constantly used. You can see examples of this first person mode of address in our video below:

Shots like theses allow the audience to identify with the artist. They also reinforce Dyers first paradox that stars must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary. In this particular shot the singer is looking into the camera making him seem ordinary to the audience, but at the same time the way he has been light and the fact that he is performing in a band makes him extraordinary.

Another way the video conforms to its conventions is by using a narrative to convey the meaning of the song. The narrative links the lyrics to the visuals and helps the audience understand the story that the song is trying to tell. Our videos narrative shows a man and woman who end up having relationship problems; it is typical for videos of this genre to have a narrative that shows a man and woman's relationship. The way that the woman is represented in these videos however is not always the same. In many music videos women are idolised, however this is often with a very strong sexual connotation (the objectification of women). An example of such a representation of women is shown in Ne-Yo’s video ‘Miss Independent’ seen below:



At the start of our video and in the photograph sfx at the end, we see the woman to be very happy in the relationship. However these shots are intertwined throughout the video with ones of the couple arguing and individually looking very sad. As both of the characters are shown looking sad they girl is not represented as being overly emotional or pathetic in any way. This challenges some modern stereotypes that are shown in the media about women.

The preferred reading of these shots is that the woman is very happy and loves her boyfriend, the audience is meant to like her and feel happy for her. However this soon changes as towards the end of the video we see the girl looking very solumn which is meant to represent the relationship getting worse and going wrong. This idea is further shown to the audience as we see similar shots of the male character also looking sad.

The images of the two characters looking sad tell the audience that the relationship is not going well however they do not know why. Towards the end of the video more light is shed on what happened to the couple. We see the woman hand her boyfriend a photo of the two of them looking really happy as if she is trying to make the man realize how happy they could be again. The man doesn't react well to this and walks away with the woman quickly running after him. This reinforces a common stereotype about women that they often get hurt and are reluctant to leave men who end a relationship. This is the image of the man walking away with his ex-girlfriend running after him:

Narrative fuzz is used effectively here because they audience are left guessing what happened to the couple to ruin the relationship. This increases the value of the videos social currency, as it will act as a talking point between members of the target audience, it also makes the text polysemic.


Goodwin’s Critical Framework
Using Goodwin’s critical framework we can see that there are many aspects of our video that are present in hundreds of videos that have come before it from this and other genres.

One such aspect that Goodwin would have pointed out is that there is a strong link between the lyrics of the song and the visuals. This link is either established through lip-syncing or shots such as the one below:

The lyric whist we see this shot is 'so walk way, walk away' and we can see that the footage reflects that.

The videos cutting rate also mirrors the songs fast pace during the chorus and slower pace during the lyrics. The fast pace at the chorus could be seen as denoting the fast-paced and hectic lifestyles that the band members have. One observation that Dyer made when writing about stars, was that they are often shown to lead busy and rebellious lifestyles that their fans idolise. You can see a prime example of this fast cutting rate at the start of the first chorus. We made this into a short montage, which cuts every time there is a crash of the symbol. The montage lasts for two seconds between 0:33 and 0:35 but has seven cuts within it, you will be able to find it in the copy of our video below:



Goodwin also suggested that music videos amplify the lyrics of the song in several different ways. We have amplified the lyrics of our song in our music video in the following ways:

• Lyrics have been amplifed my lip syncing throught the video.
• The tune and rhythmn of the song has been amplified by the performance shots.
• Using first person mode of address amplifies some of the lyrics such as  the shot where Jamie sings 'I dont know why shes with me' whilst looking directly into the camera. This makes it seem as if Jamie is asking the question to the audience, and so it also breaks the 'fourth wall'.