Evaluation Question 1

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

Initially, when I began planning my music video, I did not know what my narrative was going to be about. I had chosen the song 'Stop the world I wanna get off with you' by Arctic Monkeys and started by analysing the lyrics to help me gain a vision as to what the song was really about. This helped me to produce an idea of my videos theme. My aim was to express my artists emotions towards his friend who he wants to be his girlfriend. I watched different music videos to find some inspiration. This enabled me to produce a storyboard with all the shots I wanted to get and gave me confidence in knowing what I wanted to shoot on the day. I followed many music video conventions however, I also challenged some of the conventions of the genre to make my video different and more interesting.

Here are 9 frames from my music video that follow the conventions:

The opening shot of the drumsticks hitting together to the beat signifies there is going to be an element of performance in the video which is a key feature of music videos. Also, indie rock music typically has a band which generally consists of a drummer. This is the first impression the audience will get from the video.

A convention of music videos is to have extreme close ups of the artist to show their expressions and emotions. In this case, I have used this close up to show a flash into his day dream of him and his friend, a girl he really wants to be with. This shot allows the audience to understand the narrative as the close up highlights my intention for the audience. This helps to convey the meaning behind the song, another convention of a music video.

To further highlight that we are in his dream sequence, I have used an effect to change the lighting of the clip, which shows there is a difference between the rest of the footage. Also, this is the only footage we see of the two of them happy together which is also why I have chosen to make this stand out from the rest of my shots. Effects are very popular on music videos especially of the indie rock genre.

This image shows the artist on a roundabout. I changed the speed of this footage to make it appear to be not only him in a thought process but also to symbolise his reflection on himself and the girl. I felt the roundabout would be a good way to represent how he's feeling in his mind. The constant spinning signifies his mind and his thoughts going round in his head about what to do.

The footage of his view from the roundabout is also something I slowed down to make it seem more apparent and more significant. Indie rock music videos typically change the speed of their footage and music videos in general should use different effects in order to keep the audience engaged with what is going on.

I have made my lip sync match my artist singing and have made my lyrics match the visuals as Goodwin's theory states that music videos should have a relationship between visuals and lyrics. I have also used another effect here called the mirror effect to show a metaphorical sense of reflection. I felt that although he is reflecting in himself, I wanted to show his thoughts through my editing at the same time.

I decided to use this over the shoulder shot to show how engrossed he is in her eyes which matches the lyrics "eyes the colour of". The mise-en-scene helps to build the narrative and show his emotions through the way I have filmed him looking at the picture. This is another time where we see him reflecting and thinking in the video.

The water at the lake is a key element of my video because it is a peaceful place for someone to go and think about things they have on their mind. By setting the scene I have followed the conventions of a music video and through the repetition of it, it has made it clearer for the audience, therefore it does follow conventions as the tone of the music matches the imagery.

This last image highlights his reflection of himself in the window and also allows the audience to engage with his thought process about how to handle the situation with his friend. He feels lost and I think my video really portrays this feeling all the way through to help build the narrative which is another key element of a music video.