Georgia Surridge Evaluation Question 1

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


A way in which I can analyse my media product to determine the ways it challenges or follows the forms & conventions of real media products is through Andrew Goodwins Six Point Theory, which was stated in his book 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'. His theory include these points -

  - Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in rock videos or dance routines for boy/girl bands)

  - There is a relationship between the lyrics & visuals (they can be illustrative, amplifying or contradicting)

  - There is a relationship between the music & visuals (again, they can be illustrative, amplifying or contradicting)

  - The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist & the artist may develope motifs which recur across their work (a visual style)

  - There is a frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) & particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body

  - There are often intertextual references (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc)

He stated that these things can be found in music videos & are typical conventions of real media products. To show this, I have analysed several music videos in reference to this theory & have found that most of these things are commonly found. Therefore, if I were to analyse our media product, I would find that it conforms to the first four points of this theory. Our music video's genre is pop. After extensive research I found the characteristics of pop music videos. These include typically focusing on simple themes such as love & romantic relationships, often use some type of performance & sometimes can also be called short films. Our product both follows & contradicts these characteristics as we have used the theme of love throughout our music video & our actor performs the song through lip syncing, however, it does not have a narrative format or structure & therefore is not like a short film. It also follows point number two as we used visuals to amplify the lyrics, e.g. 'my heart is going to pop', we used stop motion to create a heart out of post it notes as well as popping a heart shaped balloon which I have shown screen grabs of below –

This shows we have followed the conventions of music videos as there is often a relationship between music & visuals. For example, in Mann & 50 Cents music video – Buzzin, the lyrics are ‘don’t receive no L’s’ & the visuals show Mann making an L shape with his finger –

There was also a relationship between the music & visuals in our media product. We used editing to illustrate this as we cut the shots to the beat of the music which looked effective as the shots fitted the timings of the music well. Music videos will also cut their shots to the beat of the music so in that way we have followed the conventions of real media products. For example, throughout Nelly Furtardo’s video – Say It Right, the editing cuts to the beat of the music, this is particularly obvious at the start of the song.

Finally, the fourth point of Andrew Goodwins theory is the demand for close ups of the artist throughout the video. Our media product has clearly followed this convention as we used several close ups of our performer.

Another theory we looked at was Richard Dyer's Star Theory. His theory suggested that the 'Star' takes several forms in order to sell their product to their target audience. The Stars image is constructed & developed by themselves or their management team. Their image is then shown through various media outlets e.g. magazines, television & the internet. This allows the Star to have a selling point which makes them unique & recognizable. They are marketed in order to gain fans & make money. Their image may need to be changed to fit the wants & needs of the current audience. In this way, they need to represent a set of values & attitudes to reflect the audiences own values. 


This theory then influenced us to create a specific form to suit our target audience. We wanted our 'Star' to present positive values & attitudes, which would therefore cause our audience to copy these positive attitudes. The attitude we wanted to portray in our music video was that it was okay to be different & be happy with yourself the way you are. This is a positive message to give the younger generation & we believed that this message would increase popularity for our media products. 

Music videos also have a narrative format & structure, these include: performance, narrative & conceptual. Narrative is having a story within the video, performance is when the song is performed in some way e.g. by a band & conceptual is having a theme. Many music videos will use more than just one structure, in this way we have conformed as our music video is a mix of both performance & conceptual. The conceptual theme we have used is the theme of love & nature as the mise-en-scene is mostly outside in scenery as well as love heart post it notes & a heart shaped balloon. The performance we have used is having our performer lip syncing throughout the video.

I believe that the use of this mixed format & structure as well as conforming the Andrew Goodwin’s 6 Point Theory has allowed our music video to use the forms & conventions of real media products which makes our music video more realistic.

It may also be clear that intertextuality has influenced our music video as, when carrying out research, Ellie Goulding’s music video – Your Song, we liked the natural style & mise-en-scene used in the video so we decided we wanted a similar theme for our own product.  Ellie Goulding was our main intertextual reference when creating our media products are she has the same genre of music as ours & a style which we liked & wanted to develop. We were also influence by this advert:  

We really liked the idea of using stop motion in our music video as we thought it would fit our genre & would work well with our ideas.

All these intertextual references that inspired us has helped make our video realistic & to fit the conventions of real media products.


PLEASE CLICK ON MY MULTIMEDIA EVALUATION
http://www.wix.com/georgiasurridge/georgiasurridgemediaevaluation#!question-1