Maisie Linnane - Question 1

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

I will be analysing my music video using Andrew Goodwin’s ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’’ six point theory. This includes;

1.     Music Videos demonstrate genre characteristics.

2.     There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals

3.     There is a relationship between music and visuals

4.     The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work

5.     The is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body

6.     There is often intertexual reference

Andrew Goodwin thinks that all of these are typical conventions of music videos.

I have researched real media products within the same genre as my music video. This has shown me that Andrew Goodwin’s theory is correct as most music videos conform to more than one of his six points.

When looking through other music videos of the same genre it is clear that many of them do follow at least one of Andrew Goodwin’s six points.

An example of a video that follows the first of Andrew Goodwin’s six-point analysis is 50 Cent – Candy Shop. Hip-Hop songs usually include expensive cars, clothes and houses, along with heavy jewellery and alcohol and women portrayed sexually. Most of these elements are visited more that once in this video.

My music video also conforms to this point as typical characteristics of pop videos are that they are colourful, and as we shot outside that brings a lot of colour to the mise-en-scene, as well as costumes. We also use many close-ups of the artist. Another characteristic of pop videos is that they are fun and lighthearted. I think the fun side of our video is shown when the audience can see her running around a park playing hide and seek. Many pop videos also have a narrative, although our video is concept driven in many parts along with performance, there is defiantly an underlying narrative of a relationship.

The second point ‘there is a relationship between lyrics and visuals’ is used amongst all genres of music. Here is an example taken from Rihanna – Umberella. She is holding an umberella as she sings the words ‘umberella’.

My music video has many parts that show a very literal relationship between lyrics and visuals. The first example of this is when the lyric is ‘Stop’ and our artist holds hands up into a stop position. Another example is when the lyrics are ‘or else my heart is going to pop’ and a heart shape is build around her using stop motion and heart shaped sticky notes followed by a heart shaped balloon that pops. The last example that shows a link between the visuals and lyrics is at the end when the lyrics are ‘I want my money back’ and the artist is holding a piece of paper that says ‘I want my money back’ and the paper is passed through split screens.

Andrew Goodwin’s third point in his six-point theory is that is a relationship between music and visuals. An example of this that I found during research was Jay Z – 99 Problems. The whole way through this song shows many cuts, and the majority are in time with the music however at 5 seconds into the song there is a bit where there is a very fast beat and the edits shows this.

My video has examples of this, during the split screen at the end of the video, the stop motion on the bench and also the paper image stop motion as we thought that they all looked much better when in time with the beat of the music rather than the. The majority of all other shots were edited in time with the music as it portrayed a much more professional end media product.

The forth point is that the record label may demand many close ups of the artist and that the artist may develop and motif which will reoccur amongst their work.

I have watched many music videos by Ellie Goulding, as her music is a very similar style/genre to our chosen song.  A theme that I have noticed amongst many of her videos is an element of animation.  There are also many close-ups that help the audience to relate to the artist.

I have many close ups in my music video. I think they help to show the artists personality as a lot of information is given through their facial expressions. 

There is not a motif within my music video as there is only one video, and for a artist to develop a motif it has to show a continuous theme that runs through much of their work, which we was unable to do as we only made one music video. However as we completed an artist profile we realized that a motif she was likely to have would be to have videos or music with a very naturalistic feel to them. For example, we used the park to show this.

My video has a mix of different narrative formats and structures, as it contains some performance as the artist is singing the song. It also contains some conceptual material as some parts have a double meaning (For example, when the artist lets go of the balloon at the end of the video, she is letting go of all her feelings and her relationship which she has been dealing with throughout the song).  However the whole video has a narrative as it is telling the story of her relationship and how she feels about it.

Typical conventional music video techniques are followed through out my music video.  The camera work contains many close up, mid shots and long shots. It does also use some high angle shots to show how the artist is feeling; by having the audience looking down on her, it lets them know that she is feeling sad and not in control of her emotions. The editing is very slow pace and matches with the music, which is typical of this genre. Also the mise-en-scene shows very natural surrounding and indie costumes, which are both, very popular amongst this genre of music. The lighting is very bright but natural; this again is common in pop videos as the mood is always quite happy therefore dark lighting would not match the tone of the video.

We were very much influenced by other music videos of a similar genre but we took time to come up with different ideas that were different to what we had seen. We watched videos by artist such as Ellie Goulding as we think she was the most similar to our style of music/video however we watched videos from Jessie J, Katy Perry and Pixie Lott. We also watched different variations of stop motion videos, as we loved the idea of having stop motion in our video, as it would work well the ideas we had and the style/genre of the song. We wanted to show the conventions of music videos of that genre but did not want it to be the same as something that has already been made. We wanted our video to be unique to us and be something that we could be proud of producing from the research all the way through to post production, and I believe we have achieved this. 

Check my multimedia evaluation website!!! 

www.wix.com/maisielinnane/a2evaluation