Evaluation Question 1: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In our music video we have used, developed and challenged conventions of real media products.

In our video we have used and challenged the stereotype of emotions.To show the themes of sadness and isolation we used washed out colours on the video, this is a conventional technique which is used to connote depression or distress. We used editing to bring out the colour blue of the hoody and then to wash out the background; the effect of this was the character would look alone and isolated. This engages the audience because it shows the mood of the character which they can relate to. The use of blue is a conventional way of showing isolation and depression in a character.

However, conventionally a character might be seen on his/her own with feelings such as this, but we have challenged this by having our character walk down a crowded street. But, to carry on the theme of isolation we have made the protagonists hoody stand out, and desaturate the background making the other people walking down the street seem irrelevant (see top left). This develops the conventions of other media products and conventions. 

However we have also used these conventions to show isolation, for example the boyfriend under the bridge is framed in a long shot with few people around him. This is a very stereotypical way of showing isolation and loneliness (see right). We again conformed to this convention, when used long-shot of the character on the bridge connotes the idea of isolation; this is signified through the absence of other people or characters – meaning the character seems to be even more dejected.  Moreover, the central framing of the character is also indicates the remoteness felt by the character because of the space around the him, which connotes the absence of happiness in the character’s life.


The locations in the video are all remote, with few people around the characters. This combined with the combination of the editing technique of bringing out the blue in the costume of the character and the grey background to the scene indicates the characters feeling – perhaps showing that he only cares about his own problems and nothing else to do with the outside world.

 We have used editing in a way which challenges conventions. Instead of straight forward cuts between each shot, we have used split screens to represent the the emotions of both characters in contrast with each other. These aren't typical conventions and aren't often seen in other indie music videos.


We have conformed to the conventions of romance, our narrative forms around a teenage couple who break up and over an argument, and then at the end of the narrative, forgive each other at the end. This is a conventional narrative of the genre of a music videos, it has a similar narrative structure to videos such as Taylor Swift's 'Tim McGraw' which cuts between the main story of the narrative and flash backs. We have used Goodwin's theory of having a clear connection between our the lyrics and the narrative in our video. 

When studying similar videos of the same genre we found that they used performance shots regularly, but mixed in with the narrative. We have used this convention, by using performance shots in our video. We also conform to the conventions as we have they band in a stereotypical studio environment, as well as the singer performing in a blacked out room with lighting just on her (see below). We also used instrument shots, these are also used in other media products of a similar genre. We used close ups of our actors playing the guitar, shots like this are frequently used in other indie pop music videos (see below).

With a narrative such as ours, a story about relationships and heartache, we have used stereotypical shots of romantic connotations. For example at the end of our video we have used a time lapse shot of a sunset. This shot is stereotypical of romance, as it is often used in other media, such as film and TV.

In our film we have portrayed teenagers in a stereotypical way, this again uses conventions in other media products. Teenager relationships are often represented as difficult and problematic, here we have represented this as well, in the fight between the couple at the beginning sequence of our video. This appeals to our target audience who are of a similar age.

 

Our digipack is conventional as well. We used a very conventional of the common layout in other digipacks we have researched. It is similar to Taylor Swift, an artist who is of a similar genre to Polly; the back of her album (below, right), "Taylor Swift", has a stereotypical back cover. It has an image, which is over the artist, and reflects a similar mood/theme to the front cover; it has the bar code bottom right and the track list to the right of the artist. We have used a similar layout to this, however we have used an image as a background and overlayed the text over the top.