Evaluation Q1 Script Draft Evaluation Question 1- In What Way Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Evaluation Question 1- In What Way Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

iin this directors cut I will be discussing how our music video and media products develop and challenge the forms and conventions of real media and will highlight what ideas and theories I used and how they were relevant . We have chosen the song ‘Empty’ by an unsigned artist called Olivia O'Brien.
Our music video shows a very strong theme of emotion and identity and how society shapes us and our image. This is portrayed through the lyrics too as it links to how the singer is feeling the pressures of society and its stressing her out. "I can't handle these pressures; all I can say is this stress hurts" this follows Levi Strauss' binary opposite theory  as we place the artist in the busy streets of London however focusing on the fact that even though the streets are full of people she still feels isolated and invisible.
This line from the song suggests that she is in pain and hurting by the fact she can't cope with the needs of society today. we used Codes such as alcohol bottles and cigarettes so that the audience could decode the fact she's finding different ways to cope with the pain and therefore they can relate. "But maybe I've just had too much to drink, to smoke, to swallow" here she is showing how she, and other teenagers are trying to cope with the pressures by taking extreme measures by consuming drugs ad alcohol as a temporary fix. The linking of visuals and lyrics means that we can link to the use of Goodwin’s rules to make the music video more successful to our audience so that they can understand and relate to the video and song.

We decided to choose this song as it was quite unusual as it is an upbeat song however is the complete opposite to the lyrics. 

one editing technique that is often a common convention of the pop genre is cutting to the beat.  we successfully showed this is 0.25 - 0.27 and 2.18 where we show the artist in sync with the significant beats in the song.  We also decided to use passing cars as we've discovered from our research that it is a popular choice, to make it more creative we used shallow focus and speed variation to suit the tempo of the music. We linked this to Goodwin’s rules to cut to the beat therefore it is used in many big star artists music videos, which influenced our choice in order to have a more professional looking music video. We used parallel editing for the different locations in order to create a juxtaposition between the fact that even though she is in a crowd in the busy streets of London she still feels alone. After watching "just give me a reason" music video by pink I wanted to create the same feeling of abandonment by the use of negative space and chiaroscuro lighting.

We challenged the fact that the audience would expect bright vibrant colours and a more sexualised image of the artist as we juxtaposed both of these aspects by contrasting them against each other. For example the vibrant colours to dull and revealing outfits to covered up and vice versa.

One theory that we didn't use was the Hypodermic needle as we wanted an active audience.

However we used blumler and katz - uses and gratifications as the audience is active and individuals choose texts for specific reasons, it presents the use of media texts in terms of the gratification of social or psychological needs.

We did some research on a variety of pop genre music videos to see how females we presented. we wanted our artist to look dressed up so that immediate attention was drawn to her,The outfits consisted of extreme ripped jeans showing a lot of flesh with a revealing top. However we didn't always present her as sexualised as in some of the music video we went against audience expectations as we dressed her in a non revealing black top with a sleeveless, fluffy black jacket in order to highlight the juxtaposition between the rebellious and timid characteristics of the artist. Our audience members may link this concept to Laura Mulvey's 'The Male Gaze' theory where in this case men are active and women are passive, men do the looking; women are there to be looked at. This is due to the revealing clothing creating a sexualised image of the artist which wasn't our aim to perceive her like that. We can also link this to Gauntlett and femininity as he talks about the concept of being a strong independent women but still having the idea that women can be tough and independent but still maintaining that 'perfect' image. One example of real media text that we can relate this to is 'Beyonce' as she is a prime example. she is a strong, independent, successful women however decides to present herself as sexualised.

We challenged Berger's 'Ways of seeing' theory as our artist is presented in this sexualised image however we highlighted the fact that she is still concentrating on herself and ignoring the fact that she is getting male attention as it isn't her main worry. We decided that due to our genre it was prominent that she had a full face of makeup and modern fashion sense so that our female audience can relate and decode the fact that she might wear makeup to hide/conceal her flaws and dress up in a sexualised manner in order to impress. This challenges the common conventions of a music video as other female artists would dress like this in order to gain the attention of a male.

the fact the artist has makeup on therefore fulfilsaudience expectations as females are usually presented as glamorous and not taking drugs or consuming alcohol as it is seen as more of a male leisure activity.  we were successful in creating an expected image of the artist fulfilling codes and conventions.

We have challenged codes and conventions due to the lack of props we have used in the video many artists include dramatic props due to their budget such as real media products like Lady Gaga, however we were successful in highlighting semiotics and symbolic codes through M-E-S, editing and characterisation.

From our research we discovered that other real media products such as Shakira waka waka that the use of colour can attract an audience and make the video more appealing. Vibrant locations are a also a common convention used in pop music videos, our choice to film in Camden up against the vibrant graffiti walls has helped us to fulfill this convention. Our choice of location can link to Stuart Hall’s Reception theory (encoding-decoding) as the lyrics portray depression and weakness. However, the locations contrast greatly which means that our intention was to help the audience decode the message that the young female feels as if society leaving her behind as she ‘cant deal with these pressures’.

As well as our music video we created a CD digipack to promote our brand image and video. For this I designed the front, back and inside left of the digipack. For this I did a photoshoot of Cherry. For the front cover I decided to situate Cherry in the middle with a VHS tape over her face in order to conceal her identity. I decided to use this as a juxtaposition to the sexualised images that audiences are used to seeing of female artists in order to promote a specific image and make ours unique.I decided to photograph her against a plain white wall in a studio so that the negative space would engulf her, linking to the title of our song, 'Empty'. For the back cover I decided to get up close and personal by taking a close up which focused on her eyes. We also added featured tracks on the back. Cherry created the inside right of the digipack which consisted of a bright pink wall with polaroids on (which photographed by myself) I edited it and added the circles where the CD would sit

For our magazine front cover I decided to stick with the same photograph that we used for our CD cover however I edited the photo of her on photoshop, I edited the image so that it was black and white and then inverted the colours the created a ghostly vibe so it was concise with the rest of the album. I added some text to create the name of the artist and the title for the album. For the front cover I followed the codes and conventions of a CD cover by having a picture of the artist, the title of the album and the name of the artist. I used the same image of her concealing herself with a VHS tape as it provides the compelling visual juxtaposition between everyday humans and the images seen in advertisements, taking a hard look at our identity, as it de-faces and destroys her own image. The fragility of her identity becomes visible, almost tangible. The laws of appearance drive us, in fact, to shape our own image to the point of transformation. Beauty is no longer natural, but rather socially conditioned.