In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of a real media product?
Andrew Goodwin argued that a key aspect that makes a music video is the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. In our music video however the lyrics are very vague which therefore means that it was difficult to link the visual in our music video with the lyrics that the real artist wrote, therefore I believe it would be safe to say that we haven’t followed one on Andrew Goodwin’s theory. This isn’t very surprising as the genre of our music video fit right into the R&B genre, having said this majority of R&B music videos have no link between the lyrics and the visuals. Usually R&B music videos are well known for there up tempo beats, our song choice is no different from this stereotype. We ensured that our artist movements followed the beat of the music because in R&B music videos its important that the artist body language has some kind of connection with the music, Andrew Goodwin theory would completely agree with this which would therefore mean that we have followed one of his theories.
R&B music videos usually have so much iconography in their videos such as heavy gold jewellery, plenty of make-up, fancy hairstyles and also outfits that are out of the ordinary. Our video has some of these iconography elements for example our artist eye make-up is a very dark and gloomy black with a gold underline which isn’t very surprising because the color ‘gold’ is a very well- known color that is usually associated in R&B music videos. Our music video has a range of close-up shots on the artist as Andre Goodwin theory explained that every music video should have. When it comes to R&B music videos close-up shots are really important, because in this type of genre its all about the artist and the ‘perfect image’. This is the main reason why we decided to have close-up shots on our artist because we wanted to audience to realize that the story is about her and that she is the main focus.
In our video there is a clear intertextual reference to the childhood tale Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding hood is a very well known tale and therefore the fact that we have decided to add the red cape which is the key element in this fairytale, this should gain our video some recognition with the audience. By this I mean that when previewing our music video for the first time and seeing the red cape the audience should have an idea that our video is a reference to the fairytale Little Red Riding Hood. Also the fact that our artist is wearing a red cape is a clear indication that someone is following her, just like in the fairytale ‘the wolf’ is following Little Red Riding hood. This shows that our video has some sort of voyerism because she is being watched and we portray this through the type editing we included in the video which is called ‘lightrays’; this gives the effect of someone being watched by something that is monster like. Following on from this, the fact that someone is following her shows that our video has some kind of spook to it which is very unusal for an R&B music video because usually they wouldn’t have the theme of horror/thriller in the music videos, this would be leaning towards the Rock genre. Although our music video is categorized under the R&B genre because of its slow/high tempo, it also breaks the R&B conventions of slow and sexual songs. The fact that the music video setting is mainly in a forest for a start indicates that it could potentially have another genre within it because usually R&B videos are either in a house, on a street or in a club, so therefore having a forest as a setting is breaking the conventions completely. I can therefore say that our music video transcends genres and isn’t as straightforward as other music videos, which would be safe to say that it’s unique.
Towards the end of the video we see a gold balloon, this is an unsual prop for a music video but is very typical for an R&B media product because they usually have random things in the videos, the reason being is that it just makes the video more interesting for example in Rihannah recent music video ‘ you’re the one’ we see some star iconongraphy as she is holding a black stick, this prop isn’t essential to the video and the lyrics but it gives her fans something to think about and talk about. However this isn’t why we choose to incorporate the gold balloon, to some extent the balloon in our music product has a meaning to it which is freedom; she’s trapped in this forest with nowhere to go. She then comes across this balloon which symbolizes hope and maybe is an indication that she’s going to find her way out soon. Even tough our artist make-up in our media product is similar to real media artist make-up in real media music videos, the outfit is completely the opposite. In the video she’s wearing jean shorts which is classic for genre type our video is categorized in but she is also wearing thick grey tights with wellington boots which isn’t very typical along with the white top she’s wearing which implies purity. In the case of real media products such as R&B videos this would be a completely different story as the young women in the videos would usually be wearing tight revealing clothing in order to promote their music or someone elses, however we have decided to do the complete opposite in our video and show less skin. The lighting in our video is bright and clear which is usually what R&B videos are like. When the lighting is bright its allows the audience to focus on the artist more and also it compliments the artist face when included with close-up shots, which is why we choose to film in the day light and not when it was dark.
Touching on the subject of close-up shots again our music video has many of these and this is because we want the audience to focus on nothing else but the artist and also the kind of genre we have chosen has many close-up shots on the artist this shows the intensity and the artist facial expression, this would be a shared view of John Stewart who says that lots of close-ups and lighting should be used to focus on the stars face. For example when our artist says the word ‘stranger’ we ensured that there was a close-up shot at this point so that the word could be emphasized. We also have low angle shots of our artist feet running this shot is significant in so many ways because it shows that she is being chased and is scared just like Little Red Riding Hood was when she was in the woods all alone. R&B media products are usually based on the artist themselves , the camera is always on them and no one else therefore this is the reason why the camera hardly comes off our artist. At the beginning of the video we see her walking towards the camera this is a distinctive camerawork for our chosen genre, I say this because in real R&B it’s all about the artist body, for example in Beyonce music videos she has plenty of long shots and this is to show her dance moves which is why we did exactly the same but instead our artist makes a connect with the camera by moving towards it.
Our media product has a variety of different editing, we incoprated video transitions, stop motions, light rays etc. Without theses things the video wouldn’t really follow the Chosen genre of R&B, in today’s music industry. The reason I say this is because back in the days there wasn’t musch editing in R&B music video, as they told more of a story. For example one of Maria Carey songs from a long time ago ’heartbreaker’ doesn’t have much editing but more of a general ‘boy cheats on girl storyline’. However in her recent videos such as ‘obsessed with me’ it has more editing and less of a storyline. Even though in our video we have a storyline it isn’t so straightforward and doesn’t really follow Todorov theory, because at the beginning something or someone is following her which isn’t a happy equilibrium and at the end just when she thinks she’s free we see that someone chases her and she become shocked which therefore means there is no new equilibrium because we don’t get to find out who was following her and whether or not it made he happy which means the video ended in a cliff hanger. Also as Erick Davis argued in order to market an artist and the song there must be some repeatability and also it must be suggestive rather than realistic. Personally I believe our video is suggestive rather than realistic because it isn’t an easy video to understand, its quite a challenge and would require the audience to view it a couple times in order for them to completely understand the concept. Again this is typical for R&B music video because most of the time they are not based on realistic things and would take a couple viewing for someone to truly understand the meaning behind it. The fact that it isn’t easy to understand is down to the fact that it is in non-liner order and doesn’t really have a beginning to end storyline. This is why we added so many editing, the editing of our video tells the story, for example in the middle of the music video we see a point of view shot of someone looking for her, this scene has an effect called light ray which makes the clip look blurry, we then speed this up to give the impression that whoever or whatever is following her is angry and desperatly needs to find her. Without this type of editing it would not be obvious that someone who is angry is looking for her.
To conclude our music video follows and breaks the conventions of a real media products. At times it compliments our chosen genre for example when it comes to editing and storyline but in the case of costumes it breaks it in so many levels. One theoriest that our music video would have ups and downs with would be Andrew Goodwin but John Stwart and Erika Davis theory compliment our music video.
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