In many ways my media products follow the conventions of real media products but also challenge and evolve them to fit into today's perception of the ultimate media products. Products which look attractive and pull in possible customers, relate to the genre of the music and artist image and allow for fans to interact with the artist.
According to Andrew Goodwin, music videos don't follow the traditional narrative styles of novels and films for example. This is because pop videos are built around songs and often songs do not pose traditional narrative structures. So in place, there are 3 different types of relation between songs and their videos. The first is called illustration, this is when the video tells the story of the lyrics. An example of this style is Fireflies- 'by Owl City'.
You'll notice that every time the artist says the word Fireflies, it actually appears in the video on a prop in the video. So in essence the video is part of the meaning of the lyrics. The word fireflies is written on children's toys which coincides with the meaning of the video, which is supposed to be of a grown man with a free child-like spirit.
The next structure is called amplification and this is where the video adds layers of meaning to the lyrics to enhance it in a number of ways. A video I think does this well is Saigon ft. Just Blaze- 'Gotta Believe it'.
The video is based upon the hardships that the artist has been through in his life. Claiming people are desperately trying to keep their kids off the streets, the video has scenes of a young boy locked in a jail cell, telling the audience that is is much easier said than done, due to the difficult living conditions in which the government has done nothing to help. - ' They '(the government)' got you working two jobs, tryna make ends meet, you just tryna keep your kids off the street.'
The last structure is called disjuncture and this is when their is very little connection between the video and the lyrics or the video actually contradicts the lyrics. An example of this style is Michael Jackson- 'Man In The Mirror.'
The scenes in the music video have absolutely nothing to do with the video and are there for other dramatic purposes. For example this particular scene of government officials shacking hands doesn't apply at all to the lyrics of the song, though it in not just randomly put in. It is used to represent peace, a theme the artist would like to promote in the grand scheme of things.
Music videos are used to promote the artist which is the most important thing. Andrew Goodwin points out that artists will use direct address (look directly at the camera) to almost communicate directly with the audience. This technique was used in my video.
Carol's observation lead her to the conclusion that edits in music videos come much more frequently than in films.
- The usual rules of 'continuity' editing are broken in order to draw attention to what is on screen.
- Edits may be really obvious to draw attention to themselves, such as wipes and special effects added.
- Jump cuts are often used.
- A master shot (base track) is frequently used to give the video a structure. Also, the base track often reflects part of the artist, song nature or actual lyrics. For example, this base track from MGK ft. Waka Flocka- 'Wild Boy' contains walls with graffiti, and also stick set with fire, reflecting the chaotic nature of the song.
- The camera may move in time with the music.
For my video i used many of these ideas. Like I mentioned above i used the direct address technique in my video, to communicate with the audience. I think my music video follows the amplification structure from Goodwin's theory. This is because the video does not attempt to tell the story of the lyrics but add layers of meaning to it. The song itself Katy B- 'Broken Record' has a slightly moody, confused feel to it so to further illustrate that I added scenes like this one below, which shows the artist walking up and down, not quite shore on a choice of action, which adds to the confusion of the lyrics. Also, there are lots of examples of jump cuts and the number of small quick edits draws attention to what is on screen.
The main influence of my video was actually the video to the original song Katy B- 'Broken Record'. The effect at 00:48 to 00:52 was created by increasing the speed of the song and then filming the scenes with regular body movements. I quite liked this idea as when it was then put over the original speed track, the artist had a sort of 'gliding' effect, that we did not replicate perfectly but tried too. Also, the original video has the artist lying down in a number of shots which I also implemented. The main reason for that was to try and follow some conventions of the genre and not challenge them too much as fans of this form of UK garage/R&B/2 step don't want something that doesn't apply to the music or them. Looking at other videos from this genre the music video doesn't follow the regular conventions when it comes to location, which are usually in clubs or urban street locations, as seen in Craig David- 'Rewind' for example. The reason for this opposition in conventions in regards to location is because I wanted the artist to be the single most important thing in the video, whereas I feel a club scene for example provides many distractions for the audience.
I would say that my Ancillary products follow some very important conventions of the genre. I've seen many advertisements of this genre try to pick a color which refers to the music on the album which is what I did with this blue color, it adds a moody feel. Also, I noticed that other adverts of this genre had the reviews from different newspapers/magazines/websites whereas other adverts from different genres didn't, so i made sure to include that.
As far is my digipak is concerned, I wanted to have a color that not only fit the music f the album but had some sort of effect to almost enhance the features of the artist. So I decided to use the 'diamond style gradient tool' (Photoshop) to fill the areas around the artist. I feel the genre doesn't have the most obvious conventions to follow besides from showcasing the artists features which I did with good picture selection, so it was important to be creative with the rest and create the rest of the digipak which specifically related to the actual music of the album. So I used the 'picture stack' effect to go hand in hand with the album title 'Broken Record' as it represents a broken element in the artists life.
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