Evaluation Question 1

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

At first before we started to decide on what we were going to do for our music video, we read about Carol Vernallis and Andrew Goodwins theories  on music videos to help us get an understanding of different ways that music videos are portrayed.

Andrew Goodwin believes that there are three relations in songs and music videos, these are as follows: illustration, amplification and disjuncture.  Firstly he thinks that music videos can use a set of images to illustrate a meaning of the lyrics and the genre, which is most common. Amplification is also similar to repeatability for example: a certain shot or effects is manipulated and constantly shown in the video so that it could be stuck in the audiences vision. In disjuncture, the meaning of the song is ignored as the video has nothing to do with it.

As a group we decided to use illustration and amplification in our music video. The reason for this is because we wanted to create a story for the audience can connect to instead of doing disjuncture which will detach the audience from the lyrics and meaning of the song.

Below is two the music videos that influenced me:

Eminems song 'When I'm Gone' uses illustration and amplification. throughout the music video it we are shown a story which the artist is explaining in his lyrics. which illustrates a meaning to his lyrics. This made me more connected to the song and feel the emotions. I thought that using this method would work even more for our music video too, as the song we picked 'Read All About it Pt3' is a slow song and lyrically emotionally effective.

Ed Sheeran's song 'The A-Team' Uses the black and white effect (Tint effect) throughout the song which creates a mood and adds to the visual effect which creates even more emotion. Because we wanted to create the same effect to our target audience we too decided to use the same effect for our song, which I think worked.

Carol Vernalis main thoughts are that in music videos the editing and camera work is different compared to films and also genders and in general. She realised that often the editing was mostly in rhythm with the song and beat.

Carol Vernalis also saw that in music videos edits such as 'cross dissolves , 'fades in/out' and 'wipes' were used to create a flow to the music video and to make it look as if the video were seamless.She also figured that many jump cuts were used to imply time change.Because it is a music video the camera will move in time with the rhythm.  Many edits and effects are used in music videos to grab the audiences eye.

Also she found out that use of  Base Tracks creates a layout to music videos as it is frequently used throughout music videos. Also the shooting is taken in one place and there are usually more than one base tracks.