Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media producers?
Real media products have many typical forms and convetions throughout my media product I have used some of the conventions to make sure my video is still seen by the decoder as a music video within the electropop genre, but I have also developed some of these conventions to push some of the boundaries of conventions and to get an original effect. I have also challenged some of these forms and conventions, I have done this to make sure the decoder finds my music video visualy exciting and not the same as every other video out there in this genre, it also gave me the oportunity to be a bit more experimental and creative with this product.

Genre is a major element in recognising generic conventions of music videos. Genre refers to a category of media texts that the decoder can easily recognise due to the repetiton of music videos with a similar type of music to each other. The main factors that are noted are characters, mise-en-scene, use of narrative,performance or concept and use of camera. Owl city’s music falls into the genre of Electropop. Electropop first rose to success in the late 70’s and has only just reamerged so hasn’t developed many common forms and conventions compared to other genres, however I have identified a few typical elements of electropop videos I have watched; they are normally very unique in their type of video, normally a mixture of performance and concept based videos, fast-cut montage editing, a lot of close up shots to create intimacy and they are often quite modern and original.

I have used some of these typical forms and conventions of the electropop genre in my own music video. Electropop music videos rarely have a narrative, so I decided to have a concept based video because of this. My idea of using toys appearing to come alive is rather unique and would fit in with this genre. The use of camera in this genre also influenced my work I liked the fast-cut montage editing rather than using slow, gentle cuts and I have used many close ups in my video providing intimacy for the audience and this fits well with my song choice, however I have developed this idea using a series of quick close ups rather than long pauses on them creating an emotion, I did this because I am using toys instead of people, you can’t get reactions. I have challenged many conventions of the electropop genre and in some cases the majority of music videos themselves. Nearly all videos have an element of performance whereas mine does not, I did this because I didn’t feel the performance would add to the video and also thought it would detract from the concept being shown. Therefore I chose not to have any actors within my music video, this is hardly ever done but I think worked well in my video, this also provides the decoder with a fresh idea making it more entertaining to them.

There are many generic textual features of a music video after looking in to the work by Andrew Goodwin and Steve Archer in my research I found some of their key points extremely important in my production. Camera work and editing were two significant elements to my music video, without good editing and camera work I feel a video can look very amatur this is why I focused on making sure these were used well, by making sure I used a tripod to keep the camera steady and kept clips shorter than 3 seconds I feel I improved my video dramatically. I tilted the camera up and down to create the illusion of a hot air balloon taking of and coming back down, this is a common convention in music videos using the camera to create feeling, emotions or ideas. I also had a key focus on the concept of our video I wanted to portray childlike innocence and felt this was achieved through using the toys. I did however challenge some of the features of music videos Goodwin and Archer discussed. I didn’t bring voyerism into my video, even though this is a common convention and is used in almost all videos but I felt it had no relevence in my video and would distract from the innocence I was trying to portray. As I had no actors in my video I also didn’t refer to any star motifs like most videos do, some artists do not need to even be in their videos to be successful like the ‘gorillaz’ who have animated videos, I think in my video this worked well as it is not normally done so provided the decoder with a visual spectacle.

The encoder/decoder model by Stuart Hall also played a part in my media product. It made me constantly think, ‘how will my audience react to this’, and I was therefore empahsising with my audience. The four views in this model made me think what view I wanted my audience to have and how I would make them have this view. I want my audience to take the dominant reading from my music video, so they compeltly understood my video and enjoyed its meaning. Most media producers want this view to be taken. I found through my audience feedback that the majority of my focus group took the dominant meaning.

I think that my music video pushed boundaries of the common conventions of music videos as my video was purely a concept video, which is very rare, most videos including the electropop genre have an element of performance within them, yet I felt this was unnecessary in our media product as it would have detracted from the ‘fairytale’ creation. I liked the idea that our music video didn’t seem like reality which fits perfectly with the song, adding a performance and people in our video would have taken away from this. By using toys as if they were coming alive pushed boundaries as this is not a usual theme of music videos, but it went so well with the song and I think providing a fresh idea would make our music video appear more entertaining to decoders. The use of toys also relates to our target audience, our main audiences are teenagers to young adults and are mainly females; this playful theme would appeal to them hugely.

Overall I have used many common conventions of music videos and the electropop genre, but have also developed and challenged some of these to provide a unique media product that will stand out in a competitive industry.