Sydney-Marie'sA2Media

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

Music Video:

The codes and conventions of a music video can be narrowed down into four main forms which are performance, narrative, abstract and narrative. For my music video I chose the song Treatment by Labrinth. For this song I did a narrative music video with some performance shots. Labrinth is quite a mainstream artist and has already made a music video for this song, however not many people have heard this song or seen the music video, which works in my favour because it meant that I could play around with the codes and conventions and create the video that I wanted to.

The codes and conventions are a way of constructing meaning in media texts. -There are two separate categories to this which is technical and symbolic.

The technical part of the codes and conventions is to do with how the equipment and technology are used to construct meaning within the media text, for example with the camera; the angle of the shot or distance. For example, in my music video, at the beginning, the shot starts off as a long shot with a lot of space around the artist. I did this shot to represent that the artist felt and is alone. The space around him was also to represent how empty he is feeling. The shot is filmed from the left hand-side of the artist so that the audience are able to see that he is in a strait jacket.

There is a variety of shots depending on the style, in music videos there are a lot of close ups, even extreme close ups of lips, guitar strings and other things that they want the audience to see. In my music video there are extreme close ups of the artists lips and eyes so the audience can see his features clearly, there are also close ups of the artists face, like in most music videos to establish who he is. In my music video, rather than there being close ups of guitar strings or instruments, because my music video is mainly narrative with a bit of performance, I have close ups of the wires of the electric shock wires, and when the pads are being placed onto the artists temples. Crane shots are used quite frequently where the camera is hovering over stage, and then there are low angles as well as high, pans and tilt shots, as well as extreme long shots and many more. I used tilt shots when filming the artist pulling on the bars by the window, so that it showed the audience how disorientated he is and how much he wants to escape the mental institution.

With editing there are many different techniques used in music videos. Music videos usually feature jump cutting and the footage is usually edited to match the music, when editing my music video, I had to cut the footage down of when Nathan was miming and edit it to get it in time with the actual song. I used a lot of jump cuts to make the music video have a much quicker pace and so that I could tell the story in that amount of time given (the length of the song), as well as a lot of ‘dissolve to white’ effects. I chose dissolve to white effects because a lot of the time, whether in music videos, or in films, or in TV programmes, whenever a patient is waking up from a treatment in hospital, the lighting is very bright and if the shot is from the patients point of view when they first open their eyes, this effect is used. I also thought it looked good at the beginning of the memory because it makes the memory and the present day more distinguished. To make it even more clearly to the audience that the memories were memories, I added the ‘old movie’ effect to make the lighting much warmer. Not only will it help the audience understand and know that they were memories, but the warmer colour/look of the shot also represents how happy the artist once was.

Sometimes they also add in splits-screens or CGI. I did not use any split screens or CGI, which challenges the codes and conventions, however quite a lot of music videos do not have these effects added in when editing, so it only challenges them slightly.

Instead of adding the split screens or the CGI I used the effect where one shot is placed on top of the other and you alter the opacity of it so that one shot is playing faintly on top of another. This is used quite frequently in music videos, for example in Labrinth's original music video:

You can only see it faintly, but on top of the shots of him singing, you can see the shot of a woman on top slightly before merging into the shot of the girl. When looking at this music video and doing the story board for it at the beginning when choosing this song, this is what gave me the idea to do something similar. I used this effect when the artist has just received his electric shock therapy, this is because it is meant to represent that she is constantly on his mind and invades his head space even when he is receiving the treatment.

A technique that I was use when editing my footage will be to make the lighting darker so that it creates the effect of not being in a nice place and recreate the feel of a mental asylum. I will have to do this because to film it has to be well lit, however thanks to the effects I can add in when editing my music video will still have the look I want it to have. The only shots where the footage is not as well lit are the memories; I intentionally did this because the video noise creates a fuzzy/hazy look, which works well as it shows that the memories are fuzzy and hazy when the artist tries to remember them. This challenges the codes and conventions as not many music videos as most are well lit, however this is why I did it.

The hardest thing when editing was having to fit everything into the beat and having to change the speed of shots so that I could get everything that I wanted to into the music video and so it also kept the audience interested in the video, however in the end, I think it worked and I succeeded with the challenge I set myself.

[screen shot of the fast pace edited section]

The last part of the technical half of the codes and conventions, there is sound; whether it is diegetic or non-diegetic and sometimes there may be a change in the level of sound too, for example in a music video where there is an explosion added in. For my music video I was maybe thinking of adding in the sound of an electric shock when the artist is having treatment so that it has more of an effect on the audience when they watch it and feel as if they are actually there, however when it came to editing my music video I decided against this idea as it would not fit into that part of the song and could also seem a bit random. I have both diegetic and non-diegetic sound in my music video as I have the artist performing but at the same time there is a narrative playing out. This is popular with a lot of artists for their music videos, an example of an artist who does this for their music videos would be Lana Del Rey's 'Born to Die' and 'National Anthem'

The symbolic part of the codes and conventions consists of what meaning is created beyond what is obvious to see. A good example would be seeing specific facial expressions of the artist so we can see their emotion and know how they are feeling. There is a shot of the artist when he is singing, and I got Nathan to look mental to show the audience that he was insane. -This also helps you understand the song that little bit more.

Another shot that I got was a close up after the artist had received the electric shock therapy where he looks tired and drained, so that the audience could see how tired he is of all the treatment and is exhausted with constantly thinking about his ex, it is meant to make the audience feel empathy for him, which is the meaning of what I created, beyond what they can see. It is the same with the shot when the artist walks in and sees his girlfriend cheating on him, the idea behind this shot is that it makes the audience think about how they would feel in his situation and would probably react in a similar way when he throws her to the ground.

The mise-en-scene would also be included in the symbolic part of the codes and conventions because whatever is in the shot of the music video you see is meant to be there, which therefore makes everything symbolic. Everything in the shots is meant to be there, even in the bedroom scene when the artist throws his girlfriend to the ground. On the chester draws next to Nathan, there are photo holders that say 'LOVE' and 'FRIENDS' -this is supposed to represent the irony as the person who his girlfriend is cheating on him with is supposed to his 'friend' and his girlfriend is supposed to 'love' him, meaning the frames act as connotations, however in the shot you can't even see it.

The mental asylum is a wreck, there are tables and chairs, an old water dispenser, paper falling off the walls and I left everything in the shots because I thought it looked effective. I needed it to look like that to make the audience feel as if they were in there all they would want to do is escape, like the artist does, which is shown when he is tugging on the bars over the window.

The mise-en-scene can vary greatly depending on the genre of music and the type of music video, because mine was a narrative, the costume and location was very important. The main costume for Nathan was the strait jacket that he is wearing in most shots. Because I was unable to find a strait jacket or buy one and get it delivered in enough time, I had to somehow make one. -I did this by getting a plain, white suit shirt and turning it back to front, then I tucked the collar in and made Nathan hold his hands behind his back. I think that this worked well and did look effective as a lot of people after watching the video actually asked where I had got it from.

The main costume for the girlfriend was the shot where she had been beaten up. The makeup was made to look like bruises and it took about half an hour to get it to look effective. To make the hair look wet and shiny, rather than actually wetting the hair because I was worried it would make the makeup run, I used a Moroccan oil treatment all over to make it look how I wanted it to and help it stay in place. Thankfully I had the MUA to help create this look as well as the others.

The two locations that had to be carefully chosen were the woodland/walking home footage shot and the shots where Nathan is sat down in the strait jacket at the beginning. The woodland shot for the home footage scene had to be carefully chosen because the lighting needed to be just right, because in a lot of the woods the trees block a lot of it, making the shot look too dark. With the original location that I chose this was the problem, so I changed it from inside the woods to just outside the woods in a field nearby. The sun was setting and it made the shot look prettier and again acted as a connotation. -The sun is warm and when the sun comes out, more people are happy, so it represented how content they were as a couple and that she used to make him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

The theatre was an important location choice as I needed somewhere with a dark background, with a big space. The theatre was perfect as it had everything I needed, however the problem with the theatre was whether the artist would look out of place and even though it matched what I was looking for, it might not have actually looked right on camera. However, thankfully it did and I think that the shots overall look quite good and effective as I think he does look alone in a big space and the setting is dark.

The reason as to why we have codes and conventions is because codes and conventions are like a firm set of rules. They allow the audience to become familiar with a certain genre (synth-pop) as they become accustomed to seeing certain things and it ensures that a certain text works well and fits into its genre, because of this they can slowly adapt however shouldn’t be challenged on too great a level.

DigiPak:

Codes and Conventions of a DigiPak are what is featured on every digipak.

On the front there is the name of the artist and the name of every album and it will have some sort of illustration or a picture of the Artist, the names of the artist and album is always in big bold font so that it stands out, and the style of the text fits in with the genre/style of the music and the artist's own style as well. The digipak that I have designed feature all of the following.

On the spine of the album it will have the artist and the name of the album. It also always has a serial code and the record company's name/logo on it.

The background of the back cover is normally another picture of the artist posing differently, sometimes in a different location or in different clothing, or if there is just illustration on the front cover, then there is either the same of a different illustration on the back, or sometimes the same theme from throughout the whole digipak is continued, however more often than not, there is a different image on the back of the digipak. On top of this image there will be a barcode which is what all products have, next to this there is sometimes the RRP price of the album. There is also list of the names and the numbers of the songs situated to the top left hand side corner (as you look at it) however sometimes when artists want to deviate from the norm, they will place the list at the top right hand corner (as you look at it) and at the end of the list, if there are any special features, extra songs, added on music video etc. this will be added on.

For the back of my digipak, included all of the above and situated the list of songs to the top left hand side (as you look at it).

On the inside there is either a continuous background that goes through the digipack, from the left through to the right (as you look at it) or different images of the artist. For the inside of my didgipak I had the image of a heart monitor flat lining as it fits in with the genre of the music video.. It implies that the treatment has not worked, in a way it finishes off the narrative for the audience in case they were wondering what happened to the artist.

In some artists albums there is text inside where the artist has written a note to their fans, thanking them for buying the album as well as information about the record company and who has been involved in the process of producing the CD, in the digipak that I created there is both. I decided to write a thank you letter from the artist to their fans because as a fan, when one of your idols writes a note to you, it makes you feel even happier that you have finally bought the CD that you have wanted, its a nice thought.

Generally speaking, the information of the record is in the middle of the digipak and the note from the artist if they have written one, is on the left. However I decided to challenge the codes and conventions and swap these round as I personally think this looks better. This means that as soon as the audience open the digipak, the message is right there in front of them and they see it straight away.

The right hand side is where the CD is held by the digipak, on all CDs there will either be an image on the CD with the name of the artist and album or sometimes the image that is on the back of the digipak is also the same image as on the CD. If it is not either of these, then the CD might just be a plain colour with the name of the artist and album on it. The CD inside the digipak I have designed is situated in the normal place and the design on the CD is the heart monitor which is carried on from the rest of the inside of the digipak.

Overall the digipak that I created does fit the codes and conventions of a digipak and only challenges them slightly because I decided to swap the positioning of the record information with the note from Nathan.

Magazine Advert:

Looking at existing Magazine Advertisements, I found that the codes and conventions included in magazine advertisements are the following; the release date, the name of the artist, the name of the album, some of the songs that are featured on the album and other extra information, for example, the artists facebook fan page, official website etc. Sometimes there are also ratings given on the advert of what the album has been rated by music magazines. -After looking at all the codes and conventions, I made sure I had all of the above however I did not include the star from the ratings from magazines, which challenges the conventions slightly, but the two existing magazine adverts that I used to base my designs didn’t have the ratings either.

All of the things you see in advert are influenced by what the public want and is to make it stand out, I kept the advert plain as quite a lot of them can be quite busy, this way, my design will hopefully stand out and if it stands out and captures the eye of one person, then that person is likely to tell others and they will remember it -these are the things that professional companies look at to sell their product.

I think that both the digipak and magazine advertisement, both link to the music video as the theme has been carried on throughout all three, making it distinctive and easily recognisable for the audience.