Thursday 1 May 2014


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


The video begins in black and white with the footage of a male and female arguing. The video changes to colour shortly afterwards with a shot of the lead male walking. This depicts to the audience a change in time between present and the past. This is very commonly used throughout music videos within the indie rock genre. With the argument being the first thing the audience sees, the viewer is instantly intrigued into finding out the cause and how the narrative will play out. The use of two separate colour edits is a vital part to the narrative within the video, as it allows the viewer to see the change in relationship between the characters before the argument and after the argument. Also due to the female only being viewed in Black and White, the viewer is able to see that the narrative is being shown from the lead males point of view as he is seen in both colour and black and white.  The use of Black and white is also very commonly used repeatedly throughout Arctic Monkeys music videos, with very few of there videos actually being represented in colour. and example of this would be "R U Mine?" by Arctic Monkeys.

Although we see the video being represented in black and white, in this video it isn't used to show a change in time, it is purely used to show the attitude and rebellion of the genre.

With black and white having the ability to represent mood, i found this fitting very well to my needs, as not only does it depict the past it can also depict sadness with the lack of brightness it holds. this suited me very well as it allowed me to show the past as a memory for the lead male character, this being a sad thing to them at the current time because of the break-up and his longing to get her back.

The video "R U Mine?" is great example for the camera work i used repeatedly in my work as it shows the band members filming purely on a hand held camera in an effort to draw the viewer in closer and on a more personal level. However in mine I chose to use the use of a hand held camera to depict a home movie effect. This showing the personal connection between the two characters instead.

An aspect used commonly in the indie rock genre that i have chosen to not use however is singing to the camera, and the use of a band or instruments. Here is an example of this, where the majority of the music video is shown as a recording/ performance set, with the group singing on camera. This reinforcing the idea that it is just a song, where a narrative tells the story behind the song clearer. I chose to avoid these conventions as not only did i have the lack of resources, I also wanted my music video to stay within a narrative, without wavering into performance as well. This means that my video lacks the audience interaction many Indie rock videos have, with the use of eye contact with the camera and singing to the viewer. 
If i was to recreate my music video in a way that would use both a narrative and performance, I would od so in a way that would make the performance a part of the narrative, so the story never has to break, leaving the plot more believable. a good example of this would be "Dance,Dance" by fall out boy.



What have you learned from your audience feedback?