Evaluation questions 1
- 1. Evaluation question 1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Our music video is in the POP genre of the music industry, as it is quite an old song and from the late 90’s early 2000’s when POP was the rage throughout music. As it originates from the movie ‘Coyote Ugly’ the video is set amongst the film scenario and the storyline of the main character, therefore creates a different music video compared to the likes of Christina Aguilera’s video to ‘Genie in a bottle’ where it shows the main character dominantly laying on a beach and dancing throughout, similarly like Leann Rhymes dancing on the bar. Both videos suggest Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory that the female is objectified throughout the video attracting the male’s attention. This is shown when the female is laid on the beach in the ‘Genie in a bottle’ video and again when the female is dancing on the bar in ‘Can’t fight the moonlight’. Both of these video’s are in the same genre as Britney Spear’s hit ‘I love rock ‘n’ roll’ from the 2002 film ‘Crossroads’. This song is similar to ‘Can’t fight the moonlight’ as the official video is filmed whilst making the movie; therefore the singer is in character throughout the song and again provesthat Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory works. We used conventions and visualisations such as a storyline to represent some of the lyrics in the song such as ‘Try to hide from my kiss’ as you see the main female character looking upset and heartbroken from her split from her boyfriend. This reflects Andrew Goodwin’s theory that narrative works hand in hand with the lyrics and lets the audience of the video keep watching it and not loose interest as the main character of the narrative is also the main singer and lip sync in our video. We also challenged the conventions of a 90’s POP video as we dressed the main female in everyday clothes when filming the scenes in the Burn Valley as this shows the effect that her split has had from her, as we wanted to represent that the character was going for a walk in the countryside by wearing a dark parker coat, scarf and ugg boots. This will let the audience see the side of the character feeling vulnerable and alone, as female teenagers could relate to her as teenagers often find themselves in the same position, this comes out through our video. As we have used 4 locations in our video, the SKY lounge was the main one, as we wanted
- 2. the club atmosphere showing the boy trying to win back his girls affection. As it was a nightclub scene, we needed to think carefully about costumes and the scenery. On the video some of the shots that are filmed in the club do look fairly dark, this is because when filming the video we didn’t take into account that it would look darker on the screen than it did on the video camera therefore when looking back at the footage in class we then realised we need to brighten it up. As we could only hire the club for one night we then couldn’t go and re-film the scenes, giving the footage not as good quality as it could have been. However our costumes for the club reflected what young adults would wear to go out. With the main character having a black dress on and her hair curly, we tried to show her fun side to her as she is seen dancing on the tables with her friend singing and having a good time. However the black dress portrays the hurt she’s going through and the dark times of her life. The red band on her dress can also be portrayed as a sign of love and also adds colour to the situation. The main character is seen dancing with the male; this is so the audience can see the chemistry between them and what they could have continued to have if their relationship worked. The club plays an important role in the video as we used Andrew Goodwin’s thought beats to cut the video in time with the music and sometimes over lap with it to go against his thought beats theory. As our music video is narrative based, we had to make sure that the audience relates and can follow the story throughout without making it confusing or wander off on a different trail of thought. A POP video that has a narrative and also a dance sequence and is also about relationships is 90’s band STEPS and their song ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’. This screen grab is of the chorus part of the song and although they are seen dancing, there is also a narrative as they are dancing with their partners, and their costumes show that it is set in an olden era. This type of video is similar to our own video as it is about relationships and how the males make the women feel, we gained inspiration from this video to try and portray through our own video the feelings using an expressive way. We have also followed the conventions of lip-syncing in our video as typical POP video’s show this throughout their video’s almost certainly in the 90’s – early 2000’s era as POP was generally the most watched and bought type of music that were in the charts. Although these days POP video’s are harder to find and within the music industry genres such as Dance, Trance, RnB and club music have taken over leaving POP a thing of the past. This is another reason we wanted to update our song by making a music video that shows various amounts of costumes, scenery and a general atmosphere that flows throughout the song. Throughout any music video there is various camera angles and shots to make the video interesting to the viewers. We made sure we tried to use various camera angles. However some may look jerky and not as well finished as they could have been, examples being in the SKY lounge as we
- 3. wanted to have high angles therefore had to climb onto the furniture to get the best effect we could. Doing this with a tripod was hard so doing it handheld was the only way possible. However we didn’t think that the footage would be jerky until we loaded it up on I-movie when returning to college. We have also incorporated long shots of the female walking helplessly in the Burn Valley, as I said earlier this was to portray her hurt and vulnerability. The long shot captures the natural surroundings of the pathway as this links well with the narrative of the song and the story we were trying to put across to the audience. The parker jacket and UGG boots link well with this scene of the song as the girl is seen to be in her natural surroundings near her house therefore are expected to were these types of clothing. The long shot also includes a high angle of her feet walking, this was to mix the various shots up and the close meet shot is what to be expected in a POP genre of video. The tracking shots of the girl in her maxi dress shows that she does have a fun side to her although walking behind the fenced bars portrays the fact that she feels trapped and almost prison like in her home as the break up has had a severe effect on her. The emotion that is seen in the extreme close up gets across that we wanted the audience to feel sorry for the female and relate to her as it is a bright clear summers day were most people are out enjoying themselves with their friends however she isn’t as she is heartbroken. With the red and green colours that are on her dress, we wanted them to have an hidden meaning that she’s trying to break away from her feelings but is finding it hard as she is trapped behind the ‘bars of a prison’. This is an important part of the video as the beginning of any music video should be enticing and grip the audience into the song. As the tempo changes in the song to the chorus this is where we include the club footage into the video as we wanted to portray that the girl can have fun with her friends. The 2nd singer in the song is only seen to be singing in the club scenes, we did this so it looks like she is singing to her friend and telling her that there is better people in the world than her ex- boyfriend as ‘can’t fight the moonlight’ being emphasised by the friend in the video. We thought to add this into the video as we wanted the audience to learn that friends are always there for you whenever boy’s go. As our target audience was teenagers, most people male and female can relate to having their friends around them when splitting up with a partner and that they don’t have to deal with it on their own. We feel like we have included, challenged and dealt with the idea and outcome of making a music video good as we have used different conventions such as making it a narrative storyline instead of being included in a movie like the original song is, and that we have portrayed the story through 1 main character as well as keeping the beat, tempo and fluidity of the song in line and on task into what people expect of a music video.