Evaluation Question 1

I was asked along with my group members Beau Abery and Cara Gaffney to create a music video. We had to choose a specific music genre and then pick an artist and one of their songs to create a video for. As a group we decided to recreate the music video to “Turn Back Time” by Sub Focus, which is from the dance genre. Within my group my I was assigned the role of time management which meant that I had to organise group meetings and the deadlines for filming. I was also assigned the role of researching conventions within the dance genre. From being given this role I learnt a lot as I was able to identify what conventions we needed to include within our music video. I believe that we worked very efficiently as a group as we communicated well throughout the whole process and each member was aware of their specific roles.

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

A music video is a production that goes with a specific song and it is used to entice the audience. It gives the audience a further insight into the song and also the artist, helping them create relationships and attachments. Music videos are often packed with codes and conventions that help them conform to their specific genre. These codes and conventions can come in the form of clothing, lighting, cinematography etc. Music videos usually fall into one of three styles, narrative, performance or concept. The dance genre consists of many generic conventions that are often followed. One convention that we often see within dance music videos is the use of strobe lighting. We discovered that the dance genre uses a lot of strobe lighting when analysing various dance videos such as “My Love” when we can see an abundance of flashing lights during the club scene; here we see the camera going through the night club and strobe lights are repeatedly flashing. This is frequently displayed during club scenes within dance music videos as it enables the audience to feel although they are in a club and they can therefore relate with the music more. We decided to use this convention in order to appeal to our target audience by helping them feel although they are in a club. This can be seen within my music video when my artist, DJ Sonic, is performing to a crowd on the DJ decks and we included the strobe light effect by adding flashing lights on Final Cut. During this scene the audience can see a variety of low and high angle shots showing DJ Sonic behind a computer performing. Through including strobe lighting here we have enticed an audience that are appealed to the dance genre as strobe lighting goes well with the fast beat of the music.

Another convention which is often seen within dance music videos is that they are regularly performance based throughout. This was evident when we researched the music video “Hideaway” by Kiesza. Throughout the video the artist is performing by dancing on the street. This helps the audience engage with the music and they can feel although they are watching the artist perform, helping them idolise the artist even more. Furthermore, through keeping the music video performance based throughout, it keeps the audience entertained as they always have something to watch. As a group we decided to challenge this convention by including a narrative within our music video. This narrative interweaved with the performance aspect of our video as it showed how two people who fell out of love wished they could turn back time. The audience can see the narrative part of our music video when we show the male characters life juxtaposed against the female characters life as they have both taken different paths. This is evident as the female character is homeless and the male character is shown commuting to work. We decided to challenge this convention as we thought that it would make our music video unique and that this would appeal to our target audience.

Another convention of the dance genre is fast paced paced editing. This was evident within Calvin Haaris' music video Bounce. Within this music video we see a selection of different shots put together in quick succession. This increases the pace of the video and made it match the fast paced music. We took inspiration from this music video and incorporated fast paced editing into our music video. This can be seen during the club scene when my artist is performing on the DJ decks in front of his fans. Here we see a variety of different shots of our artist performing. We decided to conform to this convention as we felt that it helped create a link between the music and the visuals. We also thought that by including fast paced editing that we helped incorporate energy into the production, and this is another convention of the dance genre. We created fast paced editing on final cut pro X by reducing the timing of shots to speed them up. We then cut some of the shots to make them shorter.

Whilst researching and analysing existing dance music videos we discovered the conventional clothing that artists wore in their music videos. For example in Avicii's music video Levels he is wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. We decided to conform to these conventions in our music video by dressing our artist in a plain black t shirt, sunglasses and a red baseball cap. This attire helps audiences recognise him as a DJ, making it conventional to the dance genre. Furthermore this clothing helps create a cool representation of our artist and the target audience can therefore idolise him. Furthermore this clothing helps keep the artists identity hidden. This creates a mysterious identity about our artist, leaving the audience wanting to find out more about him.

When analysing Flo Rida's video Club Cant Handle Me I discovered that there was a lot of low key lighting during the club scenes. We found that this was a convention that existed in a lot of dance music videos. We included it within our music video during our club scenes. This can be seen when our artist is performing and there is low key lighting. This low key lighting helped to create the club setting and help the audience to feel involved in the club scene. We created this convention on final cut Pro X by reducing the lighting by 20%. I believe that this worked well within our music video as it helps to create the dance atmosphere which is what our target audience want to see.

Another convention which is seen in dance videos is dancing. This was evident in Alesso's Under Control when we can see a lot of people dancing in the club. We decided to follow this convention in our music video by making our artist dance whilst performing. Through conforming to this convention we added a performance style to our music video which helped to keep the audience entertained. Furthermore it allows our audience to relate to our artist as they are likely to want to dance whilst watching the music video. This convention also helps create the club atmosphere.

The ancillary part of our project required us to create a magazine album advert and a digipak for our chosen artist. I researched many existing digipaks and album adverts from the dance genre, I found that there were a lot of conventions. For example when looking at David Guetta’s digipak I discovered that a lot of bright colours were used. These can be seen on the front cover of the digipak where the colours red yellow and green are used, and they are used to replicate the bright lighting that is often seen within dance environments; this helps the audience identify that it is from the dance genre. Within my ancillary I also wanted to make it conventional as possible so that it would entice fans of the genre. This is evident on our digipak where we used bright and illuminous colours against a dark background. We used the colours pink and blue and increased their brightness using the brightness tool on photoshop. I believe these bright colours against a dark background replicated a club like atmosphere and allow an audience to identify which genre it is from.

When researching and analysing existing magazine adverts I discovered a lot of conventions for the dance genre. We looked at Calvin Haaris’ magazine advert for his new album, and I discovered that glasses and headphones were extremely conventional. On the advert, Calvin Haaris is shown wearing sunglasses and headphones; this allows consumers to identify him as a DJ and they can therefore tell that the album is likely to be from the dance genre. I wanted to incorporate this convention into our magazine advert in order to make it as conventional to the genre as possible. As a result of this we made sure that our artist was wearing sunglasses during the photo shoot. We also wanted to make him wear baseball cap as we thought that this also matched our genre well. Through using sunglasses and a baseball cap in our magazine advert we kept our artists identity hidden, which is often seen in the dance genre. This urges the audience and consumers to find out more about the artist by purchasing their products.

The majority of our music video conforms to the conventions of the genre as we can see a lot of generic dance conventions. These are seen in the form of mise en scene mostly and help engage an audience that are fans of the dance genre. We did however challenge conventions of the genre by inserting two styles in the form of narrative and performance. This goes against what you would usually expect to see within a dance music video but I also believe that it would help appeal to a wider audience.  I believe that the ancillary part of our project was the most conventional to the dance genre. We wanted to make it clear to a consumer that our products were from the dance genre. I believe we succeeded in doing this as our ancillary texts are bright and stand out, which are both characteristics of the dance genre.