Sunday 4 December 2011

Evaluation Activity 1

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

Below is a grid of 9 frames from my music video which represent different features of my video.


Shot 1 (top, left) - This illustrates a shot which shows a link between the lyrics and visuals. In this shot we see the artist drinking a bottle of beer with an empty crate of beer on the chair behind him, as the lyric at this points is "6 O'clock already? Get the booze in!". This is the most clear link between lyrics and visuals in our video although there a few others which were less obvious.

Shot 2 (top, middle) - This shot typifies the way a record company would want their artist to be represented as it depicts our artist working hard by writing his own lyrics and looking very caught up and engaged in it. This is a positive depiction of the artist as it suggests he wants his lyrics to be intelligent and perfect as he cares about the music, rather than just getting someone else to write passable lyrics so that he can read them and get his paycheck.

Shot 3 - (top, right) - This shot illustrates  the genre of our music video as our artist is wearing 'Dre Beats' headphones, which are a line of headphones brought out by US rapper Dr. Dre. By wearing headphones designed by a fellow rapper, our artist is promoting the urban/rap scene. Also the sign in the background can be made out to read "School" which shows our artist is acting as a teenager at school which is something much of the urban rap audience relate to, as the genre is most popular among young people and teenagers.

Shot 4 (middle, left) - This shot shows an intertextual reference as it refers to the famous 'Rocky' movies, as there is a recurring iconic scene in this movie series, where protagonist Rocky Balboa runs up 72 steps outside a museum before celebrating at the top as he has conquered his training regime. The scene has been parodied many times making it easy to recognise and humorous. The scene is also thought to be a metaphor for a rise to fame or rising to a challenge, which we think is appropriate for our young artist making his debut album.

Shot 5 (centre) - This shot demonstrates our use of camera as it is a low angle shot which focuses on our artist. We left room in the shot for his body as we believe his hand gestures contribute to the performance. The low angle was used to make the shot interesting and vary our shots as we used many shots of our artist in the music booth so we wanted to make them all different by using different angles as much as possible. This shot was still as it was at a steady point in the song, however in some more up tempo parts of the song we decided to move the camera and shake it as we were filming to give a lively effect as if an audience were jumping around and filming it.

Shot 6 (middle, right) - This shot demonstrates our use of lighting in the video. In this shot we wanted to focus on our artist's face however the natural light coming through from the windows was very dull and dark, so we turned on the ceiling light in the bedroom and used a light reflector to shine that light towards our artist so that his face was in clear, bright light.

Shot 7 (bottom, left) - This shot shows our use of mise-en-scene as our artist is putting on his urban-teenage style clothing, and there are many items of footwear on the right of the shot which are a similar style. The location is a teenager's bedroom which we made look slightly messy to be stereotypical of modern teenagers, and we also placed some headphones on the table to the right as this is an item which one would expect to find in a teenager's bedroom, especially the bedroom of our artist who is of course a musician and speaks about listening to music through his headphones in the song.

Shot 8 (bottom, middle) - This is a shot to show that we have watched other music videos. We believe this shot portrays this as it shows the artist's producer and manager in the studio watching him perform, a shot which often crops up in videos of this genre where an artist is seen in a recording booth.

Shot 9 (bottom, right) - This shot also demonstrates the fact that we have watched other music videos as it shows a close up of our artist's feet as he performs humorous urban dance moves. In most music videos which contain any dancing performance, there is a close up of the performer's feet moving around as lower body movement is often the focus of dances.

Below now is a grid of 9 frames from other professional music videos which parallel my 9 frames and their features.


Shot 1 (top, left) - This shot is taken from the video for UK rapper, Skepta's recent single; 'Amnesia'. This shot shows a link between the lyrics of the song and the visuals of the video as the lyrics are "when I woke up I found a note that said 'Sorry I had to go ILY'" ('ILY' meaning 'I Love You'). This helps contribute to the narrative of the video.

Shot 2 (top, middle) - This shot is taken from Eminem's video; 'Stan'. The video is about a fanatical man who is obsessed with Eminem and writes him fan mail. This shot typifies the way a record company would want their artist to be represented as it depicts Eminem replying to this obsessed fan's mail, giving him healthy and kind advice by telling him how he is flattered but he should seek help and pay more attention to his pregnant girlfriend. This suggests that Eminem is a good, moral person and he replies to fan mail despite how he lives a busy famous lifestyle, an image which his label would be happy for him to have.

Shot 3 (top, right) - This shot is taken from 50 Cent's video for 'In Da Club'. This shot illustrates 50 Cent's urban rap genre as it shows a DJ mixing tracks in a club while dressed in a typical hip-hop style with baggy clothing and a long silver chain. DJ's perfectly represent this genre as they do not exist in most other genres as backing tracks are instead provided by instruments.

Shot 4 (middle, left) - This shot is taken from D12's video for 'My Band'. This shot demonstrates an intertextual reference which actually refers to the aforementioned 50 Cent video; 'In Da Club'. This is because there is an iconic shot from 'In Da Club' where 50 Cent swings down from the ceiling with his muscular body and starts rapping to the camera. The shot here from the D12 video parodies it humorously as instead of the muscular 50 Cent, we instead see the massively overweight D12 band member; Bizarre.

Shot 5 (centre) - This shot is again taken from 50 Cent's 'In Da Club' official video. This shot demonstrates use of camera similar to ours as it is a shot which focuses on the artist's performance however it is not the only shot which covers him performing in this location. Similarly to the way we varied our shots of our artist in the music booth, this video does the same, using long shots, mid shots, and the close-up seen above.

Shot 6 (middle, right) - This shot is taken from 50 Cent's video for 'Many Men'. Similarly to the way we directed the light in our shot at our artist's face as he performed to the camera, in this shot 50 Cent is being filmed at a dark location with little light, however he is cleverly positioned so that the little light there is, can be directed onto his face, so that he is visible to the camera but remains mainly in the dark.

Shot 7 (bottom, left) - This shot is taken again from 50 Cent's 'In Da Club' video. This shot depicts their use of mise-en-scene as 50 Cent is seen in an urban club setting wearing urban style clothing, accompanied by many people dressed similarly and dancing to his music.

Shot 8 (bottom, middle) - This shot is taken from Eminem's 'Like Toy Soldiers' video. This is an example of a video where we have seen a shot of an artist performing in a music booth while being watched by producers/managers/friends. This shot is different to ours however as it is taken from the opposite direction, looking into the booth, rather than our version of the shot which looks from the booth to the outside.

Shot 9 (bottom, right) - This shot is taken from Soulja Boy's debut music video; 'Crank That'. This shot is an example of a place we have previously seen the camera focus on a performer's feet as they dance in their music video.

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