Question 1 - Plan

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

forms and conventions of music videos in general -

• repetition of shots to emphasise the point that songs tend to repeat themselves with repetition of the chorus and certain lines that have particular importance to the meaning of the song. Also helps to identify any key moments to the music video. 
• the visuals - characters, setting and actions, should all relate to the general theme and genre of the song. By looking at these visuals it should be easy to see what genre the music video is. 
• typically show all members of the band and can show personalities of the band, something that the audience can familiarise themselves with about the band
• a character/main artist that the audience can easily identify as being significant to the music 
• a narrative that is not very clear, making the audience pay close attention to the video and the lyrics so they can make sense of what is happening.
• usually represents the band positively

specifically, forms and conventions of rock music videos:

• characters in this genre are typically bold and rebellious guys that go against mainstream society and fighting conformity - this is shown through the artists confidence and stage presence (usually being centre stage and at the front of anything)
• quick cuts and close ups of instruments being played, keeping in time with the fast pace of the music
• few or little special effects as the main focus of the music video is the band and their music - although some rock music videos do use slow-paced editing to emphasise any certain points within the song or the narrative, running in parallel to fast-paced parts of the song
• narrative is usually linear (shown in sequence) and tells a story
• most commonly performance-based narrative 
• iconography - satanic symbols, negative imagery like drugs, alcohol and headbanging
• lighting for the genre tends to be stereotypically darker than other genres
• typical props include the instruments that the band are playing
• setting is usually based around the theme of the song or is a big open stage with space for a big crowd

conventions that we used -

• linear narrative of group of characters that connects with the theme of the song and makes sense - viking battles and then transitioning to the children playing in the garden
• use of some performance-based narrative - using close-ups to show the instruments of the band. close up of the singers face and actions - actions could be depicted as rebellious and confrontational, fitting the genre of the music video
• slow-motion editing used to emphasise a certain point within the narrative, a certain point in the story and drawing attention. use of fast-paced editing to keep the video interesting and in line with the upbeat pace of the music, however some of the shots are not quickly edited and last longer than normal for the genre of the music video
• most of the characters relate to the genre of the music video, vikings, but the location is not necessarily that of a rock genre, however I think that from the video you could distinguish what the genre of the music was 

conventions that we challenged -

• no use of stereotypical genre iconography - in comparison our music video is pretty 'clean' in comparison to other music videos in the genre. No references to satan, drugs or alcohol
• we specifically used a filter on our video to make it lighter and to make images stand out, completely going against the convention of the genre about having dark shots and lots of low key lighting
• more focus on the story telling elements of the music video rather then the performance part of the narrative, typically rock music videos are more band orientated and contains more of them playing instruments and singing
• music videos typically feature the band playing the characters if there is a story telling element to the video however we use a whole different set of characters for the narrative pieces
• some elements of the video do not directly relate the genre of the music video but the overall concept of the music video fits the rock genre

video snippets to use in evaluation -

• our own music video
• the all American rejects - gives you hell à challenging the conventions of typical rock videos (uses light colour schemes and plays around with humour), although follows some conventions (boisterous lead singer, band-narrative shots, band also play as characters in the story line) - contradictory: has both a good character and a rebellious character (stereotypical)