Evaluation 1: Planning and Script

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

Script

The song we chose to use for our music video this year is 'Don't Get Me Wrong' by The Pretenders. Though classed as a 'rock band', this particular song falls under the hybrid genre of pop-rock. For this we have created a music video that has both conventions of pop and rock, but falls more towards the genre of pop. 

Some typical conventions of pop music videos include things like bright colours, a narrative story line, and a link to the lyrics; whilst typical rock videos will often use lowkey lighting, have a darker colour palette, and are generally performance videos.

In our video, we have confromed to many more conventions of pop that rock, but we have also challenged many convetions of standard music video. As well as this, we have also developed upon some of both genres convetions to create our own.

To start, the style of music video is strictly narrative, with a distinct lack of any elements of performance, this develops the style of most pop videos, and challenges rock videos. Though many pop videos often feature a narrative element to them, they tend to be combined with performance elements, either through cut-aways to a performance, or with the performance taking place throughout the narrative, for example Dua Lipa's New Rules. As for rock videos, they are much more likely to be completely performance, with a strong focus on the artist, as seen in the Foo Fighter's The Pretender video.

The plot in our video is very typical to many narrative videos, as there is a focus on love and friendship. As this is a theme running through many songs, it makes sense that it would be a part of many music videos as well. Songs such as Ed Sheeran's 'Galway Girl' have a strong theme of love, and this really shows through in the video, particularity the ending shot. Our video conforms to the love narrative, and the animations simply emphasise this, particularly the use of hearts in the two shots.

Our use of animations in this video comes under a style of special effect, a feature that is becoming more and more common in all types of videos, including pop and rock. Bruno Mars' 'That's What I Like' video features sketched animations not too different from ours, and this is a convention of real media products we have used. Also, videos like Biffy Clyro's 'Wolves of Winter' branch into abstract, suggesting that the boundaries of what defines a rock video are shifting.

A convention of pop videos that we really utilised throughout our music video is the use of both highkey lighting and bright colours. Filming during the daytime in quite open parts of London allowed for us to get bright natural lighting, and even the scenes set at night saw bright indoor lights being used. As for colour, through both the mise en scene and the added animations, there is a lot of colour among the shots. with the main prop also being a bright red scarf. As this was in every shot, it meant there would always be some form of colour, even if filmed in a more plain location. Though this conformed to pop conventions, it really challenges typical rock videos which often feature lowkey lighting and a dark colour scheme.

The rest of the mise on scene in our video also challenges rock videos. As they tend to be performance videos, they often feature close up shots of the instruments played by the band, however this was something we decided not to include. The main mise en scene in  our video focuses on the famous sights and landmarks of London, such a The National Gallery and Piccadilly Circus. However, something in the mise en scene that pop and rock videos share is the costumes used- they both often feature casual dress. As our characters are both wearing jeans, a tshirt and a jacket, they conform to the typical dress of pop and rock music videos. 

According to Andrew Goodwin's theory 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory', two of the things all music videos should have is a link between the lyrics and the visuals, and a link between the music and visuals through editing to the beat. We have done this throughout our video, in order to conform to real media codes. On lyrics such as "pass on the street" our two characters cross paths, linking our lyrics to the visuals. It is also edited to the beat throughout, but is particualrly noticable in the instrumental montage section, where our character appears at a variety of famous London landmarks. At this section of the video, we have used fast paced editng to match the beats, a technique often used in rock videos to match the pace of the song.

Overall, our video for 'Don't Get Me Wrong' uses, develops, and challenges many codes and conventions of real media products. The style of video develops upon the usual pop video by being strictly narrative, and at the same time completely challenges rock videos as they tend to be all performance. The lighting and colour palette also conforms to pop and challenges rock, with bright lighting and colours. However pop and rock do have some shared conventions which we have utilised in our video such as the casual dress costumes and editing to the beat.