In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the codes and

conventions of real media projects?

Regarding Andrew goodwin’s theory and Rowland Barthes on codes, conventions and

narrative along with our research conclusion my group and I were able to develop our

understanding of the codes and conventions while also considering our genre.

Following the Rowland Barthes theory on narrative our music video heavily embodies some

of these ideas the theory regarding ‘enigma’ is one which is dominated throughout our

video and is really the basis. We use a lot of quick cuts often switching from scene to scene.

Barth claims the that every narrative is interwoven with multiple codes,’ Although we

impose temporal and generic structures onto the polysemy of codes any text is, in fact,

marked by the multiple meanings’. Our story holds back its details in order to increase the

anticipation however even in the end we do not reveal a final revelation but we leave the

audience thinking. We tend not to be unsatisfied by a narrative unless all "loose ends" are

tied; so eventually the target audience will have the urge to come to a conclusion about

what the storyline is really about. You can argue that in this aspect we achieved our goal of

our music video being a marketing tool as we have now slightly pressured our target

audience into watching our music video again.

The representation of women and the feminist view is also highly portrayed in our music

video. Sexism is discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women

they are attitudes, conditions, or behaviours that promote stereotyping of social roles based

on gender. Sexism is not just a matter of individual attitudes but is built into many societal

institutions. The term sexism is most often used in relation to discrimination against

women, in the context of patriarchy.

In terms of our music video you could argue we have aspects of gender roles. Gender roles

(or sex roles) are attitudes and activities that a society links to each sex. A culture that

defines males as ambitious and competitive encourages them to seek out positions of

leadership and play team sports. To the extent that females are defined as deferential and

emotional, they are expected to be supportive helpers and quick to show their feelings

Our protagonist has frequent emotional changes in the video. You could say my group and I

played with this interpretation of women within society. It brings allot more criticism to our

music video but as a music video is a marketing tool, ‘all press is good press’. Many artist

also cross the line when it comes to voyeurism and portraying women dominance for

example, Lady gaga, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj.

My group and I decided to challenge the codes and conventions of the indie genre. We did

this because we wanted to apply Andrew good wins theory of there being an obvious

relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or

contradicting the lyrics. We mostly focused on the amplification of the visuals. The words

“Aint no sunshine when she’s gone” was the basis for this idea. The intent behind the lyrics

can be interpreted in many different ways and so we wanted to play with the conventions

hopefully creating something more engaging and abstract. The indie genre normally has

fifty percent focus on the artist as well as the actors or protagonist. In our case our artist is

the performer and is throughout the main focus in the performance shots. However she

only has a few seconds throughout were she is out of that role and is lip synching.

This i would say goes against the codes and conventions of the indie genre and therefore

challenges it. For us to achieve amplification I believe this was a necessity, music videos can

illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre, providing a sometimes over literal set of images.

This is another theory of Andrew goodswin’s and one which we also took into consideration.

We used over literal images some obscure and over the top but this gives it the

remembrance element which is crucial in engaging our audience but also in remembering

the purpose of a music video which is in fact a marketing tool.

The use of the camera angles which are specific to the codes and conventions of music

videos such as the close up, mid shot and long shots. We used close up frequently this was

due the strong emotive narrative. We wanted the audience to understand the atmosphere

we were trying to create along with the emotions our chosen actor was trying to create.

Because of the narrative being a girl ‘losing herself’ being lonely and misunderstood we

needed to heavily focus the camera on the contrasting emotions from the beginning to end.

White is typically contrasted with black or red both colours you could argue have the

connotations of death, fear, blood, danger and so on. My group and I decided to play with

this we decided that our main character should were a white prom like dress this should be

symbolic to her character at the beginning of the music video. Her character at the

beginning of the video was innocent, happy and pure you could also say that white

conotates this. So our idea was to have her wearing this white innocent prom dress, but we

would rough it up a bit making it look spoilt and tainted. By doing this we hoped that the

audience would see visually through the mise-en-scene a change in character. Now with the

dress along with the vivid and wild make up the audience are able to understand the change

in personality and characteristics.

The use of mask as a prop within the mise-en scene was also so we could make use of the

camera angles which as predominately used in music videos. The masks were an abstract

and creatively way of conveying emotions without having to rely solely upon your acting

ability.

.