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

A convention is the key elements and features that is identified with a specific genre and will allow the audience to distinguish the stylistic choices a producer has used. Conventions of the electronic genre come in many forms usually more relatable to the younger generation. ‘Berlin’ is the song title that I have produced a music video for. Conforming to the conventions of an electronic music product, it is associated with the origins of this genre. It is a key location in the development of the electronic scene and a city that has produced a number of groundbreaking artists, Berlin is said to be the home of electronic music. Encoding this on my ancillary tasks and music video will instigate the audience to associate it with this genre and its conventions.

One of the most important stylistic choices in the production of my music video was the setting and location. In order to deliver the right emotion and overall effect, I had to shoot in specific places that I knew would work well with my themes. The video is set in Manchester, to deliver this to the audience I included close ups of sigs stating where the location is. To the right you can see examples of signs saying “Salford Crescent” and “City of Manchester”. To develop the idea that it is youth orientated, I decided to film in my friend’s student accommodation and capture footage of the group socialising. If I were to make any changes to this, I would capture more of the socialising up close, in order to really deliver the message that the main character is in a party environment. The choice of urban locations was to drive the industrialised look of the video. The underpasses and arch ways that I filmed successfully achieve this as it projects more of a metropolitan style, compared to later shots of fields and houses that represent rural areas. It gives the video a sense of grittiness and realism, something that my target audience can relate to. I did this via using graffiti and inner-city locations to dominate most of my shots. This has challenged the conventions of the electronic music genre with the use of Graffiti as it is most commonly seen in Hip Hop videos. It has given my video diversification in terms of connotations of the locations used. This is because in hip hop, graffiti can relate to gang culture, whereas I have used it for the creativity and vibrancy which is expected of my genre. However in filming, I unexpectedly came across locations that I found very useful for the stylistic look. An example of this is the large street art of the Sumo wrestler and Christopher Walken. This adds to the abstract characteristics that I was trying to achieve. I think that I have been successful in doing this as it is common to find obscure footage within this genre that adds to the personality of the video. An influence on this would be the Sky Diving by Hot Natured, an electro music video that features abstract imagery. Example right. To encode the idea that the character is going on journey from one location to another, i captured all stages of the travelling process. I feel that this was done very successfully as we managed to acquire all of our shots with just one train journey. If i was not happy with something, i would have had to either wait for another train or do the same journey again; therefore i saved a lot of time by achieving the shots i wanted. Other key locations such as the wall and steps project the loneliness of the character; this is synchronous to the lyrics that we are hearing “got nowhere to go”. This was influenced by the music video Carbonated by Mount Kimbe which shows footage of various people walking through the city, then getting on public transport and ending up at home like my main character. I knew that I wanted to include this as I analysed this music video for part of my primary research. Examples of this are given to the right.

A reoccurring prop that can be found is a bottle. An example is given to the left. On many occasions a bottle is in the main characters possession suggesting that he is under the influence of alcohol. In two of the scenes, he is throwing it into water stating that it is empty and the contents have been consumed. The idea of being intoxicated is a stereotypical convention for this genre. In many videos I have researched, the subjects are under the influence of something as it is a common aspect. An example of this would be Infinity Ink – Infinity where the main protagonist is hallucinating and experiencing a bad trip. However my video differs to this as I do not involve the consumption of drugs, only alcohol. This is because I felt it to be cliché to film a music video about drugs and it may provoke an oppositional response. When looking at the costume of the character it has clear conventions. The 5 panel cap that he is wearing is fashionable amongst the consumers of this music and to the younger generation as a whole, therefore something very relatable. The blue and black jacket contrasts with the locations used and causes the main character to stand out in all scenes. An example can his can be found to he left. The vibrancy projects the personality of the character and reflects a similar person who may listen to this music. The theme of vibrancy runs throughout my ancillaries and main piece as I want to create an innovative and youthful feel. As for the jeans, slim fitting is stereotypical of a teenager. Something that most people no matter what genre they listen to will recognize.

The title font and style from my ancillary projects is to captivate both the conventions of the chosen genre and also challenge stereotypes. ‘Boiler room’ is the name of the artist and ‘Berlin’ is the name of the album. The font I chose on my CD cover, CD and poster is Alien League. This is because the font is easy to read whilst also giving off a sophisticated effect, its slim letters contrast with the hectic image behinds it. I think this text relates to the conventions of this genre as although it has some formality to it, the lettering looks somewhat futuristic. This can relate to an electro genre convention as DJs are constantly experimenting with new sounds of music therefore the experimental style of text can relate to this. With the text I used an effect that I created myself. This was duplicating the layers twice and them moving them slightly apart from one another this is so that the lettering stands out and looks 3D. Examples given to the left. After this I then gave one layer a red drop shadow and the other blue. This contrasts with each other hopefully applying the traditional 3D colour effect. On the reverse, the track listing uses the font Orator Std. Again this is an easy to read text with a white colouring in order to highlight itself from the background. To give the text some depth I again duplicated the layers building on it. However I this time I kept them in the same place so that the title would look unique. The record label is shown on the CDs back cover, on the CD itself and on the poster. Usually on albums the record label has its own logo of its own. Therefor I decided to use a block font called BebasNeue that differs from others that I have used. This is because it is more solid and compact, however this still fits in with the conventions of my genre as the title “Church Sounds” is unusual, it is juxtaposing what you would hear coming from a church therefore challenging stereotypes. It is common to find within the electro genre names with two meanings and surprising labels such as FoodMusic. Example given left. As for the main piece, there is a title at the beginning of the music video. We chose to put this in a graffiti style font, this instantly associates the music video with the youth target audience. It also highlights one of the key features of the music video which is the use of graffiti. The font we chose was El & Font Urban Calligraphy, this font really stood out to us as it has a very urban and stylistic feel. During my research I discovered that some videos that had titles gave a bigger impact to the audience. TNGHT- Buggn’ is another one of the videos that I analysed, the video uses this therefore I knew that I wanted to include it.

When story boarding my music video I had a list of all the camera shots I intended to use. The list helped me to establish what kind of feel I wanted for the shot and how I wanted the scene to look. It was crucial to me that I used as big as variety of shots possible so that my music video would look good from all angles. The main idea was that it was in first person, looking through the eyes of the character as he goes backwards through his day. This was influenced by first person shooter video games such as Halo or Call of Duty. Although it is a different format of media, the way that the audience is put into the characters position is something that we wanted to capture. To do this I used a number of POV and over the shoulder shots. I did this by looking down at his feet at various times to give a sense that we are travelling with the character, this was: getting off the train, walking up stairs and down the street, and also getting into bed at the end. Examples given left. This puts the audience in the place of the character allowing them to see and feel as he does. The POV idea was first established so that we do not see the characters face throughout the video and then at the end it is revealed. Originally I planned for it to be a girl in order to challenge the stereotype the audience would have made. However I did not do this as when we came to shooting; there would be some long shots and close ups that made it clear what gender the character was as their face was shown, therefore adapted to what we had to work with. An example of this would be close up of him throwing up in the toilet. Working with the environment around me I adapted to the shots which I could get. The scene where the character is walking under the motorway and then through the underpass was useful as I captured the character walking from many angles allowing the audience to see the environment. I used an extreme long panning shot to start the scene off in order to show the surroundings and follow the character; this gives off the feel as though we are watching him. This then cuts to a long shot of the under pass and then a shot from behind the character as if he is walking away then towards us. Along with the high angle long shot through the railings, this entire camera sequence shows the character walking on the same path but from many angles. Adding a close up of the graffiti after this then puts us back into the characters mind as the audience can see what he sees. I believe I did this successfully as the continuity style of editing gives this scene a sense of surveillance; it puts the audience into two perspectives: watching the character and being the character. Examples given left. This can be found again with the long shot of watching the character walk over the bridge and then cuts back to his perspective of the bridge and down the stairs.

The long shots of the arch ways were a crucial element when planning the video. I believe that it adds to the urbanised feel whilst also allowing the dirty graffiti to stand out giving personality to the video. In terms of proxemics it puts the character into perspective with the large arch ways as it makes him seem small in the middle of the large brick work. This is used a number of times to show how insignificant the character is. A low angle shot of the church allows the audience to feel as though they are looking up at it whilst it towers over them, also the extreme long shot of him standing against the wall does this as he takes up very little of the shot. Examples given right. This shot starts out of focus so that it makes it seem hazy, that he is in an unsettled mind state about his day. The use of focus is a reoccurring technique used throughout the video, an example of this is when the extreme long shot of “be happy” is shown, first out of focus. Also at the beginning it is to deliver the message that the main character is under the influence of alcohol and his vision is blurred. This is projected in the scene of the city skyline, rapidly going in and out of focus, zooming in and out. This highlights the fact that he is in a drunk and confused state. The blurry colours represent his eyes trying to focus on something but his head is spinning hence the quick edited shot changes from zooms, to pans then back to a long shot. This also offers abstractness and obscurity; I wanted to involve shots like this to create a sense of curiosity for the audience. This can also be found with the mid shots of the street art and also the tracking shot of the characters shadow travelling along the fence. Another technique used to develop the sense of socialising was close-ups of the character drinking and also extreme close-ups of empty beer bottles. This tells the audience that he is consuming alcohol with his friends; this is very common with this genre and most videos such as The Bloody Beetroots – Cornelius. Examples right.

After shooting the music video, we came to editing it. However the idea that we would put the video in reverse only came after we had acquired all of our footage. This is because with the shot of the character throwing the bottle into water, i went to adjust the speed duration of the clip and discovered a reverse speed option. In doing this, the effect that the bottle was coming out of the water and back into his hand looked unusual and imaginative. After later research, an influence on our music video was Cold Play – The Sceintist. This video also uses the reverse technique to do similar effects as did we, the surreal feeling that it gives to the video looks as though we are defying the laws of physics. From this, the idea developed that we would start at the end of his day and work backwards in order to reveal to the audience how he got into this mess like in The Scientist where it is revealed he has been in a car crash. Example left. This challenged the conventions of music videos as more often than not most of what you see is in forward motion. The scenes with the cereal and pizza use this to its full advantage, it shows the effects of the editing as it seems as though he is spitting it back out which looks surreal to the audience and creative. Adding to the idea of his day moving backwards, it is clear to see this with the fruit and egg as it transforms from being eaten and cracked to becoming whole again. An influence on this is Ratatat – Drugs. In this video props are used to emphasise the reverse speed similar to what we used. Example right.This also reflects on the messages of the music video, his backwards life as a teenager which is relatable to many of the target audience. However there are some parts where he stops and takes a moment to look. This is when the train is leaving ‘Salford crescent, the camera movement slows down to look at the sign and then speeds up again. The second time it does this is when he is leaving his house (in reverse) he walks to the end of his garden and it switches back to real time showing that his is thinking about his day. Learning about the use of speeds and durations was very successful and productive for my music video; this is because it helps the audience to understand that we are seeing the entirety of his day. Synchronous sound editing was a crucial point for me when coming to the final stages of production; this is because the music video looks more professional if it fits in with the song. A scene that is very well synchronised to the music is when the characters are moving very fast in the apartment, the sound breaks down and various noises can be heard. This was ten minutes of footage sped up six thousand times to make it seem as if time was passing by very quickly. We also used this again with the train journey to show how fast his life is going. The shot of the traffic lights was edited to fit this as we see it go red, yellow and green 3 times with the beat of the song. This was done by playing it forward, then in reverse and then forward again. It looks as if we had stood there and shot this but instead used one shot but edited it accordingly.

The narrative structure plays a big part in my music video. It is the key feature as to what makes it different from others, although it has a linear narrative it has some elements of a circular structure. This is because the audience are presented with a set of events at the very end of the day and unfold to see how the day started. Our main idea was to present to the audience ‘a day in the life of a teenager’. This conforms and challenges conventions of a music video as it is most common to see a beginning middle and end, whereas we have reversed this process. However also it is conventional to associate the narrative we see with teenagers. It begins with Todorovs theory of dis-equilibrium as the main character is throwing up in the toilet; this provokes the question to the audience as to how he got there. Later this is resolved back to equilibrium when he leaves the flat. A symbolic code is offered to the audience in order for them to perceive the character as a typical teenager; this is the crude message on the toilet in the very first shot. Along with other symbols such as the cap and brightly coloured jacket, it constructs a representation of the character as juvenile within the unconventional narrative. We know it is clearly night time as the extreme long shots of the city skyline are dark, however when he leaves the apartment it is light indicating we have gone back in time, this also links in with Levi Strauss theory of opposition because in the seedy flat it is dark, and when he leaves colours start to appear and natural light opens up the shots; bringing in a sense of opposition. Examples right. As events start to pan out it takes the audience on a journey with the character through his day. Allowing the audience to do this causes them to feel some relate ability with the character due to us being put in his place. If I was to film again I would capture more footage of the flat scene. A key point is to highlight the fact that he is in a situation and make the audience want to know how he got there. As it stands in my opinion I think that this scene is too brief in terms of the activities going on, more shots of alcohol should be used to give it a sense of confusion and also make the character throwing up look more realistic so it is clear what is happening to him. This would establish a bigger sense of a dilemma that the character is in, resulting in gaining the audience’s attention and manipulating them into wanting to know what has happened further on in the narrative. However I think that the structure delivered the message well in parts such as walking back into the train station and getting onto the train, after this we see the character getting off the train and then walking down the steps backwards. This clearly shows he has travelled from one place to another, but in reverse. Aspect such as this is successful in the narrative as it puts it in basic terms what we are doing.

A preferred response to the genre of my media product would be the best outcome in what I was trying to achieve with my target audience. Stuart Hall’s theory of encoding and decoding can be applied to most aspects of my video. The audience’s position within my music video is very much so from the main protagonists point of view. In doing this, I am allowing the audience to share the point of view of the main character which allows them to construct a representation of how he thinks. As this is where the audience is positioned, it is a conventional narrative in terms of audience placement. However with other key aspects, this may provoke a certain response. Some of the environments used in the production encode centralised themes which come from the industrial areas. A main priority was to allow the audience to decode that they feel like they were in an urban setting towards the middle, and then off into the suburbs as it gets closer to the end. Underpasses and graffiti are usually associated with seedy activities; this being the case the audience may share the same expectations of these environments. Evidence of this can be found within the graffiti on the music video as we came across aggressive swearing that shows the mind of the graffiti writer and the attitude some people may associate with this activity. Example left. Looking at the genre, this challenges conventions of electronic as we see predominantly footage of clubs and live DJ acts such as Justice – Phantom part 2. Drawing upon these expectations of the connotations of environments, it will allow for a preferred reading into the settings used. However the first images we see are of the character in the toilet, then the drinking and socialising he was involved with earlier on. This sets the mood and themes for the video being a clear convention of the electronic genre. On the other hand the reader may not be associated or familiar with activities such as this and also disagree with the bad language, which may present an oppositional response due to it being frowned upon. Encoding the messages of a reversed day is uncommon within any music video. Challenging this will allow the audience to decode a negotiated response. This is because it may be confusing to some viewers and understandable to others. Referring to my ancillary tasks, the image presented on my poster is of Christopher Walken. Example left. He is a well respected actor that people may recognize and at has nothing to do with this genre of music. As a creator i have used this for the audience to decode as they see fit, i did not involve this for any underlying messages but only to give the video some personality. However the audience may read into this more and believe that he is a significant aspect. Putting this on my poster will cause people to notice and remember my work, therefore giving me publicity if it was a real product.

The main protagonist is introduced into the video within the very first scene. We see his head sticking out of the toilet with clothes scattered nearby. Example right. The very first impression of this character is irresponsible and youthful. This is then supported by later close ups of him drinking and smiling with his friends. This presents him as a stereotypical teenager, socialising and having a good time. As there are no other characters in the video it is easy for the audience to establish a relationship. The video becomes less confusing about centralised characters as the focus is on just one. We did this by focusing most of the shots on the main character leaving very little that he is not in. Other people that are involved are his friends in the flat. None of these people have an impact on the narrative but are there to add to the sense of social activities. The characters confine with the themes of this genre as they are wearing similar costumes in the flat, casual shirts and trainers are what is expected of teenagers. A music video that is similar to this would be Skream – Shot yourself in the foot again, where you can see a group of friends socialising in a pub. Example Right.

The image manipulation used on my ancillary tasks is so that it brings the images to life. Firstly i used auto correct, this automatically adjusts colours to become more vibrant and lively. I then tampered with the colour balances of the images. On the front cover it has more of a yellow filter this is to make the photo look used and old. However the back cover is bleaker, this is so that the text is easy to read. The poster however brings out both the colours in the main characters jacket and also the artwork behind him. This is to draw the audience’s attention to both features as they are just important as each other. After this, i manipulated the saturation and hues of the image, this was so give it a finished affect in order to make both of my ancillaries look like something you would expect to see within this genre. As for my main product the overall look of the music video is a grainy, gritty feel. This is a convention of this genre that we found in numerous videos such as Crystal Castles – Baptism where they have filtered the footage to become more colourful and also used duplicate layers to give off a psychedelic affect. Example left. Doing this makes the footage look used and washed, it gives the scenes more extravagance also on top of this i adjusted the colour levels and balances. This made it to look more intense and contrasting; it helps the graffiti to stand out and brings out key features in the environment used such as the traffic light scene. Example left.