J.J - Evaluation of music video / Question 1

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

The Genre of our music video is British Indie rap and our video does reinforce this genre in many aspects. We use the first person mode of address during the performance shots a typical convention, which many other Indie rappers such as Jamie T and The Streets use in their videos. Luke our performer rapped straight into the camera as if he was looking directly at his audience. This 1st person mode of address is often used in music videos to make the artist more appealing, and give the impression that their songs are more personal to anyone who watches them.
















Our Video is a mix between a narrative storyline and performance. The performance sequences are filmed in close up to show of the artists face to the audience and to enhance on their star image, another generic convention of this type of music.

The constant use of cross cutting between the narrative and performance is a standard procedure in most rap videos. However, our video challenges the usual stereotype of this genre as our narrative has created a new persona for our artist which would not normally be used by artists involved in rap industry. Our main character is a ‘Geek’, who falls in love with a girl at first sight and wants to change his style and image in pursuit of the girl of his dreams. The ‘Geek’ is played by Luke who is also the performing artist.

This gives our artist a more approachable feel as he is not afraid to make fun out of himself in order to tell a the story. The costume was very important when creating this geeky persona. We used big thick glasses, a messy wig, a shirt and tie and chino shorts which gave a very nerdy image to our main character.

Another convention of this genre is the use of costume regarding the artist. Luke is dressed in smart jeans, shoes and also a designer polo shirt all things you would expect your typical Indie rapper to be wearing. We ideally wanted to model the style of our performing artist on someone like Mike Skinner the lead singer from the Streets.

The involvement of a beautiful girl in the narrative also is a convention of this genre as most young men are in the pursuit of stunning women, fast cars and lots of money.

We also have a strong link between visuals and lyrics in or music video, we feel this is important in telling the story being told by the lyrics. For example there is a passage in the song which says “I was hard up couldn’t get a large cup” this is illustrated in the visuals with the protagonist sipping a small cup of coffee. This ironic illustration is aimed to provoke humour and show off just how ‘hard up’ our main character is. This video clip is an example of this link.

Another example of a link between visuals and Lyrics is shown just after Luke raps “fine young pussycat, woman that I’m looking at”. The on screen visuals then show like getting up from the floor and staring in slow motion at the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. This is effective in showing the love at first sight aspect to this relationship and how it all started. We have used amplification in our music video as the fantasy girl and car reinforces the stereotype of a young man in this industry as it is something he strives for. this clip illustrates the link between visuals and lyrics,

We have constructed a link between the music and visuals in our video when our main character dreams about something or an ambition he has. For example in the chorus Tracy Chapman sings the Fast car section to our music video, this passage is very melodic and slow in comparison to the fast passed rapping in the verses. Due to this we have used much slower shots in these sections to match the tempo and mood of the video. These shots include a shot of his dream car pulling up and picking up the beautiful girl and right at the end after the crash. We have used shots of Luke walking around and cuddling his new girlfriend with an almost dreamy effect placed on top of the shot making it somewhat surreal. These slow passed shots synchronize with the music and illustrate a very slow beat an as a result a slower cutting rate.

we believe that our video is postmodern in style because we use bricolage. Our video is largely conforms to the conventions of Indie rap however, we borrow the theme of the typical American teen romance of boy meets girl, then falls in love at first sight. This reinforces a heteronormative discourse in that the narrative follows the stereotype of a 'normal' heterosexual relationship. We represented the girl in a traditional way as her role in the narrative is largely passive whereas the male takes dominance in the storyline and is more active.

We broke the 4Th wall when creating our music video with the 1st person mode of address; our artist broke the conventions of usual media texts and spoke directly to the audience as he performed directly to them. The Ratio of our music video is 50:50 with half being performance and the other being a narrative storyline depicting the lyrics being rapped.

We also created a digipak to go with our music video which would be the album layout for Examples new album, including the track we have transformed into our own music video. We designed all the sides to the album very carefully thinking deeply about the layout and the juxtaposition of the images and their size, the text we used and which style we designed it in.

The front cover for example took a long time to arrange and we wanted to make sure everything was perfect as it was the first thing people would see. The front cover had a total of 5 different signs which needed arranging. The background is a note book as we wanted the style of our digipak to go along the same geeky theme as our main character in the music video. We wanted it to look like something the geek would sketch down, an aspiration rather than reality. The main image is a sketch of a sporty car and in relation to the rule of 3rds it is situated in the middle third showing that it is an important image which we want the audience to focus on first. The name of the artist is written in a large and scribbled font again another connotation of something which follows the sketch pad theme, and is situated in the top third. We placed a real key on the note pad underneath the drawing of the fast car. This could work on two levels. Firstly merely denoting the key to open a fast car. Secondly it could work as a signified to a new and better life. for our geeky character.

We have continued the theme of the notepad throughout the rest of the digipak and we have tried to tell a story through the different sketches all the way through. The middle of our digipak shows images of his geeky glasses and a cup of coffee with various objects placed strategically to illustrate the narrative storyline in the music video. For example pens are placed next to the sketch of geeky glasses to link in with the main characters image. Alongside the sketch of the cup of coffee there is a coffee stain, this could be a connotation that this image was sketched in the coffee shop which was filmed in our video.

The back cover continues this theme however there is an image of his fantasy girl sketched out. This is used to signify our main characters ultimate ambition to be in a relationship with the girl of his dreams.

The last task we were asked to produce was a magazine advertisement for the album which we had created. The magazine advertisement is a promotional tool used to support the artist and the release of his new album. Our advert included a large photo filling up all the space we had, showing Luke dressed in the Geek outfit from the music video striking a comical pose. We wanted our advertisement to catch the eye of someone flicking through a magazine and this full page spread of a geek would prove effective in grabbing people’s attention and forcing them to see what this is advertising.