Challenging Cultural Norms in Music Video

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Like many typical R and B videos we have created a narrative based/ performance music
video. We felt that it was necessary to portray the emotions the artist felt throughout the
song and therefore combined a narrative and performance type video, if we had used a
purely performance based video we would have been unable to illustrate our storyline
and if our video was purely narrative based it would have been difficult to portray
emotion, combining the two enabled us to show our storyline to the audience while
effectively depicting emotion. To comply with the conventions of narrative based music
videos we have clearly illustrated a storyline which is prevalent throughout the song.
Furthermore in order to make our video more diverse, we caused the story to be linked to
the lyrical content of the song which depicts the intense love a girl has for her boyfriend
and how “No one” (the title of the song) can get in the way of her and her lover. An
example of this is when for instance in the song it says “when the rain is pouring down”, to
accompany this line we recorded the artist looking out a window on a gloomy rainy day
creating a foreboding ambience, this relates to the end of the video when the artist finally
leaves showing she has made her decision, but is looking back at the time she cherished
with her family in particular the relationship with her mother.

Question 1 - Continued

Narrative

Our music video challenges the codes and conventions of music videos, because unlike any other
video it portrays a clash of cultures which is very common in Birmingham considering the diverse
range of ethnic groups it is made up of. Our new idea is about a non-Muslim boy and the artist
who are trapped by religious norms and traditions. No matter what the lovers do, what plans they
make or how much they love each other, their struggles against social traditions prevent them from
being together, however these traditions are unable to defeat their love for each other, through
our focus group we discovered that if the artist did not stand up for herself or what she wanted
she would have been unable to escape her inevitable fate which they said would have most likely
been an arrange marriage, this gave us the idea for one of the scenes where the artists mother
shows her a picture of a man whom she would like her to marry. We wanted to portray a major
cultural issue faced by many people in today’s modern society and illustrate a new found culture
that exists today, which breaks all previous social norms of conformity. Our narrative is about the
decisions and sacrifices, the artist must make and her determination and struggle against her
culture, faith and even the eternal love for her own mother in order to capture true love. This
demonstrates the fiery passion shared between a couple in a loving relationship and how much of
her own self identity she has to give up just to be with the man she loves.


MISE EN SCENE
Through research we found that a vital convention in any music video was ensuring that the artist has a costume change,
as we wanted our music video to be something innovative we decided to do something that has never been done
before, we decided to address a social issue through our music video. We decided to look at how cultural barriers
prevent people from being together, and how the views of some cultures on interracial relationships can cause
problems for people and in some cases break families. Our video focuses on a girl who is torn between her cultural
norms and love which as a result causes her to become depressed, our video also explores alienation and how the girl
almost in a way is unsure about her identity and what she defines herself as which can in reality have tragic
consequences. We decided to base our video on the Pakistani culture, initially this posed a problem as it could have
potentially narrowed our target audience, however through research and the responses from our focus group we found
that problems with interracial relationships are faced by numerous cultures which would therefore allow people from
cultures other than the Pakistani culture to relate to our video thus attracting them. For the costumes we knew we had to
use clothes typically worn in the Pakistani culture, However this meant we encountered a problem as Pakistani clothes
do not represent the R and B genre - to address this issue and to try to be as conventional as we could in terms of the
R and B genre we chose the colours for the Pakistani clothing to be colours typically associated with the R and B genre.
The colours we therefore chose were brown, white, black, red, gold and grey. In relation to the R and B genre here is
what these colours represent, the colour black represents style, sophistication and depicts tribulation which are
attributes commonly associated with R and B, brown is a colour which represents sophistication and elegance significant
elements within R and B, grey is a colour which evokes strong emotion, purple is a colour which presents passion and
finally red is a colour which quite simply represent love.


Through research we found that it was important to use the right type of lighting,
this was because the lighting used in a video has a significant influence on the
atmosphere the producer is aiming to create, we therefore recorded our lip
synching scenes in the studio where we used spot lights to illuminate the artists
face making it easier to identify facial expression and enabling us to create an
atmosphere which was reflective of our concept which represents pain and
tribulation, even within the house we tried to incorporate as much lighting as we
could within our video , we did this by using numerous lamps and torches as well
as tin foil to reflect light where we needed it most, by doing this we created
shadows which helped portray the fact that the artist has no control over her life
and how her culture seems to dominate her life, here is an example of this..

From this scene you can see that the shadow is behind the artist and almost looks
as though it is overpowering her, we felt the shadow could represent her family
and culture which dominates her life and does not allow her to do as she wishes.


EDITING
Within our video we have incorporated a number of techniques in order to cause our video to look more effective, for
example our video utilises many flashbacks and therefore it was important to distinguish the past from the present, to
do this we used an effect within Final cut express called Tint which enabled us to make the flashback scenes appear
black and white allowing people to clearly differentiate the past from the present. We incorporated this effect from
an Alicia Keys video entitled “Unthinkable”, if we did not use this effect it could have potentially jeopardised the
success of our video as it would have made the narrative within our video unclear, another effect we used was the
“soft edge tool” again this was used to show that the clip represented the past, it softened the edges and helped to
show that the clips were past memories. In order to connect the past and present we also used another edit, the split
screen effect which we felt looked effective through research, an example of a genuine music video which uses this
effect is Alicia Keys “Try sleeping with a broken heart”, within this video numerous split screens are used, this video
gave us the idea and inspired us to use this effect. We used this effect to portray how the artist was feeling as the
clip showed her in colour suggesting that she returned to the same place where she previously saw her boyfriend, this
highlights the importance of the decision she must make and immediately engages the audience, we believe this is
effective because people who experience problems with interracial relationships may be able to relate to a similar
situation. On the other side of the split screen is her boyfriend, here we have created the illusion that her boyfriend is
looking back at the artist in black and white showing how he may have done this previously in the past or perhaps
suggesting that he is a figment of her imagination. By using this effect we were able to display how the artist is torn
on what path to take making our video quite intriguing and unusual.

Question 1 - Continued Razor Blade Tool

While editing we used separate layers, this enabled us to place, replace and move clips without distorting the lip-
synching. Also it quite simply made it easier to remove clip. When placing a video we first had to delete the audio, to do
this we had to lock the layer which had the video clips on so they would not be affected. As we were mistakenly given two
different cameras we had to rerecord certain scenes ensuring we used the same camera , because if we continued using
scenes from two different cameras it would have jeopardized the professionalism of our video due to the resolution being
different . Furthermore when recording the scenes in the studio there were some scenes which were partially good quality
and partially outtakes, to make good use of these clips we used the razor blade tool which enabled us to cut the clips in
half thus allowing us to use the part of the clip that we needed. Although we tried to make good use of the lights we had
some of the scenes still appeared dark and as a result made some aspects of the scene difficult to see we used the colour
collector tool which enabled us to brighten the clips making them clearer and easier to see.

When we came near completion of our video we decided to show a few of our peers the video in order to get an idea of
where to make improvements, when showing them the video someone commented on a scene near the end of the video.
Here the artist is about to leave her house and take control of her own life, we therefore see her throwing the picture of
her and her mother on the floor, this suggests that this is the end of a chapter with her and her family and the start of a
new one with the man she loves, initially we made it appear as though the artist has thrown the picture of her and her
mother on the floor and is then leaving , however one of our peers suggested that after throwing the picture on the floor
we should cause the artist to actually disappear from the photo , we found this quite intriguing and therefore decided to
use it because it suggests she is now living life the way she wants ,it therefore illustrates the removal of her presence not
only from the photo but from her mother life's as well.


CAMERA ANGLES

Within our video we used a range of angles in order to create meaning and effectively illustrate our narrative. For example our
video looks at the disempowerment of a girl, her tribulation and therefore weakness so we decided to use a high angle shot to
portray this weakness and disempowerment, this was effective as high angle shots are also used to show weakness and
vulnerability which is the artists state in parts of the video, high angle shot can also evoke feelings of empathy in the audience. In
one scene the mother is leaning over the protagonist and seems to be overpowering her, we felt this connoted the dominance of
the artists culture in her life.

Furthermore, when it was important that the audience focused on the facial expression of the actors we used mid shots in order
to allow the facial expressions to clearly be seen, we also used midshots to establish the relationship between characters by
displaying the interaction between them, we did this near the beginning of the video where the protagonist is laughing with her
mum which is followed by a shot of her sitting and talking to her boyfriend. When establishing a setting we used the typical long
shot which allowed as to effectively move from one setting to the other while making the narrative clear. For the scene where the
artist leaves the house we used an over the shoulder shot, when using this shot the shadow formed in front of the artist, this
differed from the scenes for instance in the studio where we used spotlights so the shadow formed behind the artist, this in itself
suggested that initially the artist had no control over her life whereas when she leaves her house and a shadow is formed in
front of her it is as though she Is creating her own shadow suggesting she is taking control of her own life, becoming independent
and making her own decisions. A significant scene within our video is when the artists mother throws a teddy given to her by her
lover on the floor, we felt this scene was important as it shows to the audience the impact the artists relationship is having on her
family in particular her mother and how severe the effect is , in this scene the camera zooms in to the heart the teddy is holding
a heart, we felt doing this was powerful and would have a profound effect on the audience as it shows to them the strength of
the girls relationship with her boyfriend, it portrays true love which as the saying goes nobody can come between.

Q2. How effective is the combination of your main
product and ancillary texts ?

In order to cause our ancillary task to effectively relate to our main product we initially mapped out several ideas
such as the symbolism of blood and water which would connote within our music video the idea of whether or not
blood is thicker than water and in the case of our video water being thicker than blood. Having mapped out our
ideas we became particularly focused on the idea of trying to portray both cultures and in some way trying to
depict the narrative of our video which is fundamentally about a girl torn between two cultures that are represented
through her lover and mother. Initially we thought of having the girl in the middle with objects that represent both the
Pakistani and English culture behind her, we then developed this concept and decided to split the female artist in half
and have her dressed in clothing from both the Pakistani culture as well as clothes from the English culture. This
enabled us to successfully combine our ancillary task and main product as it also allowed us to represent alienation
another element our video explores and how the girl almost in a way is unsure about her identity and what she
defines herself as which can in reality have tragic consequences. Also we used colours which were endemic within our
video to keep a constant continuity of the house style. This is extremely important as it allows the audience to link the
media products together causing the audience to be aware that they converge. Behind each half of clothing we
placed images which depicted the female in relation to both cultures, for these images we incorporated some scenes
from the actual video, we felt this would be a good idea as it would give the audience a taste of the video while
portraying our story line.


Furthermore the font style we chose for our CD cover appears quite
sophisticated and elegant, these are both as I have mentioned before
important elements within the R and B genre and therefore relates to
our video as they cause the font to represent the genre our music
video is part of. It was important to choose a font that immediately
conveyed to the audience the genre our video is a part of, for this
reason we chose a elegant font for artists name instead of for
example a bloody font. We decided to use a dark background for
the back of our CD cover black, this is because using a dark
background enabled the back of our cd cover to connote the absence
of colour within the artist’s life which therefore effectively combines to
the main product as it depicts the tribulation faced by the artist as a
lack of colour denotes a lack of happiness and joy.


On the back cover we decided to have a picture of a white flower which looks as though it is crumbling away, we
felt the flower represented the artist mind-set within the video as it almost represented the artist peeling of bits of
the flower which is helping her to decide what to do, whether she should leave and be with her lover or continue
living in misery. This also links to a scene within our video where the artist is praying and seeking guidance from
God . These elements together ,as a result represent how perplexed the artist is and how this is causing her to
become depressed. As well as this we felt that the crumbling of the flower also depicted the crumbling of the
artists relationship with her family due to their lack of willingness to allow her to do what she wants and what
makes her happy by forcing her to stay away from the man she loves. By using a white flower we felt that it
portray the loss of the artists innocence in the eyes her mother as white is a colour which represents innocence and
purity .the decaying of flower also demonstrates the destruction the family honour due to the artists decision to
leave, by using the colour white it is almost as though the artist leaving the home is leaving a stain on her families
honour. We have also targeted the Pakistani/ Indian culture by using the colour white, this is because in these
cultures white is worn when a person dies as it is thought these culture white represents sorrow therefore by using
white we have almost depicted the death of the artist for her family.

Question 2 – Continued

For the promotional poster we incorporated an object of significance
from our music video. We used a teddy bear which was given to the
artist to symbolise the most predominant theme within our video which
is the power of love. We therefore decided to have a simple image
of this teddy on a desk. On the promotional poster we used the Sin
city effect, this effect caused the whole of the poster to appear black
and white apart from the teddy, we felt this was effective as it would
not only cause the teddy to stand out but emphasise the power of love
the protagonist has for her boyfriend, it also suggests that her
boyfriend is what brings colour in to her life and without him her life is
colourless. The font we used for the promotional poster was the same
as the font we used for the cover of our CD; we did this because it
meant that we were able to create brand identity which therefore
made our cover easily identifiable in stores. We also placed the
actual CD cover on the poster; we felt this would allow buyers to
easily identify our cover when going out to buy it.

Q3. What have you learnt from your audience
feedback?

Our audience feedback was essential in terms of giving us direction; it provided us with a basic criteria
to follow. When deciding whether or not to change our initial concept the audience feedback suggested
doing this would be effective and beneficial and therefore persuaded us to do so. When showing our
target audience footage of our initial idea the audience commented on the lack of emotion from the
male singer “he didn’t look like he meant it” as well as the fact that both singers did not look like they
were actually singing the song as they did not open their mouths wide enough. When trying to address
the lip synching issue as well as asking the male actor to be more emotional we made very little
progress and therefore knew we had to take drastic measures. This is when we began mapping out
other ideas and became particularly focused on the idea of social issues and cultural barriers which
prevent people from being together, and the views of some cultures on interracial relationships. Having
decided to take a whole new direction we consulted our target audience who were intrigued by our
new idea. In order to see whether or not our video interested our audience and successfully attracted
them we created a questionnaire, here are the results…


From this pie chart it is clearly evident that the
audience understood the concept behind our
video was clearly and therefore made it easy for
the audience to comprehend. This means we have
been successful in depicting the social issue we
wished to represent.

From this pie chart it is clear that the audience
understood the combination of the song and narrative
which shows that the song we selected was strongly
compatible with the audience which would therefore
be another engaging incentive within our video.


Here the opinions were divided however we expected this as
Pakistani clothing is not conventional to the RnB genre. To
address this we trying to use colour conventional to the RnB
genre .The results from the pie chart show that the majority of
people understood this but some did not

The audience response for this question was quite pleasing , when we
asked our target audience how our music video portrayed the RnB
genre they said that even though we have not used the conventional
clothes to represent the RnB genre , we gave deep consideration to
the colours used within the video as it created a unique ambience, also
the use of the photo at the start of the video created a sense of
mystery because the audience cannot see whom the photo is of . They
also suggested that the use of the photograph is symbolic as it helped
to show the relationship with the artist and her mother.


As well as creating a questionnaire we showed our video to members of the public who fitted
within our audience demographic, along with positive feedback we received some negative
criticism along with pointers on where to improve.

Positive Feedback
“I like the originality of your video; I’ve never seen a video like it before, it is extremely
interesting and intriguing”.
This comment makes it clear that out concept was successful and appealed to the audience.
“The narrative is really good; I like how you have done something different”.
“Did you really sing that? The lip synching is impressive”.
“You have used the camera really well, the camera angles and movement add to the effectiveness
of the video”.
“The storyline is really clear and easy to understand”.

Negative feedback
“The lighting in some places such as in the house could use some improvement”.
“I think there was too much cuts to the studio”.
“I think you could have had some scenes with the artist and her boyfriend together in the present
as all the scenes with the artist and her boyfriend are in the past”.

As well as the video we also consulted the audience
on how effective the ancillary task was…

Do you think the ancillary task was successful in
promoting our music video?

For this question the majority of the audience felt the ancillary task effectively promoted the product ,
many of them commented on the fact that the coloured teddy bear stood out on the dark, dull, grey
background, they say this caused the poster to look quite striking. In relation to the CD cover people
commented on the way the female had been split in half and how this was quite appealing as it
intrigued them and caused them to want to find out more. The audience also commented on the website
and how this extra feature was effective as it would allow them to access extra content. They also felt
that there was a strong liaison between the CD cover and music video which is effective as they would
immediately be able to make a link between the CD cover and the song.

Do you think you would stop and look at the poster and CD cover? Why?
Here the feedback was again very positive, the comments mainly revolved around that image of the
female split in half which seemed to have intrigued the audience and caused them to want to find out
more, they also liked the way the poster and CD cover interlinked and the fact that there was strong
brand identity.

Q4. How have you used technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?

Through the journey of our a2 media coursework we have utilised many different technologies from software,
equipment, and hardware some of which we have never used before and for others we have progressed our
knowledge further. In the research and planning stages we used Youtube to find music videos to analyse. From this we
began to understand how the lighting, sound, editing and mise- en–scene all have an impact on a music video and as a
result the audience response. We discovered codes and conventions which were typical or most popular in the RnB
genre. From this we learnt that split screens, flashbacks/flash forewords are usually used in terms of editing . in relation
to camera angles, the actual lip syncing parts consisted mainly of mid shots. Mise – en scene was usually similar to other
RnB videos since they used nude natural colours to portray weakness and purity whilst black and darker colours where
used nearer the end to illustrate dominance.

Since everything was on a blog we didn’t just want essays on pages. Slide share allowed us to bring our presentations
directly online so it is easy to access and enabled us to put a lot of information on one slide connecting information
together, Prezi is also useful because it brought a presentation to life by allowing us to control where we wanted
everything and the transitions where quite effective because it brought movement and character to a presentation. Both
of these programme allowed us to document our work , in a neat and organised manner. Our most commonly used
programme in the research stages was movie maker we believe it is a quick and easy program to use and which is
usually free on windows computers . All the experimental footage and brainstormed ideas used where put together by
this simple video maker, it brought convergence into our coursework as we where able to place, images, video clips
and audio recordings onto movie maker. Other online software such as Animoto enabled us to encapsulate a few
images from either the photo shoot or print screens and give easy access to the viewers.


As we began practicing with the camcorder, it was essential to check simple things such as battery life and memory
space, I believe by doing this is gave us a sense of organisation and direction because before every scene was filmed
we knew exactly what to do. we were given a basic Sony camcorder which we used to our advantage since it allowed
me ( Sundas) to experiment with the camera gaining firsthand experience and creating my own techniques for filming
Eg) a diagonal tilt and shaky pan . By doing this we created our own unique ambience and mood for the music video
which is not commonly seen in RnB music videos. Tripods is a simple piece of equipment that brings balance and stability
to the camera , we usually used this in the studio scenes, it was vital to keep the bubble in the sprit level on the top of
the tripod in the centre to ensure the camcorder was steady and on a hard smooth surface, because random movement
of the camera during lip synching scenes could ruin the actual editing process because the sense of realism behind the
singing would be lost, as the camera would move losing the rhythm of the song and clip may become distorted.


In the construction stage, we realised we had to use a programme which we never used before. We needed to make
ourselves familiar with the programme Final Cut Express . We found that final cut express enabled us do nonlinear,
non-destructive editing. Final Cut Express stored all of our footage on a hard disk, allowing us to access any frame of
the footage instantaneously. Without the constraints of linear editing, we were free to combine shots in different
orders and change their durations until we arrived at the exact sequence we wanted. Video and audio effects, such
as scaling, position, rotation, speed changes, and multiple layers can also be applied and played back in real time.
No matter how we processed the footage, the underlying media was never touched. This is known as non-destructive
editing, because all of the changes and effects we applied to the footage never affected the music video itself. An
example of this would be that unlike many of our peers who had everything on one layer, we decided to have
multiple layers, instantly creating cuts. We had layer 1 with just pure performance with the female artist (Halima)
singing continuously and then on layer 2 we added the actual scenes and overlapped them together and rendered
them. Rendering allowed us to play the footage wherever we had placed the clip, but takes time so the editing
process did require a lot of patience. Later we placed the flashback clips on layer 3 and finally the text which is
need at the beginning and the end of the music video was place on the 4th layer I believe we used the layers to our
advantage because firstly it created a vast amount of cuts and we could move them without changing the whole
sequence also adding effects could not be easier since we had enough room on the separate layers to make the
effects last shorter of longer not needing to worry about it cutting off parts of the next clip. Also the lock tool allowed
us to lock layers Eg) the audio clip in this case the song “No one” by Alicia keys, so it could not be move even if done
accidentally.


As we continue to edit the music video our knowledge with final cut began to expand. We understood that
clips allow you to easily cut, trim, rearrange, and sort our footage without manipulating it directly. For
example when we placed the lip syncing scenes we had the add on parts usually before Halima actual sung,
which we did not need and therefore would just be a waste of time rendering and therefore used the “Blade
Tool” this adds an edit point to a sequence clip by cutting a single clip item, along with any clip items linked
to it in the Timeline, into two pieces. This edit point is added at the frame of the clip item in the Timeline that
we clicked. We then could easily remove the parts of a clip that we didn’t want by deleting it.

We were able to manage and organise our clips in the Browser. We found that there are three kinds of
clips, most common being the video, audio, and graphics clips, but there are other kinds of clips that can be
stored within a project, such as a generator clip (a clip whose media is generated within Final Cut Express).
Some of the techniques and tools we found out about we did not use because we wanted our music video to
be simple and relatable and did not wanted to go into in-depth editing because first of all it is not
conventional on typical RnB videos which usually consist of fades and cross dissolves which we have
incorporated in our music video.

Our music video always got saved as “Sequence 1”. Myself and Halima had no clue what this was and so began researching upon this word.
A sequence is a container for editing clips together in chronological order. The editing process involves deciding which video and audio clip
items to put in our sequence, For example what order the clips should go in, and how long each clip should be. Sequences are created in the
Browser. To edit clips into a sequence, we opened a sequence in the Timeline from the Browser. A sequence contains one or more video and
audio tracks, which are empty when first created. As we began to edit a clip into a sequence, we copied the clip’s individual clip items to the
sequence. For example, if you drag a clip that contains one video and two audio tracks to the Timeline, a video clip item is placed in a video
track in the Timeline, and two audio clip items are placed in two audio tracks. In a sequence, you can move any clip item to any track,
allowing us to arrange the contents of our music video.

We also used Adobe Photoshop CS3 and CS5 to create the digipak for the albums release and for the magazine promotional poster. Adobe
Photoshop was a programme we had used in GCSE media , and throughout our A level we have realised with 2 years of experience that
Photoshop delivers the utmost power and creative control with the next generation of advanced tools for outstanding image manipulation and
superior compositing. It redefines image editing with a strong focus on photography; this was clearly evident as we have progressed from
using the simple paint bucket tool and text tool to becoming confident with using the clone stamp tool, magic tool and curves tool to adjust
lighting and the history brush tool. With the creation of our ancillary tasks we discovered new effects such as the Sin City effect this is where
the background is desaturated however the main object of significance is still in colour. Me and Halima became more comfortable with the
clone stamp tool because matching skin tone and removing blemishes became easy for us . It was then we realised how far we progressed as
a team.

We were told our music video could only be 3 - 3.30 minutes long to prevent the audience losing interest. We discovered that our song
"Alicia Keys - No One" is 4.08 minutes in length and needed to find a way to cut around a 1 minute off. At first this seemed like a difficult
decision because we did not want to make the cut evident, because it would have made our music video look unprofessional. The programme
"Audacity" allowed us to cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together; thus making it easier to remove parts of the song, in order to keep the flow
of the rhythm going we decided to cut nearer the end of the song and then fade the clip it make it unnoticeable.

Challenging Cultural Norms in Music Video

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Mais procurados

Mais procurados (20)

Destaque

Destaque (16)

Semelhante a Challenging Cultural Norms in Music Video

Semelhante a Challenging Cultural Norms in Music Video (20)

Mais de SundasBostan

Mais de SundasBostan (17)

Último

Último (20)

Challenging Cultural Norms in Music Video