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

Men:
 Jeans
 Sweater
 Glasses
 Hat
 Jacket
 Jewellery
Women
 Minimal
Clothing
 Heels
 Make Up
 Jewellery
In the Hip Hop/R&B genre, the music videos are generally very passionate , usually about a love interest.
For example Drake’s “FindYour Love” there is the constant use of red to connote love and romance to
synchronizeThe use of colour is to aid the audience of the narrative and match certain lyrics like, “I’ll bet if
I give all my love". The way in which this song challenges the codes and conventions of contemporary Hip
Hop/ R&B is that it portrays the male actor(Drake) as vulnerable through the use of camera angles, lighting
and colour, in comparison to other conventional Hip Hop music videos, in which they use low angle shots to
demonstrate the dominance and arrogance of the main artist, these conventional Hip Hop music videos
insinuate the shallow personalities of rappers/singers. This was an inspiration for our music video in which
we wanted to break the convention and challenge it while still developing and keeping the original concept
Drake – FindYour Love -
www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=Xyv4Bjja8yc

 Women– Similar to the male representation, female artists from Hip
Hop/R&B, tend to have a huge amount of emphasis on sexuality.The way in
which they present this is through the minimal use of clothing as I
mentioned in the previous slide , the representation conforms to the (one
could argue) general stereotype of women and how they are viewed by
society.This representation conforms to Laura Mulvey’s “Male Gaze” in
which women are seen as voyeuristic in the video rather than fetishtic.
Recently there has been a rising movement in breaking away from the
convention, music videos such as Beyonce’s “If IWere A Boy”, this video’s
sees women performing what seems to be a man’s stereotypical role.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWpsOqh8q0M. Our music video tends to
break away from the stereotypical women portrayal and not present the
love interest in a provocative manner.
 Men– Similar to the female representation, male artist are often topless
and is very sexual to highlight the theme of sexual promiscuity. The use of
black/white adds to the sensual imagery of the video and adds a sexual tone
to the music video. An example would beTrey Songz “I Invented Sex”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zI3OeNsnvI .
 There are artist’s that break away from the codes and conventions such as
Drake’s Marvin’s Room, in which the artist is actually reminiscing on a past
lover, which also inspired our music video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwyjxsOYnys

 When presenting the male gender, we decided to
use colour blue to emphasize the state of
melancholia that’s surrounded him, as he is
constantly being reminded of his past love, same
way in which Drake uses red to reflect the lyrics
present in the song.We felt that it was crucial that
there should be a clear relationship between the
lyrics and the video, following the Andre Goodwin’s
theory on what makes a successful music video.
 When presenting the female representation, we
decided not to go with Laura Mulvey’s “Male
Gaze” , we decided to go with a fetishtic portrayal
of our female actress, borrowing the inspiration
from Beyonce’s “If I Were A Boy”. We wanted to
have that clear distinction between the
contemporary Hip Hop/R&B, which tend to over-
sexualised their female actresses, to make our video
stand out from the crowd.

 Our music video uses various different forms and conventions of real media
products in a variety of ways there are some examples of real media products in
comparison to ours below.
Our Media Product Real Media Product
The top two images, show the similarities with the glasses being the main conventions of Hip Hop, the connotations of
being ambiguous, hiding from something and being distinguished.The side by side photos, have a huge amount of
emphasis on locality with our music video, the beginning taking place at an underground station, to show the urban
aspect because there is a significant amount of graffiti on the sides of the train or the walls, which compliments our
video because it is the key conventions of Hip-Hop music videos.The other still image from our music video, was taken
place at Crystal Palace Park and the significance of using the tower is because it is the closest thing we have to an Eiffel
Tower, which is essentially the love capital of the world, this is to put an emphasis on our narrative and subconciously
recognise the use of intertextuality we have used in this music video.

Our Media Product Real Media Product
As you can see there is similarities between both products , there are elements in our media product which would speak to
our target audience.The lighting in the first panel is very concentrated to show that the attire is completely opposite to
the background placed, this is to distinguish the artist making him stand out by using opposite colours, because if were to
use the colour coordination to match his clothing then it might make him hard to see to the audience because he could
potentially blend into the background.Whilst developing on real media products, we feel that it is necessary to challenge it
for creative purposes, it makes the audience pay close attention to the performer as he is clear to see and this helps them
to digest the lyrics easier and not get distracted

We used final cut pro to edit our music video, it proved to be effective in creating
background for the green screen footage.The colourful city, represents the colourful aspect
of R&B, which is prominent in most R&B music videos.This is to put emphasis on the fact
that when two couples love each other then the whole city becomes colourful, it is there to
denote happiness and love.The way in which we edited the video we had to keep in mind
that the rapping and the singing have to be different to represent a clash in genre, because
these two genres are completely distinguished for obvious reasons we had to implement
different conventions to make that distinguish clear to the audience and prep them for the
chorus.The video that inspired the colourful background was Chris Brown’s “Forever”, this
was used to aid the audience into differentiating between both genres.

The use of camera angles, was helpful in extending the narratives, like the above shots of our
music video, the singer in front of a skyscraper were used to connote the arrogance and
boastful nature of contemporary music videos, it is Intertextual reference to Jay-Z “Empire
State of Mind”.
This is an over the shoulder shot to show
the actor walking by to hand her flowers
The scenery is romantic emphasizing the
narrative and the general concept of lost
love.

In order to intricately relate our media product to our target audience.
We cut and placed our footage over key sections of the song. Not only
did this allow for very tight lip syncing but it allowed us to used
different editing techniques, such as cross cuts and continuity editing.
Which is a feature that is prominent in the production of real media
products (music videos). The effect of on beat editing allowed us to
make the video memorable to our audience, because they would notice
a pattern we used when cutting the video.
This is an examples where cuts are used to match the beat as well as
used for lip syncing, this video was key in terms of influencing how and
where we cut and placed our scenes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liZm1im2erU

 Todorov proposed that all narratives(whether
that be plays, books, music videos etc) contain
these five fundamental stages in this order:
 1 – A State of equilibrium (all is as it should be)
 2 – A disruption of that order by an event.
 3- A recognition that the disorder has occurred.
 4 – An attempt to repair the damage of the
disruption.
 5- A return or restoration of a NEW
equilibrium(it does not have to be the same old
system)

This is the equilibrium – the
main artist has not meet his
ex lover, the tone remains
neutral at this point in the
narrative
This is a disruption in
the equilibrium, with
the ex-lover , setting
in things in motion
for the flashback to
follow.
This is following the
disequilibrium, which shows
the state of the artist, with
the colours reflecting his
state of mind.
This is the new
equilibrium, which
reflects what state the
narrative is set in, this is
not the same
equilibrium from the
beginning this is the
equilibrium caused by
the events that
occurred

 The uses and gratifications model
does also fit into our music video, due
to the diverse meanings behind it; the
narrative offers escapism, but also
touches ground with reality allowing
the target audience to possibly identify
with the video; this video can be used
and interpret in different ways by the
consumer, giving them an active role
with dissecting and integrating
aspects of the video into their own
lives more relatable.

We used natural lighting in this shot as a way to show love between boy and
girl together denotes love and affection in particular when both are smiling at
each other.The natural lighting gives the connotation of affectionate love
and compassion.
This is an ode to Lupe Fiasco’s
song which, utilised this to
create a natural glow
emphasizing the naturalistic
approach, which we have used
in our music video

Not only did we edit on the beat
but we also edited to the lyrics as
well. We added several things such
as add text to physically display
the words of the song in key
places. We feel this was one of our
more creative techniques. we used
this in order to have a closer
relationship with the genre, we
also used abstract footage in
places such as the sky to match
the lyrics.
The significance of “Heart
Robbed”, we presented it to have
two distinct themes, where
“Heart” is in red to signify love,
whereas “Robbed” is presented in
black to reflect sinister and dark.
We used this to have the effect of
oxymoron.

 The following conventions were listed by
Goodwin as attributes which make a successful
music video.
 Demands of the record label(representation of
Artist)
 Link between Lyrical andVisual Content
 Music video Style and Iconography reflects
music genre
 Relationship between the music and the visuals
 Intertextual references
 Star Iconography
 Reference toVoyeurism

The representation of women in our music
video challenges the forms and conventions of
most Hip Hop and R&B videos by our actresses
not dressed in provocative manner this is to
highlight the fact that she is integral to the
narrative and we wanted a positive
representation of our actress.
In our music video, we tried not to follow the
conventions of the “Male Gaze” when
portraying the female in our video. We dressed
her in casual clothes so that her body(especially
shoulders and legs) was covered.This music
video is about lost love, if we were to have the
female dressed provocatively the storyline
would not fit as it would just seem as if she is
flaunting herself to the male.We tried to keep
the male/female roles balanced to make them
equal entities.

 To make this link we edited the majority of
the shots to follow the slow 4/4 beat of the
song.
 In the chorus’ we cut to shots of both the
main artist reminiscing, to show reaction and
evoke emotion.
 We made a strong link between the music
video and the lyrics when the main artist raps
“When I reminisce about you, my god”. In this
case we cut shots of the past and present,
showing the effect of the lost love.

 Our music video in essence is a Hip Hop/R&B video, but the way in which we went
about it was different. Instead of going with the original concept of the song and
having a sensual tone to our video, we decided to make it a narrative and break
the conventions seen in most Hip Hop/R&B videos.The way in which we used
conventions from media products is that we had an urban setting, and a variety
of camera angles to display dominance, wealth and the competitive nature of Hip
Hop, which is present in majority of Hip Hop videos.We used different
backgrounds such as the graffiti wall and the colourful city, to highlight and
differentiate between the different genres and have backgrounds that suits their
respective fields, and clothing that suits their genre of music.The way in which
we challenged the conventions was our female actress, and the way in which she
was portrayed was not provocative and did not have any sexual overtones, we
wanted for her to be seen as a former lover without having to resort to anything
sensual.