Question 1

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

A promotional music video is designed to promote the song and get the audience to buy the album or single of the artist that will in turn expand the artists profile and get the artist more exposure. They are commonly used to invoke a reaction to make the audience remember the song. A video can be used to make the audience understand the message or narrative behind the lyrics of the song or can be used to showcase other talents of the artist e.g. acting/dancing. There is a whole repertoire of elements that create an effective pop music promo:

• Performance or a narrative as the basis for the visuals
• Performance is commonly the artist singing with a band or back up singers and dancers, dancers introduce a fun element and entertains the audience
• Narrative is not as common in pop videos as other genres but can be used to help the audience develop an understanding of the song
• Camerawork keeps the audiences attention with changing shots and angles
• Conventional shots include close ups of the artists face (promoting the artist and making them more recognisable to the audience), long shots of location, mid shots of the artists in the location and extreme close ups of props
• Effective editing with the shots cut to the beat
• Short shots to keep the audience looking at the screen
• Actors or the artist acting because pop usually adheres to popular culture, teenagers and younger audiences are influenced by costumes, makeup, dance moves
• High key lighting or coloured spotlights, colours used in costumes, props or background stand out even more (bright colours match the fun and upbeat nature of pop)
• Locations are varied but commonly urban or in studios with backdrops of unrealistic places

Katy Perry is a prime example of a pop artist who consistenly uses extravagancy in her music videos in terms of bright colours and costumes. Her videos are usually thoroughly choreographed usually with back up dancers such as in the video 'California Gurls:'

Editing Techniques

When editing our promo we did not want to over complicate the look of the editing because our chosen track is so simple and slow. It was difficult to edit the shots in the beginning because the shots became long due to the slow beat of the song but when we used the drum beats in the background in order to cut to the beat, it made the shots shorter and flowed with a much better pace. It allowed us to keep audience interest more easily. In our first cut of our promo, there were a lot of close ups or mid shots of our actress miming which were very long and this caused the audience to lose interest:

However in our second cut we re-filmed shots of our actress miming and these included long shots, mid shots, close ups and extreme close ups to get as much diversity and interesting shots as possible. We also made the shots shorter and filmed a lot more visually interesting shots of extreme close ups of antiques and jewellery. In our final cut, we preferred the shots used so that they all had a similar style and this made all the shots fit better together.

There is a point in our chosen track which is a period of 30 seconds without any singing and in our first and second cuts this bored our audience and we considered cutting it out however instead we decided to shorten the shots which made them quicker and included a lot of abstract shots to keep the audience interested. In our final feedback the comments on this section were much more positive. In terms of transitions used, we used mostly straight cuts however to add more interest we included some overlay transitions. These were an extreme close up of the actress miming overlaying a long shot of the actress on the beach. The other overlay used is an over the shoulder shot of the actress overlaying a shot of the beach.

We kept the use of any effects, transitions and cuts very simple because our song is very simple and it creates harmony between the two. This is very reflective of the indie genre because conventionally the songs are humble and about personal experience and they reflect this in their music promos. They do this by using natural locations and simple editing in order to allow the audience to focus on the songs message rather than extravagant editing, locations or costumes. We introduced the beach location at the very beginning as a hook however then we included many shots of the Victorian era house location to make the audience wonder how the beach will be incorporated. We then had shots of the woman changing her clothes and walking out of the front door. This then introduces the shots at the beach to indicate that the woman has escaped her life at home and is at the beach to have fresh surroundings.

 

Performance & Narrative

We attempted to keep a simple balance between the amount of shots expressing the narrative and the performance. We decided to include both aspects because our artist is an indie artist and it is conventional to have simple performance in an indie video of the singer miming on their own or the band performing in a small bar however we have used conventions of pop or R&B videos as well and so we thought a subtle narrative would also add more interest and depth to the video and also help the audience understand the lyrics of the song. The performance in our promo is purely miming and we did not use a band, back-up singers or any other things which distract the audience from the actress.

This was to be consistent with the simplicity of the video and we used many different types of shots from extreme close ups to long shots of the actress miming in order to keep the performance visually refreshing for the audience. As previously mentioned, indie music promos conventionally do involve a band in their performance but are usually performing to a small audience to show the humble nature of the artist because it is something they do to enjoy, not to sell out arenas. Our song is very slow and we decided that using a band in our performance shots would not have looked right, we decided that the video would only have one actress because it links to our inspiration Lana Del Rey who is an indie pop artist and commonly only uses herself as the key focus in her promos. E.g. 'Young and Beautiful':

In terms of narrative we were influenced by the song's lyrics and we deconstructed and annotate these lyrics to find metaphors and hidden meanings. As a group, we determined that the song was about a woman who has been in an abusive relationship. It is not completely clear whether she has just told the boyfriend to leave ("Come away honey, just leave") or whether he has just left her and she is talking to herself or giving another person advice. We created a narrative for our video using this basic idea. We decided to have one of the earliest shots in the promo of the front door open to represent the boyfriend having just left her:

We also had shots of the actress removing and putting on different pieces of jewellery all the way through the video and also removing her lipstick and high heels to represent her trying to remove anything that the boyfriend had given her or anything she wore to please him:

There is also a mid shot of the actress removing the new costume out of her wardrobe and this represents the look which she really wanted to have but never wore because she was trying to impress her boyfriend with the glamorous clothing, makeup and jewellery. There are shots of the woman walking down the stairs and out of the front door and this is the part of our narrative which represents escapism. The idea was that the woman was leaving her glamorous and materialistic house and possessions and instead escapes to the beach where she could be herself and breathe without having to act or look a certain way.

Some aspects of the video are illustrative for example when the line "So light up another one" is sung, there is a shot of the actress lighting a cigarette or when the line "Come away honey" is sung she walks out the door and escapes to the beach. However the majority of the video is an amplification of the lyrics because we have taken the main concept from the lyrics and exaggerated it to make it into a narrative.