Evaluation one

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

 The brief of my music product was to decide on a group and within my group make an original and creative music video and two ancillary products. The music video could consist of any song, however, I needed to gain access to this music video and my group and I did this through a copyright letter. The ancillaries were created in the form of a magazine poster and a digipak. This allowed the group and the target audience to relate to the meaning behind the song and through different technologies we could do this. The song that my group and I chose to use for our music video was Wake Me Up by Avicci, we chose to use this song as we felt that the song was true to people at the age I am are now. In the sense that teenagers are lost in the world within education as they have to make the hard choice whether to choose university or go into work. From the song’s lyrics “wake me up when it’s all over, when I’m wiser and I’m older” I can understand that teenagers do not want to have to make the choice, they want to stay a carefree teenager with nothing to worry about, but now they have to face one of the hardest decisions they will ever have to, in respect to choosing university or work. From the song my group and I have been able to create a concept that we hope can be put across to the audience as everybody wants to be able to go out and enjoy themselves, but there are always consequences as I will heading home after a night out going to work and Jake will be going home to nothing. As a group we are trying to make the audience understand that they need to think about what they are doing with their time and make them understand that they will either have everything or nothing.

The purpose of a music video is to promote a song and the artist to try to make the song popular and profitable. The style of a music video can be categorised into three different areas, which include performance, narrative and concept. A music video is used to allow the audience to see conventions of the music video, as they normally give the song a meaning. It allows the music company to promote the artist though various conventions, cinematography, editing and mise en scene. The music video also allows the audience to understand whether the song is performance, narrative or concept based and through this they can gather the understanding of what the music genre maybe. Music videos can confuse a target audience as they have an element of all three bases for a music video. This could then in fact over complicate the music video and this could then allow the audience to become confused with what genre of music video it could be and this may not appeal to them.

Codes and conventions are used within a music video to allow the audience to gain an understanding of what genre of music video it could be and also to allow them to relate the song to the artist as it may be a past experience for example Avicii's song wake me up, is sung like he has gone through it and the words are meaningful. We have followed codes and conventions of a dance song as stereotypically there would be flashing neon lights, which is evident in my music video during the party scenes that are evident, an example of Avicii doing this would be in his Wake Me Up song as there are flashing lights while he is DJ'ing. There would also be a club scene within a music video as this is conventional and stereotypical to the type of music that it is as it makes people want to dance and have a good time. This can be seen during the party scenes within, my music video and during the wake me up official music video. Additionally, there would be a representation of the artist within a dance music video as they would be the ones who produced the music video and therefore they would want to show it off, and also they would want to let the words have meaning. This would be evident in the music video, when I and Jake are in the party scenes, drinking, dancing and having a good time together. After the party scenes I and Jake will be seen walking home together which is still representing us as artists. However, my group and I challenge codes and conventions by showing how we go our separate ways knowing that we are going in different directions with our home life. Jake will go home to nothing and I will go home to a stable family life and day job. This is evident in the music video, which get across our concept. This can be seen in my music video as me and Jake are both the artists and therefore we are representing ourselves as party animals, Avicii does it in all of his music video as they is always a small clip of him DJ'ing within his music videos. However, we have challenged conventions further as there are no scenes within my music video which show that Jake and I are DJ's which is stereotypical as artists such as Avicii and Martin Garix have a scene within there music videos which show them DJing. Additionally, by including low key lighting at the end of scene when Jake is in his flat, it is challenging conventions of a typical dance genre song as it is portraying a negative mood. However, we chose to do this because we wanted a meaningful concept that we hopefully put across to the target audience. My group and I adapted the codes and conventions of a dance genre music video as we used a fast paced setting in the form of London. This can be used in a dance video as the setting is fast paced as everybody is in a rush which matches the beat of the song that we chose. The stereotypical target audience for a dance genre song would be 16-30 years olds typically. As this is the age group which have least worries within society and they still should a have a stable family home to go home to if they are still living with their parents. The target audience my group and I have chosen to use for our music video will be age 16-25, as we feel the message of the song will be able to be best understood by this age group as this is the age group who do not know much about what they want to do in life, whether they want to go to university or start a job. I think that the song explains the different pathways that can be taken by the different types of teenagers, whether they chose to follow the media stereotypes or not.

My music video and ancillary texts have followed conventions of a dance style music video as I have flashing lights, representation of the artist and have party scenes. The neon lights flash during the party scene in the colours pink and green, this is conventional to the music genre as in a party scene there are stereotypically flashing lights into the crowd, which gets the audience into the mod to dance and have fun. The party scenes were used as they are conventional to the dance genre music video and it allows the target audience to realise that when my song is being played it gets the crowd in a good mood and therefore they would want to experience this within a party environment. Dance videos always have a representation of the artist, so the audience can search them up and see other songs they have produced, Jake and I are the main characters within the music video to make the target audience aware that we are the artists that produced the song. Also my dance music video is around 90% narrative based and 10% concept based this then allowed me to follow the conventions of a dance style music video as it has a story that you can clearly see within the music video and then it has a hidden concept behind it which some people may see and some may not. This appeals to the target audience because they can realise the story that is being told can relate to them, as they can either have a successful career such as how I am portrayed in the music video, or be like Jake and have nothing. However, my music video has broken conventions slightly as there are two artists within the music video and we are both acting in the narrative element and trying to tell the audience that we are the artists who made the song what it is. This is because we want the audience to understand what we have been through by the narrative and lyrics of the song. The song matches the lyrics as the audience should be able to understand that they have been lost not only after a night out but also in life and now they have found their way back to their homes within the music video. However, in the music video I am the only one which found my way in life as I am an artist and also work during the day which is evident within the music video. Jake is only an artist and does not doing anything in the day expect sleep and he parties all night which makes him look bad to the audience. This will hopefully allow them to be educated by me and Jake, by them wanting to follow me instead of Jake, as we want to explain that you can have fun during the night but you have to look at consequences during the day.