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

In our music video, we have successfully used the forms and conventions from real media products in our genre. We have put in many features of dance music into the video, for example the lava lamps which show the movement in clubs and the glowing, vivid colour effects that match that of the lasers and lights in a club.

The shots cut on the beat and quite a few shots cut on syncopated rhythms to make the whole piece (audio and visual) more interesting. I think it also develops the conventions as there are different locations that are usually not used in music of this kind, like the river and sea.

We used conventions from real media products by looking at the image of Daft Punk. The image there is artists in helmets and you cant see any identity but you get a strong image. The style of music is similar to that of our music and so we thought that we could do something similar. We had the artists wearing hoods and dark glasses, also darkening the video as well so it would be very difficult to see their identity but get a strong and memorable look of the band.

The genre of our music is generally quite creative anyway so we came up with quite a few things that would give the artists a strong look. We looked at different effects and found a few that give a club like feel, we also filmed the lava lamps which would give a good effect made for us, which also has motion in it to represent motion in the music and clubs again.

We made sure the basic conventions were followed, for example cuts on the beat etc but also pushed them slightly as we put cuts and transitions/ fades off beat, but rhythmically to emphasize parts of the drum kit and a few nice chord progressions. We gave only a portrait of the artists to give a simple yet effective image.

Our music video has parts that other genres of music would relate to more but in adding these different scenes (sea...) we were able to create something that develops the conventions of music videos of the club dance genre.

The music video was a mix of continuity and montage editing. Near the end of the video it was more of a montage of clips put together and cuts were frequent and fast. Earlier in the video, there are parts of continuity with a small structure (close up lip synching parts). We mainly used quick cuts as the music's tempo is fast and in 4/4 timing which also means cuts can go on the offbeat and on the beat which means the cuts can be in 8/8 (if there can be a time signature for visuals).