1.) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product uses forms and conventions of real media products. Conventions are the way that the video is made to show theme or genre, in this case the genre is UK grime. Conventions of my genre include swearing, cars, low angle shots and dark locations and clothing as well as expensive jewellery, girls, close ups and lip-syncing. My video both accepts and challenges these grime conventions, and this is because some things that I could of included were out of my power to posses, like expensive jewellery (minus the watch) and girls. Some of things I was able to feature in my video include swearing, cars, low angle shots, dark locations, clothing, close ups and lip-syncing. Not having any girls in my music video was a conscious decision, even though I didn't have the option. I felt as though girls would take away from the message of the song, there's very limited lyrics or underlying meaning in Know Me From that includes girls, love, sex or that has any feminine connotation at all. Including girls in my video would have taken away from the song and would have given the impression that the visuals weren't thought out and that the girl is just included for the sake of conforming to the genre. Through out my ancillary text there are no signs of any girls or femininity in the slightest, which keeps together the house style of my project. I feel as though leaving all things feminine out of my production and ancillary texts has made them more prevalent to the consumer.
The mise-en-scene is an important factor in music videos so that they can be recognised easily when shown on T.V. Factors of mise-en-scene include everything in the frame of a shot, such as: positions of actors, settings, props, make-up, costumes and colours. The general mise-en-scene of my genre involves multiple characters on a dark setting revolving around one person (the artist) as well as various props like cars, money etc. No make up would be used because the artist would want to appeal real and for the most part, artists of my genre are male so wouldn't warrant any make-up anyway minus the chance of a close up. Costume and colours are very often dominated by black as it represents power, evil and mystery, which is a good personification of the lyrics. My product uses pieces of these features and leaves some others alone on purpose so as not to take away meaning from the video. For example, in my video there is no crowd around the artist as well as no money or anything really of exceptional value, I have done this consciously so as not to make the video about lifestyle but rather about trying to convey a message through the medium of music film to my target audience about the reality of my characters life and how people try to gain ties to him. I have, however, made sure to include the black prominence because my character needs to be seen as powerful and violent in order to conform to what the lyrics are conveying.
The lighting shown on screen in a music video helps to create mood and atmosphere. My genre generally uses minimal lighting apart from where profiles of the artist are concerned where we can presumably see them being lit up to look prominent. The minimal lighting combined with a video shot at night means that once again the video will be black for the most part, representing factors previously mentioned. I have conformed fully in this case as for the most part my video is dark and apart from road lighting and lights from cars the only sections of the shot that are lit up are the ones with my actor in it. Again I think my song is portraying a message that the artist thinks needs to be heard so focuses all he attention towards him.
Shots typically found in grime videos can include mostly midshots, examples being JME's 96 F*ckries and the original video to the song I used, Know Me From by Stormzy. This is because the shot typically only includes them in a public space so although things are happening around them, the artists are the ones in focus. Other regularly used shots include close ups, to convey emotion when looking right at the artist, and pans, to fit in their whole backing including their posse or the group of people around them. My video does include these shots but not in the same capacity as the ones from my genre as I have no posse and there is one close up but only for a matter of seconds and doesn't convey much emotion as I have only included it in the final seconds of the video.
In general titles are scarcely used in grime music videos for the same reason as special effects aren't used, to create an air of realism because, as JME said 'grime originated and will always remain in the street'. This means no high tech production values, no editing teams or suites and certainly no special effects or titles because they wouldn't be readily available in 'the streets' i.e. less wealthy areas of London where grime originated. My video had to and does conform to these criteria because unless a grime artist has gone mainstream with their music, this is what they would do. Whilst the fact that grime videos do not have these title's or effects did influence my decision, there was also the reality that if I tried to recreate a high tech, high end video it would look worse because I do not have that kind of technology available to me, not least for free.
2.) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I feel that my combination of our main product and ancillary text are very effective. All of my products, music video, poster and digipak, all have similar features. The mise-en-scene of all products are very similar, they all feature the same costume, colours and fonts.
Typically in grime the artist will be wearing black because it's an aggressive colour which matches the demeanour of the song. Skepta is a grime artist well known for wearing black and only black, as well as the black, Skepta has a rule that he cannot wear any designer clothing to help convey the message of the song. In all products the actor is wearing a black t-shirt and grey jeans as well as black shoes, with no designer labels. This is done purposely because I wanted the products to be recognised as part of one identity, which creates synergy between the three, because if the audience sees one of the trio, they will automatically think of the other two products, thus promoting each other.
The colours used represent the rap genre, as previously mentioned, and this is so my product can connect to the audience easier and doesn't challenge the conventions in this form. The blacks and whites in every product mean that the audience hasn't got emotive colour shoved in their face, which my target audience would not be used to from this genre. There is more of a market in my genre for simple music, music video and ancillary texts that work, as oppose to other more sophisticated high end digpaks which are trying to be main stream or outside of the box, so in this aspect I have conformed to the conventions of the genre.
The font used is a bold white, so it stood out in the three products, as they are all dark. All these features should make my products easily identifiable to my audience, which will make them feel comfortable watching my main product. I feel in this way my video conforms to Bulmer and Kat's Uses and Gratification theory, because my audience will actively seek my kind of video if they were interested in the grime genre. I am very happy with my video as it meets my expectations and it is what I had envisioned before starting the project. I also feel that my product does meet the desired conventions of my genre as well as representing the message of the song.
As a whole I feel as though the combination of my ancillary texts are very effective as, when I look at the texts, I feel as though it would be very hard to argue that it is dissimilar to ancillary texts that artists from my genre would have. I have done this by keeping to a black and white, easy to maintain, house style which draws my audience in.
3.) In order to receive feedback from
my audience, I posted a questionnaire on surveymonkey.com as you can see below. The quesitions included were as follows:
1. What gender do you belong to?
2. Which age range do you belong to?
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3. Did you enjoy my music video?
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4. What aspect of my video did you prefer? (Acting, Lip Syncing, Shots etc.)
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5. Did you think the locations used were suitable and why?
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6. Were there any shots that you would have liked to have seen more? If so which ones and why?
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All of these charts, made on chartgo, show that out of the 45 people surveyed, 27 were male, 13 female and 5 that wouldn't let their gender be known. This benefitted me because my target audience is male. On the second chart we can see that 37 of the 45 surveyed were aged from 18-25, 6 of the 45 were aged from 26-50 and only two were over 51. This again shows a strong sign that there are more of the audience aged 18-25 that are prepared to take part in a grime survey, which points out that I was accurate in identifying my target audience. Again, out of these 45 people, 32 said they liked the video, 3 said they didn't like it and 10 were sat on the fence, this did not surprise me as 8 of my audience were over the desired age range for the video so may not of understood the concept or the aggressive behaviour. I felt shots were the strongest part of my video and this is backed up from the response of my audience, 20 of which said shots were their favourite aspect of my video. I think in terms of audience response, whilst still quite far apart, the locations used were the closest run. We can see this from the 34/11 split, which is 77.7% to 23.3% in percentage terms. 39 of my 45 strong audience said that there were shots they would have liked to have seen more of the same shots used more frequently which is definitely something which is easily improvable.
4.)
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