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In which ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products My genre is a hybrid of indie and pop. In order to critically analyze whether my music video adheres to indie pop or subverts it, I first researched Andrew Goodwins theory on music videos, which pinpoints typical features within music videos. Andrew Goodwin- music video characteristics Goodwin states that music videos tend to feature typical genre characteristics more often than not, which I conformed to and challenged in my music video. One convention of indie pop is the use of narrative alongside the performance and developing themes, mostly linking to love and relationships throughout the music video. For example, Taylor Swifts music video for Love story is an example of indie pop as it includes a narrative based on a love story and the performance of Taylor Swift singing.

I conformed to the convention by constructing a narrative in my video by developing key themes as well as including a performance aspect like Taylor Swifts Love Story video. However, I challenged conventional and mainstream narratives based on love and told a story based on isolation, depression and a young girls desperation to fit into society, which is more serious than the traditional indie pop music videos.

Performance Narrative Another convention mentioned by Goodwin is that music videos tends to revert back to the singers face throughout the narrative through regular close-ups of the artist. E.A Kaplans book Rocking

around the Clock: Music Television, Postmodernism and Consumer Culture (1987) states how the artists face is used as a visual hook and an anchoring motif. I stuck to this convention as I kept reverting back to shots of my artist, including many close-ups. However, whereas many music videos tend to do this to promote the artists image, I used it to convey a story of an isolated girl and to evoke sympathy. Additionally, whereas most music videos tend to have a close-up of the artist performing, I challenged this by using mostly medium shots for the performance section. The purpose for this was to create a distance from the artist to the audience to reinforce her isolated position. Therefore, close-ups are being used to convey the story rather than promoting the artists image, which makes the video untypical.

Here

the close-ups are being used mainly

throughout the narrative rather than the

performance, which gives priority to the story, unlike most videos which tend to focus most closeups on performance. In contrast, Regina Spektors video for fidelity most performance shots of her singing are close-ups and medium close-ups, whereas narrative shots tend to have more varied shots such as long shots and medium shots, which are shown in the images below. EXAMPLE: Regina Spektor- indie artist

Performance section: Many close-ups

Narrative section: uses more variety of different shots

The third feature Goodwin mentions is frequent references to the notion of looking and voyeuristic treatment. The idea of men or women being representing in a seductive way is achieved through camera angles, props, and setting, which is used to sell the artist through sex appeal. I only conformed to this slightly but tried to diminish the voyeuristic treatment in my music video to enhance the seriousness of the key themes of isolation and bullying. However, where I do show elements of voyeurism, it has an underlying meaning. For example, in the dream section, where the artist is finally accepted and happy, the audience is invited to look at her in a voyeuristic manner, through the various camera angles and shots, tracking the artist; Laura Mulvey refers to this male gaze as scopophilia, whereby the media creates images of women for the gratification of men. However, it has a deeper meaning perhaps suggesting that in order to become accepted she has to be sexualized. For the most part, my music video challenges the male gaze because instead of the audience being invited to look at the female artist, the artist at many occasions looks straight at the camera in a non-sexual way but rather in critical way to our audience to create sympathy within the audience and suggesting the requirement for change in society.

The fourth feature of music videos that Goodwin recognizes is that there is a succinct relationship between the lyrics and visuals. I conformed to this convention as I extracted the main themes from the lyrics of the song silence to construct a story. When deconstructing the song lyrics, I underlined a few key words such as silence and hold your tongue and have discovered themes of isolation, depression, bullying and a young girls struggles to fit in with society. The words silence and hold your tongue now repetitively crops up in the song. For me the denotation of these words were isolation and not fitting in. Therefore, I created the feel throughout my music video that the artist was silenced and secluded from the rest of society through amplification and illustration to link the lyrics to the visuals. Amplification is enhancing the lyrics meanings and could be achieved through symbolism rather than a literal or illustrative description. In my music video, symbolism was the main element, which linked the themes of the song to the lyrics.

At the beginning the red and black food colouring I used was to show the divide in society. The use of the symbol however means people can interpret this image differently according to their preferred reading which many music videos include.

This image of the black colouring spreading throughout the frame is symbolic of depression worsening and prevailing towards the end of the video.

This image of the artist in the bath is reoccurring throughout the video with the black colouring spreading more and more as the video progresses. This shapes the music videos theme of isolation as the artist in the bath is a metaphorical representation of drowning in society. The black colouring again is suggestive of depression and the fact that she is alone further enhances her isolation. This is an example of amplification as the bath scene is symbolic of depression thus enhancing the lyrics meaning.

My music video also includes some illustration, which refers to the literal meaning to the songs lyrics in visual form. For example, in one section where the lyrics were listen to your silence on the word silence there was that imagery of someone silencing the girl.

A second key phrase which represents illustration is let them all listen to your silence. At the moment where the audience hears the words let them all, they see a parade of people rushing past.

Richard Dyer- Utopia: The dream sequence in my music video represents elements of an ideal world, where people are accepted within a community. Additionally, in this dream the artist is finally given a voice and a place within society and is treated in a humane way. In my video I conveyed this through the artist who was dancing with the dancers, thus the dancers represented a community. Such features represent a utopian society. However, this element of utopia rapidly disappears when the artist wakes up and finds that in reality people arent as accepting and thus the music video resembles more of a dystopian society. Richard Dyers utopian theory argues that one of the functions of entertainment is utopianism in the sense that everything goes back to normal, everything is good again and that there is a utopian society at the end when everything is bad at the start. This is not the case with my video and so I challenge the utopian theory as in the end the problem of isolation, bullying and not fitting in is still not resolved to capture a more realistic view on society. Instead, I offered a solution for a utopian society to let voices be heard to achieve equality. Therefore, my music video didnt stick to conventions of the utopian theory as it didnt result in a utopian society, whereas most music videos tend to. Sergei Eisenstein: Montage Montage film making refers to a series of short shots edited into the sequence in a given time. I conformed to the idea of montage editing in my music video through quick shots which flashed at the viewers on the beat. A prime example in my piece is in the section where the dancers move to

the beat of the music and the camera alternates from different angles to support the speed of the track.

Narrative theory: Todorov I opposed the traditional conventional structure mentioned by Todorov and alternatively used an anachronic narrative structure instead (Allan Cameron), which I achieved through the play of time, flashbacks, dream sequences and flash forwards, which reoccur throughout my piece to display the disorientation of the artist but to also evoke this feeling in the audience. My music video thus opposes the conventional narrative structure as it doesnt present a clear beginning, middle and end but instead it employs a few disruptions. My narrative structure: 1. Equilibrium

Todorovs traditional narrative structure:

2. Disruption

3. False resolution in the dream sequence

4. No restored order- back to reality

5. Equilibrium My music video also opposes Todorovs theory as it does not end in a new equilibrium as in most music videos when this tends to be characterized by a happy ending. Instead, my ending is very much linked to the beginning in the sense that the young girl is still trapped within her angst and depression.

Bibliography: Andrew Goodwins book Dancing in the distraction factory E.A Kaplans book Rocking around the Clock: Music Television, Postmodernism and Consumer Culture (1987) Richard Dyers book Stars http://sensesofcinema.com/2010/book-reviews/modular-narratives-in-contemporary-cinema-byallan-cameron/