Evaluation Question 1

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

To gain inspiration for our music video, myself and my group watched various music videos to try and identify conventions of a music video set to a particular style of music. As our song 'Make It Out Alive' by Sarah Bird falls into the acoustic category and is of a slow tempo, we found songs that were similar to ours to get ideas. A popular artist who creates music that is similar to our song writer is Adele, so we analysed her videos closely.




Camera Shots are important when creating a certain mood for a music video. For a slow tempo song like ours, the camera shots tend to be close ups to show the emotion on the singer or the actor's face. This is a convention that we used in our video as there are frequent close ups of the actress' face, and also of particular props such as the photograph. However, before we finished our product we realised that there were not enough close ups and extreme close ups in our video to fit the conventions of our music video. In order to rectify this, my group and myself filmed separate close up shots that were then added to the finished video to give it more depth. 

The speed of editing is also important with this type of music video. All music videos should have some degree of editing to keep the audience engaged (Sinead O'Connor's 'Nothing Compares' is a rare exception of a successful music video with little editing), but the editing must not be too fast as to seem out of sync with the message that the video is trying to convey. Quick editing is more appropriate to a quick tempo song. Therefore, we kept editing at a steady pace, but lingered on some shots to get the emotion that we were trying to convey spot-on.

The costumes and props that we used in our video fit in nicely with the genre of our music. As in most sad and slow music, we wanted to make our video tell a story of heartbreak. By using specific props, we believe that we have successfully achieved in conveying a tale of sadness. The torn up photograph of a couple in happier times being ripped up conveys a break up, a shot that has been used in many music videos. In the scenes that were filmed at Hainault Forest, the actress in wearing all black to symbolise sadness and depression, much like Adele does in the above video. This gave us inspiration for our own music video.