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

Our music video uses, challenges and develops the conventions of real media products in many different ways. The conventions that our music video follows are:

- Lip Syncing

- Location Change

- Cuts on the beat

- Montage

- Looking at the camera

(Eye contact with audience)

- Establishing Shots

- Pans

- Close-ups

The reason we followed these conventions is that they are proven to be effective when used in a music video, this can be seen by analysing popular music videos and looking at their conventions. These videos are successful for a reason and they engage the audience in the way a music video should. The conventions do vary between genre, but are mostly very similar.

Lip syncing is one of the most important conventions when it came to making this project, it is an extremely good way to make your project look professional - when watching music videos without lip syncing; they can look amateur and that not alot of time has been put into them, when you see a performer lip sync it assures you that it is them singing is and it is also more interesting to watch. We lip sync through most of the parts of the video where vocals are involved, but for some shots it would be ineffective to do due to the large distance between the camera and the performers.

Locations change was also an essential element to implement in my project. By having a range of different locations it gives the music video variation, and therefore makes it better to watch and listen too. My project has 4 different locations, which are used in different places in the video - if it did not have these different settings it would be dull, and not show any progression within the song. During choosing our locations we challenged he typical our genres conventions, usually big beat videos would be set in dark, dingy areas, or in clubs and urban areas. We filmed alot of our video in rural areas such as forests or even in a river, we believe that we can still make this just as effective by adding certain effects and edits to make it an obvious Big Beat video.

Cutting to the beat is where you cut your video to a new shot, in time with the beat of the music. We used this method frequently in our project as we believe it makes the video look alot better, it gives it more of a natural flow and leaves room for some interesting editing effects. It shows that the video has been tailored for the music and that it is not just a video which has no relation to the song. Looking at the camera is important, it makes your music video a more personal feel for the audience. If a viewer feels as though the performer is singing to them; they can relate to the lyrics and therefore enjoy the song more.

An establishing shot is the first, opening shot within a music video or film. They are useful due to the fact that they give the viewer an idea of where the video is set and therefore some context. It ensures viewers are not just thrown into a scene in which they do not understand. Our establishing shot does not show the location, but instead shows the name of the band on a record player, which also portrays our genre of Big Beat well.

Pans and close-ups are used often throughout our music video.