1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products
Inspiration from videos
When producing our music video we looked into the Indie genre and the conventions in which came with it. We found that in a stereotypical female video there was a use of emotions to carry a certain meaning as seen in our video the actress comes across as quite a sad emotional character, it is this use of emotion in which allows us to portray the underlying idea of the actress being fed up of feeling sad about her break up with her boyfriend. Another convention was the use of her boyfriend throughout a video as she looks back at the good times with her boyfriend. The feminist theory can be found from this as it is showing how she is trying to get over her boyfriend and be strong
And is not the inferior sex, which goes against the usual representation of woman in media as the ‘weaker sex’. Appearances in a female Indie video are important to portray the strong emotions the character is feeling as the visuals should match the lyrics but the correct clothing is also required, for example when the actress is on her own she wears all black clothing to represent her loss yet when she is with her boyfriend she wears red to represent the love she has for him. The clothing used throughout contributes a great deal to the video as it represents the actress in her different stages of her relationship. None of the clothing worn is provocative as this does not fit in with the Indie theme. This contradicts Laura Mulvey theory of the male gaze as the notion of looking is directed towards the female’s body parts.
Inspiration for our video came from various media products; we focused on videos within the genre but also looked into how certain videos managed to create an emotional atmosphere. In Birdy’s Skinny Love video she to plays the piano and wears not revealing clothing however she is alone unlike our actress that looks back over the times she shared with her boyfriend. This allowed the audience to see that the actress in our video is heartbroken and mourning the loss of a special person in her life due to his promiscuous ways.
I believe that our video allows the viewer to follow the characters emotional and physical journey as she is recovering from breaking up with her boyfriend. The Video shows her looking back over the good times they shared yet the park scene where he looks at another girl also begins to show the cracks appearing n there relationship. I think the locations of where the video is shot is also symbolic and fits in with the Indie genre due to the weather and dark colours. Then End of the video also tells the audience that’s she is finally beginning to heal and is getting over her boyfriend when she lets go of the ribbon that they saw him previously give to her, this action alone has a strong meaning that is clearly understood. All Indie Genre videos contain very strong symbolic messages and we to have tried to do this in our video.
