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

Our music video is based on Soca style genre of music. Soca music developed from calypso music which stared from the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago, Soca is seen as happy joy full music. The music video we produced as a group is performance based with no narrative and portrays a group of young people mainly girls in different locations enjoying themselves having a good fun time, following the connotations of the Soca genre of music although our video does not follow the conventional Soca music videos which are generally put out there by the artists.

Our inspiration for making this video came from a variety of sources you tube was a great tool as we searched for various different carnival parade videos and got many of our ideas for the project from live soca carnival videos.

In the lead up to creating the video I wanted to create a performance based video which used a whole array of different camera shots from close ups, medium shots, long shots and establishing shots in order to capture the right aspects to create the sense of joy, captured in most real Soca music videos and also the sense of bringing soca to London.

At the beginning of the music video we see a two shot close up of two girl’s faces it then cuts to another close up of another girls face which then leads to another. All these shots are shown of the girls smiling and laughing whilst singing the song these shots were used to avoid focusing on the female body as many soca videos follow that convention by revolving most of the video around half naked females so by doing this we broke the usual convention.

Looking at an actual soca music video by Kes the band I analysed some of the differences and the similarities compared to mine.

Here I compared the first three shots of my music video and the first three shots of an actual soca music video by kes the band

The first shot shown on the kes the band music video, shows a close up shot of a male the artist and then cuts to different shots as shown in the screen shots female hugging and giving a lot of attention to the male as males are portrayed as a powerful tool that women need in order to be happy. Where as in my music video from the two shot at the start it cuts to close up of other females smiling and enjoying themselves giving the sense that females don’t need to be around males enjoying themselves and have a good time. From my researching into this genre of music and watching many different videos women are shown as objects for men to tend to their needs as if women cannot function without out them, so when it came to making my music video I wanted break this stereotypical view of women.

Our music video itself also does not follow any type of narrative as its performance based having a group of mainly girls dancing in all different locations around London. A lot of soca music video don’t follow a narrative as there usually based on the artist performing, dancing as that is a big thing in Caribbean culture when it comes to music. So conventionally our music video follows that type of format. When it came to editing the video we edited a lot of the video to the beat of the song to keep up with the tempo as we wanted to create as sort of carnival atmosphere by having the girls dancing and parading on the streets and in the middle of roads as we thought this will add to the carnival effect as carnivals usually take place on the streets. We also edited many of the shots with the girl’s lip syncing to the words of the song to create the feeling as though they were enjoying the music and having a good time as though they were at a carnival.

Shown below are different shots are the various medium close up we used in our video to focus in on the actor’s facial expression, body language and also to make sure we captured some of there surrounding to let the audience know they were in the middle of the road to add to the whole carnival atmosphere of the video.

Comparing our music video to real media products in this genre we noticed typically many soca videos take place on a sunny beach or in club location so we as a group wanted our music video have a more natural feeling to it to give the effect that these girls are just on an average day on the street listening to music and having a fun time. We especially caught that type of effect with these shots.

At 42 seconds in the video from a medium shot of two girls walking and dancing I used a panning shot to the right to another medium shot to one of the main girls in the video dancing and singing compared to a real music video this doe not follow the conventions as she is fully clothed without the central focus being on her body.

Shown below are some screen shots of visual texts of the song lyrics which we added and edited them to the timing of the words so they would appear on the screen the same time as they did in the song. This is quite a common feature in many soca videos; we added bright coloured backgrounds as shown when the text appeared to add to the vibrancy and liveliness of the whole video. The speed of the editing was also an effective tool we used as the video cuts to different shots which go with the beat of the song this allowed the video to represent the music through the use editing to the beat.

Comparing our music video to real media products in this genre we noticed typically many soca videos take place on a sunny beach or in club location so we as a group wanted our music video have a more natural feeling to it to give the effect that these girls are just on an average day on the street listening to music and having a fun time. We especially caught that type of effect with these shots.

Big bold lettering and bright background colouring give the audience energetic, exciting and joyful connotations.

In our video we also used key establishing shots to establish location looking at real professional soca music videos we got inspired to do this as many video have a shot to establish location which the majority of the time include the sky to establish it being a nice almost like paradise setting due to the blue skies.

This gave us inspiration for our music video as we wanted to create a similar shot like the one in kes the bands soca video. Although we also wanted to establish the London location so we done this by using an iconic sight that the audience will be able to know instantly. We done this by capturing a shot of the London eye but when getting a medium shot of the London eye I made sure I panned up to ensure I got enough of the sky as this again adds to the effect were trying to create with this video showing blue skies, good weather connotes sun and happiness something you expect to find in a carnival.

Big bold lettering and bright background colouring give the audience energetic, exciting and joyful connotations.

A screen shot from an actual kes the band soca music video establishing shot setting the scene capturing the blue skies.

Establishing shot of the London eye making sure enough of the sky was captured in it.

Our music video does challenge the conventions in some ways as the artist does not appear in the video , there is no star image to focus on and also there are no references to voyeurism in the treatment of women as that is particularly common in the soca genre. The web 2.0 digital technology has also made it a lot easier to produce and show music nowadays from the help of you tube so many much more fan based videos are being upload it take the idea of “the consumer turning into the developer”

Here are links to some carnival videos which inspired us when creating are music video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsZtwJl0L2k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHq13kdSLVI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zCZoLrC9lw