In what was does your media product

use, develop or challenge forma and conventions of real media products?

Genre Quotes:

(Tom Ryall, 1998) “patterns/styles/structures which transcend individual films, and which supervise both their construction by the film-maker and their reading by an audience.

(Steve Neale, 1990) argues that Hollywood’s generic regime guarantees meanings and pleasures for audiences.

(Steve Neale, 1980) – much of the pleasure of popular cinema lies in the process of “difference in repetition” – i.e. recognition of familiar elements and in the way those elements might be orchestrated in an unfamiliar fashion or in the way that unfamiliar elements might be introduced e.g. ‘Scream’ and its sequels: certain elements are similar in all three films, yet new ideas and material are incorporated into each sequel.

Genre Quotes:

(Steve Neale, 1990) – Genre is constituted by “specific systems of expectations and hypothesis which spectators bring with them to the cinema and which interact with the films themselves during the course of the viewing process.”

(Jonathan Culler, 1978) – generic conventions exist to establish a contract between the deviation from the accepted modes of intelligibility. Acts of communication are rendered intelligible only within the context of a shared conventional framework of expression.

(Ryall, 1998) sees this framework provided by the generic system; therefore, genre becomes a cognitive repository of images, sounds, stories, characters, and expectations.

Genre has come to represent, as John Fiske (1988) has said, “attempts to structure some order into the wide range of texts and meanings that circulate in our culture for the convenience of both producers and audiences.”

Music Video Quotes:

(Joe Salzman, 2000) “They now provide pictures for the songs in our heads. Goodbye, imagination… No need to think, to embellish, to create, to imagine.”

(Steve Archer, 2004) “Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band… Sometimes, the artist… will be a part of the story, acting as a narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip-synh close-up and the miming of playing instruments that remains at the heart of music videos, as if to assure us that the band really can kick it.”

(Laura Mulvey, 1975) “The presence of women is often soley for the purposes of display and purpose of display is to facilitate a voyeuristic response in the spectators, which presumes a male gaze, regardless of the actual gender of the spectator i.e. a powerful and controlling gaze at the female, who is on display and is, therefore, objectified and passive.”

(Pete Fraser, 2005) “Is the female flesh on display simply cynical; exploitation of the female body to increase (predominantly) male profit margins, or a life-enhancing assertion of female self-confidence and sexual independence?”

Music Video Quotes:

There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals (with visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music).

There is a relationship between the music and the visuals (again with visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music).

Particular music genres may have their own music style and iconography (such as live stage performance in heavy rock).

There is a demand on the part of the record company for lots of close-ups of the main artist/vocalist.

The artist may develop their own star iconography, in and out of their videos, which, over time, becomes part of their star image.

There is likely to be reference to voyeurism, particularly in the treatment of women, but also in terms of looking (screens within screens, binoculars, cameras, etc).

There are likely to be intertextual references, either to other music videos or to films and TV texts.

(Andrew Goodwin, 1992)

The Genre of our music video is ComedySome General conventions of comedy you usually see in a comedic narrative:

Iconography:Bright mise-en-sceneBright and happy coloursProps

Character Types:Idiotic, accident prone peopleSmart people, socially awkwardRegular, sarcastic people, accidents occur around them

Technical Code:Natural camera, goes along with charactersEditing sounds to add humourFunny props

Themes:ParodyAnarchic comedyRomantic-comeGross-out

The genre of our music video is Comedy and can be classed as a parody/spoof of shows like batman (1966).

Comedy itself is a popular genre that can reach out to many ranges of people (different age ranges, etc) but more particularly it may appeal to comic book fans/superhero fans. They may be more understanding of the parody and find it even more enjoyable. Overall, almost anyone would be able to watch it and fine it some what humorous, comic fan or not.

We have included conventions from Batman (1966) such as the use of anomatopeia (the same as the actual show itself) and tilted camera angle during fight scenes. This also adds to the parody element of our video compared to Batman.

Like many other music videos, ours contains a narrative. Ours being a typical bullying situation where the victim rises above (in this case, striving to become a super hero and fight their own battles). Our main character is a stereotypical nerd who has an interest in comic books and super heros. As we are introduced to her weakness against bullies she then creates a fantasy scenario where she is a super hero and they are the villains. This all done however in a comical manner, rather than taking the story seriously.

We go against stereotypical gender roles as our main character was cast female, where we see her fight back without the help of a male character. Even though this is a comedy, this factor could still possibly inspire young females.

Another typical convention we have used for our music video is a performance element. We have added clips of Adam miming to the lyrics of the song (to show it is really him singing it), however he does not take part in the narrative of our video. Both performance and narrative switch constantly throughout the music video.

The main thing we have developed is the style of our music video. We decided to go for a comedic parody style narrative whereas many music videos stick to more serious ones (like a lot of the music videos I analysed beforehand – they were all serious and had deep meaning). We also have not used the typical sexualisation of men or women in our video, we have challenged the mainstream music videos and created one that has a narrative of a short, comical parody film.