Evaluation Question 1; In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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I will address this question by looking at the typical conventions of RnB videos, and music videos in general.




                     1) NARRATIVE




This video uses a classic music video convention-narrative, something we used in our production.
In this video, Chris Brown is in love with a girl, just like our video. We see both of them living their lives separated  conveying their loneliness.
In our music video, we used this convention and we made Ash and Fade fall in love with each other and we portrayed their lives from different perspective, both of them doing their own thing and getting on with their lives but knowing that they are in love with each other.
However, narrative did not take up the majority of our video.

screen shot from our video showing the storyline and narrative.
we made Ash and Fade look like a couple and to flirt with each other to really  get the feel of romance. so when Ashley looked back it was like he missed out on an oppourtunity as the song lyrics are 'I should have kissed you'
we used an amateur footage effect. to make it seem more natural and impromtu. we made it clear that it was meant to be amateur footage by putting the 'REC.' sign.

                


                      2) MAJORITY 
           OF PERFORMANCE SHOTS


In this video, it is mainly performance shots that make up the video. The performance shots are done in the same location as the narrative.
Again, in our music video we have used this convention. In our music video it is mainly performance shots and the performance shots was shot where the narrative shot was filmed, just like Mistletoe by Justin Bieber
We thought that this was a good idea and we though that it will make our video we thought that it will be a good idea as we did not want to add too many locations to our video we wanted it to look familiar
I liked the Justin Bieber video and we thought that it will be a great idea to make it part of our on video as well.
This convention does not only apply to RnB videos. It applies to almost music videos in general.

shot of performance in our video, in this performance scene, it was done on the field where some of the narrative was shot. the field was a great place to use and it was convienient because as we are boarders, it is easy to get access to the field. also the weather was good and it didnt cause us problems. we shot several times and we then chose the ones that we thought were best.

              3) STEREOTYPE OF BLACK
                               ARTISTS

Beyonce Knowles

When people think of RnB, they immediately think of black singers. This is partly because there is a stereotype of black people being born with Rhythm.  It is well known that black people revolutionized the sound of music, mainly RnB, Reggae, Hip hop, Afrobeats, etc

people believe that some black singers are naturally born with powerful voices. artists such as Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Sean Carter aka 'Jay Z', Usher, Chris Brown, Akon, Mary J Blidge, Kelly Rowland, etc.             
all these are examples of iconic musical legends that people see as role models and look up to because of their powerful voice, top selling records and their attractive image and catchy tunes.


Some people believe it has something to do with genetics.
 Although not all black singers 
possess it.some grew up in the church and through observation, they carried it on in their own technique. It goes back to slavery. In those days, the only way for slaves to express themselves was though songs. So they used everything physically in their bodies to express themselves through spirituals, and it has continued to this day. 

We challenged this stereotype as we made Ashley sing a Chris Brown song, Ashley is white which is not very common in the RnB genre. There a lot of white male singers but most of them are stereotypically into indie, acoustic and pop.
The most successful white men that are known for singing r'n'b and hip hop are Eminem, Asher Roth and Mac Miller. It has also been said that their mannerisms are black especially Eminem as he claims to have been born in a black 'ghetto' environment.

Michael Jackson

Sean Carter aka Jay Z

Aretha Franklin

Stevie Wonder

and then this is Ashley Kates, the actor/performer

4) ATTRACTIVE GIRLS

                                               Another stereotype is attractive girls, they are either

1) In little clothing

2) Standing around and looking pretty/sexy

3) Being persued by the male in the video

4)Flirting with the male in the video

5) Being a tease to the male in the video
6) Dancing











Here Beyonce is dancing and she is wearing very little clothing and she looks very seductive, in most hip hop videos there are hot girls dancing around usually to the beat of the song because as we know the usual hip hop/ r'n'b video has upbeat tempo.











In this screenshot from this video, Ludacris is obviously flirting with the girl as he has his hand over her and is  sweet talking her.
her he looks more dominant as he is kind of putting his hand over her to shield her, comfort her, seduce her or caress her.

In this screenshot from the video 'Unthinkable' by Alicia Keys, we can see that the boy is trying to talk to the girl and her body language towards him kind of shows that she is not interested and she has power over him as her head is high up in the air

We got the idea of the seductive shower scene from the music video 'Cry Me A River' by Justin Timberlake. In the video, there was a very good looking girl who was about to take a shower and we saw her briefly in her towel and nothing less or more. In our video, we did the exact same thing. We got Fade to walk around in her towel to portray her relaxing to give the connotation that she is naturally beautiful










This video features mainly pretty girlss from all races, shapes and sizes. It is a convention of hiphop because artists like to put attractive girls in their video to show that they are doing well and they can get any girl they want which are usually beautiful.
We used this convention in our video because we portrayed Fade to be Ash's main focus in life, and she is a very pretty girl.

However we challenged some conventions as she was not dancing/heavily flirting. so overall it is as if we developed this convention.

this is a screenshot from my video of Fade in her towel looking attractive. we thought that it would be a good idea to have Ashley fantasizing over Fade and in this fantasy she would be walking around in her towel, we then decided that intead of a fantasy she would  actually do it. to show that she is flaunting her attractive body as it is a convention of r'n'b

5) PORTRAYAL OF WEALTH 

Another convention of RnB and Hiphop is bling. Most artists in this genre show off thier wealth and riches through materialistic things such as nice jewellry also known as 'bling', nice clothes, nice cars, nice houses and good looking females. all this to kind of show off thier reputation and gain street credibility.
Also Ashley's clothing was normal and it was not designer or as expensive so we challenged that stereotype about expensive clothing.

In this video, Akon drives up in a trendy expensive car which connotes wealth. He is wearing an expensive suit and diamond studs and is looking very classy and well groomed, he is also shown with a trendy phone in his hand and he is surrounded by other men which are tall and muscular and strict looking. This suggests that they are body guards as they are walking by his side. All of these show that he is rich and he is the "boss" as he is living life at his fullest as he walks into the club and he is surrounded by attractive women who just want to dance with him

We challenged this stereotype as we didn't make Ashley wear fancy clothing or eye-catching jewellery. He just looked normal like your average young boy. 

There were no connotations of wealth or power with Ashley in our video. We stripped this element down.

6) CHOREOGRAPHY

Most people think of dancing and choreography when they tink of hip hop and rnb videos.
Choreography is sometimes a major part of a music video  and the main reason is to be entertained and to get interested and induged in the video. It is also so that the viewers are wowed by the dancing so they can get lots of ratings for the music video.
A great example of a music video with chroegraphy through out is Beyonce's Single Ladies. in the video throughout she was performing choreography, most people that i know love the video and have learnt the dance moves. This is the exact impact that Beyonce wanted on her audience, for them to get interested and for them to relate to the video in a positive way.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         


Again we challenged this stereotype as there was no dancing whatsoever in our video. We didnt think it would really suit in well with the tempo of the song even though in the original video there was a bit of dancing for like 5-10 seconds. It was nothing spectactular and it wasnt compliated cheorography it was just girls winding their wastes slowly in little clothing.