Benedict Moore A2 Media

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

On a whole my media product, music video, conforms to the conventions of real media products of a similar style and genre. Obviously I was producing this video for my A2 media coursework. My aim wasn't to completely redefine the performance video genre. Instead my intention was to reference texts that I personally liked and develop the styles and conventions that their creators had worked on and with. As my first solo video project the key was to produce a piece that satisfied my creative intent whilst also serving the music and acting as a first attempt at conceptualising, shooting and editing a video.

For example typically a jazz music video isn't likely to include a load of close ups of the performers face unless, for example the performer is either very animated or they are playing an instrument such as the saxophone which is played in part by the mouth. Therefore with my video I only included shots of the performers faces when they were either interacting with each other or concentrating on playing. By showing them whilst they were concentrating I used the conventions of the genre of music. Typically Jazz music is seen as being played by people who are more skilled than other forms of music. Therefore by showing the performers as being concentrated it conforms to this idea that they are focussed professionals.

Due to historical pieces drawing links between New York and jazz music it was effective to include shots of New York. It primarily set the scene but also secondarily acted as a break between the performance shots. As the band was a small four piece band, constantly panning between the main three performers would become repetitive even to those who would typically watch such a video. However despite having said that it was important to include more cinematic shots with longer duration to really showcase the performers to the audience.

Although mostly my video conforms to the conventions of a performance video serving a Jazz track it slightly deviates at points. For example the motion introduced via use of a steadicam injected energy into the video that would be more typically found in a video for more rock/grungy music. For example the band Wolf Alice had some performance videos shot which were very focused on using motion to inject energy.

Another element that I used to slightly challenge the norms of jazz music videos was to have the performers wear more contemporary dress. By doing so I developed the conventions rather than strictly following them. When I think of jazz performers typically I see them as wearing suits or at least smart shirts. In my video the approach I took to character presentation was to have the characters reference modern day dress styles to give the video a more contemporary feel, thus increasing the range in audience members that the video might appeal too.

As stated overall the video conforms to the conventions of a performance jazz music video however I used subtle elements to slightly modernise the concept and give it more relevancy in 2016. Again partly this was because I wanted to make reference to historical conventions but partly it was that I knew trying to produce a video thats sole purpose was to not conform to any conventions would be foolish as it wouldn't appeal to the target audience that I found using my survey monkey survey.

After writing extensively about my proposed Digipak during the process of production and prior my plans had to change to meet technical limitations. Obviously, as is visible above, I wasn't able to get a model to pose and in the end I decided due to the physical restrictions it wouldn't work. The actual artwork that made up the cover and rear cover also changed. Originally I was going to paint a Wes Lang style skull. After producing the video I found that my digipak concept wasn't entirely appropriate so instead I opted to use a large piece of paper that had been splattered with paint. Visually it still looks like a piece that Wes Lang would produce and therefore I feel as though I stayed true to my original concept however kept it relevant to the video.