i) How do your products use or challenge conventions?
How i used Conventions
What are Conventions?
Genre: I chose to focus on a genre that is more niche than cliche, i.e., the 70's / retro genre, a generation that arguably had a great impact on the culture of today. I decided to mostly film in a vintage arcade, with bright neon lights.
How i challenged Conventions
Conventions include the use of genre and codes. Codes can be further divided into three types: written, symbolic, and technical.
Written Code: An extremely useful tool that can indicate changes in tone, genre, and age. It can be in the form of headers, fonts, credits, and links or subtitles.
Symbolic Code: These refer to the symbolic aspects of the video and how they convey meaning. These can include clothing and misc en scen such as props and set design.
Technical Code: This refers to layers of meaning integrated into the technical aspects of music video, including lighting and edit. An example of this is the addition of a grainy preset to the flashback scene in order to show an older era, like the '70s.
Technical Code: I used technical codes such as lighting and filters to show a difference in eras from the beginning of my film (modern) and the flashback scene (retro). The lighting of the modern scene is dark and moody, whereas in contrast the past is full of bright neon lights (and a 'retro' filter with grain to add age). I also used a repeated imagery of clouds and moons in my website to reference the title of my music video.
Written Code: I used written codes across my promotional website; my headings and titles primarily consisted of a retro, SEGA-like font called MONOTON, which enhanced the vintage aesthetic of my music video.
Symbolic Code: I greatly relied on symbolic code for my storyline; the newspaper the elderly gentleman is reading in the first scene is supposed to symbolise the anniversary of his wife's death, and the plush raccoon is meant to symbolise the man's wife, as it was a present from her. The man's clothes also signify his age.
c) In the flashback scene, the young boy is seen as caring and considerate, unlike the everyday ‘bad boy’ that hollywood portrays as the only role a ‘likeable’ boy can play.
a) My music video breaks typically ageist media tropes in which older people are shown as almost geriatric in that they are weak and frail, or of no use to the plot’s progression. In fact, the older man in my music video is essentially the protagonist of my story, as the plot itself revolves around one part of his life, and the aftermath of his wife’s passing.
b) in contrast to ‘typical’ male roles in hollywood, this main male character is seen to be emotional and soft, instead of brute-like and emotionally unavailable. Male representation in my music video breaks stereotypes of traditional male roles.
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ii) How do they represent social groups or issues?
c) My music video on Frank Sinatra’s 'Fly Me To The Moon' represents both young adults and older people. It captures how someone changes over time, and the circumstances that have a great impact on him.
b) One of the social issues I visually discuss is how people deal with death. Continuing with the more tender characteristics of the male protagonist, he is shown to be taking the anniversary of his wife’s death really poorly, and being ‘unconventionally’ teary and emotional, with one of the beginning shots of the music video being him reacting to the date on the newspaper of his wife's death anniversary.
a) Through my music video, i represent the youth; they are wild, carefree, and excitable, following with the traditional stereotypes awarded to them by mainstream media. And through my music video i follow the mainstream media's tropes of the youth vs. the elderly - who are seen as more gentle, caring, and tired.
What are my media products?
The media products I will be discussing in this presentation are those in my A2 Media Studies Portfolio. These include: my music video (Sinatra's 'Fly Me to The Moon'), my digipak / album cover, website (including merchandise), and blog.
