Evaluation 1 (Writing)

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

During our research, we viewed many other metal core music videos, mainly by bands such as Parkway Drive and Bullet for My Valentine. During this, we discovered the main conventions of metal core portrayed within these music videos. These included things such as domestic issues such as violence and neglect, a mixture of narrative and performance style of video and dark lighting to convey entrapment etc. Therefore, we ventured to use these very conventions in order to create a music video that would clearly suit its genre.

Dark themes are highlighted in our video through dark lighting and desaturated images. We also felt it was best to show a release from the abuse our character suffers to give some hope to the audience, as they may also be going through the same thing and therefore need some support. Similar themes of abuse and release can be found in the video ‘Cigarettes and Saints’ by The Wonder Years. In which, the female character is escaping from a supposed difficult domestic situation, however this part of the narrative is not focused on as it is in our video. However, other videos by Beartooth do focus on the tougher aspects of life, such as the video for ‘Beaten in Lips’ which highlights the issues of domestic violence.

A mixture of narrative and performance in music videos are also a common convention in the metal core genre which we felt would be a good to carry on, as it both showcases the band’s talent and portrays an effective narrative. The narrative and performance should, however, link in some way, as they have done in the video for ‘Never Lose Your Flames’ by Issues, as both parts of the video have similar lighting, and similar location. Similarly, our narrative and performance link through the use of dark and desaturated lighting, and the setting of a dark alley represents the anger and torment the character feels in the narrative. However, the performance is in the dark whereas all the narrative is in the daytime which separates them to give a distinction between the two so that the audience does not confuse between them.

Our music video develops conventions of other metal core videos in the fact that we use shaky camera to portray a vivid imagery of the pain the character is feeling. We include fast-paced close-ups while the main character is being abused, which is similarly done in the music video for ‘Love the Way You Lie’ by Eminem and Rihanna. To portray a broken atmosphere full of pain and fear. The use of a hand-held camera is common in this genre of music video, as they often portray similar atmospheres and emotions, similar to the movement of the camera in the video for ‘Come out Swinging’ by The Wonder Years. Therefore the use of these movements, mise-en-scene and lighting in our music video is to highlight common features in other videos for this genre and thus make it recognisable to the audience.