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.
