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

BY ELLIS PARKINSON

Genre Characteristics
The genre characteristics of an r&b music video are of

videos that would normally include lots of frames of the artist with flash cars and attractive women. With dancing girls and money being thrown around. Our video however challenged many of these conventions for 2 reasons i.e. budget and the artist and song itself. We instead went for more of a storyline and performance based video with more political connotations and references as this fitted in a lot more with the artist and his persona. For example he instead of the girls dancing provocatively in our video they do street dance to give it a more urban feel.

Relationship between lyrics/music and visuals

In a lot of the videos that I looked at for my research

there was a link between the spoken word and what was going on in screen and even if this was based around cars or girls there was a certain match between them. The music and camera work and editing also run roughly in time with the music, Similar to that off Goodwin's theory on it. In our video we use the convention of R&b as there is a very strong relationship between the lyrics and action as you tend to find the visuals tend to change on beat with the music and a lot of the camera work is sped up or slowed down depending on the tempo so we very much followed the conventions of the genre when doing this.

Demands of The Record Label

The usual demands of a record label are to see the artist a

lot and this is mainly through performance based work where he is rapping or singing to the camera and this advertises what at the end of the day is a product further. In our video we developed the conventions of the genre because not only did we have Joe the vast majority of the performing he also acted as the main character in the story meaning he spent a lot of time on the camera. This would further meet the demands of the record label because it means that he as a product is advertised much more heavily.

Artists/actors actions on screen

During a lot of the R&B videos the artists can act

very laid back and in control. This means that can seem in control and this is very similar to that of the background extras and associates of the artists. We almost developed this as we have not only that where he seems in control and almost cocky. But at the more aggressive moments during the song they change there persona along with Joe who becomes visibly more angry and intimidating. As well as that the character he plays always seems aggressive and rebellious for this.