Directors Commentary Script. JOANNA AND NATALIE
In what ways does your media product use, develop use or challenge forms and conventions of real media texts?
Joanna.: With our media text we have been looking at following the conventions of the singer/songwriter genre. However, we did have a look at other genres that follow the general conventions for media texts. Such as Tinie Tempah feat Wiz Khalifa 'Till I'm Gone', we looked at this video because there is a strong connection between the words and visuals, as the words speak about leaving a female, and immediately we see the female leaving. Nowadays the mainstream genre is pop, which is what this song is, but with ours we wanted to do something a little different and what we personally enjoyed. In this video we see the main artist straight away, which we have followed in our media text, purely because this is one of the main typical convention to do, to introduce the artist with the song and video. We then see a bit of voyeurism because of the shot of the female’s bum, which is a typical convention in most pop videos, to show the male artists relationship with females. We haven’t used voyeurism in our video, because our genre does not apply to this, therefore we use the conventions, of a singer/song writer, and we have stuck to them.
Natalie: Our media product uses genre conventions, because we have used a female that fits the genre of a singer/songwriter. Our brand image of the female for the music video was rather innocent yet sophisticated to fit with the video. We decided on this because most songwriters use this branding, and this image is able to connect with the words of the song, to determine how she acts in the video. For example, flicking her hair, to show that this is a feminine thing to do, and is stereotypical of a singer songwriter. She fits this because of her innocent yet sophisticated look, and our song is based around the artist. Plus, singer/song writers usually tell a story in their videos and use facial expressions to tell the story, even if they are doing something as simple as walking round a house, like birdy in skinny love.
Joanna: We decided to use mainly location shoots, because we wanted to keep within the conventions of the genre. Also we think this did look good, and worked with our artist. The location shoots helped to tell the story of her wandering around with this ‘jar of hearts’ is because she has nothing else to do, as if she is in her own world telling the audience about what has happened and how she is acting with it. We didn’t want to use too many locations as to not confuse the audience, and so the story flows. We also used the typical narrative of a female falling in love, how she reacts to it and breaking up with the boy. However we didn’t want to use a boy in our music video also Christina Perri uses one in her video ‘jar of hearts’, this is because we wanted the whole video and story to be based on the female, and so it didn’t look cheesy also, as this is a mature song.
Natalie. We follow the conventions of genre because of how we have kept the video simple, with the locations, there is no fast movement, and our video isn’t busy and over the top. Such as simple videos like ‘Adele – someone like you’, who is also a singer/songwriter. We also used the instrument ‘piano’ to feature in the video, this is because it is a typical convention in a video like this, as most singer/songwriters use an instrument. We also used a simple white dress for the female to wear with a black coat in the cold and brown boots, with her hair down and minimal make up. This is because most singer/songwriters use single colours for the dress, to look mature, to fit the video, and we wanted to follow the conventions of this genre. We also used this outfit throughout the video because this genre don’t usually seem to change outfits, unlike a pop video to keep it interesting, as the different shots should do this.
Joanna. We have used the conventions of Andrew Goodwin’s theory because we show a relationship between the lyrics and visuals. For example we use a jar with a candle in it to represent the ‘jar of hearts’, which does look better and more professional than an actual jar of hearts. We have also used shots of the female looking directly into the camera to show how she is connecting with the song, to get this out to the audience. We have many close ups of the female, on the lips face and eyes, this Is because this is a typical convention of most videos, but definitely with Goodwin’s theory and the singer/songwriter genre. We haven’t used any intertextuality references in our music video purely because the songwriter genre doesn’t apply to this hugely.
Natalie: We also followed Pete Frasers theories of the conventions of genre because the cinematography had to be perfect to link the camera shots to the pace of music. To ensure we did this we used slow paced shots, to match the pace of the song and slow paced editing. Again the editing and music had to fit the slow paced video to fit the genre, and follow of the conventions and theories. We decided to use slow pace editing, purely because this follows the conventions of a singer/songwriter, as it fits the video better.
Joanna. In most singer/songwriter music videos we see a female being alone, and seem to sing about similar things such as heart broken or love. We have followed this convention as we only use the female to tell the narrative. However this is helped by the visuals and editing. We also used many close up of the artist singing and on the piano, which is what most singer/songwriter do in their video to follow the conventions. We have also used low key lighting to keep within the conventions of this genre because it keeps the sophisticated, but solemn feel for the audience.
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