In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product challenges and uses current forms and conventions of real media products. The chosen genre was Grime which is a popular urban genre within the UK. The decision of this genre was taken from our audience feedback on their favourite genre. In the feedback the popular genres were Grime, Hip hop and rap. Within our group we had to decide between the three and we chose Grime because it is a genre that we have listened to a lot and have good depth of knowledge about how the music makes you feel, characteristics as well as the usual conventions.
The chosen song was Wiley- Mike Lowery. We chose this song because it felt like a very deep grime song to us. It had a grime heavy beat which was complemented by the lyrics. The song came about from our Grime research. We looked at various different grime videos but in particular gritty and dark. We researched the videos Skepta - Mike Lowery, Devlin - Marching through the fog and P Money - Slang Like This. The Skepta and Devlin videos used all the elements of a grime genre but added something new in terms of the actual video. In the Skepta video the artist takes to role of a torturer which looks very similar to a horror film. Whereas the Devlin video used the theme of confrontation and overcoming battles outside and within. Again this uses various well known grime elements such as Mise-en-scene and clothing. Meanwhile the P Money video was completely different in the form that it used a much more lighter grime flow and beat and we chose this video to see how it compared to the Skepta and Devlin videos in terms of feedback.
To challenge and develop the music video I had to do research on grime artists themselves. This was done by analysing their lyrics and analysing their actions in their music videos. To grime artists their music means a lot to them. They are passionate about what they say and what it means. Different artists have different motivations about what they say, for example Devlin's lyrics are about the hardships he's faced in his life and this draws comparisons to Eminem. Whereas other grime artists like Wiley, Skepta and P Money all take their music very seriously and only say lyrics they think is relevant.
To challenge the conventions of Grime we had to develop an idea that stayed conventional but done something different but remained 'grimey'. Typical Grime videos use an urban backdrop and has the artist walking round an estate or somewhere you'd associate with being urban. To change this idea I thought that the video should take place in a music studio. This portrays to the audience that the artist is committed to his music and trying to breakthrough as the shows how hard the artist is working. The second part of the video was to have it in an outside environment but not a typical urban environment. We achieved this by using different scenes that looked typical of another genre whilst using some scenes that involved graffiti which of course is urban.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of the music video, CD cover and Magazine ad really work well to promote the artist. It looks very typical of the grime genre in terms of mise-en-scene and costume. The CD works well with the video because the headphones on top of the equalizer represent the commitment the artist has to his music and this is shown in the video too as the main artist is saying his lyrics with passion and fire. The magazine ad is also intended to portray this too with the different shots of the artist 'spitting bars'.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
I have learnt that our music video was very successful in portraying the grime genre. I posted it on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter and got feedback as well as feedback from YouTube.
From the feedback we received we were very happy with the outcome of the video and how the using unconventional elements works well for the grime genre.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
