Connie Lim

Connie Lim
JayM.

Sunday 13 March 2011

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

Looking at my media product, I am really pleased with the overall result as I think it looks fairly professional and realistic. When compared to the rest of David Guetta’s work it actually challenges his usual style of video work as there isn’t as much of a narrative used throughout, and they’re more based around having a party and a good time.

The plus point of producing a music video as opposed to a horror trailer is that we had the creative freedom to think of an entire narrative, rather than just a sample. When studying Todorov’s theory of the narrative structure, I discovered that my piece fits in well with what he describes [equilibrium – disruption – disequilibrium – solution – new equilibrium]. Here’s how

Equilibrium: _Boy & Girl are happy together. Happy memories being shown.

Disruption: _Boy tells Girl he’s leaving.

Disequilibrium: _Boy is killed during a freak accident when he leaves

Solution: _Girl’s best friend comforts and consoles her. They become close.

New Equilibrium: _The two Girls are now in a relationship. Happy days!

In terms of looking at other media productions from the same genre (music videos) my product, again seems to follow a similar sort of format and in some cases is fairly similar. For example if you look at Take That’s Rule the World video you can see that their narrative is also interrupted with pieces recorded in the recording studio, much like my production. It also has a very emotional feel to it due to the euphoric key change towards the end of the song.

Propp’s theory of characters says that there are a generic set of characters used throughout most media articles. They are:

The villain: struggles against the hero

The donor: prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object

The helper: helps the hero in the quest

The princess: person the hero marries, often sought for during the narrative

Her father

The dispatcher:character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off

The hero or victim/seeker: reacts to the donor, weds the princess

These characters, although a little bit outdated can be seen present throughout the majority of productions. However, in my piece there doesn’t really seem to be any of those characters involved, possibly with the exception of the hero, in which the audience relates to throughout the entire piece. This then means my production challenges the regular conventions of most fully narrative productions.

My music video also challenges the stereotypical view on woman that is rife throughout the filming industry in that the actress (me) doesn't use her body or sex appeal in order to gain interest into the video or song. There is a common theory that women rely solely on men, and my video again fights against that because the girl finds new love with another girl and has decided that she can go on happy without the need of men, but independantly.

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