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

• The song that I chose to create a music video for is a real media product. The song “Bust your windows” is by an American R&B singer called Jazmine Sullivan. The song itself follows the conventions of the R&B genre as it deals with themes of heartbreak and revenge.

• We followed conventions starting with the chosen locations used for our music video which were very typical as many real R&B

videos take place in a house or a club. Like in most R&B videos we decided to concentrate

on the singer’s image by choosing fancy clothing and make-up

• In our music video we used a lot of close-up shots as this is typical in most R&B videos.

During research I came across this close-up shot from a video where you can see the singer’s emotion. We then decided to use it in our own video because we were going for the same effect of showing emotion through a close-up.

• We didn’t only want to follow conventions, so we decided to develop them.

Here is how we developed conventions in our video:

During the singing shots of the video we included a shot of the singer literally burning a heart to show how she feels. This is a development because rarely in R&B videos do you see a character using props to portray emotion but instead they use body language.

• In our video we challenged the forms of sexualisation or the “male gaze” which is used in most R&B videos.

The promotion of sex is usually done in order for an artist to sell records.

In our video we challenged this by having the singer appear wearing casual sleeping clothes instead of having her half-naked

Laura Mulvey – Male Gaze Theory

• The theory of the ‘Male Gaze’ has a very simple idea behind it. Mulvey believes that male audiences get a sense of power and pleasure from watching women in the media who are often represented as objects for male pleasure. This type of objectified woman is the media norm. Most media representations of women are mainly for men – for the male gaze.”

• In our video we used this theory through the narrative structure of the video. Todorov’s theory suggests:

• 1. The fictional environment begins with a state of equilibriumThis is seen in our video at the beginning when the girlfriend is making her way downstairs and she appears to be happy in that moment.• 2. It then suffers some disruption (disequilibrium)The disruption then occurs during an awkward, distant conversation between the boyfriend and girlfriend. This then leads to the delivery of the package with pictures and a video of the boyfriend cheating on the girlfriend• 3. New equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative

TODOROV’S EQUILIBRIUM THEORY

There are five stages the narrative can progress through:• A state of equilibrium (all is as it should be)

• A disruption of that order by an event

• A recognition that the disorder has occurredThis is shown when the girlfriend gets angry after watching the video and then ends up trashing the living room.

• An attempt to repair the damage of the disruptionThis occurs when the girlfriend plots her revenge by vandalising his car.

• A return or restoration of a NEW equilibriumThe restoration of equilibrium is shown towards the end when she is seen smiling .

• The ancillary then linked back to real media products through the CD booklet which follows conventions used in CDs.

This is shown by having the singer on the album cover like most R&B CDs do.

After having completed the digipak research and looking at existing conventions, I included a biography page, a lyrics page, barcode, track list, copyright logo, record company info to make my ancillary look more like a real media product.