Q1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Ancillary Texts -Digipak
Our digipak for our album uses the example of past album covers for grime projects as it features the artists face amongst simple texts such as the album title, however it challenges the more recent visual art for grime artists as they have opted for covers not featuring the artists face such as Skepta's Konnichiwa released in early 2016. Also our black and white cover also isn't common among grime albums although it has been used before and is evident with big projects of late such as Wretch 32's growing over life.
Our digipak when compared to real media products fits the conventions and doesn't challenge forms. It features lyrical content to the track 'Don't Worry About Me', the CD amongst background of the area where the video is shot, the track-list and the cover of the project featuring the artist - Arkitect.
Magazine Cover/Poster
We decided to go ahead with a separate poster and magazine cover. After thorough research into examples of artist's promotion of projects they had worked on we found that magazine covers and posters tended to differ quite greatly. Magazine covers tended to be more personal and less about the album or mixtape that that artist was dropping however the posters seemed heavily driven into promoting all the music they had to release.
Compared with a real media product both posters include similar amount of text, they both have a picture of the artist front and centre amongst an urban backdrop and each diagram features outlets were the album may be consumed, in our group's case through Amazon music and iTunes (Apple Music).
Realising that there was such great differentiation between the poster and magazine cover i decided to create a magazine cover that could be released looking as if it could belong on the shelves of a newsagents or a paper shop therefore i used the forms of existing covers such as the one to the left displaying the South-London Grime artist Skepta. It depicts him in a mid-shot framed centrally on the cover of Fader magazine amongst texts indicating the artist's name, the season and issue. Something i have developed on is through my text as i have opted for a white text against a coloured background to make it eye-catching, i heightened this by spacing out the letters of the artists name toward the bottom of the page.
Music Video
Location
We knew that we wanted to have an urban location for our video, its where grime was born and even though grime has in recent years successfully crossed over to foreign countries such as the sunny beaches of Dubai like in Mist's 'Ain't The Same' or Tokyo in AJ Tracey's 'Buster Cannon' we thought it was best to stick to a location that was plausible and that could support our narrative of someone trying to prosper in an environment such as ours. To emphasise where our story is taking place the video features a collection of location shots, i would have liked to have featured birds eye view shots to immerse the audience more in the location but without equipment such as drones i believe our ability to do this was limited.
Location Shots
Narrative
When considering our narrative i was conscious that many grime videos don't represent a visual story but in many instances a collection of different scenes in few locations. I wanted us to use the lyrics in order to give the audience a narrative to follow, for inspiration i suggested Kirk Knight's '5 minutes', Joey Badass' 'Like Me', Mick Jenkins' 'Dehydration' and Goldlink's 'When i die'. All these videos included an element of danger and threat surrounding figures that are trying to prosper in life which is something that throughout our video i feel we successfully portrayed. These videos do not however belong to the grime genre.
I also took inspiration from these videos as i set out to include an intro in our final piece as i felt it was a necessary measure i order to help the audience grasp the story and have a better understanding of the character's situation. At first we included audio however we felt the intro worked better without audio and instead opted for it to be played alongside a loop of the track's instrumental. Videos belonging to the grime genre tend not to include intros within their narrative, therefore we challenged the form.
Camera Work
Camera angles
Our production features a collection of low-angle shots of the characters which is common place in grime music videos, the low-angle empowers the protagonists and often fits the boastful narrative of music videos belonging to the genre.
Framing
Throughout our production the three main characters are framed centrally, in order to emphasise that the narrative revolves around them.
Edits
We opted for multiple different edits in our production.
In doing so we opted to develop the forms of grime videos that are rife with different types of edits.
Reverse Edit
The reverse edit is not common place in all grime videos however artist such as AJ Tracey are known for using it in his music videos such as 'Pasta' above and 'Buster Cannon'.
Slow Edit/ Fast Edit
The slow motion edit is followed by a fast edit with the camera switching from character to character creating a disorientating and aura which is heightened by the close ups of the protagonists.
In Stickzodt's Hella kwengins' featuring Ard Adz and Sho Shallow a slow motion is used to increase the impact of the action match to the lyric that has just been performed. Similarly to our media product the slow-motion edit is followed by a quick edit that tracks several characters once again creating this disorientating notion upon the audience.
Artist's Costume/ Props
Our group adhered to the conventions of the grime genre with our characters dressing in costume familiar to the culture. Something that i had been aware of and had plotted in my research was that different artists in the genre tend to differentiate themselves through their outfits with subtle touches such as jewlery or caps which i utilised with my character in the video.
There was a collection of props that were used in the video all of which i felt were suitable and looked common place within a grime music video, they included....
Pouch
Pouches are common place in contemporary grime videos. They are used to carry smaller possessions hence their popularity amongst the youth due to they're convinience. Pouches tend to be found worn by the urban youth as they are typically part of this grime culture. Examples of the use of this prop is in Section Boyz's 2016 music video for 'Worst' ft. Skepta.
Signs
Throughout our production a number of signs are used in order to give the audience a sense of the vitality or lack there of in the environment being portrayed. Signs are also used in order to set the scene and tell the audience more about setting and location. This is done in most music videos, especially grime, thus we developed forms of the grime genre by having our own very particular signs, it wasn't just signs regarding location but signs implying influences on an area such as the metropolitan police. An example of a real media product that used signs is Dave and AJ Tracey's 2016 music video for 'Thiago Silva'.
Car
We briefly included a scene with a car as means of adding realism to our music video. It wasn't a crucial prop to be included however it aided our narrative as we knew we wanted to include a car park scene within our media product and it makes more sense for our characters to be with a vehicle whilst rapping in a car park than just randomly in one with a car. Multiple popular grime videos today feature cars including Jaykae's Pull Up (left).
Phone
The mobile is used as means of convergence between the lyrical content of that instance of the song "Got him on the phone have it gone like a magic trick". The prop also serves the purpose of giving the audience an insight into the life of an urban youth in the 21st century, phones are the no.1 form of communication also this prop uses and develops the example set by past music videos of the grime genre and an example of this is Skepta's 2014 music video for It Ain't Safe where the phone is also used to converge lyrics, "Crack residue in the buttons of my phone". Both lyrics relate to the use or sell of drugs. Other examples of the use of phones in real media products of the grime genre include Belly Squad and Abra Cadabra's remix to Travis Scott and Young Thug's hit 'Pick Up The Phone'.
Cigarette
We adhered to the conventions of real media products choosing to include the scene with a character smoking a cigarette as i believe it ads to the authenticity of a real video and it is a vice that ordinary people including the youth use hence it doesn't look out of place therefore we thought we were simply 'capturing the real'. Comparing the prop from our video i could find several real media products that use it an example is Skepta's 2016 music video, 'Man'.
Police Van /Police Car
The police vehicles are included in order to give the audience a feel for the environment that the main characters are living in. The police presence indicates crime and illegal activity without having to explicitly show it, this can be seen in multiple contemporary grime videos thus we adhered to the conventions of the grime genre. Comparing it to real media products similar scenes can be seen in Skepta's 2016 music video for 'Man'.
Gun
The gun was used as a means of killing the main character in this media product. It was used to highlight the threat of violence and criminality that surfaces in the reality of a lot of the artists belonging to the grime genre and it is evident through their lyrical content. We felt that it was apt for their to be a visual of the gunshot as it fitted our story and was the final conclusion of our story it also matched the instrumental of the track as a gunshot can be heard at the end of the audio. The gun is included in our explicit version but not our final clean version as it may be disturbing to some audiences and actual visible gunshots are not commonplace in music videos of the grime genre, perhaps due to english laws of bearing arms but that's another matter. Having this prop in one of our final pieces challenges the conventions of the genre as they are rarely if not ever seen in music videos of the grime genre however the prop does go hand in hand with the themes of violence and criminality that are mentioned in the lyrical content of grime videos thus developing forms and conventions by showing it played out explicitly through the visuals.
