What is our media product?
For my advanced portfolio, I created a music video in the EDM (Electronic Dance Music) genre. The genre we chose is most commonly known for being popular music which is danced to in night clubs and party surroundings. The music typically has a repetitive beat and an electrical backing track. Finally me and my partner, chose our main track to be 'Make me feel' by Galantis, which turned out to be the perfect match for our chosen genre.
How does our media product use forms and conventions of real life media products?
We specifically analysed the types of forms and conventions our music genre followed before we began any planning for filming the product. We done this in order to represent similarities and follow the norms of previous music videos within the same genre. Through our research we found the most commonly placed forms and conventions were applicable to the camera shots, locations/ environment and finally the editing.
Starting off with the camera shots, From research it was clearly visible that most shots from "EDM" music videos were fast paced/ cut in order to fit the beat and enhance the dance feel being conveyed. When filming our own video we took this under consideration especially. A lot of the shots we included were fast paced and involved quick panning over scenery/ locations being used, as well as zooming inwards and outwards to deliberately emphasise the filming was being completed hand-held. We included a fair amount of 'hand held' filming in order to represent an realistic POV perspective from both centered characters. We highly wanted to depict the contrast between the verses being slower and the choruses being faster. Therefore we ensured the characters remain calmer and the shots being would stay within an slower pace during the verses. However when the chorus began again and the beat would speed up and the shots would commence being faster cut, with an additional shakiness effect which was added to represent the characters excitement and add a sense of realism of what it is like within a real dance/ party atmosphere. We also included a number of high angled establishing shots as well as mid-shots, to give the audience a sense of where they are and familiarise themselves with the current setting. As well, we included a number of close-up angles upon the two main characters to highlight their importance and help them to stay recognisable to the audience whilst they are watching.
Common forms and conventions of EDM music videos also include the location/ set being used. Usually this takes place within an lively/ stimulating atmosphere such as clubs, parties and places with large surroundings of people. As well as locations with powerful lighting and vibrant colours which additionally adds towards the liveliness and feel good atmosphere of the setting. For our own video we included a combination of footage filmed in central London, as well as clubbing/ concert scenes. We included a balance of both to establish the excitement between the verse and the chorus. We also enhanced the saturation of the footage and played around with different colors to enrich for each particular scene, in order to give the video a more vintage appearance. We also included a mixture of bright colouration and strobe lighting to emphasise the happiness and make the scenes pop out greater to the audience. We knew that it was essential for our music video to match our chosen song which is why we greatly incorporated a connection between the lyrics and the video itself. For example we accompanied the lyrics ‘6 o’clock again’ with daytime footage to symbolise the time of day and contrast between night.
Most commonly placed techniques used to as conventions of typical EDM music videos include fast cut shots, in order to allow as much footage and angles to be included as possible. We made sure essentially within the chorus our cuts would never be longer than 2-3 seconds, as well as to make sure the footage being used fits the beat and works well as soon as the bass drops. We used such editing techniques, as 'stabilising' which we done in order to make the video appear as though it has been filmed on an older camera, adding towards the vintage theme we intended. We also sped up some of the footage for certain scenes to contrast the difference between the slower paced shots and the faster ones, as well as to the help the footage remain up to the beat of the song. This use of editing we included, hoped would amplify and draw audiences into the video further, as well as allowing them a sense of exhilaration and freedom the video is portraying. We wanted to incorporate the idea of escapism, as most EDM music videos feature somewhat desired atmospheres and fantasies audiences aspire to escape to, which is why we wanted to edit our video in the best timely manner as possible.
We developed our music video in a number of ways throughout the process of the project. We wanted our video to stand out and further improve from existing EDM music videos. We done this by including a combination of scenery, not only just featuring dance/ clubs scenes. We wanted to emphasise happiness upon the outside world by including a variety of popular locations within london, and scenarios such as the arcade and carousel scenes which can be seen to be as playful fun. We also developed our video by incorporating a wide range colour palette, by changing the use of saturation and colours used based upon the colours already featured in the imagery. We also made sure to include a strong contrast between night and day imagery, to reflect upon the songs lyrics as well as its meaning, implying happiness lies within both times of day.
For our music video our main focus was to shine light towards happiness and the reflection of life, which viewers could relate to. In doing so we also challenged some of the previous forms and conventions of the EDM genre in order to make our video different. We did this first of all by incorporating our main characters as females rather than males. It is found that in most EDM music video's females are only used for sexulised purposes, which we wanted to challenge in order to represent female power and domination taking over the genre. We also challenged regular filming shots/ angles, for example most of our shots were hand held to highlight we were trying to approach the video as being an vlog from the POV the two main characters in order feel more personal rather than just an establishing perspective for the audience to watch over. We also challenged some sound techniques during editing, such as including the sound from the video itself within some scenes of the video for example before the second verse began as well as just before the video ends. Both scenes were within a party/ club setting, which meant that lots of cheering could be heard in the background which we felt added a nice touch towards the atmospheric party scene. Conclusively deciding to overlap the audio we already had in the footage as well as still keeping the original audio playing at the same time.
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