1. In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions on real media products?

2. The first convention I think I made use of is the typical dark imagery that Crystal Castles are known for. I used images like that of the second album cover and music video, Celestica in order to draw some sort of visual direction for certain scenes within my video. I also used images from similar gothic style bands such as witch house group salem.

3. The use of strong, dark imagery like dripping blood and reds and blacks.

4. Gothic style imagery specifically related to graveyards/gravestones connoting death, misery etc.

5. The second convention I tried to incorporate was the use of quick cuts and flashing shots/effects/transitions seen in videos such as kanye west’s ‘all of the lights’ and Health’s ‘Die Slow’ (see above). I used Adobe Premiere Pro during post production in order to emulate the chaotic, seizure educing flashing sections of videos such as these for parts of my video like the woods section and the final scene.

6. The third convention I used was the typical misunderstood, young innocent type character similar to an Alice in Wonderland type protagonist, a girl who feels lost and misunderstood but finds herself through wild visions and dreams. This convention is used a lot in modern media, for example The Matrix a popular sci-fi film makes numerous references to alice in wonderland and also utilises that same Alice type character however through the form of a male, ‘Neo’.

7. I also developed this ‘Alice’ character convention by turning it on its head. For example Alice is a character who is seen as innocent and naïve and I think that the protagonist within my music video is also innocent to an extent, however she is also a victim of domestic abuse and uses experimental drug so it is like a more up to date and even more confused alice type character. I think the character in my music video could also relate to the typical angsty teen type character, shown in videos such as ‘teenage dirtbag’. I think this is a good character template to use as many of the target audience feel like they can relate to a confused, misunderstood teenager who goes through the same stuff they do.

8. I also challenged conventions by using heavy effects such as the face blurring mask effects and the colourizing effects so as to give the video a stylized effect unique to itself.