- The document discusses the conventions of funk music videos and how the author's group's music video both uses and challenges some of those conventions. - Their video follows funk conventions like having a performance-based form and including dancing, but challenges conventions by not including the artist and having the women dress more conservatively. - The video also challenges Laura Mulvey's "male gaze" theory by not objectifying or sexualizing the women.

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

2. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Having done an extensive amount of research into the media sector of music videos I found that each genre of music holds their own codes and conventions which represent an image of the artist in order to appeal to a certain audience. Our video follows a Funky convention. Funky music videos do not have a strong narratives however include a lot of dancing. Funky videos are meant to be “FUN” and want the audience to feel as if they want to get up and dance. Although the song is about clubbing and what some people act like when they are at a club due to the age factor we decided not to go a club however we included many clips of dancers dancing, and some clips of someone dancing on the road. We did however include clips of girls drinking and a guy rolling up a cigarette, by doing this we are expressing youth culture, as these are the typical activities young adults do during the day, this is however a stereotypical view which has been shaped through the media. These clips however do promote drink and drugs but these are things that young people see on television and in other music video’s all the time. The form of our video is mainly performance based and a few narrative sections throughout. Most funky music videos have a typical convention of the artist singing along whilst doing something, we wanted to go against that convention and did not include the artist in the video.

3. Funky videos usually expose women and enhance their sexuality by having them dancing in a sexual way and wearing a minimal amount of clothing, however we wanted to challenge this convention therefore we had the girls dressed in clothing that covers they’re bodies, by doing this, we as a group had to take a risk as this could mean we could lose our audience however we decided to go along with this idea, and found that we had mixed reviews about the mise- en-scene. Because the song is up tempo and quite fast we decided to have straight cut which will sync in with the beat and the words which makes the video more visually interesting. We decided to add words into the video, the main reason for this was because as our video is not very narrative based, the sequences of dancing and cutting to one or two scene’s which are narrative based would be quite boring and therefore we decided to add words, which come on when the words are being said, and last longer. This was a technique used in other videos however these were mainly RnB videos, we found this technique adequate because our genre has a blend of RnB, jazz and soul music. We decided to use mainly mid close up shots of the dancers as we wanted to get most of they’re body when filming and therefore didn’t want to use a lot of close ups. Although this will not be conventional as when watching a funky video you may want to see a variety of shots. I found that our video would be different if we used a limited amount of shots.

4. On the left is a clip of girl dancing on the road from the video “Heads, Shoulders Knee’s and toes.” on the right in our video we have used a girl dancing on the road. This is an example of how our video promotes products. The image on the left is from the video “Meleka- Go.” Our video promotes the product Blackberry. Blackberry’s are smart phones which enable peoples to communicate with one another. This is an example of the use of words in a different video, this print screen on the left is from Kanye West’s new song “All of the lights” this video includes a lot more words other than actual video scenes, the words in this video flash a couple times before they disappear allowing the audience to be fully aware and intrigued. I personally like the idea of adding words into the video as it doesn’t make the video boring.

5. The image on the left is from the video “too many men- Boy better know” this clip is showing the sexuality of women, dressing the girl in minimal clothing showing a lot of skin. We wanted to go against this stereotypical view of women and therefore asked the girls to be covered up not showing much skin, as shown on the right. The image on the left is from the video “Dotstar- Expensive” this video is promoting the perfume ‘Clive’ we too have promoted famous brands such as Prada as seen on the right. The image on the left is from the video “Kyla- Do you mind” this video has shows a short clip of a guy Dj’ing which we too have also included in our video as seen on the right. This video also has clips of drinking and bars which we have also included in our video.

6. Forms of conventions of images This is an image of Wiley on the left, which is a medium close up shot of him. We took images of our artist, on the left is a medium close up shot of our artist. This is the image on skepta’s album, although Skepta is a rapper, the composition of the image is interesting therefore we took a similar image, which could be included in our ancillary products. Donae’o is one of the artists we did research into as he is part of the funky genre. This album is very simple which inspired me to create a similar product. We also took a close up image which I considered using in my ancillary products. As seen in all three images the singers are all covering their heads and we found it would conform to one of the conventions if our artist was covering his head.

7. Goodwin’s Theory Goodwin’s theory is that the lyrics will make references with what is shown on screen. Our initial idea was to relate the lyrical content to what has been shown on screen, however this was not possible all the way through the video therefore only matched the two in certain areas, which I believe made the video interesting as you didn’t see the same dancing scene the whole way through. Goodwin’s theory also mentions that the video will make references to the notion of looking. At first we were going to do this but as we went along to film the video we found that if we are to challenge the typical conventions of a music video then the notion of looking could not be added or referenced to, however as viewers of a music video we as an audience are always voyeurs as we are watching what has been shown on screen.

8. Laura Mulvey’s Theory Laura Mulvey spoke about ‘the male gaze’ which means that everything is seen through the eyes of a male. To an extent this is true, as usually products are made which attract a male audience, an example of the male gaze is the objectification of women, women are always characterised in a sexual manner in order to attract a male audience, evidently implying that “sexuality of women makes money” The male gaze is simply showing that we visualise everything through a male perspective. In our music we chose to go against this theory and not show the women in a sexual way which therefore does not objectify women. In many of the music videos I looked at, I found that women are wearing short dresses and showing a lot of skin, however in our video we went against this and shot the girls all covered up. Although going against some conventions are risky I found that if I go against these conventions I can produce a different “fresh” product which may or may not attract an existing and new audience.