Directors Commentary Planning

Intro: Hi, we are Group 3; I am Eoin Brogan (candidate number 3110), i'm Eva Calland Waller (candidate number ...) and i'm Robbie Lardi (number 3400), and this is a commentary on our music video in order to answer question 1 of the evaluation, which is: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

To do this we are going to look at various sections of our video, interspliced with other real media products.

To begin, here is ... who is going to talk about the uses of conventions within our video.

USES


INTERCUTTING OF NARRATIVE AND PERFORMANCE


This convention is found throughout all genre's and types of music video. There are many which only consist of either performance or narrative; but the convention to intercut a story with performance is very commonly used. Furthermore, the screen time of each of these is more or less even; with the balance between them consistent throughout the song. We conformed to this convention as we wanted to tell an engaging story, while also successfully building a brand image for our new band.

show any section which flips between performance and narrative


LEAD SINGER AND BRAND IMAGE

Freeze at 0:30, freeze at 2 other shots of Eoin singing


The first convention we used in our media video is a simple yet effective one; the use of close ups on the lead singer of the band. Eoin has the most close up shots in the performance sections of the video, which is important to establish a clear frontman of the band. Usually, this is the singer; and we have followed this convention as the lyrics are a crucial component of the song, and require an apt platform. See here some other close ups of Eoin singing, which recur throughout the song.

Show other singing close ups.


Also, we developed an image for our band through the costume choices, the set up of the performance space (discuss the logo, spray paint symbols); this appeals to our audience by ... bla bla bla

Lack of beauty style shots; much more focus on the instruments being played; sticks to conventions of most music outside pop genre.


FOCUS OF SONG IN VIDEO


Show bass line running up. 


Another convention we used is to illustrate the focus of the song within the video; for example, when the bass line becomes the focus in the song; we used a close up of the bassist playing so as to complement the track. It seems obvious, but to match the emphasis' of the song with the visuals is very important to the flow of the video.


Show drum fill.

You can see another example of this with our drum fill.

VARIED PERFORMANCE SET UP

It is a common convention of music videos to vary the set up within the performance aspect of the video. This keeps the performance dynamic; and we believed that as the narrative should progress, the performance should too.

We can see an example of this convention working well in this video here:

INSERT VIDEO REFERENCE CLIP, and why it works well;


 then clips of our UV section in comparison to normal section.


SECTIONS OF SONG DEFINING SECTIONS OF VIDEO


It is common for the editing and pacing of the video to match that of the song; for example, the song begins slowly and so does our editing; it can appear jarring to contradict this common convention, so we decided it was best to conform to it. When the chorus drops; the narrative progresses somewhere new-

show examples here e.g. me moving about street instead of static / the eyes on drop 2 / the UV and fighting on drop 3


BARTHES CODES IN OUR VIDEO


The theorist Barthes drew up some codes of conventions in media texts, some of which we can apply to our video.

We can see his enigma code being used here in our video..

insert enigma section (smoking and eva is there / turning around but not seeing her face, only seeing my reaction etc.) 


... and this has been helpful because


DEVELOPING CONVENTIONS


USING UV LIGHTING


Rather than intersplicing UV in different sections of the video; we decided to hold off on the reveal of the UV light until the end of the song to provide some performance progression and visual development. We wanted our video to surprise at every turn; and so we believed that revealing the UV light set up too early would lessen it's impact greatly.

show UV lighting set up again

CHASE SCENE CONCLUDES WITH SWITCH OF POWER


Normally in a chase scene in a real media text, it ends with an event which complements the dynamic and relationship which was the cause of the chase in the first place (e.g. the chaser catches the victim or the victim escapes) without developing or changing the relationship between the characters at all.

We expanded on this by resolving the situation with a reversal of power between the two; developing the convention previously stated.

show ending here with kiss


Instead of Eva simply catching and killing Robbie, or Robbie escaping from her; they kiss, and she vanishes. Robbie's character has taken the status and power away from her, regaining control and thereby resolving the situation in a manner different to most media products.


CHALLENGING CONVENTIONS


GENDER REPRESENTATION
It is a very common representation in music video's to have the seat of power dominated by male roles. We decided very early on that this classic representation didn't work for our video. We have the power held by a female character, which we feel adds to the surreal element of the video. We also had quite an unconventional twist in the control of power as is clearly demonstrated here

Show punch


you can see how for the first time in the video it's Robbie who follows Eva and then takes control by grabbing her face and kissing her.