Evaluation Activity 1 - How does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?- Joe Jones

Editing continued -
Slow motion - this editing techniques is prevalent in a number of music videos, including the 'rap' genre. We decided to employ the slow motion in the chorus 'singing' scene, as we felt this was an appropriate place to use it. We essentially parody the use of the slow motion tool, in as much as instead of the usually dramatic, tense scene depicted, we use it in a comedic sense; having our actor, James singing his heart out.
Cross-Cutting - Again, a common convention in many successful music videos, where the action cuts from scene to scene and does not stick to a strict linear narrative. Originally, we had a series of scenes in a chronological sequence, in a very ordered fashion. However, upon relfection, we felt the video would be far more effective cross cutting between the action at regular intervals. An example of a cross cut is scene below:


Performance -
We decided to employ performance aspects into our music video, as we felt the general point of our video was to give the impression that these wealthy, upper class schoolboys are genuinely under the impression that they are 'gangsters', and the best way to convey this, and create comedy was to have us performing the track as our own. Furthermore, it is not often that artists are themselves completely exempt from the video and in the case they are, would not have someone else performing the song. Some songs do this, for example, Canadian rock band Nickleback's video to 'Rockstar', which has a series of random of people mouth along to the lyrics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmeUuoxyt_E&ob=av2el

How the video suggests the music genre of the track -
Even though we were essentially parodying the genre, this meant that we had to use the conventions of a quintessential rap video in order to mock them. So, our music video uses the following conventions of the 'rap' genre:
- Costume: Baggy clothes, hoods up etc, taking influence from credible rap artists such as Eminem in his choice of attire, seen below.


- Gestures: We often found that in rap music videos the artist would aggresively thrust their hands in the direction of the camera, pointing and waving frantically. We attempted to emulate this in our music video, seen in the shot below, as I rap agressively into the camera.

- Car: Although in a rap music video, this is usually a 'pimped out' 4x4 with tinted windows and gold plated rims, or a grotesquely large limosine.
The use of vehicles in rap videos dates back to the earlier rappers such as Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg, in which the 'low riders' used to feature.

However, the modern day rap video sees a very different approach. Now, the run-of-the-mill vehicle used is something like this:

However, instead of the ostentatious and gaudy cars used in these videos, we mocked the use of such automobiles, and opted instead for a Toyota Yaris.