First evaluation question

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

To answer this question I must first look back over the research I have conducted during the duration of this project regarding the conventions of music videos under the umbrella of the psychedelic genre. 

Psychedelic music video conventions:

• The videos often showcase the band playing instruments that are themselves conventions of the psychedelic genre, instruments like electric guitars, keyboards, harpsichords, mellotrons, electronic organs, synthesisers, sitars, tablas and theremins.
• A tendency to include many close ups and mid shots. This is to create emphasis on the artist, location and emotions. Also, close-ups are used not only to show emotions but to reflect the words of the song with the movement of the lips of the artist. 
• The movement of the camera is used to follow and trace the band. Camera movements include tilts, pans, tracking and crane shots. Often in my chosen genre obscure camera movements are used to give the effect of LSD use. 
• Jump cuts are the predominant editing technique used in psychedelic music videos. This is because this allows a sudden change from one scene to another. Similarly, transitions such as fade and dissolve are very common in music videos as they create a different effect on cuts.
• The costume is an important factor in psychedelic music videos, an example of this would be Tame Impala's 'The Less I Know The Better' music video where 'Trevor' is dressed in a gorilla suit, this adds to the abstract and 'trippy' nature presented in most Tame Impala music videos. 
• In psychedelic music videos, colours tend to set the mood of the song through creating an atmosphere. They are bright, bold and eye-catching and often add mention to0 the shots within the music video through the addition of overlaying shots that add almost neon colouring. Almost every music video under this genre showcase bright and colourful elements. As well as close-ups to show the cheerful and upbeat emotions, sometimes hiding a deeper meaning and darker emotions (aimed at the teenage audience).
• Women are commonly sexualised within psychedelic music videos conforming to the everyday stereotype of women being objects as well as Laura Mulvey's male gaze and feminist theory and the expectation that women will be passive submissive and that men are the dominant sex. 
• However, some psychedelic music videos break this convention and showmen as sexualised objects and being used by the women in the video an example of this would be Tame Impala's 'Mind Mischief' where the older female teacher uses the younger male student for her own ends. 
• Psychedelic music videos commonly involve computer-generated imagery, sometimes overlaying patterns are used over certain shots to add to the 'trippy' appearance of the video. Some videos under this genre can rely completely on CGI to create the whole of the video digitally and no real life shots are used. 

My media product itself conforms, develops and breaks some of these conventions. In my media product, I have conformed to the commonly misconceived convention within the psychedelic genre that videos under this umbrella include many close ups and mid shots. Examples of this within my media product would be Micky wearing powder paint over his face and the camera gradually zooming into the centre of his face. An example of just one mid-shot within my media product would be a mid-shot of Ellie looking at the ground, with an overlay of the same shot but delayed by a few seconds giving the simple yet effective visual effect of ‘double vision’.

I decided to edit the shot in this way as through referring back to my research whilst constructing and editing my final media product I found that ‘double vision’ is a side effect of consuming the psychedelic drug LSD where most psychedelic bands such as Tame Impala draw inspiration from. To add to this, I conformed to this convention to create emphasis on the character, location and emotions. Also, close ups were used in my media product not only to show emotions but to allow the lip-syncing shots to be seen clearly and coherently and so the movement of Seb’s lips to the words of the song could be matched and merged together (the lip syncing is also made clear through the use of neon face paint, Seb’s lips and other facial features are highlighted in a way that allows the emotion within his face to still be captured on camera as well as adding to the psychedelic conventions of abstract art, patterns and colour within a music video).

When it comes to mine-en-scene within the psychedelic genre, my media product develops the way in which costume and makeup are presented in music videos. Certain genres such as pop use fashionable, in style clothes and makeup depicted on the characters within the music video. The psychedelic genre however often presents characters in bright and patterned costume, abstract representations like the incorporation of CGI to drastically change the appearance of people and places and makeup and hair links in to this style of bright and abstract shapes and colours. My media product develops these conventions as we have used neon face paint to present one of the character against a black background, placing emphasis of his facial features and lip syncing. From the vast amount of research I conducted into the genre and Tame Impala music videos I found that mise-en-scene specifically hair and makeup play a huge role in allowing psychedelic elements within the video to shine through. This is significant because through the use of this unique from of expression I was able to use the face paint to highlight certain high and low point on the character face, enhancing his features and developing the convention associated with the psychedelic genre (the use of bright and cold makeup within mice-en-scene).

Ellie's costume involves a simple indie inspired look. Using two brightly coloured objects of clothing such as a yellow rain jacket and a deep burgundy skirt, Ellie's figure is accentuated slightly as well as it being highlighted in the foreground of all frames her character is presented within (the yellow stand out strongly against the grey pavements and dark green grass). When planning what Ellie's character would be shown wearing we decided to develop our original plan of a basic indie look including jean and a flowery top to an outfit that featured two bold items of clothing. We drew inspiration from an odd place, the trailer and movie posters from the 2017 film 'It' as the young boy was shown wearing a similar jacket to one we has access to. I found that the colour yellow to be bright and intense, which is perhaps why it can often invoke such strong feelings. As well as the colours ability to quickly grab attention and abrasive when overused. A stereotype that is adhered to within this media product would be Ellie's character being depicted in a short skirt, we took inspiration from Tame Impala's 'Mind Mischief' music video where a young female teacher is objectified as a sexually imposing figure. We followed this stereotype as we felt to truly capture the essence of the psychedelic genre we would have to present some form of sexualised character and felt that we were able to handle this tastefully with Ellie's character as although she is shown wearing a short skirt and she flirtatiously walks past Luke's character, not only is she wear tights but her and Luke's encounter is left to the audience to interpret as sexual or otherwise, nothing is specified.

As discussed at the beginning of this blog in almost every music videos under the psychedelic genre, colours tend to set the mood of the song through creating an atmosphere. They are bright, bold and eye-catching and often add a mention to the shots within the music video through the addition of overlaying shots that add almost neon colouring. The research that I had conducted into how colour affects the brain and mood allowed me to have a structure and plan to how I would add such a large amount of colour into the music video whilst still keeping the professional and realistic feel to the product. From watching my media product, it is clear to see that I adhere to this convention, in almost every shot shown in our music video abstract pattern, colouring and angles to compliment this are used. Our final media product I would describe as visually captivating, we have used colours to adhere to this convention as well as to show emotion and tone within the videos two-minute duration, something that colour plays a key role in depicting. I developed the colours presented in the shots using the colour correcting tools on both iMovie and Final Cut Pro. Not only this but a range of colour is showed throughout the video, some with the natural sky and greenery backgrounds and other with block colour background  (black or white to allow the colour presented in the foreground to stand out).

Like almost every music video released today, women are commonly sexualised within psychedelic music videos conforming to the everyday stereotype of women being objects as well as Laura Mulvey's male gaze and feminist theory which is of the expectation that women will be passive submissive and that men are the dominant sex. However, some psychedelic music videos break this convention and showmen as sexualised objects, being used by the women in the video an example of this would be Tame Impala's 'Mind Mischief' where the older female teacher uses the younger male student for her own ends. In our media product, right from the planning and research stages, we decided that we would neither adhere or subvert this stereotype, but develop it slightly. Leaving the relations between Ellie and Luke's characters to be interpreted freely by the audience. The psychedelic genre itself stems from the 1960s and belief in peace, love and respect, often meaning that gender roles and stereotypes and either not brought to the viewers attention within videos or presented at the forefront of the video because of the effects of globalization on the media and how younger audiences are drawn to the common sexualised images of men and women. Gender roles are norms set by the society stating appropriate behaviour for men and women in social situations. These norms dictate how an individual should think, behave and function, based on their gender.  Gender stereotypes, on the other hand, are inferences about men and women, that each sex is distinct from the other.  Women are emotionally expressive and men are less so. The psychedelic genre often subverts this stereotype and so we decided to follow this theme within our own media product.

Psychedelic music videos commonly involve computer-generated imagery, sometimes overlaying patterns are used over certain shots to add to the 'trippy' appearance of the video. Some videos under this genre can rely completely on CGI to create the whole of the video digitally and no real-life shots are used. Our music video develops this convention by using visual effects and overlays which work well to create a stunning and original feel to the shots in which they are applied to. The overlays that I used within my music video were inserted during the final stages of editing on the advanced video editing software Final Cut Pro they are also referred to as plug-ins or video effects. I placed my overlays (transparent and solid moving image) over my filmed footage.  The overlays added value to certain shots within my media product, giving the product a creative, unique and abstract feel.