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

My music video, You Showed Me conforms to the forms and conventions that are traditionally found in Britpop videos very well. The lead member of the band is the main attraction of the video much like in The Verve’s video Bittersweet symphony, and the main idea of the video is very down to earth. The use of cinematography allows the audience to see plenty of shots of the singer, which boosts the bands popularity and fame but also has enough cutaways to make the video not just a simple slideshow of facial features. Lighting is very subtle and mainly quite dull which fits into the rhythms of the songs, In my case with my video I had no need to use lighting as the sunlight lit up where we were filming in the bedroom particularly well and outside scenes of Britpop videos are usually quite dull to fit in with the whole feeling and oppressive mood.

What is also important to a Britpop video is how the video represents Britain and again I believe that my video does this in a very successful way. Britpop is very traditional in how it represents this, for example Blur used the milk carton as the main character of their videos Coffee and TV while Coldplay used the beach in their video for Yellow, all traditional things that can be associated with Britain. What I decided to do was follow these conventions by using the high street as the main place for my video and revolving everything around a relationship which is centred in the typical traditional family home.

The last convention of a Britpop video is that it has to be slightly unusual in how it carries itself. It has to almost be an art piece as the songs don’t tend to lend themselves to the fast gyrating of dancers, so the videos have to find other ways of entertaining the audience. This interest is usually created through a narrative such as Blurs milk carton video. But instead of their just being a simple narrative which the audience follow odd things also occur in the meantime. For example Richard Ashcroft doesn’t simply walk down a road, as he does so he barges passers-by in all directions which causes the audience to watch more as this is now interesting as you wonder if anyone will try and stop him. So in sense Britpop videos are not just simple music promotional tools but are also videos of performance art which entertain the audience, and it is this effect that I believe that I have created by creating a video that flows in reverse.