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

A form, or code, and convention of a media product depend upon the genre of the media product itself. Codes and conventions are the recognisable and predictable forms and methods used by the media to communicate specific ideas or to express a required impression. Technical codes include camera angles, sound and lighting. Symbolic codes include the language, costume and actions of characters. The genre of my music video is rap. The codes and conventions that are present in real rap media products today commonly represent power, sex and male dominance. In this report I will be comparing my rap media product with real rap media products from current artists such as Busta Rhymes, Dizzee Rascal and Jay-Z, all internationally award-winning rap artists.

In order to determine contemporary codes and conventions of recent rap media products, I conducted a questionnaire aimed at my target audience, which consisted mostly of teenage boys. As a result of this, I found that 100% of those who answered the question on my poll (which is located on my blog) “What would you associate with rap/hip hop artists?” felt that bling, big puff jackets and baggy clothes were stereotypical attire for the chosen genre. It was due to these results that I then included a flat peak and ‘bling’ (showy jewellery) on the front cover of my CD case. However, due to the costume itself, during filming these props proved difficult to use and sometimes ineffective as they were barely noticeable against the costumes colours.

In real rap videos, actions used include arms held out in an aggressive and dominant manner. This is to represent their power and standing to be high in the music industry. I incorporated this convention into my media production by having low angled shots of my spider, replicating this dance style in order to give the same effect to my target audience. This is also represented in real rap products and certain gestures can be ascribed to a certain person as their trademark. This is evident in the work of Jay-Z, who has the triangular hand symbol indicating his music production company, RocNation.

In accordance with codes and conventions of rap lyrics, the lyrics that I have chosen contain a constant stream of sexual innuendos. This is incredibly common in the rap industry, where most lyricists focus on the female form and its sexualisation. In my lyrics, the spider’s persistent attempts at luring the fly to his parlour, pantry and bed can be seen either as attempts at sating his hunger, or when viewed in more depth, as a sexual innuendo.

In addition to this, the use of spotlighting in recent rap videos, such as Pass Out by Tinie Tempah, is utilised to give of the impression that the person the spotlight is focused on is more important than anyone else, like royalty. It is also used to draw the eye of the audience to the artist, mainly when they are lip synching or singing the lyrics. I used this in my production to give off the same notion. When my spotlight is focused on the spider, it is to give the feeling to the audience that he has the undivided attention of the fly.

However, I have developed this convention by putting a blue tint on the spotlight to create a spooky and mystical atmosphere which also links in with the idea of animals having human characteristics, known as personification.

The conventional editing of a rap media product is commonly quick and cut shots so as to match the beat of the song and the machine gun-like lyrics. This is used in artist’s music videos, such as Busta Rhymes Gimme Some Mo’. This process is evident in my product mainly in the introduction, where the beat is the main point of focus in the song itself.

I developed my costumes from the accepted image of a spider and a fly by altering the colours to a more surreal selection of colours in order to link in with the mythical atmosphere. I have done this by using purple as the base colour of my spider. I used this colour to represent mystery and also again royalty due to his standing in the video as the dominant character. On the other hand, I used pink on the fly instead of a duller colour associated with flies, such as brown or green, to signify the femininity and innocence of the character.

In my development of editing conventions, I took a regular close up shot of the spider’s face and manipulated the image. I was left with a series of increasingly multiplied mirror images and facially distorted images so as to keep up with the beat of the music. I also used this to indicate a point of view shot from a fly’s eyes, which see multiple images instantaneously.

A typical mese-en-scene of a real rap media production is a male dominant environment (a male ‘paradise’), full of attractive women wearing barely nothing, dancing seductively and accompanied by a host of fast cars, large homes, nightclubs and so on, adding to the signification that the artist is better (more successful, etc) than the average male, again like royalty. This can be seen in the work of Jay Z in the production of Young Forever. Due to the fact that this was a low budget production, I challenged this by using a bare scene the entire way through. This works together with the spotlight to make the main focal point the artist, either the spider or the fly.

The costumes themselves are a challenge to stereotypical rap attire, which consists of baggy clothes, puff jackets, suits with canes, etc. These are used throughout the rap industry by generally all successful rap artists. However, some rap artists are well known for challenging this convention, by dressing as surreal characters in order to add a humour factor to their rap videos, and their overall wacky personalities. I conveyed this in my own production by creating cartoonish and exaggerated spider and fly outfits. These were used for the same reasons as Dizzee Rascal used a shark in his Bonkers video and Busta Rhymes dressed as a wrestler, policeman and cowboy in his music video Gimme Some Mo’: to give a fantasy element to the production.