Media Language Essay

For my A2 coursework I had to create a music video, as well a promotional package around that, including a digipak, website and posters. I chose to do a pop song, as well as fun advertisement which fit with the category. I wanted to create the feeling of youthfulness in my media products by uising media language, for example camera, editing, mise en scene and sound. I continued patterns throughout my media package to create cross media synergy, which created an image for my artist Ava. The genre was pop, and we wanted to create a really fun music video.

Mise en scene was important for my music video because it created meaning and a style for Ava, this would enable the audience to feel more engaged. The outfits which were worn throughout the music video were very bright and patterned which stands out and creates an image for the artist. She also repeatedly wore a bright yellow coat which was very iconic for our artist, which was shown in the digipak, poster and website etc. As well as this all the outfits she wears are covered up and not revealing this is because we did not want her to be sexualised and instead wanted her to be a role model and fun. We created a changing room scene where Ava tried on different pieces of clothing which were very bright, glittery and silly, this made her seem fun and relatable for other teens, rather than being the usual young artist who is sexualised and others cannot relate to her. Within the music video we had similar lighting which was bright and colourful. Bright lighting can make the music video feel a lot happier. Therefore, I thought it was very important to include in our video. Even though some parts were set at night we still made sure for them to be colourful and well lit, especially in London, therefore Winter Wonderland was a key importance for our music video, because of the bright lighting.

As this music video is a modern one and we wanted to show youthfulness we wanted to show the current trends in our music video. We did this through the camera by holding the camera in a ‘selfie’ type shot in a video. We did this by getting our artist to hold the camera rather than being filmed. This looked brilliant when spinning around in 180 degrees. I thought this was good because the spinning around looked really fun. As well as this using a modern way of filming would have made the viewers who are young relate to Ava. As well as this looking at the camera was key, this is because it enabled the viewer to feel as though the artist was being personal and speaking to them. When we were doing a lot of lip sync we wanted the audience to feel engaged with our artist and therefore we looked into the lense.

A lot of the editing has been left quite basic within the music video, this is because we wanted Ava to be quite natural and youthful, however we did add a small amount to enhance this. For example, we added the reverse effect, which was a good way to catch the audience’s attention. This is fun and looks almost amateur which is great to highlight the character’s youth and make the video feel playful. We did this when Ava was running up an escalator, so it looked really fun when it was reversed. We also enhanced the colours on a lot of the video, this was good because it made the colours stand out a lot more, which is something we really wanted to do. It allowed the colours to pop more, especially the yellow coat which I wore throughout the video. It made everything look a lot more colourful and jolly. We also sped up a lot of the parts, this is because we wanted the video to match up with the lyrics so it would make sense. As well as this speeding up some parts actually made the filming feel more upbeat and fun, especially when the characters were spinning around and laughing. It made it seem more youthful.

Finally, sound affected out music video. This is because we used thought beats, we did this when the music changed, the shot or the location would also change. We followed Andrew Goodwin to do this as he said that seeing the sound in the videos would create a good connection between the video and the sounds. We reflected the music, meaning we tried to use appropriate clips within our music video to fit a long with the lyrics which you could hear so the listener could relate to the lyrics. When the song mentioned about being young and having fun we made sure to show this on screen.