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

Before starting our music video we did a lot of research into music and genre's like our chosen song. We went through various different music videos, both of the same genre and different. These either inspired us or made us think we didn't want to pursue some aspects of them. As we chose our song 'Use Somebody' by Pixie Lott, we decided to look at acoustic music videos and take note on how these are performed.

This video is an example of a acoustic cover which inspired us. A typical acoustic cover has limited location shots, the entire video is located within the music studio. This is because an acoustic cover is to show off the music talents involved only, and how many instruments have been involved. This is a simple, yet very effective video as it shows a good variety of shots and how a music video can be produced without exotic locations.

This image is a print screen from the cover above. This close up is off the dominant male plucking his guitar. This is an image which as a group we loved because it shows off the talent of the male character on his guitar.

This print screen is from our music video, we tried to convey the image used in the other cover in our video with a close up of the male strumming his guitar. We did this from a different angle, but we felt we got the same effective shot. We also used the strumming in time with the beat of the song in our music video. It was a lot harder to sync up the strumming off the guitar in our video, than it would have been for the above video as that video would have been live. As we didn't film our video live, we had to match up the synching of the strumming and song once we got back to our editing suite. We managed to do this and produce a very effective shot of the strumming on the male's guitar.

We decided to look into acoustic videos, but within the same genre of our chosen song which is pop. We decided to look at a Avril Lavigne 'Wish you were here' Normally the typical Avril Lavigne song would involve lively, crazy locations with party and fun locations. This is the typical music video we would normally see Pixie Lott create, but they both change their approach when covering a acoustic song. As previously analysed, we can see from Pixie Lott's 'Use Somebody' music video, that she's gone for a studio set. This is the typical acoustic approach for a video, as we can see Avril Lavigne has also gone for this approach.

This is a shot that particularly inspired us, as well as the close up's of the strumming of the guitar which is the same type of shots involved in the other acoustic video we have looked at. This is a simple image of the main character singing into her mic, typically located within the studio. In this particular still, we enjoyed the fact that all the viewers attention would be on the lyrics, as you can see the singer would be lively singing the lyrics. 

These two still shots are from our music video, which are shots that we tried to create from Avril Lavigne's studio shots. We included both a medium wide angle shot of Amy singing on the microphone, and a close up of the microphone and Amy. We loved these shots and got our inspiration from Avril Lavigne's video, both these shots give a realistic attitude towards the video and as if Amy is singing these live which we aimed to achieve. 

As we wanted to take more of an original approach to a acoustic song, we included more exciting locations. Luckily we were able to film in my 'bar' room in my house, which created the exciting locations. The vibrant colours from the pool table, and the bar that is lit up creates a romantic feel. This helps us convey the story further, as we are aiming to produce a video about a romantic couple. 

Our inspiration came from the original artists of the song 'Use Somebody'. In their video of the song they include significant amounts of shots in a pub. These shots include a variety of 'extras' in the shots to create more of a lively and socialising atmosphere. As we aimed to achieve more of a romantic style to our video, we didn't add as many extras because we wanted all the main attention on the couple in the video. Although we did include a few extras in some pool shots, so the realistic pub setting would fit our aim.

After looking into acoustic video's, we realised that the typical approach to produce a music video from an acoustic cover are all based within studio's. Including a variety of shots around the studio's, of both the main singer and the performers involved through instruments. We decided to use these approaches in our video, but we also didn't want to copy these video's. We wanted to add the aspects of a typical acoustic into our video, as we were using an acoustic song, but also be original. We decided we would vary our locations to do this, and add more outstanding performers in the video. In the videos of acoustic's we have analysed, we realised that there aren't any 'extras' involved, and that the only people featuring in the video are the people involved in creating the music. We decided to go for a wider number of performers involved and include further actors. For various locations we used a studio, a bar room, a park, a cafe and various different locations around Manchester centre. This is something unique to acoustic music videos which are all set within a studio.