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

Our media product’s genre is an indie love song. We did stick to the conventions in some ways, yet we changed them to make the video more dramatic, therefore interesting and aesthetically pleasing. Originally we were going to completely follow the song’s lyrics and actual meaning by making storyline into; ‘boy meets girl, they fall in love, they break up’. However, we thought this idea would be far too typical and make the video seem boring.  So we decided to take the lyrics literally and end the song with the boy breaking the girl’s heart and stabbing her (collecting his jar of hearts). Up until the end of the video, its narrative may seem confusing, which we thought would make the audience interested to see what happens next. Also, the confusion is justified as the video is set in the girls dream which is revealed at the end. We made the indie song into a gothic video by using fake blood and locations which corresponded with the lyrics. Although the lyrics don’t mention a wedding or a white dress, we used a wedding dress as the costume for our actress. We thought that this would portray despair and bitterness stronger than average, everyday clothing. Therefore we challenged not only the conventions of the indie genre but the actual meaning of this particular song, by creating another way in which it could be interpreted. Therefore, our product shows it differentiates from the typicality’s that are shown in other song’s videos similar to “Jar of Hearts”.