Final Thoughts

To what extent did media language contribute to and help you evaluate one of your media productions?

Within each product a decision has to be made about what meaning is to be portrayed. This is done through the content e.g. in relation to pop videos this would be the songs message and brand. Secondly it is put across through form, which is the five technical areas of media language. These areas are camera (shot, angle, movement and position), editing, sound, mise-en-scene and special effects.

My production was a pop video of Sweet Disposition by Temper Trap. The meaning of the song is mysterious and is talking about the difficulties of life “a moment, a love, a dream, a laugh, a kiss, a cry, our rights, our wrongs”. We choose to portray this meaning by having a girl following a trail of light bulbs in a wood to try and find a way out of being lost within the world. This also coincides with our band as the bands image is mysterious and rebellious and we tried to convey a message that they could be the way out of the girls trail. However, this was not the case and showed through media language that is vital in creating my preferred meaning in the following ways.

Firstly the camera shots that were used helped to portray this meaning to the audience. For example the master shot that was used to show the whole band whilst in performance emphasized unity within the band as they were all playing together. We also used close up shots of both the band members and of our girl in the narrative to create a sense of intimacy and make the audience, as Dyer would say “the band needs to be present yet absent”. Therefore the audience can relate to the band yet they are not involved due to them being absent from them in real life. Throughout our pop video we used a side camera angle instead of being straight towards the person in order to stop the image from looking flat. Consequently it makes it mre interesting and also helps to portray the message of depth of field in three dimension. At one point within our pop video during the narrative we used a high angle shot looking down on the girl. We choose to do this as it made the girl look smaller and therefore emphasized her feelings of lost. We also choose to do it because it was t the point within the narrative that the girl was opening the box to find the band and possible find hope and an end to her being lost. However, the shot consequently highlights what is about to become apparent that the feeling of hope is not going to continue as she cannot relate to the band as they become 2D, so she still remains “small” within the world. Furthermore the camera movements also helped to create the preferred meaning as we used a tracking shot to follow the girl around the box. This therefore helped the audience understand her frustration in not finding hope. This was because the track closely followed her journey through the box so the closer audience was involved within the action of the narrative and performance combining.

Another media language that was vital when showing our meaning to the audience is the editing. We used continuity editing and cut to the beat throughout. The reason we used continuity editing instead of discontinuity editing was to tell the story of the narrative and relate it to the songs message that the performance was showing. Therefore the sequence flowed and helped to show the meaning as it went along through the lyrics and narrative. We choose to cut to the beat of the music (which is a common convention of pop videos) because then it was effective in showing what was happening and meant that it worked well and flowed. When filming we used a blue screen because it was more practical to film the band inside a studio and then super impose the images of the woods behind the band. This consequently emphasized the band being in a box as the images of the woods were behind them on a blue screen, which also made the link between the narrative of the girl in the woods and the box with the woods surrounding it. Therefore hinting as to what the girl may find at the end of her trail.

Within the mise-en-scene we used wardrobe to create the message. We dressed our band all in black in order to make them seem mysterious which helped to show the bands image of rebellion. The colour black is also related to rebellion. Although we didn’t want our band to seem too rebellious we wanted them to have an aspect of rebellion.