1B - Media Language

Discuss how you used Media Language in one of your coursework productions to create meaning for the audience (25 marks)

In year 13 we created a music video which conveyed the genre of hip hop. In our video we used media language deliberately to create a series of meanings for the audience.

Editing in our music video was consistently used in different manners to generate different audience feelings. At the start of our music video we included all of 10, locations that C.DOT our artist is featured in, in the whole music video itself. We did this to create a number of effects for the audience. The majority of our locations were urban, this is seen a lot in hip hop music video's, this gives the audience something to relate to. We also used Vernallis’ theory of thought beats during the video – we encoded this into our video to evoke genre conventions of rap videos, and enhance meaning for the audience. This worked particularly well with the chorus, where we used reverse shots in time with the song.

Camera is really important to the genre and it enables to create very quick certain atmospheres. We made sure that our camera work sticked within our generic conventions. We had a variety of low angle shots, where our artist is pointing down towards the camera in an aggressive manner. This therefore throughout the music video, we encoded this to evoke genre conventions of rap videos, this helps the audience understand the genre of the music video.

Mise en scene was a media language method which we used alongside our camera work. We had a series of props which all fitted towards the stereotypical hip hop genre, such as the gold grill. The gold grill can be seen throughout the video, although at the start we did a slow motion, close up shot of our artist C.DOT wearing a gold chain, whilst showing off his gold grill. We wanted to stay with our genre conventions. The close up of the gold chain and gold grill was a method which we felt as though we wanted our artist to stand out, as gold is represented as high class and expensive. In our genre hip hop the fashion industry is becoming increasingly popular, as it no longer a genre where artists videos are found in run down places. We wanted to create an image to our audience through the use of the props such as the long shot of our artist alongside a variety of different stylish cars. This would then enable our audience to have a different perception on our artist C.DOT.

We supported the view of Steven Neales theory that genre's are constantly evolving and changing. Our genre was hip hop, which as talked about above we have stayed within some of our generic conventions. This was through the use of our costumes, props, camera work and the way we edited our music video. Although there was some genre conventions which as a group we did not include. In the genre hip hop, women are normally associated in videos and are portrayed in a negative way. Laura Mulvey believes that media texts often encourage the audience to objectify women and look at them with the male gaze. Although this is usually conveyed in hip hop music videos, this is something which as a group we would steer clear from. Steven Neales theory is something which we looked at and realised that we could have an effect on the audience if we did not support all of the genre conventions in hip hop.