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

Our music video is of the HipHop genre, so for this reason we researched other music videos of the same genre after first looking at the original music video of How to Love. The video presents the harsh life a child can face due to dysfunctional family and parenting. We liked the idea of the singer just singing and not acting in the video, as if he was telling the story of this little girl and we decided to keep a similar theme. We then looked at other HipHop videos and noticed that this is the theme they followed-the artist or singer would usually be singing about something or someone but not actually appear in the video themself. We realised the video had a slow tempo which is conventional for a HipHop track and that HipHop videos include an intro, middle and end narrative, which we decided to do also. We came up with the idea of a relationship failure where the boyfriend finds someone else. The opening sequence of the protagonist receiving a text from him telling her its over set the topic marker for the video and the rest of the video is about her walking around upset, reminiscing and seeking closure.















< The close-up shot of the text that the protagonist received

Towards the end she realises he isn't worth being upset over and burns the letters he sent to her while they were in the relationship to erase all memory of him. As the protagonist starts to realise he isn't worth being upset over and is finally over the break-up, there’s a reverse re-wind of the video back to the opening shot where she receives the text but this time her reaction is different and shows a strong attitude (she laughs at the text). We took this rewind idea from Lil Wayne’s original video. This idea of a relationship failure and a breakup is usually in real music videos produced by real artists. The shots we have used to show emotions the character is experiencing in the video are real quality shots such as close-up shots for facial expressions and shots that need paying attention to such as the burning of the letters that are usually used in real music videos. The mood and the storyline of our music video is seen in many music videos that have been produced by many artists such as in the video ‘A team’ by Ed Sheeran and ‘Invisible’ by Skylar Grey, where the video is about one character and throughout the video emotions, mood and thoughts are expressed. This is shown through the protagonist's acting, we used medium shots to show her with her head down in the park when she was on the swing with her body looking limp, and her shoulders hunched.

Below is an image of the protagonist burning the letters which was done through a medium shot to show her physicality.













Below is an image of the letters burning which was done through a close-up shot to emphasise that the protagonist is removing all memory of her ex-boyfriend.













Close up shots were used when the protagonist was crying so we could see her tears. We looked at different locations in Manchester to film. We wanted an urban area to match the urban genre of HipHop and the mise-en-scene of our music video is urban. We filmed in a deserted park in Hulme as we thought it would fit in with the mood of the song and the urban mise-en-scene. Only 3 locations were chosen which follows the convention of real HipHop music videos as HipHop musical videos have a very few variety of locations to keep it as naturalistic as possible. The fountains in Piccadilly gardens were also filmed as the protagonist was reminiscing about the times she'd spent with her ex boyfriend here as the fountains are viewed as a romantic place for lovers especially teenagers who are video is aimed at and during winter where the weather is cold and more dull which also reflects the mood of the video. At this location we also took advantage of the presence of trams and took a long shot of one passing in front of the protagonist and the protagonist disappears which is a 'now you see her, now you don't' shot which shows how one minute, someone can be there in your life, and the next minute, they are gone. This follows a convention of HipHop music videos as they often contain little anecdotes in them such as the 'one minute someone can be in your life and the next they may be gone' anecdote like ours and has a clever way of showing it like ours. The protagonist feels worthless and invisible as if the existence of trams doesn't really mean much . We used low-key lighting to show the cold emotions and the depressed mood she is in due to the breakup.











< Here is an example of the close-up shot of the protagonist wiping her eyes to show the audience she is crying

Below in a screenshot of the long shot we filmed of the fountains in Piccadilly gardens to connote romance which the protagonist knows she will no longer get.













The actor was dressed in casual clothes, no bright colours instead we picked darker colours like black and brown also used nude make-up and simple hair style, which emphasises the sad mood of the story and represents her weak position and her being the victim. It also matches with the dull mise-en-scene. The video was mainly black and white all the way through till the end where it changes to colour when she is happy and over the breakup. The black and white colours are to present the vulnerable, weak character and then at the end colour is introduced to present life and happiness and that's when the character realises everything's okay and is with agreement with the breakup. In terms of editing, HipHop music videos keep 'real' and naturalistic and use minimal special effects as they often contain a hidden meaning e.g ours has the fact that one minute a person can be in your life and the next minute they can be gone theme running through it, but the bottom line is you must always stay happy and move on, and pick yourself up which again follows the 'life-goes-on' endings of HipHop videos. The original video contained the message of getting an education and giving the best start in life for your children or you will face harsh consequences. As HipHop music videos contain urban themes, they cannot be glamourised with special effects and studio effects therefore we did not use the studio at all and kept the special effects to a minimum. The only effects we used were the brightenening of the water fountains to show how beautiful love is and the black and white effect running all the way through but changing to colour towards the end when the protagonist is now happy and moving on. The only other effect was the rewind. From all of the above, our music video clearly follows the conventions of HipHop music videos from the way in which we keep the effects minimilistic, contain a message in our video, and stick with the urban mise-en-scene throughout.

Below is an image of an example of what the protagonist was wearing.