Evaluation Stuff.

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

The video to Justin Timberlake's Cry Me A River was directed by Francis Lawrence, who is responsible for many of the RnB/Pop videos that were controversial or strange to say in the least.

Some Francis Lawrence Music Videos

Our interpretation of the song differed to his in the sense that we tried to show both “Justin” and “Britney”, according to circulating rumours at the time, and their reactions or thoughts as to what has happened.

Whereas in the Lawrence video we see Justin taking revenge on his ex, we wanted to show “Britney” hurting or “Crying A River” if you will, as the lyrics in the song describe.

Like many conventional RnB/Pop videos, we wanted to have a dance routine to add to the entertainment factor. Infact, we used a slightly less well known RnB/Pop video as inspiration for our dance routine. Drew Seeley's “Just That Girl” shows two people dancing with a mirror between them . If you've seen “Another Cinderella Story”, the movie the video is from, you would know that Drew is unaware of the girl on the other side of the mirror, yet there still seems to be a connection. We wanted to show this in our video, but we decided we needed to make it appear more urban to tie in with the rest of the song and setting. It's for this reason we decided to shoot the dance routine against a brick wall. Although dance studio style mirrors have been been seen in many other videos such as Usher's “Confessions Part 2”.

The Video To Usher's Confessions Part 2.

We understand that RnB/Pop has to maintain a conventional aspect to it, because much of what makes the music is the accompanying video in modern culture. So we did have the modern apartment, the car and the “slick” looking starring character with the pretty ex girlfriend shaking her stuff. However, our cast was Asian and our “Video Girl” was covered. These are pretty much unconvetional to the genre our video is in.