Evaluation Question 1

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

Conventions of an Indie Rock music video:

A typical indie rock music video is about image. Whether it’s about the artist with a particular look or the video as a whole e.g. a certain theme running throughout. It is common for the image of the artist and the theme of the video to relate to enhance the overall product. Within my music video ‘To Anyone’, I tried to represent the conventions of an Indie Rock music video through mise en scene.

Andrew Goodwin:

A music video should represent the song itself, as both a form of advertisement and as a message within the song.

According to Goodwin, there are several conventions of a music video:

        1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals.

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6. There is often inter-textual reference.

In my music video I've tried to incorporate different conventions of Goodwin’s theory such as creating a 'relationship between the lyrics and visuals' by using a narrative of two characters arguing by the river which could be why the lyrics write 'She's got a secret, my heart will seek it'. 

Also, 'the need for lots of close-ups of the artist' which is shown throughout our music video as there are closeup shots shown on the protagonist in the narrative as well as the band shots.

According to Turrow, formulas are ‘widely recognised principles’ which allow ‘organisational continuity and consistency while not necessarily stifling the creative dimension of media works’

The genre Indie Rock has its own conventions in which they stick too. These include:

-Cutting on the beat

- Close-ups of the artist

- Love/ romance themes

Our genre being ‘Indie Rock’ enabled us as a group to get a wide range of influences and ideas for our music video and allowed us to incorporate a diverse amount of ideas.

The Strypes – Hometown Girls

The Strypes music video for ‘Hometown Girl’ gave us inspiration for our opening shot as we liked the way in which the name of the band and title of the song came up as the camera panned around, this was one of our first inspirations when thinking of the layout of our music video as we thought it was eye catching.

Panning Shot -  

Arctic Monkeys – Why do you only call me when you’re high?

Arctic Monkeys video for ‘Why do you only call me when you’re high?’ gave us inspiration for a key sequence in our music video, as apart from our band shot a visual of the main vocalist walking down past River Themes is a recurring shot throughout the music video which is linked with our narrative. We found it effective in Arctic Monkeys music video as it’s the only time as an audience you’re able to connect with the main vocalist on his journey in the song. 

Closeup shot - 

 

Jamie T –Sheila

In Jamie T’s music video Sheila, a main sequence of the music video was a inspiration to us as we appreciated the way the footage of the protagonist in the music video was presented and the use of camera angles such as the 180° rule and the use of closeup’s on the protagonist walking alone by the river. We found this effective as you are only focused with the central character.

Closeup shot - 

  180° rule - 

In our music video we used Todorov's three-part narrative structure and the change from equilibrium to disequilibrium in our music video for example the starting point establishes the narrative of our main vocalist walking down the river themes, in our video we used a none linear structure, so as the video continues we learn why our key vocalist Adam is walking alone singing. 

As it comes to the middle part of our music video the audience  becomes aware why Adam is walking by the themes, as we are shown a dispute between Adam and his girlfriend Emily, where it ends up him shouting at her and walking away leaving her standing alone. We thought this narrative scene connected well to the song as once listening to learn it’s about a girl keeping secrets from her partner ‘she’s got a secret, my heart will seek it’ a cutaway from this scene to Adam walking alone is then used which creates instability in our music video as we do not know whether this is the end between Adam and Emily.  

The closing shot of end of our music video, shows that Adam isn't returning to Emily, a new stability is established. We see Adam walking up with a long shot of Big Ben looking fed up and reaching the end of his journey. The fade out of the shot shows that this story has come to an end concluding to a termination of their relationship.  

 Digipak Front Cover

When creating our digipak we did a lot of research on different artists in the indie rock genre. Jamie T’s ‘Zombie’ album cover and The Strypes ‘Snapshot’ album took our interest out all that we researched as we liked the way the 3 colours black, white and red stood out. The look is simplistic but draws your attention with the use of monochrome colours with a bold red. We originally were unsure of our central photo as we had such a selection, but after seeing Jamie T and The Strypes album we found having the whole band appearing in the photo was important to the image we wanted to perceive of an Indie Rock band.

DigiPak - CD

For our CD we found that the rest of our digipak followed a simplistic theme, as we didn't want to over power the imagine with too many colours or information as we thought this may ruin the image we were trying to portray to our audience. The image we agreed would look best on our CD was -

This image was decided for two reasons:

1. It's connected to the main single on the album 'To Anyone' as this is an image taken from the closing scene of the music video. This may encourage our audience to want to watch the music video after listening to the album as they are both linked together.

2. We found this image to be simple but effective. By just having our main vocalist in the picture along side a main attraction in London (Big Ben) the image isn't overwhelmed with a lot of colour but the image itself attracts you when first glanced at.

We took inspiration from artist's such as Arctic Monkey's who use simplistic imagery on their CD which we found to be effective as it didn't ruin the sophisticated look their digipak as a whole illustrated.

Magazine Advert

Similarly to our digipak we again did a lot of research prior to designing our magazine advert. We knew it had to be very visual as it’s the main product which would entice our target audience to buy the album. We looked at magazine advert’s from artist’s such as ‘Jamie T’,‘The Stypes’,‘Arctic Monkeys’ and The Kooks’ who all fit into the same genre as our band.

Our final product turned out extremely well, as it’s eye catching and it has synergy so it connects to our digipak which is a key element so our target audience are able to link the two together.

Analysis of music advert

We wanted 'The Crystal Whites' to stand out boldly so our audiences eyes would immediately catch the name of our band, which is why it is centered on the top of our magazine advert in a bold black font. By having 'To Anyone' written in red synergy is created as the font on our digipak is the same style and colour as on our magazine advert.

By using a quote from NME 'Raw Young Talent' we felt as if this would add to our audience appeal as NME has a large fan base and by having such a positive review felt this would expand the audience for the band. Also, we felt as if this brought a unique element to our magazine advert as through research found only selective magazine adverts had NME quotes included.

We've also included the website for the band in the middle of the magazine advert at the bottom of the page along side with social media icons. We witness everyday how much of an impact social media and the internet has on music popularity so we've taken this key element of society and ensured that we are reaching out to all audiences. We also know that social media is the new 'word of mouth' to getting a song's popularity.