Evaluation Question One

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Bradley Stearn

Introduction

• Our music video follows the conventions of the Indie Rock genre more than challenging them. However there are a few aspects of the video that challenge the genre and it’s conventions.

• In this slideshow presentation I am going to show screenshots from our music video, and annotate them explaining how they follow/ or challenge the conventions of the genre.

• I will also be giving examples from existing indie rock music videos that I have looked at during the production of our video.

This screenshot shows the two guitarists in our music video performing in a small music venue. The guitarist to the right hand side is also lip syncing to the song, which follows the conventions of Indie Rock of having the performance in the music video.

The guitarists are both wearing casual costumes in the screenshot above. They are both wearing skinny or slim fit jeans, with shirts. One has his top button undone on his shirt, making him look casual and chilled out, the other guitarist has his shirt completely unbuttoned which shows his black t-shirt. Both these costumes are conventional to the genre, as they represent the musicians as every day people.

Our indie rock band consists of male band members.

Our music video follows the first point in Goodwins Theory in that it has the genre characteristics of indie rock.

Our music video challenges the conventions of the genre, as we do not have a typical band set up. Conventionally you would expect to see a drummer, and maybe a keyboardist. In our video we only see the lead singer with a guitar and a lead guitarist. We only focus on the lead musicians, with the drummer and keyboardist not being shown.

Using a small music venue location within an indie rock music video is very conventional to the genre. A music video that I came across during my research that used small venues included ‘Na na na na na’ by the Kaiser Chiefs. The music video contains multiple music venues, small and large. The screenshot below shows a small venue used.

Similar to our own music venue, the band members in the screenshot are wearing casual costumes. Which consist of skinny jeans with a shirt or a t-shirt.

The Kaiser Chiefs consists of all male band members, this is conventional to the indie rock genre, and is something that we followed in our own music video.

This is a conventional band setup, a lead singer, guitarist, bassist and a drummer.

Specific shot types and angles are conventional to the indie rock genre. In most indie rock music videos there are close-ups of the lead singer. There are also close-ups of the other band members, however the lead singer will get the majority of the show time.

Andrew Goodwin’s fourth point is about the ‘demands of the record label’ that produced the song. This means the artists must be shown through close-up shots to sell their star or band ‘star persona’. This produces a visual ‘motif’ that can be included in future music videos.

From this angle we get a glimpse of the stage lighting that the band are seeing. With the spotlight creating a glare In the bottom left corner, we get an insight into what the lead singer is seeing, this is ‘notions of looking’.

The lead guitarist in our music video is also shown through close-up and medium shots, however not as much as our lead singer.

The close-up and medium shots display his electric guitar and the chords and strumming he is playing. This adds an illustrative connection between the music and the visuals as we are able to see what he is playing. The electric guitar is also a conventional instrument to use in a band.

The lighting techniques in the shot shown is conventional to a gig scene in a music video. The screenshot from the video used low key lighting with a slightly red coloured tint, which gives off the effect of a live gig

The flashing lights in our music venue scene are conventional to a rock music video. They add excitement to the scene

Below is a screenshot of the bands lead guitarist as a black silhouette figure. We used this shot for around 3 seconds in our final music video, along with a photographed version on the back panel of our digipak.

An indie rock music video will contain various types of lighting styles and methods. The majority of our music video consists of natural lighting which came from the sun, with the added extra of small portable lights that we used. The silhouette was achieved by backlighting the subject in a dark location.

We didn’t use the silhouette shots much in our music video. We used one for about 3 seconds at around 55 seconds into our video. The shot is powerful when it first appears, and adds variation.

The silhouette visual used in our music video is illustrative to the music. The shot has a build up before it, with two similar shots in different locations. The sound of drum symbols crashing act as a transition into this powerful shot. These shots are cut to the beat.

I found a similar shot in the music video for ‘Little Shocks’ by the Kaiser Chiefs. The guitarist is shown in a low lit location, with a spot light back lighting him which creates a black silhouette figure.

A convention of indie rock music videos that almost always used is the juxtaposition of performance shots in various locations and cameo performed narrative.

In our music video we included narrative in the same locations as the performance shots were at. The example shown below shows a shot of Harry performing the lip syncing of the song at the rural location. The second screenshot shows Jason and Stevie acting for the narrative in the same location. Jason as performing a cameo role in the narrative, as he is a band member.

We challenged the conventions of the music genre by including a rural location. Usually you would expect to see an urban location. However I feel that this develops the genre, as it works well in our video.

In these performance shots Harry has a direct gaze to the spectators, which has a notion of looking as the audience will stare. back

Within the narrative scenes the spectators watch the relationships in a voyeuristic way.

Another media product that follows the similar conventions that are used In our own product is ‘Always where I need to be’ by The Kooks.

The music video consists of mainly performance shots in various locations around the city. An example performance scene is on the rooftop which shows the cityscape in the background.

This video is similar to our own as it includes small amounts of narrative between performance scenes. The narrative scenes are in the same locations as the performance. The cityscape shots shown below show a performance and narrative both on a rooftop in the city.

The conventional lead singer with a microphone and instruments of a drum kit and guitar are shown in this music video.

The motion tracked visuals on the garage door that we use in our music video give us an insight into our lead singers mind. He thinks about his ex girlfriend and her new boyfriend, we then see a flashback image on the garage of when they used to be together.

This could be ‘notions of looking’ as we are able to ‘watch’ and get an insight through the visuals, which show what the lead singer in the music video is thinking about.

In this scene the lead singer wears a comical t-shirt with a joke which is an intertextual reference to the Star War’s films. This costume creates a sense of humour with the lead singer, which may make him appeal more to different audiences.

There is a contrast between the clean wall and the graffiti on it, which makes it stand out to the spectators. One of the pieces of graffiti art shows guitar legend Jimi Hendrix playing a guitar. This is an intertextual reference to classic rock music videos, which links our genre of indie rock to the original rock genre.

The lead singer has a direct gaze to the spectators in this scene.

Rock music videos conventionally include multiple locations for the narrative and performance scenes. In our video this location appears as the third scene, with the pan shot of Harry strumming his guitar as he walks from under the bridge. In total there are ten different locations used in our music video.

Locations/Scenes

• As stated on the previous slide, indie rock music videos conventionally include many different locations and scenes.

• Our different locations/Scenes in the order of appearance are Jesus Green, Castle Mound, Bridge, Wooden Walkway, Garages, Shopping street, Man on the Moon music venue, Shopping centre, Coffee shop and the Council estate.

• Having so many different locations keeps the music video entertaining to watch, as it doesn't become too repetitive as it would if it had less locations.

• In a music video that I analysed technically for the research of our own music video, ‘Kings for the Weekend’ by Missing Andy, I found that it had 5 different scenes throughout the video.

• Click here to see the analysis http://slidesha.re/S505OF

Our magazine advert is fairly conventional in the way we formatted the information on it. The band name is clearly shown at the top of the advert, with the album title shown in a smaller font just below it.

Institutional information is shown on the bottom right of the advert. This includes a strap line review by ‘The Fly’, a very popular indie rock magazine in the UK. It also includes logos from the record label ‘Aware Records’, and the production and distribution company ‘Sony BMG’.

Links to social networking websites Facebook and Twitter will be were the fans will go to find more information about the album.

The two guitarists from our music video are shown wearing casual clothes which include skinny jeans with hoody’s.

We edited the photo to be black and white, along with the sky replacement with stars that we did. The small amount of colours such as the red and blue that are visible stand out.

The story that this advert tells is that there may be relationship problems between the three characters, the rip down the middle implies this. Conventionally indie rock albums have a story behind them.

Shown on this slide is a conventional magazine advert for an indie rock band album.

The band name ‘STEREOPHONICS’ is clearly shown with a large bold and capital font at the top of the advert. These words are the first to be read on this advert.

The album name is shown below the band name just like it is on our magazine advert.

Institutional information or logos are not shown on this magazine advert, this challenges the conventions. This challenges the conventions.

Band members are shown wearing casual costumes

Different versions of the album are available to purchase, including digital downloads and a DVD version. A link to the official band website is at the bottom of the advert, more information on the album would be on the website.

The layout of this advert is similar to ours

Minimal colour is used just like in our advert.

The close-up of our bands lead singer on the front cover of the digipak follows the demands of the record label that our promotional package has.

The front cover of the digipak doesn't give too much away, it is simple but effective with it’s style.

Institutional information includes the two strap line reviews that we added, from NME and Q which are leading music magazines.

The band name is clearly shown along with the album name in a smaller font below it. The white glow helps the text stand out more from the starry background.

The physical version of this digipak that I own has a sticker on the top left. On this sticker is information including the singles included in the album, and a selection of top strap line reviews from music intuitions.

The simplistic style of this Kasabian digipak is similar to ours. The band name is shown with a bold font, there is no album name on this digipak because it is the same as the band name.

The graphic on this front cover shows a mysterious person with what looks like a mask on which covers their face. This doesn't give anything away about the album, similar to our front cover does.