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

2. Where have your idea’s come from?
My group and I decided we were going to use the song ‘Cala Cola’
by The Miracles. The band’s song provided us with an relaxed and
chilled indie beat which as a group we liked. As the band’s hadn’t
created a music video for the song it allowed us as a group to
interpret the song ourselves. Once selecting the song we individually
looked at examples of existing professionally made indie genre
products such as music videos, digipaks and adverts. I analyzed
subjects such as entropy and redundancy, entropy consists of the
idea of unpredictability and the media product displaying concepts
that do not follow what is predicted of the genre. Redundancy is
when the media product complies with the convention of the
genre.
After looking into the indie genre I realised that most themes within
the genre are typically redundant and feature throughout many
other similar media products. Examples of this I looked at were in
Noah and the Whale’s music video for the song ‘Waiting For My
Chance To Come’.

3. Typical features that I noticed within this video were the use of vintage styled props and
camera equipment to make the video seem much older than it is. This same feature was
used with The Vaccines video: All In White. Both videos are musically part of the indie
genre and feature the vintage filters and video effects. Because it’s a generic feature of the
genre we felt it was important to include as its such a dominant feature. The same
features of the indie genre I discovered in my research I have included in all my media
products such as my music video, digipak and print advert. We discovered that the
beach was a common location seen within the indie genre. After much deliberation we
decided it was a difficult location to films and was not easily accessible to re film
elements if we needed to. This problem got resolved when we discovered Noah and the
Whale’s promotion video for ‘The First Day’s Of Spring’.
A short film called ‘The First Days Of Spring’ featured as a promotional video for Noah
And The Whale’s album. It shows a road trip and exploration of a young man in a new
area he has never explored. The aspect of travel and exploration is also seen in various
indie genre art pieces, so this served as inspiration for our road trip concept. This was
our main influence on our work as we liked the idea of a sense of freedom young people
can embark on. In the video we discovered filming in a forest is also another popular
location seen within the indie genre. So we decided to use this location in our own
work. Carly Rae Jepson and Owl City’s ‘Good Time’ music video inspired us to include
the camping aspect. This is because in their video they included the same concept and it
successfully showed a group of friends having a good time and spending time
together, which we wanted to emulate in our own work.

4. Once we discovered the concept we put all our ideas about props, costume, location and
other influences into the pitch presentation so that it served as a hub for all our ideas so
we could develop them into a video.

5. Audience research has played an important element throughout
each stage of my project. I organized frequent audience research in
order for me to collect opinions and ideas on my media products
such as improvements on the music video or design elements to
suit their preference. Our audience helped us identify the
problems associated with the beach location and helped us acquire
a new location which still fitted with the convections of the genre. I
used a variety of different formats to gather my feedback, one being
setting up a group on a ‘Facebook’ and posting my media products
allowing my audience to comment. Another being direct feedback
and capturing it on video.
Audience feedback allowed us to achieve a professional looking
music video as they pointed out the lip syncing was out of time and
also said we needed a new and fresh location for the performance.
We acted upon this by re-filming our performance in a studio in
order for our video to have a set location for the performance
concept. Our performers performed the song to a high standard
which enabled us to sync the words and match the music to the
visuals so its flows much better than before.

6. I used the audience feedback for developing my print work as well
as my music video. They helped me establish which fonts and
colour schemes I should use from a selection I submitted for their
feedback. They also helped me make necessary changes to different
drafts of my print work and digipak so I will have a finished product
that suits the genre.

7.  Due to the lack of technology available to us our music video
lacked professional quality, which makes our project different to
real media products. Our resources were limited to, , a basic
Sony video camera, Final Cut and a very small budget. Our
music video experienced problems whilst editing because of our
lack of knowledge with the professional software we used to edit
it with. This lead to making the video look not as high quality
compared to different to real music videos.
 By using the Ludlow college drama studio it helped our music
video look very professional when we were filming the
performance elements of the video. This is because the studio
we used was created specifically for professional performances.
Because our video lacks professionalism it reflects homemade
qualities and originality and does not have a manufactured look.
These concepts are a common element seen within the indie
genre.
 At the start of filming the music video we had a low quality
camera but towards the end of production we had a much
higher quality camera to work with. This was noticeable in the
final product and made the attention to detail look shoddy and
unprofessional

8.  As I had previous knowledge of Photoshop I was able to make a
much higher quality print products that looked professional and
much like the real thing. I was able to use many different fonts
and apply many different effects to the images I had used to suit
the genre and specifications required. As I have used the same
fonts, filters and colours throughout my work it gives it a house
style. This creates continuity throughout my pieces and mirrors
methods used in the industry for real.

9.  In our video I feel that we show predominantly redundant
features as we tried to include as many different aspects of the
indie genre as possible so it looked professional and matched
real music videos. The different uses of the filters and the props
we used are all from our re-search into the theme and genre.
This is also apparent of our road trip theme and the concept of
friends spending time together and camping. We tried to be
original in or methods when re-creating the aspects, for example;
when we wanted to show the road trip we tired to make it seem
unique to our surroundings where we lived as we utilized the
local forests and surrounding areas.
 Another way we have tried to be original, is via the performance
element. it is rare in an indie video to have just the artist in a
dark room with studio lights, when the rest of the video shows a
different narrative. usually the performance is mixed in with the
narrative, but we have broken this convention and tried a
different method.