1. Evaluation Q1:
In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real
media products?
Jack Sandham
2. This over the shoulder picture of Stevie and
Harry follows the conventions of a typical music
video because it shows the use of setting the
narrative scene. I think the shot reverse shot
here where they flick between each other over
the shoulder shows an argument in place and
this shows how its setting the narrative for the
music video. The shot reverse shot is a typical
convention of the indie rock genre because it is
used when expressing a narrative scene between
two characters. The mixture between narrative
and performance here is typical of a indie rock
music video because this is how they may show
a story alongside the band performing. Other
Indie Rock music videos that contain narrative
stories start off by setting their narrative for the
rest of the video. An example of this, is in The
Killers music video 'All These Things That I've
Done' where at the beginning it cuts between
the lead singer and a woman as she walks away
from him. For me, this shows a problem in the
relationship which is yet to build.
3. I have used this second photo in my slideshow
because I think this also uses the forms and
conventions of an Indie Rock music video by
showing our vast majority of multiple locations. In
fact, we have used a total of 12 different locations
for the whole music video and a typical Indie Rock
music video may have between 7 and 15 as I had
found previously. I think the fact we had used 12
different locations allows the audience to maintain
Harry is singingto the audience interest and hopefully track the narrative through
its stages and how Harry is reacting to them. The
fact that the first 30 seconds contains 7 different
locations really shows how much we wanted to
keep the audience watching and also how we
wanted to follow conventions of previous music
videos that we had researched before. This image
also portrays the ideas that Andrew Goodwin has
shown with the notions of looking. Harry is looking
directly into the camera throughout the video and
In the narrative scenes, Jason is
this shows that he is talking to the audience. This
always looking at Stevie, not the
then explores the title of the track, ‘forget about
camera.
what I said’, by showing that Stevie has forgotten
him and moved on.
4. The third picture is an example of how we linked the
lyrics and the visuals together so that they would
create a more meaningful reaction to the viewer.
Here the lyrics are 'I bet you've got a list' and Harry is
writing a list on his hand. This is following the
conventions of Andrew Goodwins theory of having an
illustrative link between lyrics and visuals and I have
found that other Indie Rock bands have included this
link at some point in their music videos. For example
at the chorus in the music video 'I Predict A Riot' by
'The Kaiser Cheifs', when they were singing about a
riot, the audience seemed to be having a riot with
pillows. I think this link is also seen when they are
preparing this riot and the band is singing that they
'predict' a riot. This suggests that they could see it
developing. Our music video also amplifies the link
between lyrics and visuals. This is because the song is
about the dynamics of a relationship and we have
tried to indirectly show this by showing Harry being
alone and reflecting on how she ‘forgot about what I
said’ and moved onto another guy.
5. I chose this picture because of the lighting that
we setup in the shot. As you can see we have
Harry lit up in the foreground using artificial
lights and in the background, Jason is in the dark.
This use of lighting is typically shown when the
artist is trying to highlight a character in a band
shot or a performance shot. This is an example of
how we paid close attention to the mise-en-
scene micro element in our music video. An
example of this in a Indie Rock music video is in
the song 'Everyday I Love You Less And Less' by
'The Kaiser Cheifs' where at 50 seconds, there is
a shot with the lead singer in the foreground and
with the others in the dark in the background.
6. This photo follows the same conventions as the
first photo in the slideshow. This is because we
used this shot to set the narrative scene by using
an argument. This is an example of a two shot
where we frame both the lead characters
alongside each other in the same shot. This is a
typical convention of a indie rock music video
because the main characters of the narrative
come together. In our music video, this shot uses
the actual sound from the video to emphasize
the impression that they are having an
argument. I think the use of narrative at the start
of the music video also follows the conventions
of a typical music video because we wanted to
make it clear what was happening from the
start.
7. I have chosen this shot, along with picture 4, to express
the fact that we are following the conventions of a indie
rock music video by using performance alongside
narrative. This is again, following Andrew Goodwins
theory of the use of genre specific conventions. Most
Indie Rock music videos, that contain narrative, contain a
performance section alongside it. I think this highlights the
perspective of who the video is following and how we
should be looking at the band. For example in our music
video, we mainly follow Harry doing performance shots on
his own to express that its his thoughts towards the
relationship. However we also include band shots of both
of them performing to show that they are in a band and
that they should be on the same side. In a way we have
challenged this convention by integrating the narrative
and performance together by showing background
information to the viewers via the means of voyeurism.
This is because we've shown the corruption in the band
with the relationship between Stevie and Harry and then
shown Stevie and Jason together. I feel that we have used
voyeurism here because Harry doesn’t realise that Stevie
and Jason are together until the final scene where they
are in the man on the moon location and Stevie walks in.
This suggests that us as an audience knew all along what
was going on and that we got to watch it develop.
8. This shot shows how we have followed the
conventions of a typical Indie Rock music
video by what Jason and Harry are
wearing. We decided to dress Jason
accordingly due to our research into what
other Indie Rock bands wear. We found
that they wear smart or casual wear
depending on the situation. In this shot
Jason is wearing black trousers with a
white shirt and a waistcoat. To accompany
this, in the Man On The Moon
performance shot he is wearing different
clothing to suit the conventions of a music
video. Harry is also dressed accordingly by
wearing a black shirt with black trousers so
that he looks casual but smart. We have
tried to enhance Harry and Jason’s band
star persona by concentrating on their
costume and how they are framed in the
music video. For example Harry has a lot
of screen time to express his story with the
music video but in our magazine advert
they are at equal heights with Stevie
between them.
9. This is one of the shots where I think we
challenge the typical conventions of a
music video by adding a technical element
to the shot. What we have done here is
tried to show Harry's thoughts onto the
garage wall behind him by using a photo
burst, faded image. Here he is reflecting on
the new relationship that he is yet to
discover, between Stevie and Jason. In the
next part of this video he is then reflecting
on what he once had with Stevie by using
the same effect. I think that by using this
effect, it challenges the typical forms and
conventions of a Indie Rock music video by
using both narrative and performance in
the same shot and at the same time.
Normally other music videos that I have
researched do not typically contain both of
these in the same shot and so I think it
gives the audience a new perspective when
watching our video.
10. In this shot Harry is represented with a
canted angle which then zooms in to show
his facial expressions. I found that in our
music video we have used a variety of
shot types and camera angles to maintain
interest to the audience and this is typical
in an Indie Rock music video. In fact all of
our shots were handheld, apart from two
dolly shots which needed a tripod, and
this shows how much we wanted to
express the motion of the clips to the
audience. We found that previous music
videos contained a lot of static shots and
we thought that because our song choice
was upbeat, we needed to implement this
with the handheld shot type. I think that
by using this technique, we can keep the
audience connected with the song and
with the video. During my research I
learned that upbeat songs, for example ‘I
predict a riot’ by ‘The Kaiser Chiefs’,
contain lots of different camera angles
and have fast cuts between clips. And so I
think that we follow this convention.
11. This final picture is to show how we've used the
change of pace in our music video. Although it's
hard to show a change of pace in an image, I've
captured a screenshot of a use of a faded
transition between two clips where previously
we just used a cut. We used a fade because we
thought that it matches the pace of the song
and so throughout the middle eight we changed
the transitions. I think that this is following the
traditions of a music video because where the
pace changes, normally the length of clip
changes or the transition changes and that’s
what we have implemented here. An example of
this is in the music video '1996' by 'The
Wombats' where in the middle eight the pace
increases by cutting to a different clip every
second. The first image is also showing how we
followed the conventions of Andrew Goodwins
theory by linking lyrics and visuals. At this part
of the song he is singing about stars and as this
happens we fade into stars. This illustrative use
of lyrics and visuals has been effective here
because it links the song and the video together
for our audience to relate to.
12. This is our final magazine advert which advertises the special
edition album ‘Man on the moon’. After doing a lot of research,
which is found on our blog, we decided that we wanted to frame
the advert as follows: artist name at the top, album name
underneath, release date at the bottom, strapline at the bottom
and also links to the institutions and social media sites. We found
this type of framing follows the conventions of a magazine
advert because by looking at the Friendly Fires example, it
included the same framing. However one of the elements that
we added in ourselves was the advertisement for the free
plectrum with purchase of the album. I think this will grab some
audience members looking for some merchandise of the band.
The free plectrum advertisement would also be following the
conventions of indie rock because you would only see that on an
indie rock product and not a pop or reggae product. This is
because it would only appeal to the indie rock genre and
because audience members of other genres would not want a
plectrum. We also came to the decision of using that photo
because its trying to show a tear between the relationship. To try
and link this product with the other texts we added an overlay of
stars into the background of the image which can be seen as a
theme of the digipak. We then added in the black and white
effect to add to the theme.
14. The digipak consisted of a theme of black and white starry imagery which we have used
across the other products. The use of a theme follows the conventions of a typical media
product because most artists have a story behind their albums and they express the story
by using a theme. Most indie rock bands that I have researched have consisted of a
underlying theme that is either a repeating graphic, image or text that represents the
album.
We have used two discs in our digipak with opposite colours as apart of my research.
When I made a blog post about the ‘Linkin Park’ digipak I found out that when they did
two discs in their album, they used opposite colours on each disc. For example on one
disc it was gold overlaying black and on the main disc it was the opposite. We decided
that this idea will show off the special feature disc as being separate and unique
compared with the main CD. We then found out about research into the spine that the
artist name, album name and a series of numbers goes onto the spine with the theme
continuing onto it. I think that we followed this convention, because it looks professional
on the shelf and can be identified by the audience. When looking at the back cover, we
followed the conventions here by using the social media site links, the links to the
institutions and recording information. Every album we researched consisted of some of
these elements and we have used this research so that we followed the conventions of an
album.
I think that our theme can be seen as a starting point for the band because it can be used
again in more albums to come. This is what the audience will remember the band by and
it will show how we developed the star personas for the audience to relate to.
