Evaluation Q1

Evaluation Q1:In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Jack Sandham

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.

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 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 this shows that he is talking to the audience. This then explores the title of the track, ‘forget about what I said’, by showing that Stevie has forgotten him and moved on.

In the narrative scenes, Jason is always looking at Stevie, not the camera.

Harry is singingto the audience

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Digipak

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.