Evaluation - Question 1

Question1 from Rebecca Smith on Vimeo.

 

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

For the main task of my A2 media coursework, I created a music video as part of a promotional package, which also included my ancillary tasks of producing a magazine advert and a digipak. I chose ‘Norgaard’ by The Vaccines as my chosen song, a stereotypical song from the indie/rock genre. The main purpose of a music video is to promote the artist and the record as a form of advertising, in addition to expanding their profile. It also allows the song to be presented in a visual form, thus may give a further meaning or understanding of the song to the audience.

In order the fully understand the typical forms and conventions of indie/rock music videos I not only research into them, but studied and researched existing music videos of this genre. The indie/rock music genre has a wide variety of conventions, perhaps due to the fact that originality and individuality, pushing the boundaries and rebelliousness are all important to its ideology thus as a result its videos try to incorporate these and become quite different from one another. Therefore they are usually quirky and visually interesting. I conformed to this convention by being as creative as possible in my music video, using a variety of props such as balloons and silly string, and making my actors appear like cut out pieced of paper and looking almost like cartoons. They often tend to be split between narrative and performance based. This is very much the case in my video, which uses this convention of combining narrative (my main actress shown getting ready and applying makeup) and performance (various actors miming and dancing to the camera).

It is not unusual for the artist to not be featured in an indie/rock music video, as the attitude tends to be that the music itself is more important and the artist, unlike pop music it does not promote the artist as a ‘star’. This is evident in my music video as the artist is not featured, instead a group of actors are miming along to the song and performing to the camera, enforcing the idea that the band are not beautiful, famous stars but simply normal people, which is crucial to the indie/rock ideology. Furthermore, as the song comes from The Vaccines debut album I decided to play upon the fact the band were new and relatively unknown when it came out, thus by hiding their identities it may cause curiosity in the audience as to who they actually are and what they look like, making them more memorable.

Music videos of the genre are often black and white, or creatively lay around with colour such as The Cribs ‘I’m a Realist’, which gave me the initial idea for effects used during the performance sections of my video. I decoloured all these shots, then in the shots where there was one bright prominent colour, such as the red guitar in shots of Sam, I left this colour to make it more quirky and certain aspects stand out from the page.

A further key feature of indie music videos is equality between the sexes, it does not tend to objectify and exploit women in the way that is seen in hip hop videos, where the women are usually extremely passive and merely there for males, instead they are shown as independent and powerful. This is especially the case with female fronted bands such as Paramore and We Are In The Crowd, where it can even be the male members appear less powerful than the women, for example as seen in Paramore’s Playing God. My video does not show my female actors in provocative poses or costumes, in fact the performers are very much presented equally to the male performers, there is no difference in their presentation to the audience, thus conforms to this convention of indie/rock music videos. However, the shots of my main actresses may be interpreted as not showing her as equal and relate to Laura Mulvey’s theory of the ‘Male Gaze’, where she argues women are given the status of an object , due to the control of the camera being dominated by heterosexual men. As she is only shown through the use of close ups and extreme close ups, this may be interpreted as objectifying her as it does not portray her as a whole person, but in some lingering shots as a pair of eyes and lips etc. She also appears unaware of the camera and that she is being watched, as she is not performing in any way, and I further enforced this but deciding not to use a tripod to steady the camera work in every shot. I felt this gave it an more intimate, realistic feeling for the audience as opposed to all the shots of her being perfectly still and thus appearing to be the work of a professional. I did however se the tripod in some shots so that the shaky camera did not get irritating or take away from the successfulness of the video. She is also presented getting ready and putting on makeup, thus perhaps suggesting that the role of females is to look beautiful, and be viewed through the male voyeuristic perspective of the camera. Therefore, though in some aspects of my video I conform to the conventions of gender equality in the indoor/rock genre; other parts may be seen to challenge them.

Another convention of representation I have found throughout the indie/rock genre is that unlike much of the media, it tends to celebrate youth and recklessness, most likely as young people is its main target audience. For example, The Naked and Famous’s video for ‘Young Blood’ is a montage of young people having fun and being rebellious, but instead of condemning this and portraying it in a negative light, it shows young people in a very positive light. I tried to incorporate this into my product as I felt it would be extremely useful in appealing to my target audience, thus ensured it had a light-hearted reckless atmosphere. I also used props such as balloons; silly string and alphabetti spaghetti as these all have connotations of being young, and their use in the video illustrate the importance of youth and reckless fun.

I also studied Andrew Goodwin’s theory to give me more knowledge of music videos as a whole medium, not just defined by genre, and try to incorporate his theory into my product to make it more successful. His first point states music videos demonstrate genre characteristics, which I have outlined previously. He secondly states there to be a relationship between lyrics and visuals, which can be illustrative amplifying or contradicting. My music video features not only people singing the lyrics, but the meaning of the song is illustrated by the use of shots of the main girl getting ready. Certain lyrics such as ‘walking down the catwalk’ are accompanied by amplifying shots of the lyrics being acted out on screen, for example here a close up is used of her walking around in high heels. Furthermore, in the chorus the lyrics spell out her name, I have visually represented this by showing the letter on screen using a variety of props, such as signs being held by the actors and alphabetti spaghetti. My music video also fits with Goodwin’s third point of there being a relationship between music and visuals, as it features quick sudden cuts to match the fast pace of the song. In addition, MTV style editing is used, helping to keep the audience’s attention and involving rapid cuts between the two narratives. The next point states that 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 occur throughout their work as a visual style. I have challenged this point, as though the main actress is only shown through close ups the band is never featured throughout my products. However, it can be argued a motif is created throughout my three products as they all focus on the theme of looking, and the digipak and magazine advert both feature images of the same smashed up camera. This leads me to the fifth statement argued by Goodwin, that there is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body. The notion of looking is very much a theme throughout my promotional package, my music video uses it by showing the main actress only in close ups, which as I previously discussed can be interpreted as objectifying her. This combined with the images on my two ancillary tasks suggest I have conformed to and used this convention of music videos.

I followed a similar process for both my digipak as I did my music video, by researching what makes a successful digipak and the conventions of my chosen genre, in addition to researching and analysing existing products. I found that digipak covers of the indie/rock genre tend to be more creative than other genres, such as R n B covers which just tend to feature an image of the artist. Due to the fact that the indie/rock genre tends to be more focused on the music than the actual artist, their status and appearance, they are often not even featured on the cover. I also asked members of my target audience how they felt about the artist not being featured on any of the products, to which they responded that it was not the artist that was important to them, and this may also allowed my visually appealing creative devices to be used. I therefore decided against using an image of my artist on my digipak, keeping with this aspect of my music video and conforming to the conventions of my chosen genre. Furthermore, I decided my products would be more successful if I created a house style, and used the same theme of the notion of looking throughout all three. I also kept in mind the important aspects of the genres ideology, and displayed these through my chosen colour scheme of red black and white. Black and white are colours I frequently see in existing indie/rock products, whilst red connotates being passionate rebellious and energetic, all traits that are valued by the genre.

Research into magazine adverts led me to learn that their primary role is to promote the digipak and the band, raising awareness as well as convincing the audience to buy it when it comes out, as a form of advertising it is meant to cause interest without revealing too much information if the record has not yet been released. I kept to this convention by not showing an image of the digipak or revealing much information, but using an image of the same smashed up camera with the film coming out if the lens. This ensured it was visually interesting and would be memorable to the audience as it is quite unique.