G324 Evaluation

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

Main Product - Music Video

The music video that my group and I made is for the song Stitches by The Dykeenies, which is part of the Indie music genre. When conducting my initial research into existing Indie music videos I used Goodwin’s Theory to guide my analysis. Through using this method I found that conventionally Indie music videos often include:

Genre characteristics, such as a narrative and performance element
Lots of close ups (CUs) of the band members, specifically the lead singer, because of the demands of the record label
An illustrative or amplifying relationship between the lyrics and visuals
An illustrative or amplifying relationship between the music and visuals
Intertextual references
The band wearing stereotypical Indie clothing
Some included the notion of looking, but shied away from voyeurism
Some also included comical elements (e.g. Vampire Weekend’s music video for Giving Up the Gun)

Genre Characteristics - A Narrative and Performance Element:

One of the genre characteristics that I identified when doing my research was that Indie music videos tend to include a performance and narrative element; for example out of the five music videos that I analysed only one defied this convention and consisted of pure performance, and that was Razorlight’s music video for I Can’t Stop This Feeling I’ve Got. Therefore, when planning our video we decided to use this convention and include a narrative and performance element because it was clearly something that many major record labels had identified as being appealing to an Indie band’s target audience.

Moreover, as a group we felt that including both a performance and a narrative element would be vital to us being able to produce a successful music video. This is largely because one of the main principles of Indie music is the DIY ethos and we felt that by showing that our band could play their own instruments we would automatically be able to establish them as being a credible Indie band. We also felt that it would be important to include a narrative element that our target audience could enjoy and relate to, in order to secure as many viewings of the video as possible.

Example of the performance and narrative element in One Night Only's music video for their song Say You Don't Want It:

Example of the performance and narrative element in my music video:

Genre Characteristics - Narrative Formula:

However, whilst my group and I used the codes and conventions that we had identified by creating a music video that contained a mixture of performance and narrative elements we also arguably challenged conventions too. As Indie music is all about being anti-mainstream my group and I decided that we wanted our music video to reflect this by making it anti-mainstream through the use of a fragmented narrative. Unlike the narrative elements in many Indie music videos, such as One Night Only’s Say You Don’t Want It, my group and I decided to start our narrative in media res, as we believed that by inverting Todorov’s five stages of narrative and ignoring the traditional linear narrative formula we would make our music video anti-mainstream and therefore, make it appeal to our target audience who like anti-mainstream things.

Ultimately, by using a restricted narrative we wanted to incorporate Barthes enigma code into our media product in order to keep the audience as active as possible. Within our narrative we have tried to create as many questions for our audience as possible in the hope that they will want to watch our music video repeatedly to try and find the answers to their questions. This is quite conventional to the Indie genre, as most music videos, such as The Kook’s video for their song Shine On, try to create enigmas within their videos in order to secure as many viewing as possible.

On the other hand, it can be argued that we followed the conventions associated with narrative formula within Indie music videos, as we used a single narrative rather than multiple narratives. This was mainly because when conducting our individual research we found that Indie videos tend to use single narratives, as it allows the audience to connect emotionally to the narrative that is being depicted on screen. Contrastingly, many Pop music videos, such as Katy Perry’s music video for Fireworks, use multiple narratives and we did not want to confuse our target audience by creating an Indie music video with Pop music video conventions.

Therefore, it terms of narrative structure my group and I both used and challenged the codes and conventions that we had identified within exisiting media products.

Goodwin’s Theory – CUs of Band Members:

According to Goodwin’s music video theory, the demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups (CUs) of the artist. This is particularly true for most Indie music videos, as conventionally they include lots of CUs of the band member’s playing their instruments, especially the lead singer. Essentially, by using lots of CUs of the band in the video the record label is able to establish a brand identity for the band. As a group, we decided to use this convention within our music video, as the music video is ultimately designed to be a marketing tool so we felt that by using lots of CUs of the band, in order to establish their image, we would be able effectively sell the band, and their single, to our potential target audience.

As well as using the convention identified by Goodwin in relation to the use of CUs in music videos my group and I also used tried to frame our shots similiarly to other existing media products, so that it would be really easy for our target audience to recognise that our music video was part of the Indie genre.

Goodwin’s Theory – Relationship between Lyrics and Visual

All five of the music videos that I analysed when conducting my initial research into Indie music videos had either an illustrative or amplifying relationship between the lyrics and the visuals and some even had both a illustrative and amplifying relationship within the video (e.g. in One Night Only’s music video for Say You Don’t Want It). Whilst creating our music video we kept this in mind and decided to use this convention by creating an amplifying and illustrative relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The lyrics of the song we chose are really deep and meaningful, as ultimately they are about experiencing pain but still being able to appreciate the good things in life. As a group, we chose to reflect the emotional intensity of the song by creating a domestic abuse narrative, where things are bad for the protagonist at the start but get better towards the end, as we felt that through this amplifying relationship the message of our music video would resonate with our target audience.

For example, some of the lyrics for the chorus of the song say:

‘make a wish tonight

all the stars are out

its out of your hands but not out of reach’

Within our music video we used both an amplifying and illustrative relationship between the lyrics and visuals to reflect the lyrics above:

Amplifying - in our music video we tried to reflect this by showing that although at the beginning of the narrative it was hard for the protagonist to leave the relationship (it was out of her hands) it was ‘not out of reach’ because by the end of the narrative she was able to leave the relationship

Illustrative - we also tried to illustrate this message at the end of our narrative when the lead singer hands her back her blue scarf, which was intended to be a symbol of hope, and she reaches out and takes it back from him, as the lyrics above are repeated two or three times whilst the visuals are depicted on screen.

Goodwin’s Theory – Relationship between Music and Visuals

Generally, in most Indie music videos the editing pace reflects the tempo of the song, so a faster editing rhythm is used when the song speeds up and a slower editing rhythm is used when the song slows down. For example, embedded below is a video that I made when doing my research that highlights the illustrative relationship between the music and visuals in The Kook’s music video for their song Shine On:

This illustrative relationship is something that I was very aware of whilst editing the music video, as I tried to make sure that editing pace was driven by the tempo of the song so that none of the cuts, specifically the jump cuts from the narrative to the performance, looked amateurish or misplaced. At the start of my music video the editing pace is quite slow as the tempo of the song is slow to begin with, however, as the tempo of the song increases so does the editing pace. I did this so that the visuals would be able to flow smoothly with the music and would thus allow the audience to easily focus on what they are watching on screen. This was clearly successful because when getting our audience feedback on whether or not they thought that the editing went well with the music video some of the comments we received were:

‘Yeah, it was seamless. It looked professional to me’ – Laurence
‘It fits well, it doesn’t feel awkward’ - Emily

Therefore, my group and I used the convention of having an illustrative relationship between the music and visuals within our music video.

Goodwin's Theory - Intertextual References:

Goodwin’s theory also states that music videos often include intertextual references to films, other music videos, adverts and television programmes. When conducting my research I found the inclusion of intertextual references to be quite conventional, as many Indie bands such as One Night Only and Vampire Weekend included them within their videos. By including intertextual links the audience arguably become more active because they are able to look for different layers of meaning within your text, which would hopefully help secure extra viewings for your music video. Therefore, as a group we decided to include intertextual reference within our video. We did this through our rooftop performance and our domestic abuse narrative.

Example of an intertextual reference in One Night Only’s music video for Say You Don’t Want It:

Examples of intertextual references in my media product:

Firstly, we chose to film the performance element of our music video on a rooftop in our school in order to create an intertextual link to other famous music videos that were filmed on rooftops; for example, The Beatle’s famous rooftop performance of their song Get Back and One Night Only’s video for Say You Don’t Want It. We did this in order to associate our band, The Dykeenies, with other famous Indie/Rock bands, in the hope that our target audience would realise that our band are a credible Indie band.

Secondly, we wanted to create a subtle intertextual reference to Keria Knightley’s domestic abuse advert entitled ‘Cut Movie’, because as a group we felt that our target audience would generally know who she is and would therefore, be likely to know about this controversial advert.

We also used the convention of creating intertextual references within our music video by including intertextual links to our other media products, the digipak and the magazine advert. The creation of these intertextual links in a range of different media products that are designed to promote the same artist is actually quite generic to the Indie/Rock genre; for example, bands like the Stereophonics often include intertextual references to their album and magazine advertisement in their music video.
Therefore, we decided to use this convention by using the same font and blue colour motif across all three of our media products, in order to create a strong brand identity for our band.

Genre Characteristics – Mise-en-scene:

Locations – Conventionally, Indie music videos that include both a performance and narrative element film the performance and narrative sections in separate locations, although this is not always the case. As group we decided to follow this convention and film our performance element on a roof in our school and film the narrative element at my house because it is a domestic environment and therefore, works well with our domestic abuse narrative.

Examples of the two locations within our music video:

Examples of two separate locations being used in Air Traffic's music video for Shooting Star:

Therefore, we ultimately used the convention that we had identified when doing our initial research into Indie music videos.

Clothing - when we were planning our music video my group and I decided that we wanted the actors to wear quite stereotypical Indie clothing, such as plaid shirts, tight v neck t-shirts and slim blue/black jeans, as we found that conventionally this is the sort of clothing that Indie band members wear. However, due to budget constraints we had to rely on the actors to own this type of clothing, as we couldn’t afford go out and buy them clothes.

Overall, I would say that we largely used the clothing conventions that we identified when doing our research, as despite these budget constraints our band members wore the right style of clothes (v neck t-shirts and plaid shirts). On the other hand, whilst they were wearing the right style of clothes they still went against the conventions that we had identified, as unlike most Indie bands the colours of the clothes they wore didn’t completely match, as three of the actors wore grey whilst one of the other actors wore bright blue. Therefore, it can be argued that in a sense we developed conventions by not having all of our band members wearing similar coloured clothing and just having them wear generic Indie clothing.

One Night Only in their music video for Say You Don’t Want It wearing stereotypical Indie clothing in similar colours:

Actors in my music video wearing typical Indie clothing, but not in matching colours:

Goodwin’s Theory – Notion of Looking

Some of the music videos that I analysed when doing my initial research into existing media products included the notion of looking, but shied away from voyeuristic treatment of the female body because it would have most likely been considered offensive by their target audience, which heavily consists of females. For example, in both The Kooks’ music video for Shine On and The View’s music video for Same Jeans the concept of the notion of looking is explored.

Ultimately, we used this conventional idea of the notion of looking within our music video by including a shot of the protagonist of the narrative looking at a picture on her mobile phone. However, we did not decide to do this purely on the basis of following conventions, as the main reason that we decided to include this shot was because we thought it would be an effective way for us to convey the message that the two characters are in a romantic relationship.

Genre Characteristics – Comical Elements

Quite a few Indie bands tend to include comical elements in their music videos; for example, there are comical elements in Vampire Weekend’s music video for Giving Up The Gun. However, for every Indie band that does include comedy in their videos another does not. Therefore, it can be seen as conventional to both include comical elements and not to include them. As our song, Stitches by The Dykeenies, is quite a deep emotional song my group and I decided against the use of comedy within our narrative, as we wanted to create a narrative that matched the emotional intensity of the lyrics of the song. Thus, because of this we used the conventions that we had identified within some existing Indie music videos that chose not to include comical elements, such as Razorlight’s music video for their song I Can’t Stop This Feeling I’ve Got and Keane's music video for their song Bedshaped.

Digipak

When constructing the digipak my group and I largely stuck to the conventions that we had identified when doing our research into real media products. The codes and conventions that I identified were:

The same typography tends to be used throughout
The band are usually included and normally look away from the camera in photographs (sometimes they have instruments)
Simple, easy to read fonts are used
Colour motifs are also sometimes used
They all include relevant information, such as a barcode, record label logo, website details, copyright notices, the band’s name, the album title and track listings

Thus, when constructing our digipak on Adobe Photoshop CS5 we used all of these conventions. For example, we used a simple, easy to read font and we used the same typography throughout to create a degree of consistency and cohesiveness, like with Arctic Monkey’s album cover for Humbug. We also used a blue colour motif on the majority of the panels and in most of the pictures of the band they are looking away from the camera.

In our digipak there is a photograph of the band on all four panels, as we found this was quite conventional (e.g. all of the panels of The Kooks’ album for Inside In Inside Out have photographs of the band).

We chose to include the band in all of the panels because this is their debut album and it is therefore, really important to create a brand identity for the band, and as a group we felt that the best way to create an identity for the band would be to take photographs of them that show their personality and interests like The Kooks did, as their photographs of the band highlight their interest in making music. Therefore, we essentially used all of the conventions that we had identified from our research into real media products.

However, we also tried to develop the conventions in some respects, as ultimately we added lots of anti-mainstream effects to the conventionally styled pictures in order to try and make them as appealing and quirky as possible. For example, the motion blur effect on the inside right panel, which we used to suggest that the band are lost in their music, has a similar effect to the two outer panels of The Kooks' digipak, which also suggest that the band are absorbed in playing music. Thus, we created the same connotations but in a more quirky and anti-mainstream way, that we believed our target audience would enjoy.

Magazine Advert

I decided to answer this section in the form of a podcast: