Evaluation Q1

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

My music video certainly follows certain convention of indie rock music videos. I identified these conventions through my primary research I had conducted earlier through methods such as video analysis and audience surveys. Because of my in depth research I was able to confidently implement these conventions into my music video as well as challenge some of the conventions with a purpose. One convention of indie music videos and music videos in general is repetition. I wanted to be careful with repetition as I did not want my music video to look like I was just re-using old material to fill the time, I wanted the repetition to bring something to my video. To avoid this I reversed a couple of clips to look like the equilibrium had been restored. I carefully chose which clips to repeat, I chose to repeat the opening scene towards the end to link it back to the start. I chose the location of the repetition carefully as well, the original scene I repeated is over a specific guitar solo which is repeated later on in the and therefore I put it there. This creates a link between the music itself and the visuals as Goodwin would suggest.

My audience research allowed me to find out what my video needs to consist of in order for indie fans to recognise it as indie. It gave me information such as they prefer a music video with a mixture of narrative and performance which I have provided. There are various shots of the artist as well as band members mixed in with the performance. The band members are not together which goes against conventions of the band performing together, however as the song is being without someone, this seemed more fitting. There are lots of shots of the main artist and a lot of those being close ups, this conforms to Goodwins star theory. Just like in the music video for “what you know” by Two Door Cinema Club which contains lots of close ups of the lead singers face which they have built an identity from and I hope that music video builds an identity for the artist too.

It was important for me to research existing media texts in my music video analysis so I could learn the conventions that are important to the indie genre and the repetition of these conventions will help the audience associate my music video with that genre, as the cultivation theory suggests. This is assuming that the audience is passive and can therefore identify my music video even though it rejects certain conventions. Steve Neale said that "genre is a repetition of elements with patterns of variation".  And my music video certainly conforms to this theory, my music video takes traditional indie conventions and has variation by rejecting certain conventions and accepting conventions of other music genre.

One convention I conformed to within my music video which is the “not caring” style which I achieved by using low budget locations such as urban areas like a street or an abandoned building. The abandoned building was ideal for my music video as it amplified the isolation of the male protagonist. It also met the convention of using the camera hand held which also shows the low budget, not caring style of indie music. Neale would say this is the pattern in my music video. The variation came from conventions I rejected. For example, I filmed the entire narrative in slow-motion which is not normally the case, most indie music videos are fast paced. I chose to reject this convention as it created a nice contrast between the narrative and the performance as the performance was not in slow-motion.

The band members and the cast were all wearing indie like clothing, like the denim jacket the lead singer is wearing. My audience research allowed to identify what people who like indie wear as one question was what they were wearing. The mise en scene such as clothing helped add to the not caring attitude of indie as it was all casual/slightly untidy clothing. And as Buscombe said "genre exists due to its iconography". My music video was not entirely traditional as the indie genre is rather wide and it would be hard to create a one size fits all convention, as mine is more indie/rock more music video is more fast cut and is cut in time with the music to produce a more professional looking music video which could therefore appeal to a wider audiendce.

Goodwin suggested that music videos should show a link between the lyrics and what is being visually represented. My narrative very vaguely followed the lyrics to conform to this convention. For example when the song talk about “leaving” you see the male protagonists feet leaving. When the song talks about going through an “open door” you also see the male protagonist enter the abandoned building through the open door. My narrative is also rather confusing, as I chose to leave parts of the narrative out and slightly adjust the order in order to create a sense of confusion like the protagonist is feeling. This helped me created enigma within my music video as Barthes would say. Creating enigma is a convention of indie music and I intensified it by creating a cliff hanger ending, just like the music video for “Fluorescent Adolescent“ by the Arctic Monkeys.

My audience research also allowed me to find that majority of my audience watched music videos as a form of escapism. Therefore I wanted to make my video as immersive as possible and I achieved this by using lots of attractive slow-motion shots in my narrative and making sure my narrative was interesting. I feel like my narrative was interesting as I tried to leave the audience not entirely sure what is happening but still giving them a subtle order. Gauntlett also said that "genre is a toolbox for representing social issues" and I wanted to appeal to everyone so I used the situation of a break up which I feel everyone if not most people can relate to. Mulvey's male gaze theory doesn’t really apply to my music video as the female protagonist is not really over sexualised however she could still be considered attractive so could vaguely conforms to Mulvey’s male gaze.

 I followed Vernallis music video theory of editing my music video so it cuts shots with the beat of the music. My music video follows Todorov’s narrative theory of equilibrium. My music video started with the equilibrium being broken (the female protagonist leaving the male protagonist) and then the male protagonist then spends the rest of the music video attempting to fix the equilibrium by finding the puzzle pieces which is metaphor for him being incomplete without her. The equilibrium is then restored as the male protagonist finds the pieces and then the female protagonist appears. However this doesn’t entirely follow Todorov’s theory as the equilibrium might not have been fixed as at the end of the video it is revealed that she is not actually there and it was all in the male protagonists head, leaving the audience questioning whether or not the equilibrium has been restored.

I used diegetic sound at the start of my music video to establish the environment in which they are in which is a busy café, so I used sounds of people talking and plates clashing etc. The song starts with a long guitar solo so I used parts of this in opening to tease the start of the song and amplify that the male if the main protagonist as the guitar is over shots of him. The opening for the indie music video for “There’s a reason why“ by The Blossoms also has diegetic sound before the song begins.