A2 Advanced Portfolio

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

Andrew Goodwin’s codes and conventions of music video states:

- There is a relationship between the lyrics and visual

-Lots of close-ups of the main artist

-Artist develops their own star iconography

-Reference to voyeurism

- A relationship between the music and visuals

-Performance/ narrative based

-Intertextual references

-The use of the conventions of specific genres having their own style and iconography

In producing the music video, I have both developed and challenged forms of conventions of music videos. This is through illustration and amplifying of the lyrics where the editing of the video related to the beat of the song and was able to amplify this towards the audiences. Examples of this can be found in the first scenes of the music video where editing is at a slow paced and gradually increases as the video progresses onwards. We have also developed the convention of having a relationship between the lyrics and visuals where we wanted the message of the song across our music video, which consists of having fun with the theme of freedom and youth from the chorus of the song ‘cause its your heart, it’s alive’. Examples of this can be found in the scenes where the lyrics goes ‘on the highway… on the highway’ where the artist’s background is on a highway to show travelling as a constant theme within the video. The third convention we have used and developed is the lots of close up shots of the main artist/ lead singer. This is due to it being an all-female band where most indie genre videos consists of the lead singer having the most screen time and we have tried to incorporate this onto the video as well. Examples of this can be found in the first verse of the music video, with the backdrop of the beach where the lead singer is singing the first verse.

The convention of the indie genre for music videos mainly consists of a performance and narrative. The music video we have produced challenges these conventions as the narrative in indie-genre music videos are mainly about a break-up, with the song lyrics revolving around this as well. We felt that by challenging how narratives are usually set in indie-genre videos, we would be able to appeal to a teen audience as it makes the video more unique in terms of the audience experience as it is not your average indie-genre music video. Instead of using a romantic narrative involving a break up, we have incorporated the themes of youth and freedom into our video, as we felt that this is what the song lyrics represented ‘cause it’s your heart, its alive it’s pumpin blood’. Our narrative follows as a stark contrast between the old and the young, where a typical day for an adult consists of travelling to work, work and then go home. This routine continues and is repeated every day, hence the use of the time-lapse at the beginning of the video. However a young adult’s typical day would consist of spontaneous and unplanned events occurring throughout the day, with each day being seen and treated like the last and this shows the difference in approaches to living between the two age groups.

The album and digipak follows the appropriate layout conventions of real media products through the incorporation of a record label company, band/artist name logo, album name, artist image etc. I have applied the conventions of a digipak and album advert, through research and analysis of digipaks and album adverts within the indie-genre and was able to find what conventions were commonly used. This prompt me to then apply this onto my album advert where I included star ratings and reviews from well-known indie magazines such as NME and Q, to show audiences what type of genre this album and artist belongs to and the types of shots (i.e. close-up, mid shot) to use when shooting the images for the album advert and digipak. In my research, I was able to identify that the name of the artist was smaller in comparison to the font size of the album name, showing that the album name dominated the most both in the digipaks and album adverts I have researched. This is because the indie genre and its audiences focuses more on the quality of the music and the artist’s passion towards their music rather than who the artist is to sell the album- usually common in pop genres.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The combination of the music video and ancillary texts is effective in attracting audiences due to it being ironic. This is because the name of the album is called ‘Spectrum’ which defines a range of colours and sound, which contradicts the name of the band ‘Blackout’, and the theme and colour used throughout the ancillary texts of black and white imagery. The reason in choosing a black and white effect onto the album advert and digipak is because I felt that this was the best way in debuting a new band towards the audience, where the use of the black and white effect is most common in indie-genre-making the band gain instant recognition as it sticks to the conventions within the genre and also presents the band as dominant and ready to conquer the indie scene.

However, to ensure that audiences are able to identify that the artist belongs to the indie-pop genre I included hints of salmon pink into both the digipak and album advert to give audiences an insight into what the band’s music is like. Also, the reason in choosing the colour pink is due to the band being all-female, with this colour hopefully being able to show the band’s feminine side incorporated into their music. The representation of the artist is consistent to the extent that the use of black and white imagery is a contrast to the huge amounts of colour portrayed in the music video. This is because I wanted the band to be portrayed as professionals in the black and white photos, but when audiences listen to their music they are able to get to know the band on a more personal level with the band member’s personality and attitudes towards their music showing through the music video.

The artists/band have been represented through the mis-en-scene in accordance to the indie-pop genre. This includes the costume in the way the band has been styled, ranging from all-black outfits and leather jackets in the studio and airport scenes to casual, neutral and laid back clothing in the outdoor locations such as the amusement park and beach scenes. The camera shots used in the main product and ancillary texts are both similar ranging from close up shots to mid shots of the band and lead singer, to show consistency within the two. This would help audiences to be able to easily identify the song and its relation to the album and the band. This can be seen in the first scenes of the video where the band is wearing all-black outfits including leather jackets and the images used for the ancillary texts consists of costume similar to the scenes in the studio in the music video.

The images in the album advert have been constructed to present the band as having the authority and dominance over its audience. This is constructed through the use of direct mode of address by the lead singer where she is directly staring towards the camera, hoping to captivate audiences into buying the album. Star image is also used to promote the album advert, as a mid shot is use on the band members, ensuring that when audiences look at the advert they are within the same level as the band helping to establish a close relationship with the viewer.

The images in the digipak have also been constructed to present the band members in a more intimate level towards its audience. This can be found in the album cover photo where the band members are in a close up shot that connotes their closeness to each other in terms of their friendship and bonding. All of the band members use direct mode of address as they are shown to be staring directly at the camera, but there are hints of softness in terms of how they address the audience in comparison to the direct mode of address used in the album advert which is more fierce and dominating. The images inside the digipak have been constructed to portray the band as more than just colleagues and sticking with the conventions of indie genre, the band have been presented to show a family/friendship image towards its audiences. The images have been inspired by the band HAIM whose images mainly consists of candid shots of the band members or images that seems fitting to be more like family photos instead of album photo shoots. The images portray the band laughing and in a more intimate atmosphere that wouldn’t normally be seen in the album advert and has links to what the music video portrays the members as. The images have been edited in a way of making the images blurry and ‘caught in the moment’ editing with the use of overlay effects and shadowing.

The font style chosen for the band logo consists of a simple, clean and minimalistic font. This relates to the representation of the band as the band is portrayed as being minimalists who enjoy the simple pleasures in life as shown in the music video where they just go around and enjoy what the world has to offer. Also, this relates to the mis-en-scene in terms of the band’s costume that is shown to be simplistic with outfits such as jumpers and jeans worn throughout the video and digipak and album advert. The font style chosen for the band logo also represents the band’s ideologies and values, which consists of music being the main passion and that it is not about the fame and money that it brings, where in the cases of the font being amongst other logos, it wouldn’t stand out as much- portraying that the band’s passion and dedication for music is not all about recognition.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback has helped us in a variety of ways, especially through the research and planning stages for our music video.

In constructing our music video, audience feedback has helped us to learn a great deal in terms of ideas on planning our music video up to the final stages of the production of the music video. To help with our research and planning, we conducted an initial focus group, which consisted of submitting ideas and concepts that we wish to incorporate into the music video.

Through the focus group, we asked questions on their thoughts of our song choice and any ideas that we could include into our music video in which they responded as incorporating the idea of teens being free as they felt that when they first listened to the song, the initial image for the music video was the concept of ‘fun’. In the feedback received from the initial focus group we were able to decide on the target audience and what conventions we would adhere to and which conventions we decided to challenge.

Audience feedback has also helped us improve our music video, especially when we conducted an audience feedback for the first draft of our music video. Through this feedback session we were able to learn a variety of ways in which we could improve our music video in terms of the editing and adding more shots into the video. This is evidenced in the feedback form where they stated that the band should be represented more in the video, by adding more scenes of the band together instead of the lead singer dominating most of the scenes in the video.

We have also learnt from the feedback in making our editing techniques more prominent as only basic editing skills were used in the first draft of the music video compared to the final music video where we incorporated more advanced editing techniques that helped to make our music video flow more in terms of the editing relating to the beat of the song and highlighted this at the same time.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The use of media technologies made it easier in terms of communication with the group and planning for our music video. Planning and scheduling for outdoor filming and scouting locations was made through websites and search engines such as YouTube and Google. In using this, we were able to look at images of a location we planned to shoot beforehand to check on whether it was a suitable place for filming. We were also able to find directions towards our locations, assessing on the best way of getting there the quickest. Our schedule for outdoor locations were dependent on the weather, therefore we had to check on the weather conditions of our chosen date before making plans beforehand.

The use of YouTube helped us greatly in terms of learning how to edit videos in a more advanced way on Final Cut Pro and the use of iMovie to edit our vlogs as evidence for filming was easily uploaded to YouTube as well. This helped us to be able to receive feedback almost in an instant and make improvements on our video straightaway. The use of Photoshop also helped in the construction of our digipak and album advert. This is because it allowed us to edit the images in the best way possible in terms of the concepts and ideas we wanted to incorporate into the images. Using editing techniques such as overlay and shadowing has helped produce the digipak and album advert by making it look most similar to a real media product.

Throughout the entire stages of research, planning and construction of the music video, the media technology most helpful to us was the access to HD video cameras (DSLR) and Blogger. This is because DSLR cameras allowed the quality of our video to be enhanced and made it look closest to a real media product, which helped in achieving our aims of making the video as realistic as possible in terms of its production. Blogger is the media technology that enabled us to document, record and present our work in all of the stages, especially with it being easily accessible on the go. This helped to keep us up to date with our work and made it quick and easy to edit posts anytime and present our work in a variety of creative media formats that made our work more aesthetically pleasing.