Evaluation- Question 1

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

Our music video is of the indie music genre so I did research into features that are typical of indie music videos. Some of these features are:

• Flannel Shirts
• Nice Hair
• Typically white Caucasian performers
• Guitar-acoustic
• Mostly performance based
• Strong narrative
• Sometimes concept based

After finding out the generic codes of indie music videos we then as a group decided whether we wanted to challenge or conform to these features. Most indie music videos have a strong narrative and we incorporated this idea throughout our music video as it is strongly narrative based. The message/themes of our song is about missing someone so we wanted insert a strong narrative that conveyed this message. Although having a strong narrative allows our music video to develop real indie music video conventions it also challenges them. Many indie artists may include themselves in the narrative or have a minimum of 2-3 lead performers. However we used 5 different actors each with a different narrative but with the same theme. Our artist is also not a part of the narrative and only delivers a performance. Performance based music videos are very typical of the indie music videos so we used this aspect of a real media product. Indie music videos are sometimes concept based. However we did not use this form of video in our media product. We did this because we wanted to reveal a strong message through our performance and we decided it would be clearer to our audience to do this via narrative as opposed to revealing the theme by a concept.

We wanted our performer to fit the conventions of those of the indie genre. Performers in the indie genre are typically white Caucasian performers and we chose to use this convention to add realism to our music video. However we also subverted this conventional representation as we used performers of many different ethnic backgrounds for the narrative sequences. We chose to subvert this conventional representation because we wanted our music video to have more of an universal appeal and we thought that this was achievable by the use of using performers from different ethnic backgrounds. Our music video could be compared to Nick Jonas’ music video ‘Who am I’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qQ3Sz0IMmE as it is of the Indie/pop genre and uses a variety of different performers that are different ages, genders and of different ethnics, thus also subverting the convention of white-Caucasian male performers. We also considered factors such as costume/hair and makeup of indie music videos so we could decide whether we would want to use, develop or challenge them. Flannel shirts are a typical item of costume of indie music videos and our performer/artist wears one throughout giving his performance.

In terms of mise-en-scene we used different aspects such as costume, lighting and location to develop, challenge or confirm real media products. Our main performer wore a checked/flannel shirt. We asked the female performers in our music video to wear a costume that does not portray them as promiscuous, thus not gratifying the male gaze. This is similar to Paramore’s Hayley Williams who also does not dress provocatively in music videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvnkAtWcKYg. We requested that our female performers do this because it encourages the audience to focus on the narrative the performer is telling as opposed to their image. Throughout our performance we generally used natural/bright lighting as we did a lot of filming outside. We filmed at a variety of different locations, we tried to think outside of the box and film out of the Wembley area. We filmed some scenery shots of London monuments at Primrose Hill. On that particular day of filming it was very cloudy and it made the lighting appear to be dull. However this worked in our favour as at the start of the music video we are trying to set the scene and reveal the sorrow the performers will be feeling.

Indie music videos generally have a guitar-acoustic as opposed to a heavy bass. Our song uses acoustic guitar throughout. To add to the authenticity of the music video we had our artist/performer deliver a performance whilst a playing an acoustic guitar, therefore using the conventions of existing Indie music videos.

In conclusion I would suggest that our media product generally uses the forms of real media products such as using a performance and narrative based music video and having our main performer play a guitar. It also does develop some conventions of indie music videos and challenge a small selection of them such as having performers of different ethnic backgrounds.