Media Evaluation

Question One

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions or real media production

To discover ways in which we could conform to or challenge the conventions we had to research into different genres and videos to identify the conventions. We Looked at different videos of different genres in order to identify the distinctive conventions of our choses genre; Indie. During the

research into my chosen genre for my music video, I found that in many videos of this genre including ‘Josh Record’, ‘Mumford and Sons’ ‘Kodaline’ and ‘Frank Hamilton’ included outdoor settings and there was a feel for nature in each of the videos. Also there was a significant use of natural light which shows that these artist are not superficial, they want to be closer to the audience, creating a relatable environment for the consumer. This relatability also comes from the storylines that the indie genre tends to have. By doing this it creates more of an interest for the audience. A good example of this would be Kodaline’s ‘All I want’ which is a two part music video. There are underlying links to lyrics and visuals, they are not as apparent as they are in pop videos, through looking into the Indie Genre I found that the colour pallet was very similar for each video of the same genre. By using monotone,

sepia, brown colour tones I felt as though they add to the emotion of the video, which compliments the storylines that tend to run through indie music videos. Our final product conforms to the indie genre through the fact that our video tells a story in which the audience can engage with, we chose a narrative that would leave clues throughout the whole video but never fully give away the full story. The narrative we chose was a mother and son relationship and the conventional stories that crop

up frequently in many different genres, as well as Indie, are love stories so we wanted to stray away from the typical love story and explore the parental kind of love that seems to be lost. We used projection in order to show this parental love, we chose to use projection as it was a discreet way of portraying the love in the video. We challenged the conventions of this genre, however we still conformed to that fact that there is a storyline. In our music video, we adjusted the colours to some shots in black and white but then contrasted them with scenes that are in colour. By doing this we are showing that the black and white shots, the emotions are heightened and impulsive, but the shots that are in colour are reflective of what has happened, and that our character is reflecting on the impulsive behaviour that happened in the black and white. Music videos for the indie genre tend to have points that the emotions are heightened further with the use of slow motion. We included this use of editing in our music video alongside the use of black and white as we felt

that the narrative was very heartfelt therefore by adding these different aspects, the emotions were amplified. We used black and white to determine the main characters thoughts and actions for example, we used black and white for the dancing and in the reverse scenes at the end; we used sepia tones when at the beginning when the arguments happen.

Lip syncing isn’t widely used in the indie genre as this may take away from the realistic feel for the video, the links between lyrics and visuals are mainly through the narrative. However in our music video, we decided to make use of lip syncing to form a relationship between our character, the lyrics and the narrative. An example of this would be where he is sitting in the car which gives the connotations that he is going to leave during

the lyrics “I’ll carry your story wherever I may go”, by doing this we are challenging the conventions of the indie genre. There are also moments in which the visuals are symbols for the narrative, the first chorus the dancers reach out there hands which could symbolise the mother and how he is reaching out to him. Overall there are moments in our music video in which we conform to the indie genre, we did this to secure that it is within this genre however we do challenge the ideas of the genre, to show that we are able to challenge the continuous conventions and still show it is indie.

Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research?

In the research of our media product we began by using YouTube to look at

different music videos within the indie genre. YouTube allowed us to

explore the different conventions of the indie genre which we could then apply to our own music video. We studied three different artist; ‘High hopes’ Kodaline, ‘Summer’ Frank Hamilton and ‘Bones’ Josh record. By using YouTube we were able to compare and contrast the different conventions. To present the information we used ‘Prezi’. When we stared to film our product, we stared by using a video camera, however we

found that the time of day in which we wanted to film made the picture rather grainy as it is hard to film at night, so we

use an IPhone 5 to film some of the darker scenes which ensured that the quality of picture was better than the video camera. However when it came to editing our video we found the sizing was hard to match between the video camera and the IPhone to make the video consistent. To edit our video we used iMovie on a Mac laptop. This program was easy to use and it allowed us to explore different editing techniques, we were able to change the saturation and contrasts of the picture as some of the shots on camera were quite dark, we also were able to put shots in black and white like the dancing, and the very beginning. This contrasted between the coloured scenes because the scenes that were in colour are a sort of reflection to what has happened. The use of black and white intensifies the emotions. We were able to use different transitions between scenes, however we wanted to keep the video quite naturalistic therefore we used a lot of jump cuts and some fading between scenes; the fading was used as a sort of thought insight to his mind for the audience. By using fading between scenes in our video, it overlaid the dancer and our main character, suggesting how they are fading away from each other. Also using IMovie we were able to put the ending in reverse, we did this to show that he is rethinking everything that happened and reflecting. It suggests a feel of regret which is why we have him stood at the door before and after the reversed scenes begin. We also used Moviemaker in order to make the compilations of the mother and son pictures, we did this to represent his thoughts. By presenting these pictures through the projection on to his face it gave the suggestion that the audience are looking into his thoughts which builds the connections between audience and artist. In the indie genre this seems to be an important convention as they want to create something that the audience can relate to. During the dance scenes we used a lighting desk in order to get the right lighting to set the atmosphere for these particular shots. Also using the lighting desk with the white background created a good balance of light which on camera created a very clear picture, which we also added black and white to the dance scenes to add to the effects of all these elements. To create our digipak and advertisement we used a combination of Picmonkey and Photoshop. We used these programs to create the templates for the digipak and to adjust the pictures. We adjusted the colours to become consistent with the style of video that we went with. We did this to make a distinctive look for the artist so it is consistent through the video, digipak and

advertisement. To create these digipaks and advertisements we looked into different artist and the conventions of the digipaks and advertisements and then presented this information in slide share. Overall our use of technology allowed us to create a music video that conformed to and challenged the conventions of the indie genre. We also were able to use what we had learned throughout AS and apply it to our final product at A2.