8/7/2019 Media Evaluation - Alistair Dickson

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Evaulation

Question 1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge form

and conventions of real media texts?

We completed the video brief along with the magazine adverts and album covers.

We used the song I Will by Radiohead, who are an indie band. The music videos

for this genre typically contain footage of the band playing using close-up and

extreme close-up shots of the artist and instruments with extreme focus on the

instruments mainly guitars and drums. Footage from live gigs is sometimes used

as seen in the Libertines music for Dont Look Back Into the Sun

[Libertines Dont Look Back Into the Sun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNdxYAvK-E4

0:18 0:40]

Footage of a live gig performed by The Libertines used in their music video for Dont

Look Back Into the Sun

Alistair Dickson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNdxYAvK-E4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNdxYAvK-E4

8/7/2019 Media Evaluation - Alistair Dickson

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[Screenshots from Titus Andronicus A More Perfect union:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fqHr_KGPY

0:15, 1:00, 1:40]

An extreme close-up shot of the guitars played from Titus Andronicus A More Perfect

union

A medium shot of the band playing in the usual format from Titus Andronicus A MorePerfect union

Alistair Dickson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fqHr_KGPYhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fqHr_KGPY

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A close-up shot of the lead singer from Titus Andronicus A More Perfect union

Our video challenges these conventions as we do not feature any footage of the

band playing

We also didnt feature our artist as much as a typical indie music video as the only

time our artist is featured is the beginning, end, and around half-way through.

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8/7/2019 Media Evaluation - Alistair Dickson

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However, we have layered footage of an extreme close-up of our artists lips during

the vocal parts.

Andrew Goodwin outlined the features of a music video; he stated that the key

lyrics may play a part in the visuals associated with the song but will rarely mirror

them. Our music video does not follow Goodwins theory; the song I Will is about

war and peace, whereas the visuals presented in our music video are not associated

with war and peace, but corruption and hatred.

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He outlined that there is likely to be a reference to voyeurism in terms of

women- the video will contain close-up shots of the womans body to appeal to a

male audience. As you can see in the first shot (top left), the camera is placed behind

the bars it looks as though we are peeking through and spying on the women. Our

video does not contain any voyeuristic shots, which challenges the conventions of a

music video.

[Video clip of Lady gaga Telephone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBsypHzF3U3:46 4:00]

As we can see, the video Telephone by Lady Gaga contains many voyeuristic shots

as outlined by Goodwin.

He also stated that the tempo of the track may influence the speed of the

editing. This is very true for our video, as our song is of very slow tempo, which fits

the very subtle and slow editing

We created a magazine advert and an album cover between the two of us. For our

album cover, we duplicated the octopus logo and put them on a white background

for the front of the album. For the back of the album we took a frame of the clown

from our music video and made it black and white. We did this to show the

darkness and distortion of the artist.

Alistair Dickson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBsypHzF3Uhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBsypHzF3U

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We used the typical conventions of an album cover in our album cover. A

typical indie album cover does not usually feature the artist on the front; bands such

as Silversun Pickups, Anti-Flag, Bloc Party and Massive Attack all use computer-

generated images that have little to do with the band something that we have done

with our band.

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Our other ancillary task was the magazine advert. For our magazine advert, we

opted to go for the simplest advert we could. We chose the octopus logo again butwe didnt duplicate it, we just put it on a white background to make it instantly

recognisable.

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This challenges most forms and conventions of indie magazine adverts, as bands

such as Anti-Flag and Arcade Fire choose to present the band on an advert to create

a sense of emotion and recognition with the audience.

Our magazine advert is very similar to The Vines magazine advert, who are a

similar style band to Ellipsis.

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Advert Album

This advert has been heavily influenced by the album cover - the graphics are

almost identical to those on the album, including the vine-like graphics and their

signature font. Something that we have replicated with our album

As we can see here, The Stone Roses album advert uses almost identical patterns

from the album cover the splattered paint effect - as well as using the lemon

symbols from their album cover.

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In conclusion, we have conformed as well as challenged the typical forms and

conventions of an album cover/advert as some indie bands tend to display the

band on their albums, yet some choose to stick to the auteur signature that theyhave chosen displaying common patterns and symbols that are present on the

album cover.

Alistair Dickson