Question 1

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

Music Video

Costume

The costume in my music video uses, develops and challenges the conventions of real media products.  The main boy in the video is wearing a Fred Perry harrington jacket which is a generic association of the genre that my music video is approaching, therefore a generic convention of mis-en-scene is used.  He is also wearing skinny jeans and trainers which again can be linked to the generic costume of members from the sub-culture I am targeting. I used the ideas of Andrew Goodwin here and looked at genre and characteristics. Goodwin looks at how there are certain characteristics/specifics of music videos within genres that are recurring factors, and costume is a key example of this assumption - for example the rap genre is known for gold chains and baggy jeans whereas an indie audience might wear skinny jeans and sneakers (like in my video). His clothing is quite bright which could arguably suggest that I have developed this convention further. This was also used as a symbolisation for the eventual happiness of the character as the bright colours suggest a happy feel.
I have also used costume as an aspect of popular culture. The lead singer's costume represents a brand style which is associated with the smart end of high street fashion. With an increasing popularity, this is another feature of music videos targetting a main stream audience.

Boy in my music video wearing a Fred Perry harrington jacket over several layers of bright coloured clothes.

Artist 'Jake Bugg' wearing a similar jacket but without the extravagant colours beneath.

The girls in the video are all wearing quite dull colours which was purposely chosen to challenge generic conventions of the genre. Usually you would see at least some bright colours on each character in music videos belonging to the 'indie' genre, however in my video I wanted to portray the girl(s) in a negative light in order to gain sympathy amongst the audience for the main boy character and so I decided to challenge a convention here so that this attempt was successful.

Girl in my music video wearing very plain colours.

Girls from a 'Two Door Cinema Club' music video wearing bright colours.

Gender representation/performers

The traditional representation of gender in the music industry is male dominated. More often than not a music video contains a male lead and we always hear of much more upcoming 'boy bands' over 'girl groups'. Take, for example, NME magazine - on the website under the article '20 Most Exciting New Bands Of 2013' 17 out of the 20 new artists were male dominated - this highlights the absolute domination of males in the music industry. You can see the article here:

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=147&title=20_most_exciting_new_bands_of_2013&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

I have used this conventional feature in my music video because the main character in my narrative based video is male and I have used different techniques, for example camera angles, in order to create sympathy towards him from the audience and as a result, further emphasise the male dominance and the generic convention when it comes to gender and performers.

At the same time I have challenged generic associations of gender in the music industry. A study from 2009 called 'join the dots' looks at how women are objectified. One point made was how men are stereotypically represented as 'independent, adventurous, unemotional and competent'. I clearly chalenge this stereotype in my music video as the main character in the production (a boy) goes through mental instability and has a breakdown. This highlights how he is quite clearly not 'unemotional'.

It could be argued that the female genre are often portrayed in a negative light in the indie/pop genre through use of sexualisation. World famous female artists of today are more often than not, publicised in their music video wearing minimal clothing and acting provocatively - for example: Rihanna, Nicki Minaj - I have challenged this representation by having all girls in my music video, fully dressed, unlike many female artists belonging to my genre in modern day society. Another stereotype that comes with the sexualisation of women is the domination and superiority of the male genre in the music industry. Men are often seen as the superior sex, usually automatically when women are objectified. I have again challenged this with the content of my video. The narrative structure in the video sees the main girl rejecting the lead vocalist (male) and therefore gong against the norms in the music industry regarding gender representation.

Location

I would say that I have both used and challenged generic conventions when it comes to the location in which my music video was shot. The majority of my video is set on Cromer beach. Although with thorough research, it would be possible to find many videos belonging to my chosen genre that used a similar location in a music video, it is not considered a conventional location. It has been done by boy bands before however as this not is not the original conventional location considered with the genre, I would argue that they also have challenged the genre as well as me. This combined with the fact that the music genre of 'indie/pop/rock' was born in the city, brought me to the conclusion that I had challenged the conventions of location in my genre. I looked at the band 'Foster the people' and their most famous song 'Pumped up kicks' as comparable to mine and I could see juxtaposing elements when it came to location which shows that I have challenged the conventions. See some screenshots of the city based locations in their video below:

I instead, for the vast majority of my video, used the seaside location in order to add movement and aesthetic pleasure to the mise-en-scene. The movement of the sea reflects the emotional turmoil of the performer as he reflects on a broken relationship. The sea here is personified and helps to establish the mood of the character, thus placing us in his position and ultimately meaning we sympathise with him. This technique is used throughout many forms of media, and perhaps most literally in the film '(500) days of summer' in which a drawing of a tree is altered depending on the mood of the main, boy character in the film. E.g. happy character = bright green, summer tree; unhappy character = bare, winter tree. This reference is even more suitable because of the similarity in music between my track and the track list used in the film. Arttists such as 'Regina Spektor' and 'The smiths' are notably similar to my band and this reference is even more applicable as a result. The technique in which weather reflects mood is sometimes referred to as pathetic fallacy and used throughout literature as a generic convention. I have used this conventional feature here.

In order to also use conventions of generic location, I ensured that the majority of the flashbacks in my video were in a city based area. I felt it was mimportant for me to reinforce most conventional aspects of mis-en-scene as I wanted to ensure that my target audience remained intrigued to the music that they are used to.

  

It is vitally important to be aware of the roots of your genre and I wanted to enforce my knowledge through location to a certain extent. I would argue that the vast majority of artists within my genre are male dominated bands and the stereotypical/conventional assumption for the production of their music originates from the comfort of their own bedroom. With the extraordinary growth in music technology in the last decade, it has become both cheap and easy to produce music from the comfort of your own home and this idea is directly associated with my genre (see section 'independent artists and technology' within link) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_music#Independent_artists_and_technology

The genre is often publicised as being created within the walls of a members own bedroom and I chose to highlight this convention with shots of the lead male vocalist in his bedroom (see above right).



Band member Sam Jolly from group 'Eight Legs' in his bedroom in the music video for the song 'These grey days'.

Structure (flashbacks)

The 'indie' genre is often publicised by it's performance based music videos. The focus for the genre is entirely on the music itself as it proves so vitally important to each artist. It took me only minutes to find several examples of this which will emphasise the importance of the music to this genre and demonstrate how a narrative based video is not preferred for the genre.

Bloc Party - Two More Years

Two Door Cinema club - What you Know

This is most definitely a generic convention which I have chosen to develop in my video.
I have only a small section of my video in which is performance based. The shots where the lead singer is singing straight to the camera are the only shots where i have used the conventional feature. I instead chose to focus on a story surrounding a theme (in this case love) in order to develop the convention.

I n order to achieve this development I have used flashbacks. The narrative technique was constructed as a theory by Andrew Goodiwn and I have developed this with flashbacks that amplify the lyrics whilst also using the story as a hook which add to the appeal. Used by artists such as Calvin Harris, the convention has been developed previously although the generic assumption remains.
In both movies and television, camera techniques and special effects have evolved specifically in order to inform the consumer that the action now being shown is from the past - for example, the edges of the picture may be purposely blurred, photography may be pixelated or unusual colours may be used, perhaps monochrome when most of the story is in full colour.

Flashbacks from my video using a monochrome image in order to highlight the past tense:

Digipak and Magazine Advert

Layout

I have used the conventional, 4 panel digipak design as i feel this best represents my genre. The indie/pop/rock genre tends to attract a wide, varied audience rather than a limited one and I therefore felt that my design would be best suited to a 4 panel digipak.

Panel 1

Band member promotion

A generic feature used for album artwork is simply photography of the band itself on the front cover of the cd case. This panel is the first seen by its audience and unless bought it is a half of what they will see altogether - meaning its importance is very high. Successful bands such as 'The Beatles' and 'The Kooks' have used this feature in debut albums. This is in order to promote the band and allow their audience to become more aware of the performers that they are listening to. I used this technique as I wanted to use the album artwork as a promotion for the band.

The course criteria itself states: 'A promotional package for the release of an album'

The Beatles - Rubber Soul

The Kooks - Inside in the Inside out

Panel 2 and 3


Panoramic image
With this design, you are able to use panel 2 and 3, which appear next to each other on the inside of the digipak, as a base for a panoramic image. I saw this as a great opportunity to provide a beautiful picture of Cromer beach which I feel plays a huge role in the video itself and adds a whole other dimension, almost playing the role of another character in a sense when brought to life with characteristics highlighted, e.g ocean. This technique is not often used by artists and as a result I would argue that I have both developed and challenged the conventional 4 panel design in a way that has allowed me to aid the success of my promotional material. The location is a big aspect of the music video and the characteristics of the ocean connote the emotional turmoil that the lead singer experiences in my video. I would argue that the panoramic image is not only a way to provide a beautiful picture of cromer, but it also helps to emphasise the themes and motifs that are raised within the album I am attempting to promote.




Panel 4

Promoting lead singer
There are no particular aspects of my genre that make it stand out from the crowd. Unlike the gothic genre and the colour black or the rap genre and gold chains/provocative women, my genre changes throughout time depending on what proves popular in society at the current time. I therefore had to search thoroughly into my target audience and the artwork that accompanies their album in order to become aware of any conventional features. As previously stated, the genre is not a stand out one and therefore conventions were difficult to determine. Instead I took certain inspirations from several examples. As well as the fact that it has been used as a technique by several artists, I felt that it was important for me to have an image of the band members on the front panel of my digipak as this is a debut album and it is therefore important to promote the band as much as possible. However, the vast majority of successful bands have familiar artists within them who are well known to the general public: Chris Martin (Coldplay), Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), Noel/Liam Gallagher (Oasis) - the list is endless.

I would suggest that a similar target audience applies to all of these artists as well as the band I am promoting and as a result I decided to duplicate their methods of advertisement. It was important to use this convention of publicising a lead singer. As well as this I decided to develop the convention further by presenting the lead singer with an enigmatic presence.

Enigma
"Enigma: A person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand."

On the back panel of my digipak I have the lead singer looking out over scenery, however, he is looking away from the camera and his face is not in full vision. This creates an enigma for this person as the audience are unaware of his full characteristics. More often used in film and music videos e.g. Kill Bill, the enigmatic presence is rarely used for album artwork. I have therefore developed this convention. I feel that the enigma means that the audience become more intrigued into the character (lead singer) and as a result, the band as a whole - resulting in success.


Location
I have carried out thorough research into the roots of my genre as I feel it is almost necessity to know in order to create a successful project surrounding this genre. The genre was born in the city with buskers on the corner of streets first presenting the public with this style of music that seems to have taken aspects from the rock, folk and pop genre and mixed it into one. I have not addressed these roots in the most parts of my music video and I wanted to compensate for this in the promotion of the album. No longer am I promoting a single song rather an entire album and as a result the conventions need to be there to some extent.
I have used a classic, gritty, typically British city based location for the back panel of my digipak in order to use the conventional location of the genre. This reminds the audience of their favoured genre and would attract them as a result. It almost gives them an idea of what this album contains, through use of a location alone. Although the album artwork within this genre is not always a city location shot, some form of the album will be, whether it be a music video or even lyrics of a song mentioning the roots. the album artwork was just the way in which I decided to use this conventional feature.
See below examples of artwork from my genre in which the generic location is demonstrated:

Magazine Advert

Enigma

I used similar techniques for my magazine advert as I did for the back panel of my digipak. I wanted the enigma to remain with this character and as a result I used a photograph in which his face is entirely hidden. As previously stated i have developed a convention here. It could also be suggested that I have completely challenged a conventional feature of the music industry in general across all genres. In modern day society, successful artists are famous across the world and their face is known to most. The fact that I am hiding the lead singers face here could suggest I am entirely challenging this convention.

Location

I have again used a city based location in order to use a generic convention of my genre.