Evaluation 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

When creating a music video it is important that you recognise that depending on your genre of music there are different codes and conventions and it is up to the creators to either follow, develop or challenge them.  As a group we decided to use an Indie Rock song as we came to an agreement that when looking at us as a group we look more like an Indie Rock band than a rap group. Once we found a song that we all liked Kasabian’s Club Foot I started to research many Indie rock bands including Arctic Monkeys, the Kooks, Oasis and Kasabian. From this I found that Indie rock band Music videos are very performance based and even though some music videos had a small narrative the core of the music video was the band performance therefore we felt that we had to include this in our music video. The performance scene in our music video also followed codes and conventions as nearly all the music videos I researched such as the Kasabian Club Foot music video had a main singer which was the main focus in the performance scene as there were many close ups of him. Therefore, we wanted to follow this convention of the Indie rock genre as we felt it was important that we make sure the audience knows what genre codes and convention we are following.

As mentioned before the main convention that we followed was the performance within the music video however as a group we did decide to follow more. When researching I noticed that a lot of music videos were edited into black and white which are connotations of the Indie Rock genre as it gives a dark feel to the video which complements our video as there it features violence. Also all the band in our music video follow the common convention of Indie Rock costumes by wearing casual, dark clothing such as black skinny jeans and dark jackets. Regarding the Mise-en-scene in the music video we mostly follow all conventions of an Indie Rock music video such as close-ups of the lead singer and close-ups of instruments to make it explicitly clear that we are an Indie Rock band and that we mostly concentrate on our music which is a common attitude in this genre.

When thinking as a group about the codes and conventions we decided that we wanted to challenge some, which in this case was that we wanted a long narrative to feature. Even though we followed the convention of including a performance, the most of the video is of the narrative. I thought this was a good idea because as a group we enjoy filmmaking therefore this was a big advantage for us as it allowed us to be more creative with the narrative which think improved our music video. Also I feel that this improved the music video as it engages the audience a lot more and leaves them wanting to know what happens at the end.

It is important when creating and researching about music videos that you should acknowledge Andrew Goodwin who is an important theorist within music videos as he states a list of rules that usually feature in most music videos. We decided to follow some of the rules stated such as a relationship between lyrics and visuals for example when the lyrics say ‘chase down an empty street’ we have our main character running down a road. Another example is when the lyrics mention ‘blood’ we show a close-up of the antagonist with blood on his face. Also we followed the rule with the relationship between music and visuals which we mainly did during the editing stage. This is due to having certain cuts on when the beat changes. A key example of this is when the song drops and a drum is heard we show Charlie the drummer hitting the drums on that exact point. Andrew Goodwin also mentions that there are Intertextual references throughout music videos therefore as a group we attempted to think of an idea to do with the narrative of the music video which is to do with fighting. In the end we thought of the idea of recreating the famous Rocky scene where he runs up the stairs as part of his training. 

As a group we also wanted to develop certain codes and conventions that Goodwin states which we chose to develop voyeurism. We did this by doing shots such as shooting through a car wing mirror of the main character running. We explicitly developed voyeurism in the fighting scene at the end of the video where it is shown through a CCTV camera which I feel that we took the voyeurism element to a different level. This shot was difficult to capture due to difficulties in getting the camera to a high point of view as we didn’t have access to the appropriate equipment such as a crane shot. Therefore, we had to adapt in which will used ladders and wooden planks to balance the tripod on.

Overall, I feel that our music does use, develop and challenge all different codes and conventions of music videos in the Indie Rock genre. I feel that we have used the appropriate conventions of performance but have also challenged certain conventions where it is necessary for us to be improved such as having a longer narrative. Also I feel it developing a convention was essential for making our music video more unique which intrigues the audience.