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

Our A2 media project was to create promotional materials for the release of an album. We had to choose an unsigned band and create different advertising products. The task was to create a music promo for a song produced by the band, a digipak for that song or an album from the band as well as magazine advert or website of which we chose to produce a website promoting the band from a technological point of view.

Purpose of the…

Music Video:

The function of a music video is to promote the band in a more personal way, allowing for the audience to see a visual side of them as well as hear their emotion and read their body language, meaning that the audience can then better relate to the band and the individual performers. This is done by using camerawork to show the band/artist and advertise their talents to a viewing audience.
This is necessary as it makes the audience want to listen to their music and watch their videos as they know that the band or artist can perform and that their music is always going to be interesting and what they are looking to listen to. It is also used as a key feature in making a song/artist more memorable as, if the video is say, seen on Youtube, this will allow people to link the video to the song, meaning people are more likely to watch/listen to it all the way through because it gives the audience something to watch, maintaining their attention and creating more interest in the song and the artist, making people go back to listen to it or listen to other songs produced by the same artist. This then creates a higher sales figure due to people being more interested in going back to listen to the song again purely because they like the video and it markets the song well to the public.
Music promos are also used as a way of targeting specific audiences. For example, heavy metal music is quite an acquired taste and if there were not any bands to cater for the needs of the people that like this music, then these people would not have the music that they want. They also use specific channels and media forms to market their music to different audiences. For example, classical music tends to use the television more than the internet as this has a much higher target audience viewing potential. This is because classical music tends to be enjoyed more by people of the older generation, who may not be as knowledgeable about the internet or may not use it as much as other ages and types of people.

Digipak:

The function of a digipak is as a means of selling the album or single that a band produces. A digipak can consist of 4,6 or 8 sections, 2 of which are the general front and back covers (like on a normal CD). The 6 piece digipak that we have produced also contains a lyric page, a meet the band section as well as the centrepiece where the actual disk is held. Digipaks are also often used as limited edition versions of the album or collectors editions due to the extra information that they contain and the cost that is involved in producing them.

Website:

A website is used as a technique to advertise a band/artist in a digital environment because there is such a large internet audience now for music, using websites like Vimeo and Youtube. This means that if a band/artist have a website, it can be linked on many sites so that fans of the artist can view the website and learn about them as well as see extra material produced like interviews with the band/artist, live recordings and news about the band.

Genre:

We chose to use the indie-rock genre for our music video because we decided that the fast editing pace between performance and narrative shots that are conventional in indie-rock music videos were best-suited to the resources and actors that we had available to us. Also, if we produced an indie music promo, we would be able to use the school stage and Matt Bostock’s lighting and sound systems, creating a better performance atmosphere, that if seen live looked quite convincing, therefore selling the promo to the audience as the performance in the music video looked more realistic and created the right atmosphere for our video.

Chasing Tigers:

The unsigned band that we chose to use for the music in our music video was Chasing Tigers. We watched their music video for the song ‘Idols and Upsets’ and decided that the song was good but the video did not look very professional and was extremely repetitive. Therefore we decided to use this song and create our own music video based around this song, aiming to produce a better and more professional production. In a way our way video was quite unconventional because most Indie bands tends to push conventions to the limit in order to give that dangerous and unique sense of being individuals to the audience, whereas we actually didn’t push these conventions, we made quite a simple video and just used fast-editing and a fairly simplistic narrative to give a more subtle approach rather than going all-out to be ‘different’.
This is completely different to the original video produced by the band, as their video was completely performance-based with not much shot variety, just a grainy effect that had been loaded into it to make it look a bit different to other music promos that don’t tend to use such complicated editing effects to change the look of their music video. For example, Mumford and Sons use black and white effects to change the look of their music video, which doesn’t actually make a difference to the video itself, it just removes all colour from the video, without blurring any of the scenes or removing that natural sense from the video. Unfortunately, although this effect looks fairly engaging at first, because the promo is so repetitive in the use of performance, it has no element within that the audience can relate to as all the shots are too similar and nothing actually happens in the video apart from the band performing, which could potentially cause the audience to get bored of watching the same thing throughout the video.

Elements of a music video:

Mise-en-scene:

The mise-en-scene in an indie music video is generally the main feature of an indie music video, because the prop usage, lighting, costumes and settings are generally the things that stand out the most on videos from this genre. An example of this is the natural lighting used in indie videos that is key as it creates that realistic and natural 'everyday life' atmosphere.

Prop use in indie music videos tend to be a lot less varied and random, generally just using things like the band instruments and performance materials, because it produces a less cluttered video which doesn't have too much to look at, creating that natural and simplistic yet effective atmosphere.

The setting for indie music videos are actually quite similar to pop promos, as they traditionally use quite a few locations, apart from in their performance scenes, to make the video look quite natural and produce more realistic scenery for the audience to relate to.

Costume for indie music video is often very casual involving clothing like jeans and t-shirts (right), which is a completely different prospect to pop videos, which use expensive and unique costumes that are more extreme, and challenge society’s norms on clothing and what people would wear (left).

Also, as shown by the two photos, lighting in indie music promos is generally natural, without the need for all the expensive lighting and different effects that have to be put in place to make the band/artist look the best they can look and make them look desirable to the audience. This tends to be more of a pop video thing to do.

Editing:

Because indie music is born from the rock genre, the tempo tends to be quite quick, meaning that fast editing is a necessity in order to keep the audience tuned in and prevent them from losing interest. The faster the tempo of the editing, the more time the audience have to view the video because many elements of the video will be missed. Also, the fast editing of indie music promos tends to switch between many different shots and scenes, from narrative to performance, from close-ups and long shots to audience POV’s as well as angle changes to add more variety, rather than keeping the same type of shots throughout, which makes the video look too simple and unprofessional, very unlike a traditional indie-rock music video.
 

Narrative:

The narrative of an indie-rock video is generally fairly simplistic, referring to quite everyday circumstances (city, church, schools and the countryside), although this is not true of all indie music videos as many of them rely on disjuncture to provide an interesting contrast against their performance shots. Also, in videos like Contact High by Architecture in Helsinki, they use a completely unrelated storyline as a way of shooting their performance shots through the narrative, which is extremely clever with their use of effects to overlay the performance on the narrative.

 

Performance:

Performance is a key part of any indie music video. This is because it advertises the band and the talents of the individual members. Also, the compositions and framing of the performance shots show the audience what each band member does as part of the band. For example, the person with the microphone or standing at the front, tends to be the lead singer, and then the rest of the band members tend to be off to the side of the shot or behind the lead singer with their own individual instrument, highlighting what instrument or role each member plays as part of the band.

Camerawork:

The camerawork for an indie-rock music promo tends to be extremely varied. The use of creative angles and effective range shots means that editing looks a lot faster and the audience interest in the promo is much higher because of the general complication of the video. Mumford and Sons break the conventional idea that the two locations should be different as well as shot differently depending on whether it is the narrative or performance with their video ‘Hopeless Wanderer’ where they use the exact same location for both and integrate their narrative into the performance. Pop videos have a lot more close-ups of the actual artist as part of the narrative whereas indie promos prefer to use artist/band close-ups in the performance shots rather than the actual narrative scenes, showing off their talents for playing instruments and singing rather than putting their talents on show against the backdrop of their story.

Concepts:

Amplification:

Amplification is the idea of using the video to amplify the general moral of the lyrics or maybe the song title rather than producing a video that matches to each individual line in the lyrics, which sometimes produces quite a jumpy storyline and therefore an unprofessional-looking video.

Indie videos conventionally use Amplification as this is the most traditional way of producing a promo. This is a popular choice because it amplifies the moral of the song or the song title, without following every single lyric with something related. We chose to  stick to conventions and use amplification as we decided that it was the best way to display the song because the lyrics meant that we would have struggled to literally follow every lyric and the moral of the song is quite sad and depressing (talking about the ups and downs of a relationship).

Illustration:

Sometimes, illustration (Illustrating every lyric with a shot that relates directly to each line of the song) is used in indie promos but it is not the most common convention because the whole idea of indie-rock tends to form a fairly casual atmosphere, so therefore, trying to follow every lyric can leave a music video with no structure. This is because it means that the video tends to jump between shots of things that relate to the specific lyric being sung, meaning that it is difficult to follow a storyline. Also, music promos are there to advertise the band/artist, and therefore, in an indie video, if there are no shots of the band/artist actually performing, then the audience are unable to see the talents of the band and are therefore less likely to want to see them live and be fans of the band.

 

Disjuncture:

Disjuncture (Completely random shooting and mise-en-scene) is used more than illustration but not as often as amplification. This is generally because indie music videos can be quite fast-paced and quirky, therefore it is sometimes necessary to use a more ‘arty’ concept in the promos to maintain that pace as well as keep the interest in the more repetitive or songs with less depressing ideas behind them. Disjuncture is a useful technique in the below video as the song is so fast-paced and the music has no real structure, therefore the promo matches that tempo and lack of organisation portrayed in the music.

 

Influences:

Take On Me

The video ‘Take on me’ by A-ha was an influential video for us as their use of stop-motion in order to work the comic strip scenes effectively was something that we looked at using in our music video because we decided that, if done successfully, stop-motion filming can look very effective and interesting because it still looks like a film, it just has slight jumps between movement which is different and doesn’t fit the usual talent-showing camerawork in conventional indie-rock videos, even if it does create repeatability Although this is an unconventional aspect for an indie promo, it still fits those conventions in some ways because the use of many different shots all edited together quickly to make it look like one scene adds to that fast-editing pace that indie-rock music videos are famous for and traditionally use.

Keep On Walking

Another key influence on our final music promo is ‘Keep on Walking’ by Passenger. This video is not extremely popular, even though it has been produced by a famous indie artist. In this low-budget video, Passenger can be seen walking towards a camera, in multiple different locations, highlighting the idea of going on a journey somewhere. Now, although this video does go on a journey, it amplifies the lyrics through the idea of constant walking, so therefore it never reaches a destination, it just carries on going and the video ends there. This is dissimilar to our music promo as there is a destination for our narrative, but the idea of moving from place to place on a journey still relates in a big way to our final production, which goes to show how big an inspiration this was to our music video. This video actually challenges the conventions of the genre because it is unusual and it does seem to be disjuncture because of the arty way in which it is filmed but it also amplifies the title of the song ‘Keep On Walking’ as the whole video is about him walking from place to place, which is still quite conventional even if the filming techniques challenges the traditional conventions.

Advert:

This video is not an actual music video, but for me, it was still an inspiration for our music video’s narrative because, like ‘Keep on Walking’ it also featured the idea of going on a journey through different settings and maintaining the same atmosphere and emotions throughout.

This video is not, in itself, an inspiration for our music video or for the actual concept of our promo, but it did give us the idea to use a sketchbook for our stop-motion imagery, therefore giving our music video that ‘bit more’ that was necessary to improve the final production value. The use of the stop-motion in this video was very effective as it produced a slight distraction from the storyline, and because this music promo is not really the indie genre, it did not involve any performance shots, which meant that, if they hadn’t have included anything in there, it would have been a music video purely based on the narrative, which could have caused the audience to lose interest early on. The idea that it maintains the interest and gives this necessary distraction was what made us want to include stop-motion in our video and we decided that the best way to use it was to introduce the song during the brief instrumental at the beginning as well as to highlight the key lyrics of the song.

 

 

Conventions of Location:

Skegness is one of the locations that we chose to use was Skegness beach. Although the beach does not feature that often in indie music videos, it is still seen in some. One example, yet again, would be ‘Keep on Walking’ by Passenger where Passenger is seen on the beach, although not on Skegness beach. We decided that this location fits in quite well with the conventions of the genre because of the relaxing and lazy atmosphere that the beach is supposed to impose on people, just like the traditional casual approach to music that indie bands and artists take.

Another of our locations is the typical urban city-like atmosphere of Peterborough. This is an extremely conventional location for an indie-rock music promo because of the qualities of the genre and the pleasant yet loud atmosphere that there are in most city centres. This means that the use of everyday scenery like cities and the countryside are generally the typical locations for an indie music video.

Morton fen road is our third narrative location and this is also a conventional location for an indie music video because of how isolated and quiet it is, matching the depressive point of the characters life at that point in the narrative. We decided to use Morton because it seemed pointless to travel greater distances to experience the same thing as most countryside areas within our travelling range are all pretty similar, therefore we thought we would just go with the most easily accessible place.

For the performance, we decided to use the stage at our school because it was already set up for us and it meant that we were able to use the stage lighting for that coloured effect (left) as well as the speaker system that allowed us as band members to play/sing along to the music and make the production look more realistic and professional once we had overlaid the track on top of the video and muted the sound of our own performing. Also, this stage location and atmosphere was created through the framing of the shots too. For example, the lead singer being the key person in the shot with the instrument-playing members of the band being behind him and off to the side advertises to the audience who the key member of the band is. This is quite a conventional setting for indie music videos because, most artists/bands tend to have performance scenes in their promo and, although some do not use stage atmospheres, many do. One example of a band that do is Mumford and Sons in their song ‘I Will Wait’ where a stage atmosphere is used to show their performance and give the audience a feel for what a concert of theirs would be like. Theirs does have a more professional feel to it than ours does but that is purely because they have shots of their thousands of fans whereas we were unable to produce something of that magnitude.

Our Production:

Costumes:

We decided to go with the conventional costume for the genre of music. The typical indie costume is very casual (jeans, t-shirt) but also has a slightly smart look (shirts, blazers) to it to give that relaxed feeling without dipping too much into the expensive look that pop and classical music hosts. Indie music costume tends to lie between the expensive costumes of pop or classical and the rough look that normal rock music portrays. This means that wearing a shirt with the top button undone or a branded t-shirt with jeans is the type of look that we felt we should go for, not unlike the costume that artists like Fun and Mumford and Sons go for.

Key Shots:

This is the first key shot in our music video as it is the introduction to the band. This is important as it reflects the main reasoning behind producing a music promo in the first place, to promote and advertise the band. This shot fits in well with the music too because the short instrumental at the start of the song contrasts with the idea of introducing the song and the artist/band.

This is the second key shot of our music promo. This is because it straight away introduces the band to the audience on a more personal level because of the visuals of the band that show off their talents and what they look like. This shot creates a better connection and more personal link to the audience straight away, which is conventional of an indie music video; to create this connection with the audience right at the beginning.

Another key shot is this one of the lead singer of the band looking down and unhappy. It also has a significant amount of the background in this shot, which is there on purpose in order to highlight to the audience his surroundings, introducing the narrative and giving them an insight into the idea that this narrative may be about bad emotions and foreshadowing the coming events of the storyline.

 

This shot highlights that key idea of going on a journey to the audience. It also offers an insight into the fact that the lead singer is obviously going to go from place to place rather than stick to the same location throughout the narrative. Also, the time-lapse effect used in this shot produces an idea in the mind of the audience that he is unaware of his surroundings and is that deep in his own thoughts that he is careless of what is happening around him.

This shot, again, shows off the guitarist’s talents and is there purely to market the song and the band as a whole. It allows the audience to see specific band members rather than focusing on the band as a whole, which could lead to a better personal connection and attraction to the band because of the unique talents of particular members.

This shot is one of the most important shots of the narrative throughout the whole video, due to the mystery that it creates and represents. It straight away causes the audience to subconsciously ask ‘what is the book’ which is exactly how we want them to feel this early on in the video as it becomes more obvious as the storyline continues.

             This shot is also important because it highlights that ‘journey’ that the person is going on. The use of fast-forward editing is effective in highlights the time-consuming journey that he has embarked on and just how far he is travelling to reach his destination.

            Another key shot is this one of the person in exactly the same position since the last shot but in a different location, still walking, reflecting that concept of travelling a long distance. Also, the beach behind the character shows the audience that the journey is coming to an end. Also, people escape from places like the city to the country and the beach as they are generally more peaceful and allow more space to think and ‘get away’ from everything.

            This shot is important as it finally reveals to the audience the reasoning behind the person trying to ‘escape’ something, and the black and white effect added to the shot highlights that idea of it being something that has happened in the past, not something that is going on at present time.

            The previous shot is then shortly followed, after a short performance scene, by this shot, which is important because it portrays the reasoning behind the ‘need to escape’ and why the character has been sad throughout the narrative so far. This shot is quite conventional when added into the narrative, because it highlights that anger and sadness through the framing of the shot and the way in which the two characters are facing away from each other and look unhappy.

             This shot is then used to show that the female character has moved on and is happy whilst the protagonist is still suffering and emotional after what has happened. This is important as it highlights the key lyric ‘You pick me up, you put me down’ and shows just why the protagonist is so sad and has gone on such a journey to escape his past. This idea of using flashbacks to fill in the blanks is quite conventional, especially when used in emotional narratives like the one being used.

             This shot is my favourite shot of the whole sequence, because of the feelings that is imposes on the audience, the whole concept of him still being able to find something beautiful after all that is happening/has happened to him. It is also important as it foreshadows that impending ‘end of the journey’.

             This final shot is the most important image of the video. This is down to the fact that it finally reveals to the audience the end of the mystery as they now know what was in the book and also why he has left the book on the beach as well as why he was trying to get away too. This is a good closing shot for the video as it also has been slowed down to allow the pages to flip on the book, as well as the character walking away after holding the book in every shot and it being so noticeable throughout the video, symbolising his relationship and how they were so close and it got thrown away in the end.

Digipak:

This is the digipak that we produced as part of our promotional package. It is quite conventional of the indie-rock genre because of the dark colours and the high amount of personal band marketing like the ‘About the band’ and the ‘Meet the band’ pages. The large font of the writing on the front cover contrasts well with the image because, although the rest of the digipak isn’t very eye-catching and doesn’t stand out very much, the front cover is there for exactly that purpose and is very noticeable because of the contrast and the colours.

The digipak that I have produced is conventional of most traditional digipaks because of the structure and layout that I have used. Most usually have a front and back cover, combined with a lyric page/booklet, an about the band page, as well as a picture page and the area where the disk is held. The only factor that we decided to change was to have a meet the band for each specific member’s background instead of the picture band as we thought that this would encourage more or a personal connection between the band members and their audience.

The use of the black and white design is very good at simplifying the digipak, yet still making it look professional, because of the way that the white text stands out so well against the black background, causing the digipak to be noticeable and catch the audience’s eye. Also, the contrast of the use of the large colourful eye on the front cover compared with the rest of the digipak means that it is even more bold and professional-looking.

Website:

This is our website that makes up part of our Chasing Tigers promotional package. We chose to stick with the same theme (black background and white text) with this as we used in our digipak, using the same font and the same sort of images taken from the performance scenes of our music promo. We chose to use red as the colour to show the highlighted navigation bar options because, originally the colour red was going to be our theme in the digipak and therefore we wanted to use a continuous theme. As it turns out, in accordance with our digipak, black and white were the main colours so we had to choose another colour that wasn’t in our digipak to use for this purpose on the website so as it turns out, it doesn’t matter that we used red.