Rebecca's A2 Media: Evaluation

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

Used

Mise en Scene

Costume

One of the most important conventions of indie music videos is the costume the artist wears. Therefore we knew it was important to do a lot of research through watching indie music videos and researching into what the artist usually wears. The majority of artists we looked at wore fairly causal clothing which gave us the impression that they are down to earth which makes them more relatable to their fans. The costume we finally decided on helped to make the video seem more realistic as he wears clothes similar to the clothes his fans would wear. We tried to keep the style and colour of his clothing similar throughout our video and digipack photos - neutrals, blues and green colours. Above is an image of our artists costume. We chose a costume which was fashionable however still unique to our artist. He wears a cream jumper with a pair of dark green chinos and vans. Vans are known to be a popular brand of footwear mainly for indie fans - male and female. Indie artists usually have an 'un-cared for' appearance which is shown through his hair style which appears to be quite messy however this makes him more appealing to his female fans as it gives a 'just got out of bed' look. Indie artist's signature look tends to be through small things such as their hairstyle or item of clothing which they keep the same. The second picture shows exactly this. This shot is of indie artist Jake Bugg in his video Trouble Town. It is very similar to our video as it a very simple shot - including just nature, the surroundings and the artist. The clothing he wears is fairly similar too as from looking at this shot it is easy to tell that he is an indie artist as denim shirts and bomber jackets are seen to be an indie style of clothing. His hair is known to be his signature look as it has always been styled in that way and therefore that is how he is recognised.

Performance

Guitar

The convention that we used throughout our three products was the presence of guitars. In our music video, our artist was shown to be playing the guitar in most of the shots. We used a variety of different shots to show him performing with his guitar purely to show the audience and his fans that he has a talent and writes and plays his songs himself which is what a majority of indie bands and artists love to portray. The shots we used ranged from close ups of the guitar to mid-shots of him playing the guitar. We used the same guitar in every shot to keep it consistent however we also chose to place another guitar in the music video as a prop which we focused on to help him promote his interests. In the picture above, it shows a shot of him playing his guitar, we wanted to make this shot as realistic as possible so made sure that what chords he was playing actually met the song. When taking pictures for our digipack we felt it was very important to include his guitar in as many pictures as we could as the guitar is such a significant part of him as an artist. As a group we felt that we wanted to include the guitar as much as we could as it is not only one of the main conventions of an indie video but it also became apparent that from our research, fans expect to see an indie artist or band playing their instruments so it was a major convention that we had to use. The album and the advert for the artist is the first thing fans will see, therefore it was important to include his guitar in both of the products - especially the advert as that will be the main product they see so it is vital to give a good impression of the artist.

Developed

Vintage

We developed the convention of vintage in our music video through the use of mainly props, costumes, location and camera editing. The theme of vintage was apparent throughout as we used old props such as old guitars, games, pictures, cushions, cameras and telephones. This created a vintage vibe with the help of the use of stop motion where all the props appeared one by one. There is a development of vintage building up throughout the video which we made possible by the use of washed out colours and sepia effects over shots. We decided to do this after looking at other music videos as it became apparent that they had altered the colours to make the shots look old fashioned and vintage. The location is plain and simple - we mainly filmed in a log cabin which helps to create a homely, vintage feel. This set up is fairly similar to that of Tom Odell's in his video 'Another Love' which is again very simple and only includes a few significant props with a washed out effect over the top.

Camera

Focus

Throughout the video we developed the use of out of focus/in focus shots from our use of the camera. Keeping the memory shots blurred and the performance shots in focus made the contrast between the two locations clearer. The out of focus shots of the pair together come across as quite dream like because of the blurred focus. These memory shots showing their relationship slowly alert the audience that their relationship is no longer and these are in fact just memories which becomes clear as the song progresses. We also used a blurred focus to make shots look softer, however at the beginning of the music video our artist is shown to be waking up in the morning and as a result we blurred the shot to mirror his vision as he wakes up. As we wanted to vary the shot types we used different angles and then chose different focuses to make the shots look more interesting. Say You Don't Want It by One Night Only features their main artist playing his guitar which is a very blurred shot. This effect helps to keep the audience engaged as it forces them to focus on what is going on in the shot.

Challenged

Past and Present

The convention we challenged was by filming the artists whole day, as we showed past memories as well as what he was currently doing. From our research, indie music video's tends to usually progress through a day (day to night). Our video did do this as we filmed the artist wake up in his bedroom in the morning to go to the location he used to spend time with with his ex girlfriend in the evening. The use of past and present we found not to be common in other indie music videos however it is in The Killers Video 'Smile Like You Mean It' which is of the rock genre. As we changed from past to present, in the past shots - which tended to be in a washed out effect, it was showing what his life used to be like when he had a girlfriend. Usually, male artists tend not to include a girl in their music video - especially their actual girlfriend as it puts female fans off him as it could make them jealous.

Editing

When planning our music video, we wanted to make it stand out and therefore we had to make sure we used as many different editing techniques as we could. The major convention we wanted to use was stop motion. There aren't many music videos we know of that use stop motion however the videos we found that use it we found to look very effective and original. We used stop motion at the beginning when the writing on the clapper board appeared as well as when the props started to appear around our artist in the cabin. We were very pleased with the outcome of these shots as we received a lot of feedback on how people found it to look very professional and unique as they hadn't seen anything like it before. We used overlays for some of the past shots - including the one to the left of the shot on the tree trunk. We found this shot to look very effective as we were able to show the shot in a different way - not a plain, simple shot but instead on the tree trunk which helps represent the naturalism of the artist and the video. We found that using cross dissolves between shots really helped the shots to look more effective as they flowed smoothly one after another. Choosing the colour of the shots was a fairly easy but effective decision to make as we needed to give it an old vintage look mixed with a washed out colour which people would know represented the past.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?