Evaluation 1 (Final)

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

Music Video

Andrew Goodwin's conventions:

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. (e.g. stage performance in metal videos, dance routine for boy/girl band, aspiration in Hip Hop.
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. The lyrics are represented by images. (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals. The tone and atmosphere of the visuals reflect that of the music. (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).
5. There is frequent reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, mirrors, stages, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. The artist may develop motifs or iconography that recur across their work (a visual style)
7. There are often intertextual references (to films, TV programmes, other music videos etc).

Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. 

Alternative music videos often feature either a performance or a narrative aspect: this is something that we have included in our own music video and have combined both elements. We decided to do this to conform to our genre’s conventions, but to also create a somewhat unique final product since it is not only a performance/narrative video – but a mix of both.

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals.

I think that we achieved this within our music video, but we decided on an illustrative approach. For example, the lyric ‘I lost my heart, I don’t really need it anymore’ is visually represented by our protagonist casting aside his work clothes: they symbolise his ‘heart’ in a subtle way. Furthermore, the lyrics ‘I got some things to do, but I don't want to do 'em’ have a negative and depressing tone to them (particularly in the way they are sung). This is represented via visuals throughout the video since our protagonist is feeling morose and sombre and is on an emotional journey. We thought that simply recreating the lyrics in an amplifying way wouldn’t match our proposed narrative and would be somewhat boring; besides, it would be hard to recreate ‘acid flashbacks in your kitchen’!

There is a relationship between music and visuals.

The song that we chose has a “powerful” and certainly emotional tone to it. I think that we presented this in an amplifying way since the narrative of our video revolves around the impulsive decision of our protagonist to quit his job – since he is unhappy. As well as this, our video as a whole has a dramatic feel to it which I think links to the overall sound of the song. When planning the narrative of the music video, we were incited by the emotional overtones of the song and so there is certainly a relationship between the music and the narrative (ultimately visuals) of the video. Our camerawork attempts to represent the tone of the song via handheld shots: during the “breakdown” of the song (when there is a massive amount of instrumentation) the shaky, handheld shots symbolise the high amount of energy in the song and the emotion of it. 

The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

Even though we were not signed to a record label (obviously) we felt it was important to consider what a record label would want, since we wanted our music video to be professional and realistic. Therefore, we decided that we would need to include several close up shots of the band – particularly the lead singer.

There is frequent reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

Since our music video does not feature any female characters, it does not conform to the “male gaze” conventions. However, I would also add that the male characters aren’t sexualised either: we wanted to remove any form of “gaze” - which could be considered unconventional. Therefore, I think we have somewhat challenged traditional conventions. Regarding the ‘notion of looking’, our protagonist does have periods where his looking is “exaggerated”, such as the final scene where he breaks down. As well as this, he looks at his surrounding environment frequently. However, he rarely looks directly into the camera (apart from one scene) which prevents him from being overly connected to the audience. This was purposeful since we wanted to represent him as something separate from the band and distinguishes him as a narrative method. Conversely, our band does look directly into the camera throughout the video and – through our camerawork – the camera acts as the “eye of the audience”. This is a common feature of music videos since it develops a bond between artist and audience.

There are often intertextual references.

My group decided to conform to this convention since we realised that to make a good product, we would need to source inspiration from existing media: including other music videos. We eventually decided that we liked a narrative involving the themes of youth and scouts. Therefore, we decided to find other media involving those themes; other people in my group had previously watched ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ and so we wanted to adopt a Wes Anderson “aesthetic” to our video – hence the slightly warm filter and certain shot types. Furthermore, we were also inspired by the Remo Drive music video for ‘I’m My Own Doctor’ since it features prominent themes of youth and adopts the scouting theme. It is filmed using a handy-cam at some points as well, which is something we also included – particularly when filming the band.

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