Evaluation Task #1: In What Ways Does Our Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Form and Conventions of Real Media Products?

Forms are elements of structure that give a media text its ‘shape’ and meaning. One of the forms we used in our video was performance. It serves to highlight the artist, possibly demonstrate his/her abilities and create a star image. In our video, we used a performance of a band, which we consider being ‘organic’ rather than ‘synthetic’. Keith Negus argues that the seeds of success for this kind of an artist lie within them, within the songs. Our band contains rebellious young people who create in alternative rock genre. Organic acts usually take time to evolve and progress through their career. Every member of a band has its own individuality and contributes to the music, thus final product appears to be of high esthetic and moral quality. Our artist is aimed on reasonably sophisticated audience which displays some kind of individuality when selecting what to listen. Performance was used in the original video for ‘Grounds for Divorce’ by ‘Elbow’. This is a reasonably famous band, which also aims at more sophisticated audience and seems to be organic.

Conventions are elements of content, which are recognizable from similar texts. One of conventions is the artist Close Up, since it sells the artist and may showcase his abilities. It also gives an audience an opportunity to take this image and remember the artist next time members of audience see him. This reflect the concept of ‘star’ devised by Richard Dyer. This term refers to the semi-mythological set of meanings constructed around music performers in order to sell the performer to a large and loyal audience. The star image is constructed out of a range of materials and meanings that are attractive to the target audience. Fundamentally, the star image is incoherent, incomplete and ‘open’. Due to this fact target audience will strive to consume more and more information about the artist, but ultimately will never get all the information it wants, therefore, it will continue consuming the artist’s products. CU is one of this bits of information that may particularly excite the audience since it seems like it gives even more information away, while it doesn’t. For this reason, we used quite a few CUs in our video. It brings our audience closer to the artist and may as well create a perceived connation with the artist. Real music industry uses CUs of artists very frequently as well. For instance, a music video directed by David Fincher with Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z ‘Suit & Tie’ uses CU several times, which may increase the number of people who watch the video.

         

Another important form we applied to our video is narrative. It may help to showcase other ‘intangible’ qualities of the artist, create a link to target audience or may even create a character for the artist. We cut between performance and narrative establishing a visual link, since the performance actually happens in the room where the characters were before and where this huge fight has started. Through this connection we create a metaphor of the star image of our band which is supposed to give more information about the artist. The narrative in our video also contributes to “extraorinarity”, which makes a greater contrast between ordinary and extraordinary (first paradox of a star according to Dyer) more possible. Our narrative is constituted of a boy (simultaneously, the singer) and a girl running in the forest with guns and shooting each other. It is also an attempt to appeal to our target audience which is probably mainly males 18-25 years old. They probably enjoy watching thrillers and gunfights. Music industry also has an example of such narratives. A good instance of a similar use of narrative in the real music industry is shown in a video by Alt-J, ‘Hunger of the Pine’, although it serves different purpose in their video. 

 

















‘Artistic’ camerawork is another convention we tried to implement in our video. It obviously increases entertainment of the video making it more pleasurable to watch as well as increasing the chances of repeated watching of the video. It also contributes to the star image. Our band is organic, so it is indie and artistic to some extent, at least in the beginning of their career. Therefore, the fact that we tried to use ‘artistic’ camerawork is consistent with the notion that our artist is unique, individual and tries to express its inner World rather than appeal to wide audiences. The ‘artistic’ camerawork in a way is a reflection of this World. It also possibly makes our band more extraordinary and harder to grasp to some extent. Thus our target audience would potentially be riveted trying to solve the ’mystery’ our artist, simultaneously enjoying great music. There are some examples of music videos in the real industry which also betook this convention e.g. ‘Breezeblocks’ by Alt-j, ‘Suit & Tie’ by Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z etc.

 

Conspicuous use of the lighting adds to the ‘artistic’ camera work. In some cases the sense of concert may be created, however, in many cases it is also used for the reason of creating a beautiful image on the screen as well as ‘expressive’ (or ‘low key’) lighting in a movie. We use expressive lighting for exactly the same reason we used ‘artistic’ camerawork. Target audience will hopefully be attracted by the imagery but also by the inner World of the artist. Lighting is an inseparable element of astonishing camerawork. Target audience may as well associate the colours and the lighting in the video with this band, so whenever someone sees these colours, it reminds him/her of our band and hopefully makes him/her talk about it spreading the word of mouth. Our colour palette in performance bit seems sophisticated with a lot of ‘artistic’ shadows which makes it easily memorable. Examples of the videos in the music industry that distinguish themselves by the use of lighting include ‘Suit & Tie’, ‘Tessellate’, ‘Unconditionally’.

 

We also made an attempt to implement symbolism in our video which is another music video form. Symbolism usually helps to heighten the meaning of the track, or links closely with a star image thus creating distinct identity with the artist. The symbolism that we used, however, is not that profound, but it still has a connection with a star image making the band look cooler and probably introducing some inner rage that drives our artist to write the songs. Moreover, it contributes to the ‘mysteriousness’ of the band even more making them look more extraordinary. Perhaps, this symbol (the light bulb) means something to the members of the band, so this is another look inside the band’s soul. Feathers are another symbol, which are, however, linked predominantly with the plot of the video and indicate the fact that there was a fight in a room. Alt-J uses symbolism a lot, but the most conspicuous use is in the video ‘Tessellate’.

       

We followed the industry conventions in terms of digipak as well. Particular styles of digipaks help to attract particular audiences. We went for a young, rebellious and stylish star image. The image is processed in a certain way, we have chosen a specific color palette featuring yellow, golden colors, which gives this picture a very stylish look. Usually, on the front cover of albums of pop artists we can see the artist himself very clearly since this is a good way to promote the artist. That is why we have our artist standing alone facing the camera. We put our front man in the forest, so that it corresponds with our music video since we develop the theme of forest in our music video. Therefore, our star image remains consistent. Other artists also used that kind of pictures in their digipaks as well. For instance, J. Cole "2014 Forest Hills Drive" album. One of the pictures in his digipak is him standing watching into the camera with the forest on background, which is consistent with the name of his album.

 We also follow the industry conventions in terms of website. On our 'Home' page we have a big picture that symbolically represents the artist. In our case it is light bulbs and trees since in our music video we develop the theme of light bulbs demonstrating it in the performance, which happens in the room where the characters has just started their fight. In the context of the video the light bulb is given a more profound meaning - rage, rebelliousness, youth. Then we follow the narrative which leads us into the forest where the gunfight with the explosion happens. This is the development of the forest theme. We combined both of those motifs in this image. We also have artist's accounts in various social networks that audience may follow and thus be in contact with the artist and find out news about him. Our website includes several categories very often used by the music industry e.g. 'Gallery', 'About', 'Sigh Up', 'Merchandise' etc. This may help to enhance the awareness of the artist, give more information about his life and eventually build a fan base. An example of the real industry website may be the website of 'The Script'. A picture of a kiss on their 'Home' page is also quite symbolical and gives a hint that the target audience is probably females rather than males. They also have all the links on the top of the website as well as the links to their accounts on Facebook, YouTube etc.