Terry's A2 Blog: March 2015

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

Before the production of our music video; we formed a group (myself, Ben, Jonathan and Louis) we begun by planning and manifesting our ideas together of conventions of a variety of genres and sub-genres (rock, alternative rock, indie rock and a variety of others) as a group we decided to choose alternative rock for our genre. The majority of the conclusions which we had drawn together correlate with the genre which we chose. I researched into a variety of alternative rock bands and analysed the following: music videos, digipaks and posters. I researched into bands like (Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Blink - 182, Fall Out Boy, The All American Rejects and more).
For our music video production; we decided to plan on creating a narrative/performance music video. The music videos which I researched have a difference in aspect ratio by having more performance than narrative to associate with the demand for the record label (close ups of the main vocalist). To follow the conventions of a alternative rock styled music video; we desired a narrative/performance music video for our production. However, as a group we decided to have more narrative than performance.

We created a plan to accumulate and manifest our conceptions together and developed a storyboard an animatic to use as a structure and method to form our narrative/performance music video. We did not always stick with the ideologies which we developed in the animatic and storyboard. We made changes by improving scenes for our music video. We had to reconsider some conceptions for our music video which did not overall work, we developed more ideologies to replace the conventions which did not appear to work for our music video. We gathered this information from feedback once presented to the class and by viewing it ourselves. As a group we were capable of reconstructing our music video by developing new scenes and other conceptions to fix the anomalies we had to contend with.

To form our alternative rock band, we needed to create a name for ourselves. We put together some of the names which we came to our minds; I created this survey below which displays the names we thought of and the results which we gathered from other people which participated in picking a name for our band.

After researching into bands with the corresponding genre (alternative rock), we needed to pick a song from the bands listed below in the survey for our narrative/performance music video. I formed another survey for people to give us an insight on a song which should be considered for our performance/narrative music video. The majority of votes which we gathered from the survey are for The Pretender by The Foo Fighters. From the results displayed; we decided to pick the song which has the most accumulated points (The Pretender - Foo Fighters) for our music video.

Once I researched into music videos which associated with our genre; I established that alternative rock uses the following conventions: dark attire (dark coloured clothing/costume) and lighting and contrast of the music video appeared to be dark to correlate with the dark colour scheme in association with conventions such as clothing and costume. After establishing the conventions used in alternative rock music videos; we followed the conventions by creating a costume plan for our band as well as the characters for our narrative structure. For the performance, my attire was black as well as the costume I wore for the narrative side (black jeans, black shirt and a black hooded jumper). This associates with the Mise - en - scene in the music video. the dark colour scheme arouses the sense of unbalance which correlates with our narrative - a group of characters pursuing a target to manipulate and essentially turn them as a member of their group.

I was the only band member which appeared in the narrative because we did not have enough actors to perform, participate and play the role of the characters we designed and established from our planning and research. I played as the lead guitarist (using an electric guitar) in the performance.

After experimenting with colour and lighting for our music video; we decided to make our entire music video black and white. I managed to manipulate the footage by using the desaturate effect on the footage. This made our video look more distinctive in relation to the codes and conventions which we are following for our genre. We followed the conventions by using a dark colour scheme for our costume plan and music video footage.

The majority of music videos which I researched which corresponded with our chosen genre; they mainly relied on the performance. We managed to challenge the codes and conventions by adding a narrative which forms a narrative/performance music video.

We applied the following aspects which relate to Andrew Goodwin's theory to our media product: comparison and link between visuals and lyrics (associated with the narrative and performance); synchronous lyrics associated with visuals (close ups of the lead vocalist, lip syncing). In association with synchronous lyrics and visuals - we used many point of view shots (pov) to relate to Goodwin's perspective of lyrics and visuals. "I'm what's right, I'm what's left" we used point of view shots to correlate with this ideology; when the words left and right are presented, the pov shot moves left and right to establish this conception in relation to Goodwin's theory. We also did this by associating the lyrics with the three characters (antagonists portrayed in the narrative - people wearing masks) which are pursuing their target which is not wearing a mask with the lyrics "send in your skeletons".

We initiated a sense of hierarchy by creating a triangle effect by having the leader of the three masked characters at the front and the two remaining characters parallel to one another to create the same level of status. We created a hierarchy to convey dominance and leadership amongst the characters in our narrative.

We applied music and visuals by combing them together with quick, fast edits. For example, when the guitar solo begins; a shot displays a close up of me playing the guitar. We did this numerous times throughout our video by cutting between music and visuals of instruments to convey emphasis on music and visuals. We also did this with our lead vocalist by cutting to him when the chorus begins, we considered the demands for the record label by incorporating a variety of different angled close ups of our vocalist. There was also a shot of our drummer (Jonathan) hitting/playing the drums when the sound of the drums are played alone for a short moment. We followed these conventions and are typically used in alternative rock styled music videos (the incorporation of Goodwin's theory).

We intended to create the sense of a live performance for our music video; we managed to gather studio lights to bring fourth the effect of stage lights shining upon the band. As a band we learned to create a character for ourselves which typical guitarists, vocalists, bassist and drummers would essentially do to perform as if it was a live performance. We developed this convention for our band and it also follows the codes and conventions of band performances in relation to our genre.

We assembled the instruments which were required for our music video (electric guitar, bass guitar, drum kit/set and a microphone and microphone stand).

In conclusion, by over looking our progress; I believe that we applied the following conceptions: utilising, developing and challenging ideologies and conventions of authentic media products that correspond with our genre (alternative rock). We managed to utilise the correct conventions by linking our attire (costume plan) to our alternative rock band and the attire for the characters which perform in the narrative structure (dark colour scheme). Furthermore, we related our band with the typical conventions of an alternative rock band by learning to perform with the correct mannerisms which band members would typically convey whilst performing live or in their music videos. We managed to challenge the conventions by initially integrating more narrative than performance.