Evaluation Task 1: In what way do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions real media products?
For our lighting influence, we used inter-textual referencing with the Phillips Hue- How many years does it take to change a lightbulb?' advert. I saw this advert, and was keen to use multiple conventions for our music video from it. For example, the hanging lightbulbs element and the exploration of eras based in the same room.
Here my screenshots present 'Hues' element of changing sets but with the same overall idea of the room and lightbulb remaining the same. We did challenge the whole idea of the 'set change' in this influence, as we stuck to the same wallpaper for our whole video in order to intertwine them completely, rather than making the video episodic.
Another intertextual reference I used was Wes Anderson films. I was inspired primarily by his crucial trademark of a fixed camera, creating this straight on static image. I aimed for this in our 'Wasted Words' music video, however, I also challenged it, using close up/side on camera shots too, in order to follow the prosecutes for the coursework (presenting all our camera work skills). If I had been able to direct exactly how I wanted, I would have only used wide shots and mid-shots with no angles but straight on.
Wes Anderson films are aimed at a niche audience, likewise to 'Lion The Weak', being unique and independent. This worked really well as a marketing technique.
A main focus, was researching bands we could take inspiration for. Obviously, despite the fact we wanted to aim at the fact Lion The Weak are independent, it is always a key element to stick to mainstream elements, in order to achieve popularity and success! We discovered 'Bombay Bicycle Club' and 'The Macabees' had very similar ideas to us about the sort of indie/pop look we wanted to achieve for our music videos. Whereas artists like 'The 1975' and George Ezra explored similar Mise En Scene we desired for our band.
With 'The 1975', a primary music video selling point was the reoccurring image of the performance and the band itself, which was crucial focus for Lion The Weak (in order to market, introduce them to the industry and gain fans).
In order to market our band straight away, applying their band name and label to the beginning of the video, allowed us to immediately promote them to our audience. We took this existing form from 'The Maccabees'.
A band who do have their place in the music market, but are upcoming in terms of a global audience. (Therefore promotion is still crucial for them.)
Our dance element influence came from a theatrical idea called 'chair duets'. I found a video on Facebook of Alfonso Carlton on 'Dancing with the Stars' performing a dance I thought would work perfectly with our whole theme and style of music video. It markets people outside of the 'indie/pop' bands getting people of theatre and dance included in our target audience too.
The face pace, relationship battle of this performance juxtaposed our band really well, which is why I thought it would work perfectly.
We wanted to achieve an artistic look to all elements of our coursework- music video, digi pack and website. 'Bombay Bicycle Club' have a brilliant creative way of presenting their music. Rather than it being typically pop, show the band's appearance and image, it is usually of someone or something completely different. We obviously challenged this, but adding effects onto our music video in the after-editing process allowed us to get a vintage and old-fashioned look.
Bombay Bicycle Club's beautiful music video 'How can you swallow so much sleep'. Its creative, artistic and not mainstream- our focus for 'Wasted Words'. In our video, we decided to include the bands logo of a Lion, depicting it through a stock motion drawing (artistically thought about likewise to what Bombay Bicyle Club's pay attention to).
Conclusion
Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing
something. Conventions can be used,
supported, reiterated. They can be
challenged to deliberately broke to subvert conventions In evaluation of the question set I feel that I have drawn on
the conventions of media products in my own campaign. This use of these conventions is evident in
the construction of my own products, for example using the period dramas to present a contemporary band (in our case, the era of 1920s), taking influence from popular films, their colour schemes and Mise en Scene and finally using a dance element to portray a narrative. This is supported by my own research into Wes Anderson's films, such as Moonrise Kingdom, mainstream boy bands (Arctic Monkeys) and indie bands (Bombay Bicycle Club/ The 1975) and finally
theatrical dance styles. At the same time I have sought
to develop and been able to challenge conventions, for example, I
have based the whole people in a period which supports the whole individualistic intention of our upcoming independent band 'Lion the Weak'.The majority of mainstream The reason why feel that I
have achieved this is to differentiate my product in a competitive music
industry market and I have attempted to challenge audience expectations, bring
something new to the media forms. Media
Conventions are ultimately relied upon for communicating the right message to
the intended audience, but also deviate from these expectations helps sell the
star image that I wanted to promote. Audiences produce meaning from the
interaction of the conventional material in a text, and their understanding of
conventions, for example for my cd divi pack design, I decided to photograph a teacup on an art board splashed with paint. This idea gave emphasis on the fact 'Lion the Weak' were independent and I wanted to show they continued to be a developing band.
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