Evaluation Question 1 Draft

Question 1: In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Location

Location is an important aspect of mise-en-scene and I believe that the mise-en-scene for the music video was extremely important. We chose to go to Lowestoft to film our music video. This is because it strongly represents the iconic  British  seaside resort. (Image)

We were strongly influenced by bands of the same genre that had also used British themed locations. Two Door Cinema Club are a Northern Irish band with an Indie/Rock genre which has a fairly similar sound to our band, Jungle Doctors. TDCC use a very British seaside location an introduce use of beach huts. Both the seaside and beach huts are themes which are strongly associated with the British theme. Our music video consists of beach huts, seaside scenary, arcade and a cafe which creates the generic convention of our typical British location.

Beach huts are a strong aspect of mise-en-scene in our music video. They're used to enhance the scenes as it gives the audience more of an understanding on where the music video is shot (the seaside).

 

Protagonist's Costume

Costume

In our music video I have developed indie conventions with the costume worn by the actress. This is also to attract audiences of a similar style. I tried to include traditional recent trends i.e. the leather jacket. Another aspect of the protagonist's costume is the Nike shoes. These 'Nike Blazers' that our protagonist wears are very typically indie and are worn by other indie artists in the music industry. Indie styled artists such as Eliza Doolittle and Ed Sheeran often wear these. Both of these artists have a very similar target audience to both me and Zoe.

Eliza Doolittle wearing Nike Blazers

Ed Sheeran wearing Nike Blazers

Arctic Monkeys wearing leather jackets

 Another aspect of our costume is the leather jacket. The leather jacket is an extremely trendy fashion statement worn my iconic artists such as the Arctic Monkeys (above). The Arctic Monkeys are an extremely contemporary band with exemplary style. They are seen wearing leather jackets in many of their music videos/photoshoots. These leather jackets are found on high street fashion shops such as Topshop and H&M. These high street fashion shops attract young people of around the ages of 16-15 especially, which would be appealing to our target audience.

Narrative Structure/Editing

In our music video, me and Zoe decided to use a the conventions of a linear narrative which focus on a day in the life of a girl at the seaside. We made our music video a montage of images/shots as we thought this would be more creative. We used continuity editing to emphasise the concept of storytelling. We achieved continuity editing through costume with the performer wearing the same clothing throughout the day. This was done so that it was clear to the audience that the girl was at the seaside throughout the same day. This was also emphasised by starting with a bright, sunny sky and ending it during the twilight/darkness of the evening. We also agreed that if we were to include a complex narrative structure it could confuse the audience. During the editing, we tried to incorporate transitions  that were in time with the rhythm. This made the footage compliment the music video nicely. I have tried to include close ups influenced by Goodwin's theory. Goodwin states that "the demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups". The use of these close ups helps the audience to identify and relate to the main protagonist as they can get a good feel of her emotions through her facial expressions. Throughout our music video we have included many fade to black transitions to cut to the next shot. This was effective as it was a montage so shots moved nicely from one to another. As well as this, we included match on action. This was when the song suddenly got faster so that the shots moved quickly from one to another at the same pace of the up-beat music. This was influenced by Goodwin's theory as he stated that "there is a relationship between the music and the visuals in that the transactions reflect the beat".

Representation

We challenged the reperesentation of gender in our music video.  Often in music videos, the female characters very much dominate the video with their confidence and 'sexiness' to appeal to the male audience. The "male gaze" is Mulvey's theory by which women are viewed by men in a sexual way and are given sexual attention.

The advertisement to the left is an example of the 'male gaze' as the attention is focused onto the attractive women (the men on the side of the curb gawking at the woman passing by). This type of  advertising helps to sell to women so that they can recieve this male attention. Other music videos use this idea of representing women as sexual objects in which men can gaze at. In Beyonce's video 'Dance For You', she dances in a sexual/ voyeuristic way to capture the man's attention. The camera angles and ways in which it is edited make the audience see Beyonce dancing from the man's point of view; unfluencing the audience to comply to the 'male gaze' theory.

Fish Tank (2009)

We chose to represent our female protagonist in a different way so that perhaps the music video would appeal more to both genders. Our representation of females is seen as rather iscolated, alienation and self-reflective. This is also a repesentation of youth as both iscolation and alienation is viewed as a contemporary issue amongst youth. This illustration of youth is also displayed in the film Fish Tank. Fish Tank is a British film produced in 2009. It follows the life of a troubled girl named Mia who lives on a council estate in East London and is expressed as soically iscolated and volatile teenager. We used this idea of a young, iscolaed girl as we believed the audience can identify with the emotions and feelings throughout the music video. This relates to Lacan's Theory of identity. His theory is specifically about audience engagement. Lacan states that certain aspects of music, videos, lyrics and artists can be related to as audience members may fit in with the particular social group that is being displayed.
Throughout the music video we tried to use recurring motifs. Recurring motifs is another of Goodwin's theory. We used recurring motifs in different aspects of the music video. One way in which we did this was by showing our female protagonist in the same outfit throughout. This was illustrate that it was throughout the same day.  We also used a distinctive visual of the British sea by disaplaying at the beginning and nearer towards the end. This way our music video had recurring signifiers throughout so that the audience could identify that the music video is set in the same location from start to finish.
 

Print Productions

My Panel 1

Pink Floyd Album Cover

My Panel 4

 For my print prodcuctions, I tried to develop conventions of artwork from other bands and artists. I focused on using the theme of shapes amongst my artwork. I did some further research and found that amogst bands of a similar/same genre, they also used shapes in their work. One that I cam across was the album cover for Pink Floysd's "Dark Side of the Moon" which became the 3rd best selling album of all time. There is so album name or artist name but it's been an extremely effective and capturing piece of artwork ever. The reason behind it being successful could be the fact that it could create confusion amongst the audience and so make them curious as to who it could be, making them look at the album up closer. I tried to develop this idea of a a simple shape and tried to make it more artisitc with the use of photography inside of the shape. Another band I came across which use this idea of shapes was Keane. Both Pink Floyd and Keane were both influences for our Digipak. For both panel 1 and panel 2 I kept the font fairly simple as it compliments the images; drawing the attention to these. This is also because, a complex font could be difficult to read or understand. For the layout of the digipak, I used the conventional 4 sided panel. I felt that my design would be best suited for this layout as it  represetns my genre of indie/rock and attract to a wide audience.

For the magazine I stuck to the 'British seaside/location' theme which relates to my digipak. The reason for this was to stick to a recurring motif; creating a theme behind the band. The layout of the magazine advert was influenced from other artists such as Florence and the Machine and The Acrtic Monkeys.

Magazine Advert

Florence and the Machine Advert

I was strongly influenced by this magazine advert from 'Florence and the Machine'. Like my magazine advert, it provides the name of the artist, album name, the release date and a website. These four pieces of information are vital to be shown on the advert as the name of the artist and album inform the audience of what the advert is for. Also, the release date and website are important as its further information on the album that the audience may be interested in. The layout for 'Florence and the Machine' magazine advert is a fairly traditional layout which influenced my magazine advert with the layout of the artist name at the top and the name of the album underneath. The album name is all in capitals which gave me the idea of doing all upper case lettering for the band name and all lower case for the album name. The image, similarly to mine, is centred in the middle which attracts people to read further into it. 

The Arctic Monkeys Advert

 Another band that influenced my magazine advertisement was 'Arctic Monkeys'. Like my advertisement I made the photograph central to appeal and attract the audience. The 'Arctic Monkeys' use a very interesting and controversial image to captivate the audience. Similarly to mine, the advert has star ratings. This verifies the quality of the album and will intrigue audiences to buy the album. The layout like my advert and the 'Florence and the Machine' one is very similar and traditional.