Evaluation question 1

In what ways does your media product

use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?

For our A2 coursework we were asked to create a music video as well as two ancillary tasks which
were our album poster and digipack. We had to create these three things using the computer
programs Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premier elements which as a group we had quite a bit of
experience with since we had had to use these programs extensively in in our AS coursework as we
had to use it to create our music magazine.

For our music video our group decided on our video being part performance based and part
narrative based as this is the most common type of video in the indie rock genre and we tried to
makes sure that our video conformed to quite a lot of the typical codes and conventions of indie
rock music videos as from our audience feedback questionnaire we saw that this is what our target
audience would most like to see so we tried to make sure that it would appeal to them. We felt a
mixture of narrative and performance would work well in our music video as we wanted to show the
theme of the song which we interpreted as loneliness and depression and we felt that just through
performance it wouldnt quite show the audience how the lead singer is meant to be very sad and
lonely.

How our video implements

Goodwins theory.

Our music video implements Goodwins theory in a number of ways. There is a very clear link
between lyrics and visuals, this is shown when our lead singer says earth is the loneliest planet of
all whilst he says this a number of times he is shown to be alone in a field to represent the
loneliness he feels and how the lead singer feels that he has no-one. We have further tried to
represent this with how the artist is alone on the stage which further represents that he has no-one
but finds some solace in the music he makes and sings.

We also tried to implement genre characteristics into our music video. Our music video is of the
indie rock genre and in this genre of music videos their is often a big focus on performance. We felt
we had to make sure that our video would focus a lot of performance as it is a key feature of indie
rock music video and we also saw in our feedback from our questionnaire of what our target
audience would like to see in our music video, which was performance from the lead singer so we
made sure that we implemented that into our music video. Another characteristic we tried to tie
into our music video was making it clear who the star image and selling point of the music video
was. It is very common in indie videos for their to be a clear star image and for the video to be
concentrated on one person who is usually the main selling point of the song and video. This is very
often implemented in Morrisseys videos (a pioneer of the indie rock genre and the artists music
video we are covering.)

Conventions challenged from

previous media products.

The music video we created challenged previous media products in the fact that our music video
featured only the one artist which goes against other indie rock music where the entire band is
often featured along with other people, however we felt that this would not fit into the narrative of
our music video as our song is about loneliness and if the artist was surrounded by people the
narrative and video wouldn't really make sense as the lead singer would not appear lonely. Also we
chose not to have the band in the background so that more of the video was concentrated on the
star image of the singer who is the main selling point of the video. We also challenged previous
media products in that in our video we used desolate places to film our video which is quite
uncommon in the indie rock genre, however we decided that this would work with our music video
due to the meaning of the song and the depressive tone of this song so we felt that it would be
inappropriate to film the video in a more busy place amongst people which is quite a common
feature in other indie rock music videos. An example of where we challenged an existing media
product is in the oasis live forever music video where it is similar as a lot of the music video is
outside but we challenged it as in our music video we did not include the rest of the band as we felt
that with the rest of the band our lead singer wouldnt be portrayed as lonely and we also felt that
we didnt want to take any of the focus off the lead singer. However we did seem to conform to
some things in the live forever music video as both our lead singers were dressed fairly casual in
shirt and jeans which is very common in indie rock music videos.

Conventions from existing

music videos

One of the main music videos that we took a lot of

inspiration for our product is from is Morrisseys Certain
People I Know music video. This is because the song was
also of the indie rock genre and the vast majority of the
music video was based around the lead singer and the
video featured a lot of facial close ups and focused mainly
on one person much like our video did so we felt that this
video we be a good one to take inspiration from as it also
featured a mixture of performance and narrative in a
similar way to which we implemented narrative and
performance in ours.

Album Poster

The poster we decided to create was one of a the new album that the band would be about to release. We
decided to do this as we felt an album poster would be one of the best type of posters we could make to
conform with the genre of indie rock. We did this by researching other indie rock bands album posters to try
and get a good idea of what is usually featured on an indie rock album poster. One of the posters that we
gained inspiration from was Oasis heathen chemistry poster which clearly labels out the bands name and also
has all the band members in the picture. Furthermore it is similar to ours as the lead singer Liam Gallagher is in
the centre of the shot much like how our lead singer is focused in the middle of the picture as well. We felt that
is was essential for our lead singer to be at the forefront of the picture to make sure that his star image is
conveyed to the fans. Furthermore we felt that the bold writing of the band name and the use of reviews in our
poster would attract old fans of the band as well as new fans as it would be clear that good things have been
said about the band which we felt would help the band form a positive reputation. We also included the bands
record company logo of Triple J media which was used to represent the initial of each of ours first name as well
as a picture of the digipack to give the fans more of a feeling of what the album would be like.

The bands name and album name we also felt was of particular importance as we felt that although a lot of
indie rock band names and album names dont have anything important to say we felt that ours should and
challenge other conventions of media products by having a band name called defiant republic the word
defiant seems to say that the band is standing against something and isnt trying to appeal towards the
mainstream which ties in with the indie genre with the idea of being original. Furthermore the album name
political sink suggests the mood that the band and their fans have with politics as the word sink suggests
miserable and could show how the band and their fans feel detached from politics.

Digipack

With our digipack we took a lot of inspiration from Supergrasses I should coco
album cover and we tried to convey some of the conventions used in that album
cover into our digipack. We did this by putting the three members on the front of
the cover with the lead singer in the middle and the other two members of the
band being more featured in the background so that they dont detract from the
star image of the lead singer. With our secondary research we saw that it was a
common feature for indie rock band album covers to feature all the members so
we decided to also do this and we felt that by tieing in with that feature of indie
rock it would help the band become more prominent in the genre. The I should
coco album was also a very successful album of when indie rock was arguably at
its peak during the Britpop era so we felt that this would be a very appropriate
album cover to take inspiration from.