Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
As our chosen genre, being indie, has various rules of conformation of the genre such as performance of the band/artist or aspects of the video which subverts the typical mainstream conventions. However as indie stands for independent, the main convention with indie videos is the concept of being different and original in their attitude time music and the production of the music video. Throughout our video there is numerous examples of my group and I staying with the convention, developing the convention and challenging the convention. These three fields will now be discussed as followed:
Performance: A clear way in which my group and I stayed with the convention of indie in our music video was in terms of performance of the artist. A main feature and focus throughout our video is the artist performing with an acoustic guitar. Various shots such as close ups, mid shots and high angle shots were used to accentuate and make clear the focus on the artist. The image on the left shows a particular close up shot we used during the music video. The inclusion of this shot visually highlights to the audience the artists skill with the acoustic guitar and how playing it is a big part of his music. Furthermore by having the artist playing in time with the song as well helps to give the impression that he wrote it and its his personal song. We made sure we conformed to this convention as the performance part of indie genre is a strict convention of indie videos as shown by our research from other indie bands music videos.
Mise-En-Scene: Another way in which we stayed with the genre conventions was in terms of the artists choice of Mise-En-Scene. Indie outfits are usually personal preference of the artist themselves. Generally their own clothes in which they feel comfortable in but, in addition to this, clothes which highlight their individual personality. As can be seen in the image, our artist wore skinny jeans in a khaki colour; skinny jeans are a frequent associated clothing item with indie artists as shown by our research and therefore we decided to conform to this convention. accompanied with the jeans, the Christmas jumper highlights his personality being seasonal and appreciative of vintage styled clothing; another convention of the indie genre. The over-sized beanie also represents how his clothing is affected by seasonal change.Developed the Convention:
Camera: The convention of the indie genre in which my group and I developed was the conventional camera techniques and shot choices. To some extent we maintain with the conventional rules surrounding camera shots as we used a handheld camera in a few shots, more so whilst filming various symbolic props we had in our indoor location as we wanted the implication that the artist is looking at them himself and the audience are then seeing what the artist is supposedly seeing. However we developed this particular convention surrounding camera shots as we used another camera of better quality whilst filming performance shots as we wanted a clear cut image of the artist performing with his instrument. Furthermore, through building a character profile of our artist we have decided that he is an up-and-coming artist and therefore the use of an improved camera, filming more advanced shots such as close ups (which allowed us to generate Dyer's 'Star Power' which is a frequent aspect of indie videos), high angle and panning shots portrays a more professional approach to what the artist is doing and helps to create a more distinctive and clear perception of the artist.
Lighting: The indie convention was developed once again in our music video as although we stuck with using naturalistic lighting whilst filming outdoor scenes, particularly the memory scenes, we also used non-naturalistic lighting such as lamp lights or, in general, electricity whilst filming indoor scenes. We chose use non-naturalistic lighting whilst indoors instead of letting natural light flow through as it allowed us to create links to the lyrics within the song such as "lamp light" as well as because it allowed us to allow for different lighting variation within the shots which, in turn, allowed us to set the mood and tone. For example, we used the main lights within our indoor location and pointed them to the artist as it gave off a warm and appealing scenario which is another convention of the indie genre; music videos having a appealing ideal which the audience would possible like to experience. Furthermore at the start of the music video we wished to film a morning scene however the natural light was not bright enough and therefore we used subtle non-naturalistic lighting to allow for the artist to be seen yet portray a morning scene. The image below the bedroom scene in ours is taken from Ben Howard's video for 'Keep Your Head Up' which uses strictly naturalistic lighting throughout the video and it shows the progression from day to night. It does not use any non-naturalistic lighting which shows how we have developed this convention as our video uses both.Challenged the Convention:
Narrative: Our music video challenged the conventions of a typical indie music video in terms of narrative as we had a heavy input of illustrative style narrative which meant that we had literal visual representation of the lyrics being described within our music video. Usually, indie videos use either a amplification style of narrative which involves the lyrics being represented in symbolic ways or they use a disjuncture style of narrative which means the narrative and lyrics show no relation. We chose to challenge the convention and stick with a more illustrative narrative style as it allowed us to step away from the indie genre and show originality when it comes to music videos produced by the artist. Our illustrative narrative style is shown when we showed a literal lamplight in the music video whilst the lyric "lamplight" was sung. Another example was were we showed the artist, during his performance, with picture frames around him which linked to the lyric "your pictures still hung up". Reasons for choosing a illustrative style narrative was due to the fact that although we wanted the audience to see the objects being described literally there is a possibility for the audience to then interpret the objects in a symbolic way and look for deeper meaning within the objects. The image below the lamplight is from One Night Only's video 'Say You Don't Want It' which is a typical indie video in terms of narrative as it uses various amplification techniques however mainly sticks to a disjunctive style which other traditional indie videos use.
Usually indie videos show the day progressing from day to night as the video goes on however we decided to have the video having injections of the past when the artist is with his girlfriend and in the present he is alone and singing his song. From research we discovered that indie bands do not tend to include this feature as the idea of the artist having a relationship results in a less interest in female fans; especially as females are the main fan base as shown by our demographic research - http://willsonsmusicproductions.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lewis-watson-demographics.html The montage of shots overlaying each other shows the artist reflecting on the past and how its all the memories of him with the girlfriend are merged together. The Killers 'Smile Like You Mean It' video also challenges the idea of past vs present and we gained some inspiration from their video for the use of past and present in ours. However The Killers are classified as alternative rock and not particularly indie therefore this shows how we have looked into other genres of music other than indie. 
Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
This question will be answered using a video which we created and edited on Final Cut Express, where my group and I discuss the effectiveness of our music video, digipack and magazine advert and how the three products link and work together to form an overall persona for our artist as well conforming to indie conventions.
Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
To gain audience feedback we played our video to a large selection of audience members aged 16-19 and gave them four questions to answer which can be seen below. We then collected in all the detail and noted down each response to each question which can be seen here: http://willsonsmusicproductions.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/audience-feedback-results.html Once collected, I created a word cloud which allowed us to put all the responses in one place in order for us to see it in an abstract way but also, the main responses are enlarged to show the popularity of them and then the rest are sized accordingly to their popularity.
What do you think the story is in our video?
Would you say this is an 'authentic' indie music video?
What is effective about our video?
How would you improve it?
Generally, from looking at the audience feedback, we gained a positive response and people really liked it. They spoke positively about our choice of costume, simplicity in terms of camera shots and the general narrative running through the video and they were able to identify that it was indeed about the singing reminiscing on a past relationship with the girl featured in our video. Furthermore, majority of responses agreed that it did look like an authentic indie video which was our desired outcome. However, by looking at the responses to the question 'How would you improve it?' the main improvements people would make would be the lip syncing which was expected as my group and I were unable to match the song with the artists singing perfectly. Therefore, next time we would make sure the actor singing would pronounce his words better in order to gain a more believable music video. Overall, people understood the narrative with the contrast between the present and past which we hoped for but instead suggested that there could have been more clips showing the past with the singing and girl together to emphasis that relationship even further. Also, we had a few suggestions that there should have been a flashback used at the very start of the video which, to me personally, would have been an effective approach to the video and would be a consideration if I were to film and edit the video again. There was also a few comments surrounding the use of stop motion within our video and some responses highlighted that it was confusing at times or they felt it was out of place. Although this is a valuable comment and if I were to edit again I would possibly see if the stop motion would have fitted in a different location within the music video better. However I believe it was a great addition and piece of editing and a convention which we challenged in the indie genre as stop motion did not seem to have a major focus on in other indie videos.
Overall, the audience feedback proved exceptionally helpful to us and we were able to gain constructive criticism which we took away with us and discussed as a group. If we were to edit and film again we would definitely considered the points and issued raised.
Overall, the audience feedback proved exceptionally helpful to us and we were able to gain constructive criticism which we took away with us and discussed as a group. If we were to edit and film again we would definitely considered the points and issued raised.
Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I made a YouTube video to answer this question as I was able to talk about the vast and wide variety of technologies I used in the research and planning, production and editing of my music video, digipack and magazine advert. Each site we used had aided us greatly and proved to be extremely beneficial throughout our coursework; whether it was final express which hosted our editing of our music video or gmail which allowed us to maintain contact with each member or our group as well asking permission to use our chosen artists song. I also mention the cameras we used which allowed us to perform both handheld shots as well as various still shots if connected to a tripod. Overall, technology enabled my group and I to create the desired music video, digipack and magazine advert in which we hoped for.
