The document discusses how the media product uses and develops conventions of real indie and pop music genres through its genre blending of indie-pop. Key conventions from indie like establishing shots, guitar playing, and deep narratives focused on love were used. Conventions from pop like close headshots were avoided to not glamorize the new artist's image too much. The narrative challenges conventions by focusing more on the deep story than just performance, developing real genres into the new indie-pop style.

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

2. When beginning the project I conducted research in
to existing products such as ‘Aluna George’ amd
‘The 1975’ to understand specific codes and
conventions of different genres. Part of my research
included the indie-rock genre and the pop genre.
Our product is a mixture of both of these styles
creating indie-pop. Therefore when creating our
product I could apply these conventions of real
media products.

3. In terms of camera, we used conventions of the indie genre
throughout our video. For example, establishing shots were used
at the beginning of the video to distinguish the setting and
location which are both poignant features of our ‘Romeo and
Juliet’ themed narrative. However, this slightly contrasts the
‘rock’ part of the genre as in our video’s establishing shots show
the setting and surrounding rather than band performance
which is typical in a rock video. Although, throughout the video
shots are shown of the artist playing the guitar which connotes
the indie genre.

4. Mise-en-scene was a key feature of representing the indie-pop
genre and narrative. Key props were used such as the guitar and
peacocks. These were used throughout to link to the song lyrics and
‘Romeo and Juliet’ themed narrative. The peacock created a
symbolism of love and freedom, this emotional and sensitive
narrative is often a typical feature of an indie narrative, similar to Ed
Sheeran’s ‘The A Team’.

5. The appearance of the artist in terms of costume was also
adapted to fit into our genre. We dressed the protagonist in
basic style indie clothing such as black skinny jeans, a white
tshirt and vans shoes. For the audience, this allows them to
recognise the costume of the protagonist and link this to
stereotypes that they recognise such as the indie genre. The
appearance of the artist was significant in genre representation
as if we had dressed the protagonist differently, perhaps in all
black and red, a different genre would be deciphered such as
punk or rock.

6. The appearance of the male protagonist in
comparison to the female protagonist was also a
significant feature to represent class based
differences which links to our ‘Romeo and Juliet’
themed narrative. The female is dressed in a floral
print top and skater skirt, with loosely curled hair
creating connotations of innocent and naivety.

7. Indie artists tend to make music for themselves rather than the
industry; therefore large-scale production videos are unnecessary. In
relation to our product we applied this in several ways, for example in
the album digipack and album poster. When selecting images to use
we decided to use images that didn’t contain the artists face, instead
we created icons through the scenery and props such as the guitar.

8. However, as our artist is new and upcoming it is important to present
the image of the artist in order to create a brand image for
themselves. Therefore, we also included medium-long portrait shots
of the artist in natural, spontaneous poses which would be used in the
CD cover to allow the audience to recognise the artist as a brand. This
differs from the ‘pop’ genre which would commonly include
glamorised, close-up headshots of the artist, often portraying them as
a figure or icon.

9. The narrative in our production both challenges and develops real conventions. In
any music video the narrative is key to representing and explaining the song in a
visual way to attract the audience. However, in an indie music video the narrative
commonly takes focus on the band/artist musical performance such as playing the
guitar. Large scale productions are unnecessary for this genre as the key focus and
intention of the artist is to promote their music rather than their own
image/identity.

10. As we mixed genres with indie-pop our production contains
features of this and develops the real conventions. Many parts of
our video show the protagonist singing/playing guitar, however it
doesn’t glamourize his image which would likely to be seen in
pop videos. In terms of narrative in the indie genre it is usually
deeper than those in pop music due to the more sensitive writing
of the song. The narrative of the song is based around love and
romance which mirrors a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ forbidden love style.
Therefore the lyrics are deep and meaningful and this is echoed
in the cinematography through long distance shots of the
protagonist walking into the distance and medium-long shots of
the ‘forbidden’ female waiting anxiously for the male to save her.