Evaluation question 1 for media coursework

1. Evaluation Question 1
In what ways do your products use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?

2. Music Video
Throughout our music video we wanted to portray
a sense of havoc since the song title is ‘she’s a riot’
and our band name is ‘innovators’ the theme
matched with our band. We created this by adding
the shots of us hitting the pinata, throwing the
leaves and throwing powder paint. Havoc is a
theme common to a lot of indie pop bands as it
represents their disagreeance with social norms.
We also had no sexualisation of the women in our
band as we didn’t stick to the general stereotypes
of gender portrayed in mainstream music videos
as, again, indie pop bands generally don’t comply
with these kinds of stereotypes. Both genders were
presented as equal throughout our video.
A lot of indie pop music videos tend to have quite a
lot of cuts throughout the video to keep it upbeat
and energetic. Because of this we decided to make
sure that we had plenty of cuts in our videos as
well, in total we have 139 cuts to make sure that
we constantly have the audience's attention.
Indie pop videos also use quite a lot of jump cuts to
show them changing outfits or moving around a
location. We thought these kinds of cuts were quite
effective and incorporated them into our video
also, to show us switching props and positions.
Our video is also performance based with little
narrative as we noticed that there aren’t many
narrative based indie pop music videos.

3. Music Video
Throughout typical indie pop music videos we
noticed that the band members are always
energetic and are always having fun and have good
band chemistry. This was one of the main things
we wanted to make sure an audience member
could get from our video so we made sure that
whenever we were shooting we were full of energy
and always interacting with each other and this
came across in the video.
To try and keep the high energy up we wanted to
make sure that everything around us represented
vibrant energy as well so we were always trying to
use the brightest colours possible when picking
props, costume and location as the colour should
reflect our energetic mood.
We made sure when thinking about costumes that
we all had individual style as indie pop bands tend
not to match outfits. We made sure however that
we had a motif throughout of one band member
wearing a checkered shirt.
We also had a variety of props to try and add the
‘random’ feel to our video as this is something
common among indie pop props as it takes away
the sense that there is a deeper meaning and
makes the video more enjoyable, Something we
also did when thinking about our locations as we
wanted them to be relatable but fun so we mixed
the sort of outdoors, common to everyone, with
the stage, something only bands and performers
tend to be familiar with.

4. Digipak
One of the main things we were conscious of when
creating the digipak is that not many indie pop
digipaks use pictures of themselves and instead
use artwork so instead of including pictures of us
we tried to make sure that the artwork we used
represented us well and captured the fun energetic
theme of our band. We did however use one panel
to include a picture of our band, but we
surrounded it with bright colours to keep the
bright artwork theme.
Indie pop digipaks tend not to look highly
professional and instead focus on making them
look more casual and edgy and this is what we did
when adding the bright colours and the picture of
the guitars on the floor
When thinking about how we would format the
track list we realised that indie pop digipaks tend
not to simply lay out the tracks as a list vertically
so we tried to imagine unique ways to present the
tracklist. We decided on wrapping the tracklist
around the band’s logo of the eye as this is a
unique way of presenting the tracklist as well as
being able to add the logo to the back of the
digipak so it is instantly recognisable as our band
from the back as well.

5. Website
When making our website something we had to
keep in mind is that bands try to make as much
money as possible from their websites so we had
to think of things that realistically would be on a
band's website.
We added a merchandise page and a tour page as
these are pages that lots of bands have on their
websites as they can make money from it. We
made sure when creating these pages we were
being as accurate as possible so we used
merchandise that have been used by others bands
and changed the design and took actual tour
locations from small indie pop bands so that our
website seemed as realistic as possible.
We also made sure when writing on the website
that we were always promoting ourselves as that is
essentially the point of a band’s website, linking all
social media accounts and informing fans of music
and tour dates.
We also tried to make the connection with our fans
as casual as possible by including a gallery to show
them the behind the scenes of the video which
makes them feel part of the band which is common
for indie pop bands.
We also aimed to continue with the theme of bright
and fun colours by making our page backgrounds
match the digipak and keep continuity throughout
our products.