Evaluation q2

2.  Our music video uses, develops and challenges many conventions of other indie pop
music videos, as well as other common conventions featured in other Bastille music
videos.
 The notion of looking is a primary convention identified by Andrew Goodwin, and shots
were used intentionally in our video to highlight the importance of the notion of looking.
The first shot after the intro news montage is a close up of the protagonists eyes,
suggesting that the protagonist is watching the news and showing the beginning of the
growing frustration. The narrative then goes on to follow the theme of the media being
inescapable, as after we see the protagonist watching the TV, we then see him reading
the newspaper. We see the protagonists mood change as his anger increases at the bad
news surrounding him. The third shot shows a different notion of looking, where the
protagonist is just taking in the world around him, searching for human interaction over
the use of technology. One convention that we challenged that is used in some indie/pop
music videos is breaking the fourth wall, as we felt the notion of looking used reflected
enough internal emotion. Another feature of the notion of looking that we did not include in
our video is the voyeuristic treatment of the female body, as this is more common for pop
or rap videos, and is not a common convention in Bastilles videos.

3.  Another of Andrew Goodwin’s conventions we used in the music video is the use of
close-ups of the protagonist for the purpose of star appeal. Goodwin says that
close up shots of the artist are essential to establish a relationship between the
audience and the main character/artist. This helps the reader to buy in to the narrative,
meaning they are more engaged with the video, which ultimately leads to more views.
 This is a common convention seen in Bastilles other music videos, and often used in
pop and rock music videos to create a visual image of the artist for the viewer, creating
more recognition for the artist/band as the frontman/band will be recognised on other
products/merch.
 Our male protagonist was chosen to represent the Bastille singer Dan Smith as they
both have similar features, so it represents how Bastille use this convention.
 We used quite a few close up shots of the protagonist in our music video, like the close
up image of the protagonist’s eyes and when the protagonist is walking/running
towards the camera. We wanted the video to be emotive as around quite a serious
issue, and to show the protagonists emotion.

4.  A relationship between the music and the video is another of Goodwin’s conventions.
In some parts of the video we established a relationship and it others we challenged this
convention.
 We challenged the convention as we did not want to perfectly match all the shots to lyrics
in the song as we knew this to be a common criticism of making the narrative predictable
and boring. We did make a few subtle links throughout the video though to the lyrics. For
example, “...quite like seeing the world, through the TV’s window” shortly after the
protagonist has watched the news and “I go searching for you” is sang when the
protagonist is leaving the house, hinting at what his objective is and what may happen
later in the video.
 One of the ways we demonstrated the relationship between the music and video is by
syncing the beat to the action in the video. E.g. the foot comes down on the step at the
same time as the synth beat. This connection begins at the start at the video, as the
cutting rate of the news reel montage lands in time with the opening synth notes of the
song.
 We also made a recurring theme in the video of the relationship between the title of the
song and the themes shown in the video. For example, shots including more light and
orange/yellow tones were used toward the end of the video unlike the dark, grey shots at
the beginning to show the positive mood change throughout the video and highlight the
theme of ‘warmth’.

5.  Andrew Goodwin claimed that by using genre characteristics in your music
video you help the audience to identify what type of music it is. When considering
Bastille’s genre, a specific type of indie pop, we found it vaguely difficult to compare
them to other bands with common conventions.
 We found with other indie pop bands like Mumford and Sons their music videos
consisted of mainly performance based. We decided to challenge this convention
and go for a music video format that is more likely to be seen in Bastille’s other
music videos, to maintain the consistency throughout the videos.
 We chose a primarily narrative based video, as like Bastille, we wanted to tell the
story through the music video which allowed us to explore the themes and deeper
meaning of the song. This way the audience has more of a chance to connect with
the protagonist and the storyline.
 One of the main themes that can be expressed by the use of a narrative focused
video is running, which is also a main convention used by the band in their video
‘Pompeii’. The male protagonist running away from his problems and fears may be
linked to David Guantlett’s ‘crisis in masculinity’ theory, and may suggest that the
rise of women’s power has caused men to lose their purpose and identity, causing
them to feel lost and not knowing where to turn. The ending of the narrative is that
the male protagonist finds comfort in a female partner, which could be seen as an
examination of gender roles in our modern society.

6.  Our video uses intertextual references, another Goodwin convention, in the
opening montage of the music video. For the montage we used various TV clips of
the news, and referenced the fictional news agency ‘Wild World Communications’, a
recurring company created by Bastille and featured in other videos for songs on the
Wild World album like ‘Fake it’ and ‘Send them off’ and thought we would carry on
the theme as our song ‘Warmth’ is also from this album. We used the fictional
company as the distributor of the news footage as we thought this would be an
appropriate connection. This not only gave the video a link to current world events,
but represented Bastilles beliefs.