1. 1) IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA
PRODUCTS?
Within my research I analysed specific indie convention which we directly reflected and
challenge these in our final products. Some of the bands that we researched into were
Arcade Fire, Two Door Cinema Club, One-Republic and Bastille. We were aware that
these bands are all from the Indie Genre, due to similar conventions which we
discovered in our research, such as dark narratives, live performance and recognised
idols which mime. With these bands we also used them to compare similar conventions
within their Posters and Digipaks. All of these bands use ambiguous imagery on their
digipaks and posters and by using ambiguous imagery it makes the audience want to
connect and know more about what it means, which we reflected this in our products by
using a screenshot from our music video which would draw the audience in to want to
know more. When researching the Indie Genres digipaks and posters, we noticed that
there was a colour style which all Indie Bands used, such as Two Door Cinema Club
which used dark and bright colours which reflects the songs. Bastille also did this, they
used black and white imagery on their poster which reflects that their songs are deep.
We decided to reflect this convention of Indie Colours in our Digipak and Poster. We did
this by using a black and white image but having coloured text, which was a binary
opposition as the colour pink has a convention of happiness and love when in fact the
video is extremely dark. It is also a binary opposition of the song itself, as it has a great
rhythm to the song but the lyrics are in fact really dark.

2. QUESTION 1) CONTINUED - MAGAZINE
Andrew Goodwin’s ‘Dancing In the Distraction Factory’ (1992) demonstrates that
genre characteristics are shown within the digipak, music video and the magazine
advert, which is what we followed when making our final products. For our
magazine advert we slightly subverted our sources conventions but we also
reflected them. For the magazine advertisement we used a screenshot from the
music video we created. We did this because Bastille, the band we reflected
conventions the most in our products uses a screenshot from their music videos
because it gets the audiences attention to where it has come from, and it
promotes the music video. For Bastille’s ‘Bad blood’ album there advertisement
was ambiguous as it is just a man running in the distance with a vignette effect
which makes it surreal. It makes the audience intrigued for what it means. This is
why we used a still from our music video to get the audience’s attention, but also
to follow a convention used in other Indie Bands such as One-Republic, which
have familiar icons on the front of the magazine cover which the audience can
recognise. The still we chose was the male actor walking through the graveyard,
we felt it suited the genre as it was dark and showed their was a strong narrative
which is a common convention of the Indie Genre. The reason we may have
subverted from the Indie Genres main conventions, is because some of the bands
such as Two Door Cinema Club use bright colours against surreal imagery, which
is again ambiguous but is also a Binary Oposition of a positive thing against quite
negative imagery. Which we reflected by using brighter font on our magazine
against black and white imagery.
(Images of Bad blood Poster and our Magazine Cover on next slide)

4. QUESTION 1) CONTINUED – THE MUSIC VIDEO
All Bastille music videos which we researched into with great detail such as Laura
Palmer, Pompeii and Of The Night – show genre characteristics of narrative. Andrew
Goodwin’ states that within a genre you see a link between the visual and lyrics, which
with the research of Bastille I found that was only in Pompeii, which Pompeii is about a
real event which matches dark and optimistic lyrics. Each videos narrative has a dark
and surreal theme to it, which is why we reflected this and chose a dark narrative about
someone’s partner dying. When it came to filming, we changed the cameras ISO and
Colour Balance to get cold colours in the visuals, which created a similar style and in
our feedback our target audience said it was very similar to Bastille’s other music
videos. We also reflected conventions from Bastilles music videos by using text within
the video, our text was extremely similar as shown on the next slide, by doing this it
slightly subverts with the narrative as it say’s ‘Rhythm’ which is a happy subject.
Our music video uses Denis Mcquails Uses + Gratification Model (1987) through the
narrative of the video, apart from the fact that people watch music videos for
Entertainment, it is also for personal identity, as people can reflect on it about the
grieving process, as almost everyone has gone through losing something whether it’s a
person or an animal, so our video is something the audience will relate to. Our video’s
narrative shows a positive way to deal with grieving about something, as he never gets
angry, he just starts to accept it as the video goes on.
We used similar mise-en-scene conventions from Bastilles music videos, as we shot on
location in the streets which is obviously a common convention in Bastille’s videos as
in our research it was something we noticed.A common convention in the Indie Genre is
having a recognizable idol from the band mime the song, in which we went against
because we didn’t think it was appropriate with the narrative, but by not using mime it
makes it quite an ambiguous video as to is it just diegetic sound as he goes through his
life, or also is it a song in his mind as it goes through this narrative, I think the video can
be interpreted in different ways which work.

5. SPECIFIC CONVENTIONS WE FOLLOWED
Mid shots of the main
singer in a band is a
common convention of
the Indie Genre. so we
casted someone who was
a similar age to our target
audience, and also
dressed in generic indie
clothes which are casual
and of our current
generation.
All of Bastille’s video’s in
which we have research
use text at the beginning
of the video with the
name of the band and the
song title, we decided to
use this and used a
similar font to Bastille.
In Bastilles Music Video
to ‘Laura Palmer’ there is
use of the Handheld
camera, we thought this
was extremely effective
and with the narrative we
chose we decided it
would be very efficient,
and we used the
handheld shots to show
flashbacks of memories.

6. THE MUSIC VIDEO CONTINUED….
CAMERA + EDITING
Our storyboard altered on our filming days, as when filming something’s
work better than others. We decided to use a lot of close up’s and mid close
ups. By using quite close shots it gives an emotional connection between
the audience and the video, as you understand his emotional state of mind,
it also gives a clear understanding of how the narrative works by using
these types of shots. These close ups and mid shots became a common
convention that we repeated throughout our video. The video had a visual
motif of ‘Looking’ which was shown through the fast cutting rate, the motif
of ‘Looking’ is shown when whenever he looks she disappears, which
happens throughout the video which will get the audience understanding the
narrative more by this motif reoccurring.

7. VISUAL MOTIF OF
LOOKING.
These screenshots of our music
video show the visual motif
which we had embedded in our
Music Video, it worked really well
and really pushes the narrative
forward.

8. 2)HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION
OF YOUR PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY
TEXTS?
Our Final Poster + Digipak
+ Music Video Prnt Screen
Bastilles Posters and Digipaks

9. QUESTION 2
CONTINUED
Magazine Poster Analysis
A convention within the genre that we researched was that most Band Posters was that
the imagery would include a close up or mid shot of the lead singer, which the audience
would recognise the idol. Which was why we made the decision to cast someone in the
video which would suit the target audience by being a similar age and also having a
similar style, which the audience would be able to connect with because of personal
identity (Uses+Gratification Model). The official Bastille poster included a mid shot of
the lead singer running into the distance, we decided to take this on and use a similar
shot. we directly copied the vignette effect of how it fades to black around the corner,
but not as much. The colours in the official bastille poster are quite dull and faded
which reflects the Genre. We decided to reflect this by using Black and white Imagery.
We were just going to use white text on the poster in style to Bastille but we realised it
didn’t work and needed more colour, as the Bad blood poster does have some colour in
it even though it is quite dull.
Similar effects used, fade to black
Similar use of Font
Similar long shot used
Similar colours used

10. 3) HOW DID THE FEEDBACK HELP
YOU MAKE THREE ARTIFACTS
BETTER? WAS IT USEFUL?
1)
With the construction of the music video, feedback was extremely important,
as we wanted to know what our target audience wanted. The feedback we got
from the construction of the video was on survey monkey, where we asked
questions such as ‘What colours do you like to see?’ ‘Do you like a narrative
with a music video?’ and with the answers we were able to analyse and make
our video to target the audience in the right way.
2)
With the final product we made, Our feedback was extremely positive. We
shared our music video on social networking sites such as facebook and
youtube, where people commented saying what they liked about the video.
The power of media was shown when other students from different sixth
form commented on our video (shown on next slide) showing how it really
did target the right aged audience. We also shared our music video with
peers in our class, some people said ‘the lighting throughout the video goes
with the meaning of the video’ ‘jumpcuts are good, fits the narrative and
shows emotion’ ‘ similar colour balance and suits the genre’ this feedback
really complimented are work.
3)
Feedback wasn’t only important through what other people thought, it was
also extremely important within the group, as everyone has a different
opinion so as a group its up to us to experiment and see what works and
what doesn’t, such as on filming days if something didn’t look right,
someone would say maybe try this instead etc. I think feedback is extremely
important within a group, as you are working together and with the feedback
amongst yourselves you can achieve good things.

11. 3)CONTINUED
With the feedback that we got from the audience it really supported our project
as a whole, as the audience we targeted our video at gave us positive reviews
of how the editing was and also the similarity between our music video and the
original.

12. QUESTION 4) HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA
TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND
RESEARCH,PLANNING & EVALUATION STAGES?
Research:
In the construction stage our most valued technology is to use is the
Internet, as you are able to access many different sources to do research.
Youtube was one, as that’s the website we used to watch music videos to
analyse them. With youtube we were also able to share links to one
another in the group, and also gather information about what the audience
likes.
Survey Monkey was a huge part of our Research process. It showed us
how much technology really is beneficial, as it enabled us to just share
our survey’s on social networking sites instead of having to go out with it
by hand and asking people. It also enabled us to go into great detail with
out questions, and chose how we would like people to answer – whether
they have to ask it otherwise they cant complete the survey, or whether
they can tick it etc. It also enabled us to analyse our results in detail by
looking at pie and bar charts. During research process, facebook was
good to use to share links on to for our research, we shared the survey
monkey link onto facebook so people would see it and complete it for us.

13. QUESTION 4) HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA
TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND
RESEARCH,PLANNING & EVALUATION STAGES?
Construction:
We used a Canon Camera to film our music video, we were extremely lucky to
have a good camera to film with, as we were able to shoot in manual and change
the settings to suit the style we were wanting to shoot in. These settings include
the right ISO, Focal Length and F. stops. I feel great skills have developed within
the second year when making this music video.
Premier Pro was brand new to me when making this music video. I found it a lot
simpler to work as to Final Cut Pro, it was a lot easier to work however still had
the same process of what it was going to produce. It still followed the same
process of a relationship between planning and making the real thing. As I had
to have the visuals in sync with the music on the timeline. It worked within the
storyboard process of dragging and dropping videos on the timeline to make a
full video. I also learnt general skills with this software such as inserting font,
and visual effects and transitions. Relationship between planning and making
the real thing.
Photoshop – the first time I used photoshop was when we made the preliminary
magazine in the AS year, I had limited photoshop skills, but since then I can now
edit images with confidence and add different layers, colours and font. Which
photoshop was an extremely effective software for this coursework as we were
able to make digipaks and posters on it, and they would look good quality.

14. Construction Continued:
We also used Hotmail on the internet to email the record label to get
permission to use the music, this again shows how efficient technology is
today, as it saved us from having to handwrite a letter and send it in the
post to the company.
Evaluation Stage:
Facebook, Youtube and Twitter were social resources and extremely
efficient within the evaluation stages. It enabled us to share information
towards one another in the group and also to our target audience. We were
able to share information towards our target audience, such as when we
shared links to our surveys, where the target audience of young people
gave us the information we were wanting. Facebook we were able to share
links to our friends on facebook so they could see the music video we had
made and give us feedback. We also shared the video to Bastille the
official band on twitter where more bastille fans saw our work.