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

2. In our decision to create a music video for the „indie-folk‟ genre, we purposely created a „blank
canvas‟ to work upon. This canvas is the result of such a huge variety of different narratives
and topics that real „indie-folk‟ music videos cover, which gave us our own space to also come
up with an original, uncommon focus for our product, whilst still taking typical conventions in to
account in order to create a video that uses, develops and challenges these forms.
An aspect of synaesthesia was used when first coming up with ideas for our video, but the
unclear meaning of the lyrics in the song that we used, „Far Away by Jose Gonzalez‟, meant
that meaning was significantly drawn from personal interpretation, which eventually became a
theme of our music video. We felt that it was necessary to convey the meaning of the words,
“far away”, and the use of the minor (sad) key in the music, by manipulating the narrative of a
man who is effectively leaving his normal life to go to a place far away. The minor key in all
genres of music commonly demonstrates a sad, melancholy emotion, and so we used this
convention by putting forward a melancholy narrative, and a well known, yet depressing reason
behind the character‟s journey away from his stressful life – economic inflation.

3. The focus on Economic
Inflation, symbolism and
hegemony
The background narrative, behind the main focus of a man who is
journeying away from his every day life, consists of the topic of
economic inflation. We chose to use this topic as a way of creating an
aspect of originality in our production, therefore challenging common
conventions seen in real music videos.
Ferdinand de Saussure‟s theory of symbolism goes hand in hand with
this topic, as we have used symbolic aspects such as the colour green,
representing money, in order to convey his ideas. The contrast between
the two settings in our video acts as a symbol, showing the long
distance that the character has traveled.
Antonio Gramsci‟s idea of hegemony also comes in to play with our use
of a speech by David Cameron at the beginning of the video, which
undeniably has an effect on the character‟s already troubled mindset.
The character is effected by the words of the Prime Minister, who
explains the “debt crisis” to the lower class population.
We were inspired by artists such as „Muse‟ and „Rage Against the
Machine‟, who have songs which often focus on public events involving
politics and the wellbeing of urban societies.
The use of such theories and ideas allows for the use of conventional
production techniques, but they also gave us the means to develop
them in order to create the desired aspect of originality to a further
extent.

4. Andrew Goodwin‟s Theory
We effectively applied Andrew Goodwin‟s music video theory to our own production:
Thought Beats – Seeing the sound
 We developed the idea of „thought beats‟ by including performance shots that we synced in
time with the music, as well as manipulating the timing of cuts to match with the rhythm of the
song. However, we also challenged this idea by comprising a number of shots that don‟t
match up with the music, showing an element of disjuncture.
Narrative and Performance
 We used both narrative and performance in the production of our video. However, we only
showed our own specific interpretation of the meaning of the song, making the video more
interesting for the viewer, who can come up with a more personal interpretation. This
develops conventional narratives styles as although our video does have a narrative, the
meaning of it and the intentions of the character are mainly down to personal interpretation
The Star image
 During our shots of the acting vocalist and guitarist, or the „stars‟, we used a silhouette
technique and dark lighting to add a sense of mystery and a hidden identity to the musicians.
In this sense, the common aspect of „the star image‟ is challenged, as the personalities and
facial figures of the musicians are not fully reveled.

5. Thought Beats

6. Narrative and Performance
This specific shot stands out as it shows
both performance and narrative
simultaneously, in a fade transition.

7. The Star Image

8. How have we used forms and
conventions of real media products?
 Our video consists of both narrative and performance shots, which are shown both
separately and at the same time (cross fade transitions). In conventional music videos,
the narrative and performance shots intertwine to keep hold of the viewers interest in
the narrative, and to attract the viewer to the artist. After watching music videos from
our favorite artists such as Radiohead‟s „Just‟ and Red Hot Chili Peppers‟ „Under the
Bridge‟, which both use this form, we decided to do the same.
 A famous production technique that we have studied and used is the „Power of the
montage‟, originally taught by Sergei Eisenstein. We used this idea to effectively create
a „time-lapse‟, so that the complete journey can be fitted into our 4 minutes and 15
seconds. Our continuous „montage‟ of different locations created the effect that the
character was traveling further and further away from his original location.
 My digipak cover also uses ideas from real album covers. I took inspiration from a
Joe Purdy album to use an image of a character walking with his back turned to the
camera, with the titles placed at the top left corner of the front cover. The back cover
provides information such as the tracklist, record label and barcode, which are all
commonly used on real covers.

9. …
 Jose Gonzalez‟s genre of Indie-folk, or simply folk, is often portrayed by the focus on
nature, the outdoors and a rural location, which are all focuses in our own production.
Artists such as Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale, who all
belong to this genre, tend to use these themes in their music videos, and so we
decided to put this convention in to action. My digipak cover and website continue the
same theme, highlighting the convention to a further extent
 Due to the „Indie‟ label that our artist belongs to (PeaceFrog Records), we decided to
use lower class urban locations at the beginning of our video. This gives a more
amateur effect, which contrasts with the effect of the massive budget used for major
label videos. Indie artists such as Jamie T, The Streets and Foals tend to refrain from
using a large budget in their videos, maintaining the „indie‟ style, as we attempted to do
in our video.

10. How have we developed forms and
conventions of real media products?
 Solo singer-songwriters, such as Laura Marling and Jose Gonzalez himself, tend to solely
include performance shots in their own videos, with a focus on close up shots of the vocals
and the guitar. We also used these conventions, however we effectively alternated the shots
with the use of narrative, thus creating a more entertaining and interesting experience for the
viewer.
 After analysing the mood of our chosen song using synaesthesia, we developed the
creation of this mood in our visuals/narrative by manipulating the topic of an economy in
decline to set the melancholy feel. To add to this, we included the mood of relief as the man
concludes his journey for recovery at the top of the hill in our final „wideview‟ shot.
 The shot shown to the right is a combination of both narrative
and performance shots, created by the use of an extended
cross fade. This can be seen as a development from real
media products, which commonly tend to show the performance
shots separately from the shots that focus on the narrative.

11. How have wechallenged forms and conventions of
real media products?
 The use of a historical quote at the beginning of our video is an uncommon feature
for real music videos. Though it is used by some artists, such as Arctic Monkeys in their
video for „When the Sun Goes Down‟ and in a variety of Tom Morello videos, our quote
is original in the sense that it conveys no direct connection with the narrative. Instead,
it‟s meaning is to be conveyed by the personal interpretation of the viewer.
 The identities of both performers in our video (guitarist and singer) are hidden
throughout. We used a silhouette effect for our vocalist and a close up shot of the guitar
in order to enforce this. We felt this was necessary as the narrative is the main aspect
of our video, and revealing the identities of the musicians would perhaps steer the
viewers attention away from the most significant features of our video. This challenges
the conventions of real music videos that use performance shots, as the artist is often
the main focus of the video.
 The focus of our narrative is economic inflation. The use of the Prime Minister‟s
speech at the beginning, as well as the use of stock footage, put forward this focus.
This topic is rarely mediated by the production of music videos, and so the focus in our
video is an original one.