Question 4 powerpoint

2. From starting this project we knew that we could use conventions of real media
products to compare to our own. Typical conventions of the indie music genre
help audiences recognise what they like and categorise each genre of music. We
chose to follow conventions of existing products because we can tell what the
current audience in the genre like and make our entire package appeal to them. It
is important to subvert some conventions as well as follow key ones so that our
promotional package is unique following the 'independent' music genre. Our
Target audience are between the ages of 16-30 and are the most active searchers
for new music out of any other music audience. It is important that our artist
follows conventions as we can tell from existing products on the market what
works and becomes successful and what hasn't. However, we also want to try and
subvert conventions and not follow the typical ones because in the indie genre,
unique music can become popular, as it is 'indie'.
Over the construction of our coursework, we have followed many conventions but
subverted others. Conventions like costume, narrative and artist background
need to be kept consistent so that our promotional package still appeals to our
audience but also it still has its recognition that genre reinforces. We also needed
to subvert some conventions so that our product wasn't too generic and didn't
follow the basis of another that already has its own audience fan base, we needed
to create our own.

3. Narrative
Our music video follows main themes consistently that our audience link to and can
relate to through the lyrics. The theme of relationships and love and lost is very
consistent in the indie genre as their target audience can relate. Our video starts
following a drunk male holding a half empty bottle of alcohol. We see him smash the
glass quite early on in the video in frustration and rage over his emotions in his
relationship over a girl called Liz, who comes into the video later on.
The idea follows the couple
texting and calling each other,
as they are both in this confused
state in the relationship,
both scared to make the first
move to fix there relationship.
The narrative entails before the
both of them end up in the same
location, with the protagonist
following her to try and make up
for his actions previously, which
the audience assume to be related
to his alcohol. The story ends as the protagonist accidentally 'bumps’ into Liz as she
sits on a ledge inside the park.

4. Narrative theme
To become inspired for our music video we had a huge range of ideas and research behind existing
ones. As well as audience research we found that the main theme that was consistently portrayed
was love and loss with the male being the more likely protagonist following conventions. It seemed
in popular videos by 'The 1975' and 'Arctic Monkeys' contained the artist in the music video and
had the male chasing a girl, which I thought was very contradicting there star role in society over
there audience but allowed the audience to view the artist in the video as a realistic character in the
same situation as a lot of males in the target audience. We thought that by reflecting this we could
also relate this then back to Andrew Goodwin's theory where the lyrics should match the video and
the tempo of the editing would match the cutting of each shot. We tried to follow Goodwin's theory
very consistently throughout the music video showing consistent shot lengths to match the rhythm
and a narrative that would allow our audience to link this back to the lyrics and perhaps view the
storyline in a completely different way , which I would say is the case with a lot of modern day indie
music videos.

5. Narrative conventions of products
I would say that the idea from the narrative took the most inspiration from the video
that I analysed myself, 'Why do you only call me when you're high' By the Arctic
Monkeys. I would say so, simply because the narrative revolved around a male chasing a
girl, although the micro elements of the video made the relationship between the two
seem very inconsistent and confusing to the audience which we tried to mirror,
reflecting real life scenarios for the audience and allowing them to relate to the
protagonist and artist in the video, Ollie Logan. Which again is a convention in itself used
by Arctic Monkeys in 'Why do you only call be when you're high' and also 'Robbers' by
'The 1975 where Matt Healy (the vocalist) was shown in a similar Love and loss
relationship with the focus around Matt Healy as a 'Robber in love' hence the title.

6. Microelements
There was a lot to change in the first draft for our music video in terms of
microelements. Our intention was successful and from media experts and feedback
from our target audience, the video seemed popular as it followed conventions well
and had a good narrative and performance mixture the audiences could follow.
Personally I really liked the chop and changing between scenes, especially towards the
start where each scene and change between characters would only last for a maximum
for 20 seconds which wasn't so long in comparison to the length of the video. In some
scenes as well that I helped out with the editing in particular was when Liz was exiting
her bedroom. This was a scene that we filmed from multiple angles so that we had so
many angles to choose from when it came to the editing. One of the main issues that we
picked up on was the continuity didn't seem effective and it didn't really fit together
well which was unconventional but also it meant that the narrative became hard for
the audience to follow. I worked with Beth to try and improve the continuity between
this sequence, which also meant with the fast cutting and switching between angles we
could reinforce Andrew Goodwin's theory. I really liked some of these continuity shots
of the characters walking especially in Liz's' bedroom scene because it flows so well.

7. Microelements
In terms of performance we thought it was a good idea to make our artist appeal to our
audience in the complete opposite way our music video does and use shots of him
singing significant lyrics looking like a professional artist would do in a music studio
and giving the contrast of reality that the audience experience from the narrative,
before turning to look at Ollie as a music artist in the performance of the video. This
would give two ways of looking at our artist but also provide and sense of reality in the
narrative which had the dominant focus. I really liked the scene and camera angles that
we got from our performance shots in the video, especially with very studio-like and
professional appearance that our artist had with the all black costume and black
background with a very bold sense of lighting around the artist, which added a nice
shadow to some of the shots. Following Goodwin's theory again and also conventions
of bands performance shots, we made sure that dominantly the performance shots
where close-ups of him singing and playing the guitar, this way we could also exploit
the colour scheme sticker that we placed over the guitar body. The lighting put a really
dramatic but effective look to the video when capturing just the artists face in a close
up. We wanted to get some of Taylor playing the guitar as well because we had some
good ideas to link this back to the conventional 'singer/songwriter' and 'indie' artist.

8. Brand identity following artists conventions
We did some research into similar artists that we could link conventionally for Ollie's
image as a solo guitar player and focused upon 'Ed Sheeran' who is a similar sort of
artist we wanted to portray conventionally. One thing we noticed when he plays live is
that his guitars seem very personal and sentimental with stickers and sharpie writing
on the body of it which is one thing our target audience said they want to see in a
music artist, is having a 'personal connection' with their favourite artists. This is quite
typically conventional of the indie genre as well which can be supported through
social media, fan mail and back stage competitions etc. We wanted to embed the
colour scheme of our promotional package onto the guitar so that it seemed more
custom to Ollie instead of an instrument but it also meant we could tie this in with our
brand identity across the ancillary products as well. We did this by printing off the
logo onto a piece of paper and sticking it onto his guitar making it appear as close as
possible to a sticker.

9. Narrative and performance
Another link between the performance and narrative in our video is that we wanted
to link the two quite closely. Conventionally the focus of our video is going to be
around the narrative following what our target audience wanted but the performance
within our video I think played an important tale in expressing Ollie's emotions as an
artist. To me, the feeling I get watching the video over is that It seems the
performance shots are Ollie telling the story over as if he was performing it live with
the narrative cutting in and out similar to a flashback. This is partly because the
performance shots are so frequent and used as a time-bound crossover between Liz
and Ollie's scenes, For example
when Liz walks into Woking Park,
a performance shot is used
between these to illustrate the
change it time. I also like the way
that we have used cuts from the
performance of the video where
Ollie doesn't speak and sits there
feeling melancholy, which again
reflects his emotions in the music
video linking the two from the audiences point of view and exaggerating the overall
emotion that the audience feel.

10. Costume
This contrast was reflected dominantly through the use of costume which played an
important focus when trying to appeal to a target audience as we could set trends and
make our artist appeal to our audience outside of just the music, which is why modern
indie artists are trending across the globe. We did a lot of research into costume's but
we were quite restricted with what we had and could get hold of easily, also with it
being the first real music appearance Ollie made on the 'indie music' scene we didn't
want to set an impression that would put off new listeners, so his image and
representation couldn't be so unconventional. For the narrative we got him to wear
quite light colours including a white tee, light blue jeans, sand boots and a burgundy
cardigan with a black, formal coat on. We also wanted to make sure our outfit was
practical to our artist for the video in the time of year that we were filming. The
majority of it was filmed in November and a bit in January, and the majority of this was
outside. So we didn't want to make Taylor wear a summer outfit of just a T-shit and
open shirt because it would be impractical when filming. It would also be unrealistic
for our audience.

11. Costume
We wanted to have this contrast between Taylor in reality and then at the other end of
the scale as a popular indie artist, we wanted to make sure that his costume in the
music video suggested this, but still made him look appealing. We asked media experts
and opinions of our actors on their outfit choice but I think that for both artists, what
we chose was practical and appealing, still reflecting our target audience and what
trends with modern day indie music and fashion. For our photographs we planned to
use for our digipak and webpage we didn't really want to get Ollie to wear the same
outfit as although it would show brand identity between the music video, we want to
get our artist to wear a variety of outfits for the images he was featured to show
realism but also a diversity in costumes would give him as an artist a sense of style and
create his own image compared to other artists, especially now as the modern day
indie genre expands outside just music and fashion.