Draft answers

1. Draft Answers
Question #1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
My music video is based around the indie-rock genre, this genre is commonly known for
being a bit moodier than normal pop but at the same time being lighter than what is
commonly known as rock; the video itself takes a lot of inspiration from other videos of the
genre, using conventions and even going against some of the common ones used. One
convention that my music video follows closely is the convention of having a band
performance in the music video - most indie rock bands (as well as normal rock bands) tend
to have a performance in their video, and my video also adheres to this convention,
incorporating in multiple band shots over the course of the video. My digipak also keeps with
the convention of focusing on a minimalistic art style, using hand drawn art along with subtle
editing to create a drawn effect with the whole concept. I did this as I believe it lends a hand
with making the media works appear more like something you would realistically see, rather
than having it be a strange combination of effects which would never be used together.
Throughout my music video I conform to the common rock convention of moving back and
forth between shots of a band performance and a narrative driven story - this technique is
used in many successful rock music videos, and the inclusion of close-up band shots, action
shots, and the like helps to cement my video in the genre that it is representing; an example
of this in a real video would be ‘Goodbye Mr A.’ by The Hoosiers, in which it cuts between
shots of a storyline which is matched with shots of the band performing in an intertwined
performance. I have chosen to followed media conventions relatively closely in my music
video as it helps my audience to identify quickly with it, and with this bring through the
success of other songs of this genre - Barry Keith Grant states that genre ‘allows audiences
to identify [music videos] specifically by their familiar and what become recognisable
characteristics’; following this trail of thought, this would mean that the characteristics shown
in my video would allow my audience to identify my video quickly as something they may
and could be interested in. On the other side of things though I also work to challenge some
conventions in my music video - going against what is commonly seen in my genre helps to
make my video stand out from amongst the many others, and can work to spark
conversation about it and keep it in people’s minds for longer. This is used not only to keep
the genre developing but also as an advertising technique for the video in order to make it
more known - in my video there is a very disjointed storyline, where all of the shots aren’t
always shown in chronological order. The fact that the story isn’t instantly apparent and it
may need a few viewings to fully piece together a meaning is completely alien to the genre
which I am making this video for - indie rock videos are usually straight forwards if and when
they include a narrative, and this development of normal conventions really makes my video
stand out from the rest. Nicholas Abercrombie suggests that ‘the boundaries between
genres are shifting and becoming more permeable’, this means that genres as they are
known are in a constant state of change, which would go on to suggest that the conventions
that I am challenging are working to mould what the indie-rock genre will eventually become;
this also suggests that my development of the genre is a thing which audiences will
appreciate, as the change is a common occurrence.
Question #2

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Across my three media products I have worked to try and create a clear brand identity, from
the name of the publishing house to the art style used for the digipak. One way that my
media products identify with one specific audience is by following more adult themes; the
music video that I created covers topics about mental illness and violence, and this is made
hinted at heavily throughout the video, with my digipak and advert also mirroring these
heaviness of the topics. The audience that I expect to be watching my video would be males
and females from the age of 18 to 25 - the theme of the video (shown through modern indie-
rock conventions, one of the more important ones being the inclusion of a disjointed and
non-chronological story) will be easier to approach with the more stereotypically open
minded younger generation. My digipak shows the band members shown in the video all
with stoic expressions, and around them they stay framed in a hastily sketched environment
- this helps to convey the themes of everything being within their minds, and not real. The
stoic expressions also portray their feelings, looking exhausted and tired fits with the
overarching theme of the band, video, and song; the band members’ faces play a large part
in the marketing of my products, the cohesive product is very much based around the
members of the band along with the aesthetic of the album. The band members appear on
the digipak, in the video, and on the advert - more importantly the main singer is seen at the
forefront of every product produced, making him the recurring factor in every piece, which
helps to cement their place as a brand. The colour scheme plays a large part in creating my
brand - throughout all of my products I have stuck with very muted colours - blacks, greys,
whites, and others which have been dulled; we consistently see the main character in the
music video switching between these colours (black, grey, and white), and since it is all we
ever see him wearing it is what we eventually associate him with. The digipak has a very
strong sense of colour as well, with a lot of the sketches being just plain black and white -
there are also effects used on the band members making them appear sketched and blurred
- this continues on with the muted colours of the music video and cements the association of
this brand with the dull muted colours that represent the video and the brand as a whole.
Even my production company, BARs Media, is made to have it’s logos appear immediately
recognisable to fans of the indie-rock genre. The logo keeps on with the theme of the
colours, using only black it uses a corroded font along with the simple letters for ‘BARs’ - not
only do the colours keep along with the theme of the darker music topics but also the word
‘bars’ is commonly associated with the younger scene as meaning a good piece of
poetry/music. My younger audience will recognise the themes and textual meaning of this,
identifying the type of music produced just simply by the record label's logo. I believe that my
three products do a good job of making a brand name that an audience can identify very
easily, by enforcing a association throughout my products I believe that my products are
memorable and unique enough to keep people remembering them when they see things that
they are associated with.
Question #3
What have you learned from your audience feedback?

3. With my primary audience research I created a short questionnaire which asked important
questions of my target audience - I asked a variety of questions ranging from the age of the
people I was collecting data from to their prefered music and music video tastes. From the
responses I gained from my question on their age I could gather that the data I was
collecting was relevant to that of my target audience, with an overwhelming majority of the
responses being between 16-25 years old (my target audience). In one of my questions I
asked the question ‘What type of narrative do you prefer in a music video?’, and from this
the result was overwhelmingly on the side of having a video with an interpretive narrative
with the possibility of having multiple meanings - this helped me greatly when it came to
deciding how to build my music video, as in the indie-rock genre there is a mix of songs
which are purely performance based and those than are performances that follow a
narrative; by being able to see that the majority of my audience prefered that I revolve my
video around a narrative, I was able to begin planning for the preferred video. When
researching conventions within indie-rock music I found that performance played a large part
in many of the music videos - with my questionnaire one of my questions asks for the
person’s favourite music video - I asked this so that I could later go and view these videos to
see what made them good, what made them stand out. Through watching these I found that
a lot of them centered around the performance of a band/individual, or cut to a performance
every once in awhile over the course of the video. I came to this realisation whilst in the
process of filming the shots for my video, and with this information I was able to act upon it
quickly and implement a band performance which is cut to at certain parts of the song -
when people watched my rough cuts a lot of the responses I got were positively referencing
the band shots, as they ‘fleshed out the video’ and ‘gave an extra layer’ to the viewing
experience. In my questionnaire I also asked how people feel about sensitive topics being
covered in music videos and other similar media - I found that nobody from any of my
questionnaires had an adverse view on sensitive topics (such as violence or mental illness)
being covered in these types of media; since my original idea would be to play off of these
ideas, this is a huge advantage to me, with a few responses even saying that these products
are a good way to promote awareness. When doing research into the bands that I found
people in my target audience liked, I found that most indie bands take a stylised and themes
approach to their albums, with some bands sticking with one theme over the course of all of
their albums and videos. I found that this helps with bringing about a recognisable brand
very quickly, and owe this information to the fact that I was able to find many successful
bands of this genre through the recommendations of the people I asked; with this information
in mind I chose to use the sketched in theme that surrounds my digipak and advert,
connecting with the fact that everything is in the protagonist’s head.
Question #4
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and
evaluation stages?

4. Throughout my media coursework I have used a range of different media technologies in
order to help myself through all of the stages of creation (construction, research, planning,
and evaluation). In my construction phase I heavily relied on the use of a program called
‘Final Cut Pro X’, this software acted as a video editing program which I used to edit together
the clips that formed up my music video. As an overall commentary on the program I believe
that it was a simple and fairly easy to pick up software that I felt capable using within the day
I first opened it up - all of the controls were displayed adequately and anything that I couldn’t
figure out how to do myself was easily findable through a quick Google search for the editing
technique. I believe that the ease of use played a huge part in the creation of my music
video, if not for the cleanness of the software I was using to edit the video I believe it could
have taken me a lot longer to create my desired product. Final Cut Pro X also offered a
myriad of pre-made edits that could be added onto a clip, such as distorting and colour
altering effects - the darkened layer which is put over my completed video was selected
when I was learning how to use the program, and I believe would not be there if I used
another software. This change helped my video in a big way and it was only possible due to
Final Cut Pro X. During the research and planning phases of my task I found myself using
Photoshop a few times - in particular I used it when creating the logo for my record label,
and also during construction with the creation of the digipak and advert. Over my use of
Photoshop I found that it was relatively easy to use, but I did run into some problems when
trying to do specific things; general image manipulation was easy enough to accomplish, and
I was able to use tools such as the cropping and selecting tools effectively, but the way that
the software was designed made the UI appear hard to follow and was sometimes
confusing. During the creation of my advert, I wanted to layer a slightly blurred sketch effect
onto the protagonist’s face, but I had to look up multiple solutions to try and find the correct
place to go in order to find the menu which let me manipulate the area I had selected in this
way. I found that this took up quite a bit of time and hindered me in some ways. Apart from
the confusing UI, the program was mostly easy to use though, with some of the hot-keys
being similar to other softwares and general manipulation being responsive and clear.