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

2. Goodwins Theory
1 - Relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
- Themes, mise-en-scene and events of the video match with lyrics of the song, to help to
portray the message of the song.
2 - Relationship between the music and the visuals.
- The cuts and edits of the video are in sync with the rhythm and beat of the song matching
cuts or effects to specific drum beats or notes.
3 - Music videos have genre characteristics
- Certain features are expected out of a video depending on the genre of the music, for
example a girl bands/artists are expected to have dancers and close ups of the singers, whilst
a Indie band are expected to have performance shots of the band and cut to a fast beat.
4 - Often due to the demands of the record label, artists videos will include many close ups of
the artist and will often develop motifs that recur across multiple videos
- This allows the record label to promote a set image for the band, which will help target
audiences empathize with the band.
5 - Emphasis on 'looking'
The 'male gaze' is often used to attract a male audience. The male gaze is a focus on
presenting things that appeal to men. This often means a voyeuristic view of, and an
objectification, of women. The emphasis on looking also includes the artist looking directly into
the camera helping the audience connect with the artist.
6 - Intertexual references.
- Music videos reference other forms of media, most commonly film, but can also be television

3. Generic indie music video
conventions
From my research I found the following as
typical conventions of indie pop videos :
●
●
Love and break-ups – Gabrielle Aplin (please dont say
you love me)
Young artists – Taylor swift, Gabrielle Aplin & Nina
Nesbitt
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Pretty scenery – Nina Nesbitt (way in the world)
●
Artist on screen most of the time
●
A mixture of narrative and performance

4. Narrative/ performance
As a common convention of indie music videos we used a mix
of both narrative and performance. Indie audiences like to
watch narrative videos as its personal to the artist but also like
performance videos because of the entertainment it delivers.
The performance shots are usually in different locations to the
narrative to break the video up and to separate the two.
Most of our narrative shots were filmed
outside whereas our performance shots
were filmed inside.
Here is an example of Taylor Swift showing
a difference between her narrative and
performance. Her performance shots are all
magical looking and almost like a fantasy
land whereas the narrative shots are
realistic and normal.

5. Close ups
I found that close ups were also a common convention of indie
music videos. We chose to use this as it works well and really
helps to sell the artist. The audience like viewing close ups of
the artist because it feels intimate and they get a look in to the
artists life. I feel like its a really good way of giving the artist an
identity.
Taylor swift video
Our music video
Gabrielle Aplin video
Nina Nesbitt video

6. Instruments
From my research I found that the use of instruments (guitars) was a
common convention of indie videos but we chose to challenge it. We
wanted to make the video almost completely narrative based as the
song allowed the lyrics to be reflected on screen almost constantly.
Apart from wanting to do this, the song didn't have any acoustic
sounds which would mean a use of guitar wasn't suitable. Indie
artists are almost always seen with a guitar in some way or another
so we incorporated images of her in 'rehearsals' playing the guitar
onto the website and the digipak. This helped keep her indie artist
and did the website and digipak justice.
Use of guitar images on website and digipak to reflect her indie genre.

7. Relationship between lyrics and
visuals
●
During my research I found that the lyrics and visuals tend to
link. A good example of this is Nina Nesbitt video “Boy” where
the lyrics are “I could say I left it on the floor boy- are you gonna
pick it up, pick it up?” here there is a shot of her picking up a
letter of the floor.
In my music video we showed a relationship
between the lyrics and visuals 90% of the time so
we used the convention but also developed it.
This is because barely any indie music videos we
watched used this convention as much and as
consistent as we did. We decided to do this
anyway because it works really well with our song
and meant we could make a really narrative and
enjoyable music video.
An example from our
video “ I cross my fingers
and my toes” shown with
a matching visual.