The document discusses how the media product, a music video for an indie rock band, uses conventions from the genre to engage the intended audience. It begins with typical shots like a close-up of the lead singer used in many band videos. Location shots show the full band playing together and extreme close-ups highlight musical performances, mirroring techniques from bands like The Strokes and The Crookes. Outfits in the video also follow the indie rock convention of everyday casual clothing. The album packaging and promotional poster further develop recognizable images from the genre to effectively promote the band and their music.

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

2. My music video was intended to use conventions from current and previous media in order
to establish a recognisable image that would involve my intended audience instantly. For
instance, from my research of inspiration for video, I noticed that artists' music videos were
either narrative or performance based, which were a similar genre to my artist. I chose to use
a performance based video as it complemented my artist and his style of music. A narrative
based video would contradict with my artist as they are more of live performers who do
tours instead of performing on chart shows and programmes. The song is fast paced
therefore the cuts between camera angles are fast, emphasising the feeling that we are
performing live.

3. Foo Fighters – The Pretender
Our Video
We used this shot to start our video as
it is a typical convention used by many
bands across the indie music genre.
Starting the video with this shot
establishes the lead singer straight
away and allows the audience to see
emotion and establish who the lead
singer is, who is normally the most well
known member of the band therefore
they know which band it is as soon as
the video begins. We found that this is
a typical convention used in the indie
genre as you can see our video and the
‘Foo Fighters’ video for ‘The Pretender’
are very similar.

4. Our Video
The Strokes – Last Nite
Another camera angle used throughout
the indie genre are longshots showing
the band. Longshots are used to show
the whole band and the setting of where
they are. This is a typical convention of
any music video but particularly that of a
performance kind, it allows the scene the
band are playing in to be set and viewed
by the audience as well as allowing the
audience to establish themselves with all
members of the band. The Strokes who
have been a very successful indie band
for a long time and are a band that
inspired us to make a video of the indie
music genre. Their music video to ‘Last
Nite’ shows the conventional long shot
showing the full band and setting and is
very similar to the one used in ours.

5. Our Video
The Strypes – Hometown Girls

6. Our Video
The Crookes - Afterglow
Another camera shot we used
whilst filming our music video
was an extreme close up on
the instruments. When the
guitar solo begins you can see
we zoomed right into Zak
playing the guitar giving the
impression that he is playing
the music live, the Crookes
also used this convention
proving it to be that of a
successful one. This is
because in a typical
performance video you need
to have proof that they are
actually playing their
instruments.

7. Our Video
System of a Down – Chop Suey

8. Our Video
Green Day – Wake Me Up When September Ends
The use of our mise-en-scene in our
video followed the typical conventions
of an indie genre music video. Firstly,
our outfits matched the conventions
of indie bands, for example as you can
see all three members especially our
lead singer are dressed in simple
everyday clothing, black jeans and a
white t-shirt. We found this to be a
convention used often throughout our
chosen genre, we chose to follow this
convention as we felt it would create
the urban/working class feel nearly all
indie rock bands do within their music
videos, as they are not trying to dress
smart or show off but simply just
impress with their music. This would
allows the audience to connect and
relate to the band more as they are
seen as more normal and down to
earth therefore making our final
product even more successful.

9. A particular music genre may have their own music video style and iconography
(such as a pop video’s having storyline narratives). After researching I noticed that
the Indie genre, typically used live performance video’s to give the feeling that the
band are performing the song live and showing their musical talent. So I used this
convention so that my target audience could easily relate to the images being
shown, as they have seen this style of effect before.
Features of Goodwin's Theory - applied to my music video

10. We used the same image from our
album front cover on our final
promotional poster, we found this to
be a typical convention of many
digipaks we researched as you can see
with the Arctic Monkeys album cover
and poster for their second album
‘Whatever People Say I Am, That's
What I'm Not’. We felt that it would
be successful as it would allow the
audience to make the connection
between the two. Also the idea is very
simple but effective for promoting our
digipak as it only contains the main
image from the front cover, the
release date of the album and the
band name but at the same time our
intended audience will also be able to
establish that the poster is promoting
our album.
Our album cover and poster
Arctic Monkeys ‘Whatever People Say
I Am, That's What I'm Not’ album
cover and poster

11. The layout of the back cover of our Digipak, is very conventional using things such as the
songs being placed in the middle of the cover, as well as the barcode being placed at the
bottom left as people read from top left to bottom right . Also we included a record label
name as well as our copyright label , these combined make our final product seem that
more authentic. Also the house style is also the same all the way throughout our digipak
allowing the audience to instantly recognise it. This is the same with the albums backs
that we researched for example the Arctic Monkeys album back for ‘Whatever People
Say I Am, That's What I'm Not’ used the same house style throughout the digipak.
Our album back Arctic Monkeys ‘Whatever People Say I
Am, That's What I'm Not’ album back