Evaluation Point 1

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

Evaluation Point 1 on Prezi

One of the main ways that our media product uses the generic convention of the Indie/Alternative genre is that we include a band performance which runs parallel with the verses within the song A-Punk. Other Indie Music videos that include band performances are: The Fratellis - Henrietta, Band of Horses - Funeral, Foals - Miami. Thus you can see that our music video has developed the conventions these examples and we have added our own twist thus we have challenged this convention also.

Our band uses and develops the convention of band performance by ensuring that the instruments they played looked like they were playing so it adds to the realism of the band performance which only works when it is realistic. Furthermore, the miming of the lead singer is very good throughout our music video which matches real media products.

Andrew Goodwin suggested six points in which shows conventions of music videos. The first point is that genre characteristics of the indie genre are something that is fun and lighthearted. Even though the lyrics of the song can be seen in a serious, sad manner the actual music of the song is entirely different with a generally upbeat, happy tempo. Therefore, our music video have demonstrate a more fun side with the theme of bright colors that is be present throughout most of the video. We have challenge the genre characteristics of the indie music genre by including a narrative which shows a girl who slaps a boy which offers a slightly more serious meaning to the music video, incorporating our interpretation of the lyrics. This shows that our music video uses, develops and challenges the Indie music genre.

The second point that Andrew Goodwin's analysis states is that the lyrics and the visuals link together. As we decided to use the band performance as the main part of the video there is no real clear link between the lyrics and the visual. However, the narrative part of our video will be about our interpretation of the lyrics, also the link between the lyrics and the visual is not clear because the visual narrative that links to the lyrics we decided to use during the instrumental parts of the song as it fit with the tempo of the music at these points in the song. Thus we are challenging Goodwin's Analysis as we are not linking the visuals to the lyrics.

One of the ways our music video conforms to the conventions of Goodwin's Analysis is there is a relationship between the music and the visuals. During the verses of the song where it is upbeat with lots of drumbeats we have got a lot of cuts so the footage during the band performance to make it look choppy and to relate the visual to the tempo of the music. Furthermore, during the instrumental in the song we have used stop frame animation to give the visual a slower feel in order to match it to the visual. The continuous use of colours throughout the music video amplifies the generally upbeat tempo and the happy mood of the music and also creates a link between the band performance and the lips and then shows a clear difference between the narrative and the other elements of the song. However, the chorus of the song the ‘flashing background’ that contradicts with the slower tempo of the song, we feel this will work really well and it is probably the only place in the song where a contradiction between the music and visuals would work. Therefore we have contradicted Goodwin's analysis but also used it throughout our music video and developed it to how we wanted our music video to be.

The use of the band performance fits into the indie genre of the music because band performances tend to be used more in this genre of music. The motif of our band is most probably the colourful/fun nature as we will have lots of colour running across our music video and ancillary texts, the with the band name being Paper Crayons the colourful theme will almost certainly recur throughout the bands work. We see this in our ancillary products that the colours which is the motif of the band have recurred across the Paper Crayons work. This shows the development of point four of Andrew Goodwin's analysis.

The only ‘voyeuristic’ treatment of the female body is in the chorus when the screen is split up into four. The close up of several females lips will be used which will be a reference to the notion of looking at the female body. Therefore, we have not directly challenged Goodwin's analysis but we have not really conformed to it as we don't really use it within our song, this is because of the nature of the lyrics are quite serious and it would be wrong to portray the song in this way, also you tend to see this more in pop or rock music videos.

We use intertextuality throughout our music video, thus conforming to the conventions of Goodwin's analysis. The intertextuality we are referencing comes from a 30H3! Music video, which is called My First Kiss. For the lyrics “ ’Ay ‘Ay ‘Ay ‘Ay, ‘Ay ‘Ay ‘Ay” we will film the lips of different people on different coloured backgrounds. Our band performance is an intertextual reference to music videos from the indie/rock genre as most use a band performance thus we will have an intertextual reference to that specific genre. The last intertextual reference within our music video is from the White Stripes – The Hardest Button to Button music video. They use stop motion throughout their music video and they portray the band going on ‘a journey’. Instead of showing the band going on a journey we have included a short narrative story within the music and show a journey of a couple during their break up. From this we have definitely used and developed the conventions of Andrew Goodwin's analysis of music videos.