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

Video
Our video is for The Maccabees song “One Hand Holding.” They are a band which is most closely associated with the ‘indie’ genre, so we studied a range of existing videos from this genre in order to gain a greater understanding of the conventions.
We discovered that videos of the indie genre are typically performance based, focussing on the band playing their instruments in order to promote their music and image, as live performance is a key feature of the genre. (See below)









The Frightened Rabbit video for “Swim Until you Can’t See Land”





The Kings of Leon video for “Sex on Fire”



We subverted this common convention of indie genre by choosing to create an entirely narrative video rather than one revolving around life performance. This is a technique sometimes used in indie videos, which are like short films in their own right rather than simply a live performance of the song. This makes it more interesting and unpredictable for audiences, and fits with the ‘alternative’ philosophy of indie.

Our research also showed that many current indie videos contain elements of surrealism/fantasy, demonstrated by these shots taken from the Cage the Elephant video for “Back Against the Wall.”

These wacky characters are often integrated into everyday situations which are recognisable to the audience in order to catch their attention, create humour and make the artist appear unconventional. In the video for “Coffee and TV” by Blur, (see below) mundane objects- with the main character as a milk carton- are bought to life and given a personalities through animation. In the screenshot below the silliness of a carton of milk dancing is enhanced by the realism of the mise-en-scene.

 This quirky, immature sense of humour is something unique to the indie genre, as the usually fast-paced nature of the music is like an expression of youthful energy, accompanied by roguish band members who unkempt style presents a rejection the expectations of society. The use of bizarre fantasy characters in absurd situations and parody are distinctive to the indie genre. This is uncommon in videos of other genres such RnB, which often focuses on the image of the artist, promoting them as a serious musician and following more conventional storylines such as a difficult break-up, reflecting the emotional tone of the music. Indie videos are usually related to post-modernism, with disorderly rather than linear narratives and subverting audience expectations. Hence, we created a post-modern video, with a fragmented narrative, by including short shots of the girl cutting out pictures to interrupt the development of the relationship between the boy and girl.

We also followed the convention of many indie videos by including elements of the abstract and creating parody. However, unlike the aforementioned video for “Back Against the Wall” and many similar indie videos, we did not want the video to be set in an alternate reality involving strange characters and bright colours. Our limited access to technology and experience with animation meant that it was not a viable option for creating the abstract element of our video.

Budget constraints prevented us from hiring the strange costumes often used in indie videos, such as the gnomes used in “Back Against the Wall.”  The fact that we had received copyright permission from established indie band “The Maccabees” to use our track meant that we could not use performance of the band in the video. Thus, we decided to make our video entirely narrative-based, a technique sometimes used in indie videos, which are like small pieces of film in their own right rather than simply a performance of the song.


The advantage of using an established artist rather than an unknown band means that their image is not essential to show, as it is already widely known what they look like. Had we been promoting the debut of a completely unknown artist, performance would have been a key element to include in the video, as it would introduce the band to the audience and make them recognisable.

We used a similar technique to “Coffee and TV” video, by including an abstract element to an everyday situation which would be recognisable to our target audience. We parodied the generic “boy-meets-girl” love story which audiences will be familiar with, by creating an absurd love triangle involving a child’s doll as the third party. This meant that the audience would have to watch more closely to identify the abstract factor of the doll, and explains why some people we interviewed for feedback said that they did not fully understand the narrative until the boy in the video realises.

 

This is typical of the indie genre, as the rebellion against convention is expected and enjoyed by the ‘alternative’ target audience.  A similar concept is used in the Mystery Jets video “Half in love with Elizabeth”, in which the man in a relationship is obsessed with someone who is not his girlfriend- the Queen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The use of multiple shots of short duration and increasing cutting rhythm as the narrative develops is in some ways generic of indie, as most indie videos have a fast cutting rhythm. However, in the performance-based indie videos, the cutting rhythm relates more directly with the rhythm of the song, with the cuts fastest during the chorus and slower in the verses. 

 

Ancillary texts

From our research of indie digipaks, we had discovered that they often use images of unspectacular urban settings, with muted colours which highlight the often brighter text or motif. This is shown by this Arctic Monkeys album:

We have followed the conventions of the genre more closely in both ancillary products rather than the video, in order to appeal to our target audience. Music videos allow the artist more room for creative expression, as they are promoting a single rather than the whole album, so often differ greatly or are sometimes completely abstract narratives. The use of a panoramic image across 3 panels for the outside of the digipak is also a typical feature of digipaks, which encourages the audience to open them to view the full image. Our use of plain, sans serif font is also typical of the indie genre.

Our magazine advert is also similar to many existing adverts for indie albums, as it uses a post-modern image which will have artistic appeal to the target audience.