Evaluation Question One

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

When planning the music video it was important to take into consideration the work of theorists such as Goodwin, Todorov and Propp. As this was a music video Andrew Goodwin's analysis of conventions of music videos was particularly relevant. Below is a powerpoint, which I used in an earlier post outlining Goodwin's conventions:

I decided to use the conventions as guidelines, so that the video would be able to show some conventions of music videos.

With reference to the first convention - music videos demonstrate genre characteristics, I tried to find other videos of the same genre and try to discern some kind of common theme between videos. This was harder than I had expected as the original artist I had chosen belonged to an uncommon genre that was very unique in the way she wrote songs and performed them. With this in mind I thought that it would be best to use videos from the same artist to get an idea of the kind conventions that she created within her videos. I found that they were all very dark and gloomy, both in terms of lighting and of themes (depression and fear).

(A screenshot from the song "Keep the streets empty for me")

The song I had chosen had a much faster tempo than the other songs on the album and comparatively more positive themes. 

With this in consideration, I still had to make the original artist into my own artist (Shrouded Violet) so I wasn't just developing an artist already in existence, rather creating a new one from the song I had chosen. 

Seeing as the original artist produced the closest music to the song I had chosen I kept some of the conventions from her videos, such as the darker filters to add emotional depth.

I did manage to find some other artists that had a similar sound and were almost considered in the same genre. For example Bjork, an Icelandic female musician, produces a wide range of music from several different genres. Her 1995 album, Post, contains songs that give off a very similar feeling to that of Fever Ray:

This is the video for the song Hyperballad, which is an eclectic mix of effects and lighting and has nor discernible narrative but does show progression through the song. To get some genre characteristics from this it could be said that this genre does not always have a narrative. To judge an entire genre from this artist is difficult as she produces such a array of different musical styles and genres and her videos don't often carry the characteristics that comes with other video of the same genre.

Another artist that bears some similarity is Grimes, another female musician this time from Montreal.

This is the video for the song Oblivion, which, like Hyperballad, puts the focus on just the artist rather than having any kind of narrative. This video in particular is shot at night and given blue filters to reinforce that it is dark. Another characteristic is the artist (female in both videos) is not shown in a voyeuristic manner and not portrayed as a sexual object.

Comparing my video with the videos from the original artist, Bjork and Grimes, they do have certain themes in common such as the minimal amount of primary subjects in the video denoting the more personal meaning the song has. As there is a lack of other music from the same genre, it is ultimately hard to tell whether or not my video does actually have conventions from the genre as there is only the original artist to compare it to and having very similar characteristics lessens the unique nature of the artist I have been trying to create.

With the other conventions, such as the second (relationship between lyrics and visuals) I decided to go for a more obvious approach and have the actor in my video (representing the artist) make physical actions based on the lyrics of the song where it was appropriate. For example, for the first two lines of lyrics - "So, I lost my head a while ago, but you seem to have done no better" the artist shakes hear head from side to side in a slightly manic fashion to denote her losing her head. She then points directly at the camera and shakes her finger in a way often used by teachers on young pupils (primary school age), which could be connoted as her patronising whoever it is that has done no better and that their relationship has soured where it was once strong.

There is a relationship between music and visuals throughout the song (third Goodwin convention), which can be seen most clearly by looking at the very beginning of the song where the artist is clapping in time to the music and appears in different places when there is a particular change in the music. During the sequence of the artist running between the shots of trees I cut between each clip at a regular interval when the synthesiser changed tone and when from high to low or low to high so that visuals would fit more comfortably with the music.

The fourth Goodwin convention says that the record label will have certain demands such as close ups of the artist and some kind of motif to recur across their other work. The record label that I have chosen Shrouded Violet to be represented by is an independent record label that in reality manage only a handful of bands (3). From the fact that they are not owned by a large umbrella corporation it can be thought that they do not demand the typical conventions that other labels such as Universal Music may demand. From looking at the videos that the other artists signed to them have made it is clear that they do not ask anything of their bands and they are free to make their videos how they please. For example, one of the bands that is signed to them, The Knife, have several animated videos with few images of the artists.

We Share Our Mother's Health - The Knife

In essence, my video does meet the demands that most record labels would require as the video is based solely around the artist, but the record label Shrouded Violet is signed to is not a typical record label and has a different approach to publicity.

I have deliberately chosen not to conform with Goodwin's fifth convention as the lyrics of the song are about the artist being in control and conveying her feelings about a very personal part of her life, so there is no need for voyeuristic treatment of the female body, which may make her lyrics seem like they have less meaning as she would not treating herself as the person she is making out to be. In terms of notions of looking, I did not feel that there was any place for it as I think it would allow the serious tone of the video to be taken away.

There are lots of shots of the female artist, but none of them are voyeuristic to break conventions and challenge the idea of women being sexual objects in most music videos.

I did not conform with Goodwin's sixth convention for a similar reason for not complying with the fifth convention. I did not feel that having intertextual references would add anything to the video and it would take away from the main focus of the video, which is the artist and the meaning she is trying to convey to the audience.

Above is a slideshow detailing some of the theories about narrative and the conventions that narratives usually contain.

My music video does not have any coherent narrative or plot due to my decision to not have one early on in the planning process. I thought that any narrative that I could think of would not keep in tone with the song and also end up looking even more amateur than my actual final video.

Below is my digipak:

I decided to use screenshots from the video for two of the slates - the front cover and the top right slate. This was to create a strong link between the digipak and the video and help create a brand identity across the three products. 

From researching other digipaks and the features they contain I have added certain things like the song names on the back cover and two inside pictures which carry over themes from the other two images (mainly the theme of contrast between things in the images) and the video. I found that lots of digipaks have lyrics on the inside cover, but I thought that the main single was not the kind of song that the audience would sing along to, rather one where they would want to discern their own meaning from the lyrics.

Below is my magazine advert:

Following my research into magazine adverts I included several key elements that is common in most magazine adverts - quotes from magazines/music websites, places where the single can be bought, the record label logo, the name of the artist and single in large fonts at the top of the advert and the release date, also in a large font to stand out and be memorable. I also included a short statement about the artist as I am inventing her as a new artist, so people will not already know everything about her. 

I believe that this advert conforms to conventions of music magazine adverts and provides a strong link to the digipak and the video itself, as I have used the front cover artwork from the digipak, which is in turn a screenshot from the music video.

In summary, I have conformed to the majority of Goodwin's conventions of music videos and justified where I have not conformed as well as deliberately not including a narrative in my video for the aforementioned reasons. My ancillary pieces create a strong link between each other and help to create a brand identity.