Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?
Adhering and Developing Common Conventions of the Indie Rock Genre

In our music video we adhere to the conventions of music videos of the same genre of our song (Way Down We Go by Kaleo) in a variety of ways. The first way we do this is by adhering to the convention of live performance. Quite a large section of our music video is based on having our main artist (Aidan) actually lip-syncing to the song on camera. This adheres to the stereotypes of an indie-rock music video and also was effective because it helped to isolate him from the storyline which, in effect, has made the music video look a lot better because there is no clash with the storyline.

Another convention we adhere to in our music video is by the use of narrative. A key component of our music video is our narrative because it tells the journey of our main character as she goes through the music video. We developed the use of narrative to shape the portrayal of our main character and her journey. A way we did this was through the use of different locations as well as using ambient lighting to show the passing of time which shows the main character's progression through her issue.

Moving on from this, another convention which we also adhered to in our music video was through the use of close-ups. Close-ups are particularly significant in indie-rock music video because they allow the audience to see the raw emotions of the artists/characters. We did exactly that in our music video and this was particularly helpful in our music video because of the theme being mental health, it helped to reflect that in an effective way. Particularly the close up shown below is particularly in the theme of mental health because it is so close it almost presents the audience being in the view of the main character.

Subverting to the Common Conventions of the Indie Rock Genre

We subverted the theme of gender in the indie rock genre by having a female (myself) used as the main character in our music video. Although we still portrayed our artist as male, we chose to use a female as our main character because we felt the vulnerability could be presented more easily through the use of the male and we could also heighten it. Additionally, the contrast of having a male artist but female character meant that the character and the artist never crossed paths and remained completely isolated from each other.

Representation

In our music video we used both a white male and a white female. This is an accurate representation because for the genre of music (indie rock) the majority of artists are white origin and therefore this adheres to the stereotype. A feature which subverts is the stereotype. As commented on previously, females aren't used in indie rock music videos which is ironic given indie rock music is often quite emotional and stereotypically women are seen as the more emotional sex. By using a female in our music video we challenged this stereotype and our reason for doing this was because we felt the portrayal of innocence would be much stronger using a female character as the vulnerability would be easier to present. Linking this with social groups, our representation of a vulnerable female is accurate in relation to the representation of vulnerable women in society.

Leading on from this and link with Andrew Godwin's Theory of Music Videos, the narrative and the people who feature in music videos will only make that music video successful if the audience can relate to them. Our choice of mental health as a topic for our music video is one we chose because it is something current in the media at present, it isn't the easier topic to physically talk about but being expressed via a music video will make that difficult topic easier for those suffering and should be relatable for the audience as 1 in 10 will suffer a mental health condition at some point during their life time so even if people don't physically suffer from a mental health condition they will know someone and there can find it relatable.

Additionally, both characters wear everyday clothes which also makes them relatable. The use of mise-en-scene is significant in portraying familiarity between the audience and the artist/main character because there is nothing which would make the artist stand out. Although we chose the colour of black to link with the colour scheme commonly seen in indie rock music videos to adhere to that stereotype, it is also a frequent colour worn by a lot of our target audience too make it familiar.

In terms of gender, we adhered to the stereotype by portraying men as strong. The way we did this was by having Aidan throw his fists around and portray angered facial expressions. This is quite the stereotypical representation of men in society. Aidan also portrayed similar characteristics of stereotypical men by standing up strong, sort of having his shoulders slightly hunched up and having his head strongly positioned. However, I felt we slightly subverted the stereotypical representation of women. Although we did portray a very vulnerable woman we also showed quite a strong one too. An example being from the section below.

This clip is very significant because whereas women are stereotypically quite polite and dainty, this completely juxtaposes with that idea. Rage isn't commonly presented by women in society and we chose to juxtapose this to present the theme of mental health as unexpected and controlling. It also shows the physical effects of a mental illness and the frustration it provides. This was an effective strategy because it will make our music video stand out as it is uncommon.