Joe Oliver

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

In our music video and ancillary products the conventions of our genre have been
represented, developed and challenged. As our genre is a hybrid of two or even three
genres, pop, indie pop and rock, containing elements of all three we had to represent
elements to make the genre identifiable to our audience.

In our main product, a music video, we decided to take inspiration from the lyrics of the
song and link that to the era in which pop rock was arguably at its height in popularity, in
the 1970s. As the 1970s signalled an era of transition, for example artists like AC/DC and
Elton John replaced The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix in the charts, we decided to show that in
our video, by having our protagonist adjust to life without his partner. The reason for this
break-up is his drug usage, common in the 1960s and 70s, but particularly among artists
within our genre such as The Beatles. Relationships are often conventional topics of
discussion in songs and are often inspiration for artists. This can be seen in Elton Johns Your
Song and the Jackson 5s Ill be There. We felt that by including a relationship, even one that
breaks up, we would be able to relate to our audience as the vast majority would have had
relationships end. Additionally, we used actors our own age in order to convey to our
audience that the issues in the video, such as drug usage and relationship issues can affect
anybody; this contrast between the genre of music, which would appeal to ages 25-50, and
the age of our actors demonstrates this. This challenges the genre as not many music videos
in our genre use children/teenagers, the Jackson 5 perhaps the exception. The costumes
that we used, particularly that of the protagonist, is quite retro, to fit in with the style of
music: a blue knitted jumper, black skinny jeans and suede trainers.

Re props, we used are the container for the drugs; the fact that it is blank makes it
ambiguous as to what drugs the protagonist has consumed. If drug use is included in a
video, the type of drug is only hinted at and not made clear-in Rihannas We Found Love,
there is a needle present in the video, however many drugs require injection in order to be
taken. Although as an audience we suspect the drug is heroin, we are not 100% certain; this
is similar to our drug which hints that the drug is LSD; however it is clear that the drug our
protagonist takes is a pill and therefore we make what drug he takes ambiguous,
conventional of our genre. We also used a rucksack in the prologue as we wanted to give
the impression that our protagonist has been out whilst his partner has made this discovery
and therefore gives her the chance to surprise him. The space hoppers are quite important
in our video as they are used as part of a hallucination but also seen at the end of the video
in the final shot, which makes the audience question as to whether our protagonist was in
fact hallucinating or certain parts did actually occur. They are conventional to our genre as
space hoppers were extremely popular in this period. The laptop is vital as the protagonist
sees the vision of domestic violence, and his physically breaking the laptop is him breaking
his metaphoric struggle against the drugs. It also gives a sense of reality as computers are
everywhere in everyday life. The laptop could be seen to develop the conventions of the
genre as it is a relatively modern invention, so not available in the 1970s; however fits in
with the retro modern feel of the video, with the other uses of technology such as green
screening.

Joe Oliver
Media Evaluation
We used various camera shots, angles, movements and compositions during our filming in
order to add some variety and make the video more entertaining for our audience. We
wanted to use midshots, crane shots as well as close-ups during our filming of the band as
these are the most conventional shots in performance music videos. This can be seen in If
You Wanna by The Vaccines and Basket Case by Green Day We wanted to have quite
expansive movements during the filming of the band as it reflects the free nature of the
genre and also helped in the editing process as it gave a variety of angles to choose from;
high angle, low angle and eye-level. The narrative was more fixed in terms of shots and
angles as we had our script and storyboards to use as guides when filming. However, some
changes were made for certain reasons such as where we filmed only allowed certain shots,
such ones that required the green screen. In terms of camera shots, for example we used an
extreme close-up in order to show the effects of the drugs on our protagonist, showing his
pupils dilating. Midshots, two shots and close-ups were also used throughout.
We used some angles in order for our audience to fully absorb the facial expressions of our
actors, even though it is a device to convey the power of characters; the majority of the
time however we used angles to convey the power of the characters to our audience. The
most explicit example is the shot towards the end when the protagonist collapses from the
effects of the drug usage. For the camera composition, we wanted to stick by the rule of
thirds, seen particularly in the two shots-the protagonist and figment of imagination in the
two outer thirds, joining in the middle third. As the hallucination in this particular shot
continues, the figment of the protagonists imagination disappears and the protagonist
remains, in the middle third.

In regards to editing, we removed all diegetic sound from our video excluding the prologue,
where we kept the sound but also added a high pitched sound to resemble that in war
movies where characters are disorientated and shell-shocked: just like our protagonist when
his girlfriend leaves after finding the drugs. This sound can be seen in Tropic Thunder and
Saving Private Ryan; however we felt that despite the context it would make sense in our
narrative, despite its challenging of the genre. This could be perceived to be both
challenging and developing the genre. In removing the diegetic sound, we have our band lip-
syncing a studio-recorded version of the song as the quality was much higher than a live
performance as we originally intended. This is employed in the vast majority of products.
However, when recorded we got the band to play live in time with the recording as it made
it easier for us to sync the live version to the studio version. In post-production we used
Adobe After-Effects to green screen some shots as well as adding effects to the shots
themselves to further the realism of the hallucinations, such as the figment of his
imagination disappearing in and out of the wall. Moreover, we use transitions such as cross-
dissolves and fade in/out to begin and end the video to give a sense of finality; the final shot
of the space-hopper uses a cross-dissolve to differentiate it from the main narrative and a
fade out to end the video. Despite this, the most common editing technique we employed
was the cut. On top of the different colours, also applied in post-production, in the narrative
and performance, we use cutaways to show the difference between the two. We also added
the conventional credits at the start of the video to show directors, performers etc. seen at
the start of music videos on TV rather than on the internet; nowadays the consumer already
knows the name of the song and artist if watching a video for the song so therefore there is
no need for the credits.

Joe Oliver
Media Evaluation
The narrative structure we employed in our video is one argued by Todorov of equilibrium,
when the protagonist is in a relationship, disequilibrium, when the protagonist resorts to
drug usage in order to escape his problems, and equilibrium again, once he sees a vision of
where his drug usage would have taken him if his girlfriend had not left. This narrative
structure provides a message to our audience that you have to face your problems head on
and not try and escape them as they will come back to haunt you. This again can be
perceived as relatable to our audience as they also would have tried to side-step problems
in their lives rather than address them. This as well as the subject matter would make the
video appealing to our audience. Moreover, our video contains timeliness, as our video
takes place in the modern era (again juxtaposing the retro genre), proximity, as we know it
happened in a house and therefore could be anybody making the video relatable, conflict at
the beginning of the video, making the video entertaining, and weirdness from the effects of
his drug taking i.e. hallucinations. As this isnt resolved, we are challenging the genre.
However, many songs employ the continuation of a story, recently Eminem made Bad Guy
his sequel to Stan and this created publicity for the new album, hence conventional to
modern day music, despite it perhaps not being conventional of our genre.

In regards to the uses and gratifications theory, we believe our audience can escape from
the world around them, as the drug use and hallucinations add a certain aspect of
surrealism to the product and therefore they can identify that the video is not real life,
despite it mimicking real life scenarios. It also gives our audience surveillance, as it allows
them to be able to know that drug taking has repercussions not only for the taker, but for
their loved ones as well-seen in the hallucination that contains an aspect of domestic
violence. Furthermore, our video also links to the hypodermic needle theory as we are
injecting the message into our audience that drug taking is bad and ruins relationships,
discouraging drug use amongst them and hence they are a passive audience.

The female gaze also relates to our main product, as the girlfriend is passive for the
majority, excluding the prologue that enables our audience to understand the situation that
drives our protagonist to take the drugs, and is obviously the object of his desires whilst his
ordeal is the story of the video; the only other part of the video in which she is present is a
hallucination in which she is being physically abused and hence has no power whilst males
possess all the power. Voyeurism of women is common in music videos as stated by
Goodwin.

We employ binary oppositions in our video by using different colours to show the difference
between reality, our performance of the song, and the narrative. The former is in black and
white whilst the narrative is in colour-we wanted the colours in our video to really stand
out, as colour is an important aspect of our genre, particularly in the hallucinations. This
difference in colours isnt really employed in our genre and therefore challenges the
conventions.






Joe Oliver
Media Evaluation
Certain elements of Goodwins music video theory can be applied to our video. Our music
video has both a performance aspect and a narrative aspect, which is conventional of our
genre as well as modern day music videos; this can be seen in Bastilles Pompeii in which the
two elements are combined together. We also have an interpretation of a link between
lyrics and visuals. For example, in our product, the protagonists life is falling apart around
him and hence this links to the chorus As far as Ive heard, theres only one word to sum up
this fate that Ive created, that word is screwed... the interpretation stemming from how
his life has been screwed up, we as directors choosing drugs as this is a common problem in
society. There is also a link between music and visuals, which can be seen in the piano solo
during the song. We have an element of voyeurism in our video, as the man sees himself
lowering to domestic violence, a moral epiphany as to where he will stoop to if he continues
to take drugs; the inclusion of a woman in the voyeuristic hallucination is also conventional
of music videos according to Goodwin. To an extent we challenge the next point of
Goodwins theory-although we do contain close-ups of the band members, which Goodwin
states is to facilitate the needs of the label, they dont break the 4
th
wall by employing direct
address to our audience. This is done during our narrative, so although the fourth wall is
broken, it is done in an alternative way. The intertextual references included in our video is
an almost retro homage through the mise-en-scene, we also include, quite unintentionally,
product placement through the logo displayed on the bassists clothing during the
performance aspect of the video. This is conventional to the pop genre as Lady Gagas
Telephone has many references to products, such as her own brand of Beats by Dre:
Heartbeats, Diet Coke and Chevrolet.

Our ancillaries convey the visual codes as well as continue some aspects of the main
product, challenging, using and developing conventions of the genre.

The colours on our digipack keep within binary oppositions. Our band members are black
and white on the front cover, this is similar to The Best of Bob Dylan and in colour on the
back cover which reflects both parts of our video. The layout is the same on both panes;
each band member has a square pane in a central position on the cover with the band
members in the foreground. However the camera shots are slightly different. On the front,
our band members are pictured at a medium close up, all looking in different directions; the
band member in the top left is looking at the one in the top right, who is looking down at
the band member in the bottom right who in turn is looking bottom left. The final member
of the band is looking top right and this goes in line with the shape of the panes-making a
square but also shows unity between the band members. We took inspiration from Gorillaz
Demon Days for this layout and colour scheme, despite their use of navy rather than black.
This layout is also employed for Blurs Best of Blur as well as the single for Let it Be by The
Beatles. On the background rather than having the band members looking at each other, we
used direct address by having them look down the camera in order to connect with the
audience. This could be seen as either conventional or unconventional, as some artists in
the genre use indirect address, like Jake Bugg or indirect address, like Rihannas Loud; she
switches from album to album as Talk that Talk employs direct address.



Joe Oliver
Media Evaluation
The background on both the front and back covers is conventional of our genre, which is
considered as quite arty or taking inspiration from pieces of art-Queens Hot Space takes
inspiration from pop art. Additionally, Best of Blur also takes artistic inspiration, as they use
Pop Art to represent themselves on the front cover. The background consists of a painting
of lots of different colours, including greens, reds and oranges. The painting was taken as
one photo and then split across the four panes, again indirectly showing unity between the
four band members over the panes. Additionally on the back we took inspiration from Bob
Dylan and used cards for our track listing, something Justin Timberlake recently replicated.
There are 8 tracks on the album and therefore we wanted two tracks on each card to show
that each band member has equal weighting. The typography is kept the same throughout
the digipack, excluding the institutional information and logos-both of which are
conventional of a digipack seen in + by Ed Sheeran. On the front cover the typography is
white, contrasting with the black (binary oppositions) backdrop on the cover. The sizes are
important, as they convey the importance of certain aspects on the digipack. We wanted to
make the band name larger than that of the album name as this is a debut album and thus
theyre unknown to audiences-making the band name more important. However, it could
be considered to be unconventional for a bands debut album to have a name, many are
eponymous such as Jake Bugg. Furthermore, theyre both in a central position, band name
above the images and album name below, in order to gain the attention of the consumer-
this increases the prominence of the four panes as the size of the images as well as the
colours contrast with the text. This contrast as well as dependence on images is
conventional of our genre, seen in AM by Arctic Monkeys.

The interior panes of our digipack are different. Whereas the band influenced our front and
back cover, the narrative does have an influence behind the disc on the right pane. We
wanted to include an aspect of his hallucinations by having the backdrop of the green
screen whilst the protagonist is hallucinating and using Photoshop layering them on top of
each other to create one image that reflects the narrative. These colours stand out more as
they, like the outer panes are on a black background, but are more random-still looking
artistic, similar to paint splatters. On the left pane we have decided to have a photo of the
band, reflecting the performance of the song during the video.

For our magazine advert, the layout and colours are the same as the digipack, as well as the
typography and the size of it. The background image in the panes is also the same (the
painting) but we decided to change the foreground images, with the two band members at
the top looking at the bands name above them and the two at the bottom looking below
them at the album name. We decided to do this in order to direct the readers attention in
the two different directions mentioned. They do however remain in black and white and at
the same shot despite the change. The additional text we also kept in the same colour as
the titles, keeping in line with binary oppositions, including reviews-similar size to the band
name. We however, changed the colour of the out now line to red in order to make it
stand out to a greater degree to our audience, which is conventional of magazine adverts.
Another aspect of our ad which is conventional is the different rating system that different
publications have: we had two star ratings out of 5 and another out of 10 rating.
Additionally we added the social media aspect that is used by artists by adding a hashtag
alongside the facebook and twitter logos as well as where the album is available; we chose
iTunes as it is probably the most popular platform on which to purchase music nowadays.
Joe Oliver
Media Evaluation
Q2
We use black and white throughout our products. Black and White was implemented during
the performance aspect of our main product in order to emphasise the colours and VFX
presented in the main product, and we felt that this theme could be continued through into
our ancillaries. On the front cover and magazine advert, our band members are black and
white on a colourful background, which reflects not only the style of the band but also the
colours stand out more, as in the main product. The colours reflect the genre of our band
and therefore an audience member will immediately be able to link these products from an
unknown band with the genre, and persuade them to purchase, particularly if a fan of the
genre.

The back cover we did want to employ colours as this allows our audience to see the band
more clearly, but could also reflect them falling into the world of the narrative like the
protagonist, hence them being in colour.

This use of colour is also an implementation of binary oppositions.
The narrative aspect is addressed in the digipack through the interior panes. The chroma-
key or greenscreen effects used during the narrative can be seen; however, theyve been
layered on top of each other in order to create an even more stark contrast between the
outer panes and interior, similar to what we wanted in the main product between the
narrative and performance.

We wanted to use the same typography throughout our ancillaries as this creates a theme.
Our audience will immediately be able to connect that font with the products. This
typography is seen in the band name, album name, reviews etc. Other fonts included in our
products are the # font, as a plainer font is more easily read. Additionally, in comparison to
our font it stands out more purely because it is so plain. The iTunes font is also different as
this is a logo and therefore consumers can associate the font with Apple products and
software-similar to us theyve used that typography to create a campaign throughout their
products. In the music videos also, when we researched credits we saw that the typography
was plain and therefore by having a different font such as the one on our ancillaries we are
adhering to the conventions of music videos.

We created a logo for our production group as record label logos on products for their
artists are conventional. Furthermore, the more the logo is seen, the more an audience can
link that artist to that label which helps to create a campaign for both artist and label.
However, we did not see it fit to include our logo at the end of our music video as this is
unconventional of music videos; we decided instead to just state the name of the label,
which to an extent still helps to create a successful campaign.

In our main product we use midshots and close-ups throughout as these are both
conventional to music videos, but also products in general. We decided to employ these on
our ancillaries-the front cover and magazine ad use close-ups so that the audience can
identify them and read their facial expressions. The use of midshots on the back is so that
the audience can read the tracklisting properly, and also for the sake of variety. The midshot
also links with the Bob Dylan intertextuality who was pictured at a medium-long shot during
Joe Oliver
Media Evaluation
Subterranean Homesick Blues. However, if we were to use medium long shots in our layout,
the band members would not fit in the squares.

The layout on our ancillaries is the same bar the interior panes of our digipack; those two
are similar in the way that they are so different to everything else weve done in our
product. The layout connotes order in society, e.g. The performance of our video whereas
the interior links to the disarray of the narrative where anything goes. The typography is
also in the same place on the front cover and magazine ad, and on the back cover there are
two tracks on either card.

There are differences to the products; the digipack has only one review on it, by Zane Lowe
whereas the magazine ad contains three reviews. Furthermore, the Lowe review is merely a
caption whilst the ad reviews have a ratings system. There is no institutional information on
the magazine ad like there is on the back of the digipack, but they both do have a # for the
band, although the one on the advertisement is much larger alongside the logos of social
networking sites and hence is more noticeable.
There are also more characters in the video, as there is only a hinted link between the
narrative of our video and our ancillary products; the characters present in the narrative are
not featured in the ancillaries.