Question 2: How does your Music video link to your Ancillary tasks?

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge real media products? (Forms and conventions)

CD Cover

When looking through videos for inspiration I came across Gotye – Somebody that I used to know. The video had chosen a single visual style and continued it throughout the duration of their video. I was instantly interested by the use of body paint, as it is incredibly simple, but incredibly effective in creating an interesting, iconic image, full of vibrancy and colour, therefore appealing to a youthful audience.

Therefore I chose to apply a similar style to my CD cover as I feel the use of visual elements are more important in the promotion of the band, where Gotye decided to use it throughout their video. Looking at our CD cover I feel we were incredibly successful in creating the same effect, using contrast to make the colours stand out against the dark chalk background.

We decided to create personal messages for our fictitious group, by simply implementing a couple of sentences from each member, this makes the audience feel a personal connection to the band, and is therefore more successful in creating star appeal, we noticed this was conventional throughout the genre of Indie Rock, as we found that a number of groups including You Me At Six had included this in their CD promo. 

While in production stages we tried to conform to the convention of the main artist being the main focus, by implementing subtle differences between him and the other members as indicators to the audience. In this case the main artist is central in the frame, and is the only member actually engaging the audience, suggesting that he is possibly the most vital member of the band, and would therefore be likely to be the most popular member among the fans.

Advertisement

In the pre production stages of creating our digi-pack, the group and myself decided that we wanted to use a single iconic image excluding the band members, to be the central piece of our advertisement, as we noticed during research that this was very conventional of the genre of Indie Rock. We noticed that groups considered to be giants in the genre of Indie Rock/ i.e. Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire and The Maccabbees, had all used this approach in their promotional pieces.

We decided that we should keep to the chalk theme in our advertisement so our bands identity was present, and was relatively easy to establish for the audience. Personally I feel that we were incredibly successful in putting our preliminary ideas into practice. The image we created again used the simple method of using vibrant colours against a dull background connoting youthfulness.

This is often used in Indie Rock videos, such as Florescent Adolescent from The Arctic Monkeys

and Undercover Martyr by Two Door Cinema Club 

This has proved to be an effective method of creating visual appeal. We decided we as a band would be represented by Fiction records, as they seem to possess a number of great Indie Rock groups and artists, and we chose to be represented by NME magazine as they seem to feature top indie rock groups such as Arcade Fire, You Me At Six and the Kicks

Music Video Final Draft

After reconvening with my group and deciding that we were unhappy with the way in which our music video was heading we decided to start over and try to make a piece with higher energy, and with a strong reflection of the actual lyrics, making the piece more conventional to Indie Rock.

Our piece was heavily influenced by The Foo Fighters

Not so much in terms of having a Narrative that was almost like a scene from a comedic film, but actually by implementing humorous elements throughout the duration of our video, this convention shaped our video entirely. 

We decided after finding a number of videos including our main influence in Supergrass, we decided that a trio band would be perfect for tracking shots and energy as its relatively easy to keep three people in the frame. And it also looks visually appealing. 

The costume was planned from head to foot to actually contain the visual link we’d managed to create in our Ancillary tasks as we managed to keep the vibrant colour through our use of costume, wearing bright hoodies and luminous glasses, and through our location  - being outside in the sun as a pose to being in a studio.

Finally we as a group wanted to ensure that the pace of the music was reflected by the video, as this is a convention that cannot be challenged without creating a dysfunctional structure that would confuse the audience, and that meant creating some very fast montage scenes to fit the pace of the music.

Music Video - Final Draft