Draft for first evaluation question.

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

Using Goodwin’s theory about key features of music videos we have made an illustration type music video where we have illustrated the meaning of the lyrics through the visuals. By doing this we have created a connection between the lyrics and visuals which allows the audience to understand story behind the song which makes and keeps them interested. For the genre of music we chose illustration music videos are most common because they need to appeal to wide, mainstream audience. Large pop-rock bands don’t often make a disjuncture video for example because it has more connection with indie, alternative bands who appeal to a more niche audience. As well as creating a relationship between the lyrics and visuals we connected the music and visuals through the use of Bank lip-syncing to give the video elements of performance. It is more common than not to have performance integrated into the narrative of the music video so we followed this convention even though to begin with we were planning on just having a narrative. Having watched Snow Patrol’s Open Your Eyes we looked into shooting in one shot as well as not including performance however we decided that the one shot would be too difficult to achieve in the city where we had no control over the passers-by and traffic.

Later we also decided to use performance because the narrative did not relate enough to the lyrics to allow the audience to understand why Katie walking around in the city and country. It also gave us the chance to give the audience something else to look at as it is quite a long song and the shots of Katie in the country and city started to feel repetitive. Once we had decided to use performance we included the singer as much as possible which is a convention that most mainstream pop bands follow to show the star image which the record companies like because it appeals to the audience and fans will be draw to the music video if the band feature often. We decided to just have Bank singing as the lead singer and not include the two other band members or instruments to show the connection between Bank and Katie in the narrative. Like OneRepublic and a lot of other mainstream bands we have used the typical convention of lots of close-up shots of the lead singer.

Mulvey’s theory of the female image in media applies to our music video because Katie was a large feature. Mulvey states that in media females are seen as the object and the males as the subject this could be applied to our music video as Bank looks out at the audience and through the lip-syncing has a voice whereas Katie is passive and is viewed as an object rather than a subject.

Goodwin also states that iconography is used in music videos to portray the genre of the band. Mainstream pop will show their star image through designer brands and popular high-end gadgets. For example in OneRepublic’s Say (All I Need), Ryan Tedder the lead singer is seen wearing Lacoste trainers in a close-up shot of his feet, this appeals to the audience as it shows they are fashionable and up-to-date with what is “cool” and popular. 

We have used iconography in terms of mise-en-scene to show that our band The Empty Crowd and Bank as the lead singer is part of the mainstream pop genre by using a shot of his BlackBerry.

We followed the typical conventions of an illustration music video by linking the shots and the added effects to the music. For example at the beginning the song has quite a heavy beat so we just used city shots. Then when the music became softer we introduced the country shots.

Also having decided to include performance aspects in the video we followed the typical convention of cross cutting in between narrative and performance like most pop music videos do. Nearly all of OneRepublic's video have some aspect of performance, lip-syncing or the band playing their instruments.

Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposites applies to our music video due to the contrast of the dark, gloomy city location and bright, green, colourful countryside. Also through the moods of Katie isolation and depression in the city and happiness and freedom in the country.

In other ways we have used existing conventions by creating a concept that we have carried through from the music video to the digipak and poster. A lot of bands in all different genres use the idea of concept. We decided to use a concept which would be clear to the audience and allow them to identify the music video and digipak/poster were connected and belonged to the same band.

We were initially inspired by Coldplay who used the concept of the French Revolution for their album "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends" Their concept is shown in their music video through the mise-en-scene; costume of the band, especially Chris' military style jacket, visuals and the use of the tricolour colour scheme. The album artwork used the iconic image of the Revolution, Delacroix's painting of "Liberty Leading the People". Also their music video of Viva La Vida featured Coldplay performing the song on a warped, blurry backdrop of the same painting.
This clearly shows the audience the linking of the concept across their products so we decided to use a concept of city vs country. We had decided to shoot in London as in a lot of mainstream the locations are iconic e.g. Paris, London, New York, Hollywood etc. to attract the audience as it shows the celebrity, luxury and traveling on tour lifestyle of bands and artists. We were also inspired by OneRepublic's music video Say (All I Need) which is shot in Paris and the narrative involves the band walking around the streets with lots of establishing shots of the iconic landmarks in Paris.

As I wanted to show the country vs city concept clearly in my digipak to the audience I used photography of the city and countryside next to each other and manipulated the images to make the contrast clear.

As I was using photography as the main feature of my digipak and poster I decided to use the idea of polaroid photos by using a white border round the pages like on Charlie Simpsons' Young Pilgrim album artwork.

I decided very early on that I did not want any image of the band in the digipak or on the poster which is quite unusual for a mainstream  pop-rock band however not that unusuals for a concept album - like Coldplay who do not feature in their album Viva La Vida. Therefore I decided the concept should be the main feature with photography portraying this.

I was inspired by Oasis' cover of "(What's The Story) Morning Glory?". I thought the shot of the ordinary street was really effective and eye-catching and I decided to change it to suit our concept of loneliness in the city - to give this effect I ensure there was no obvious subject of the photograph and with the long almost empty street the onlooker feels distant and detatched. I developed this further by putting it in black & white to show the gritty, lifeless feel of the city which contrasts with the green, colour photographs of the country. This also links my digipak to the style of the music video that we edited to have the city shots in black & white and the country in colour.

For my front cover I wanted to create an image that really showed the idea of the city vs country concept. I was inspired by the silhouette of the tree on OneRepublic's Dreaming Out Loud album. I googled tree silhouettes to see what shape would be best and was further inspired by this result.

For the country pages I wanted the coutryside more appealing than the city images. In the draft I simply used photographs without a subject which did not make it appealing and gave the onlooker the same distant feeling as the city photos which did not show the concept enough. To bring this across I used the idea of the blog Dear Photograph because it makes the subject more interesting as there is an obvious connection between the photograph and the location and suggests a past and a present.