In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I first realized that to produce a successful music video for my chosen song I needed to conduct extensive research into my chosen songs genre and its conventions. The song I had chosen was of the indie/folk genre, which is generally a untouched genre of music with not many artists exhibiting conventions specific to this genre. So to make my research effective and to aid my own understanding of the genre I decided to research both the Indie and Folk genre individually and then combine aspects of the two to make my music video.The first action I took was to find artists of this genre that were relatively successful and to use their media products as inspiration for my own. Initially I was lost as how to find artists of the same genre until I looked into some songs I know of that sound alike to some songs in the genre. I discovered number of unknown artists of the genre and began to analyse their own media products.
This is one of the first successful songs of this genre that I came across and then went on to be the main inspiration for my own music video. I Also looked at other songs by the same artist, Gabrielle Aplin, and I found that many of her music videos had the same recurring themes. Things such as colour filters, acoustic guitars and vintage objects/locations. I really wanted to incorporate this into my own video as this is such an iconic look for a video in the modern world of masses of SFX, this simple look is very effective. Also after listening to many songs of the Indie/Folk genre and watching the videos I found that although the songs themselves tell a story, the music videos can be quite obscure and I think that is a vital aspect of a music video from that genre.I also decided to look into the history of the genre. I found that the Indie genre is relatively modern compared to Folk which has been around for much longer and is much more diverse. This contradictions of eras can be easily represented by simply putting something old in a modern setting or vice versa. I really liked the idea of having an old, small object as one of the focuses of the video. So I decided to invest in a vintage looking snow globe (since the
I first realized that to produce a successful music video for my chosen song I needed to conduct extensive research into my chosen songs genre and its conventions. The song I had chosen was of the indie/folk genre, which is generally a untouched genre of music with not many artists exhibiting conventions specific to this genre. So to make my research effective and to aid my own understanding of the genre I decided to research both the Indie and Folk genre individually and then combine aspects of the two to make my music video.The first action I took was to find artists of this genre that were relatively successful and to use their media products as inspiration for my own. Initially I was lost as how to find artists of the same genre until I looked into some songs I know of that sound alike to some songs in the genre. I discovered number of unknown artists of the genre and began to analyse their own media products.
This is one of the first successful songs of this genre that I came across and then went on to be the main inspiration for my own music video. I Also looked at other songs by the same artist, Gabrielle Aplin, and I found that many of her music videos had the same recurring themes. Things such as colour filters, acoustic guitars and vintage objects/locations. I really wanted to incorporate this into my own video as this is such an iconic look for a video in the modern world of masses of SFX, this simple look is very effective. Also after listening to many songs of the Indie/Folk genre and watching the videos I found that although the songs themselves tell a story, the music videos can be quite obscure and I think that is a vital aspect of a music video from that genre.I also decided to look into the history of the genre. I found that the Indie genre is relatively modern compared to Folk which has been around for much longer and is much more diverse. This contradictions of eras can be easily represented by simply putting something old in a modern setting or vice versa. I really liked the idea of having an old, small object as one of the focuses of the video. So I decided to invest in a vintage looking snow globe (since the
song is about
winter)
In the indie/folk genre mise en scene is very important for
establishing this contradiction between old and new. The room in which I filmed
looked fairly modern with an upright piano. The mise en scene was mostly
inspired from Gabrielle Alpin's music video for The power of love. The
simplicity of the video and lack of any SFX exhibits the old aspects of the
genre perfectly but also shows the new by the artist wearing what seems to be
modern clothing and also the use of fairy lights and pyrotechnics is fairly
modern.Furthermore the song itself doesn't naturally have a story line and so the video
is once again very simple in the actual content and editing.The setting of the video is vital to establishing the feel of the video early on so the audience can connect and so the video can hold their attention. In the video for the power of love the settings is in a seemingly old, abandoned mansion. At first glance this doesn't have much relevance to the song but after doing some research into the background, it is clear that the setting has been used for a reason. The use of the old mansion represents folk music, a dying genre of music that is rarely heard of and is seldom in the the charts. The artist, however, represents indie music which is almost like a younger generation coming back to revive folk music.
Not only is this represented by the settings but also by the changes in lighting and props. For example from one shot to another the lighting changes dramatically from flat, lifeless colours to suddenly be lit up by strings of lights and sparks that make the shot look energetic and interesting. This is possibly a representative of the indie music genre putting the spark back into folk.
This realization spurred me on to use this in my own video, but in mine I decided to challenge what was used here and have the setting as the representation of the indie genre and the object as a representative of the folk genre. This is where the use of he vintage snow globe came into its own and the array of modern musical instruments and costume simply set the scene.Folk music originated in the 19th century and was sung by the lower classes to lift spirits in darker times, whilst indie music originated as a sub-genre from the genre indie rock. Although both were created from very different backgrounds both have very similar conventions and iconic sounds. I really wanted to express this undiscovered gem of music production through my video and use some common conventions effectively to make the audience make connections between the video and the genre.When it comes to shots and editing both are used scarcely as this would be unrepresentative of the genre. I decided to use a common technique used by videos of the indie folk genre. The use of long, drawn out shots with varying focal lengths to force the foreground and background in and out of focus for effect. This adds a lot of atmosphere to the video and really sets up the mood. In many of the videos I have watched from artists of this genre many if not all have used this technique.
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