Evaulation

Question 1 – “In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge form
and conventions of real media texts?”

We completed the video brief along with the magazine adverts and album covers.
We used the song “I Will” by Radiohead, who are an indie band. The music videos
for this genre typically contain footage of the band playing – using close-up and
extreme close-up shots of the artist and instruments – with extreme focus on the
instruments – mainly guitars and drums. Footage from live gigs is sometimes used –
as seen in the Libertines music for “Don’t Look Back Into the Sun”

[Libertines – Don’t Look Back Into the Sun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNdxYAvK-E4
0:18 – 0:40]

Footage of a live gig performed by The Libertines used in their music video for “Don’t
Look Back Into the Sun”

Alistair Dickson
[Screenshots from Titus Andronicus – A More Perfect union:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fqHr_KGPY
0:15, 1:00, 1:40]

An extreme close-up shot of the guitars played from Titus Andronicus – A More Perfect
union

A medium shot of the band playing in the usual format from Titus Andronicus – A More
Perfect union

Alistair Dickson
A close-up shot of the lead singer from Titus Andronicus – A More Perfect union

Our video challenges these conventions – as we do not feature any footage of the
band playing

We also didn’t feature our artist as much as a typical indie music video – as the only
time our artist is featured is the beginning, end, and around half-way through.

Alistair Dickson
However, we have layered footage of an extreme close-up of our artist’s lips during
the vocal parts.

Andrew Goodwin outlined the features of a music video; he stated that the key
lyrics may play a part in the visuals associated with the song – but will rarely mirror
them. Our music video does not follow Goodwin’s theory; the song “I Will” is about
war and peace, whereas the visuals presented in our music video are not associated
with war and peace, but corruption and hatred.

Alistair Dickson
 He outlined that there is likely to be a reference to voyeurism – in terms of
women- the video will contain close-up shots of the woman’s body to appeal to a
male audience. As you can see in the first shot (top left), the camera is placed behind
the bars – it looks as though we are peeking through and spying on the women. Our
video does not contain any voyeuristic shots, which challenges the conventions of a
music video.

[Video clip of Lady gaga – Telephone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBsypHzF3U
3:46 – 4:00]

As we can see, the video “Telephone” by Lady Gaga contains many voyeuristic shots
– as outlined by Goodwin.

He also stated that the tempo of the track may influence the speed of the
editing. This is very true for our video, as our song is of very slow tempo, which fits
the very subtle and slow editing

We created a magazine advert and an album cover between the two of us. For our
album cover, we duplicated the octopus logo and put them on a white background
for the front of the album. For the back of the album we took a frame of the clown
from our music video and made it black and white. We did this to show the
darkness and distortion of the artist.

Alistair Dickson
 We used the typical conventions of an album cover in our album cover. A
typical indie album cover does not usually feature the artist on the front; bands such
as Silversun Pickups, Anti-Flag, Bloc Party and Massive Attack all use computer-
generated images that have little to do with the band – something that we have done
with our band.

Alistair Dickson
Our other ancillary task was the magazine advert. For our magazine advert, we
opted to go for the simplest advert we could. We chose the octopus logo again – but
we didn’t duplicate it, we just put it on a white background to make it instantly
recognisable.

Alistair Dickson
This challenges most forms and conventions of indie magazine adverts, as bands
such as Anti-Flag and Arcade Fire choose to present the band on an advert to create
a sense of emotion and recognition with the audience.

Our magazine advert is very similar to The Vines’ magazine advert, who are a
similar style band to Ellipsis.

Alistair Dickson
 Advert Album

This advert has been heavily influenced by the album cover - the graphics are
almost identical to those on the album, including the vine-like graphics and their
signature font. – Something that we have replicated with our album

As we can see here, The Stone Roses’ album advert uses almost identical patterns
from the album cover – the “splattered paint” effect - as well as using the lemon
symbols from their album cover.

Alistair Dickson
In conclusion, we have conformed as well as challenged the typical forms and
conventions of an album cover/advert – as some indie bands tend to display the
band on their albums, yet some choose to stick to the auteur signature that they
have chosen – displaying common patterns and symbols that are present on the
album cover.

Alistair Dickson