Evaluation - Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge formsand conventions of real media products?

When choosing my music video I decided to choose the song Smoke by the indie folk band Daughter. The band is not typically mainstream and the song does not already have an established music video. From watching various indie folk music videos during the research stage of my music video, I took inspiration from narrative and abstract based music videos from artists such as Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros and Lucy Rose. I felt that the song I chose followed the indie folk genre perfectly as in places the song is fast paced but also shows depth and has many layers within the song. Allowing me to represent the indie folk genre with similar ideas presented in these music videos I watched which also have the same target audience as my music video.

 

Originally, I planned to make a all narrative video where ‘Smoke’ could be represented the same for everyone however the more I planned the making of the video I felt that it lacked a abstract feel to it and I also found that the song didn't particularly fit a performance music video in the form of dance sequences or performance pieces with the use of instruments. I also felt these type of conventions where more typical in the pop genre with choreographed dancing and rock music with the use of electric guitars and drums. By not using these within my music video, it has made my music video more conventional.

Typically a convention of music videos within the indie folk genre is that the music video is quite simplistic in terms of the music video narrative and the way that is presented. Within this genre, there are also typically elements of youth/innocence allowing the audience to relate to the protagonists. For example, Featherstone by The Paper Kites attempts to portray youth through the use of the children running around which essentially gives connotations of freedom and recklessness. I think this was important to represent this in my music video with the use of the smoke freely moving having the same type of reckless feelings as otherwise it wouldn't be as conventional. 

Although, I felt it was important to appeal to a larger target audience by using different characters of various ages and different backgrounds however from gaining audience feedback they concluded that typically the indie folk genre features more females then males. 
To appeal to the conventions of this genre, I also ensured that the protagonists costumes matched those within the genre for example a white dress within this genre is typically used to connote innocence.This dress also gives connotations of calmness and will often be seen in a simplistic nature scene which is conventional to this genre. I also was quite unconventional int he choices of my music video, as I went the opposite of a conventional indie folk music video and used dark colours to show the longing that my actress felt. 

I also did not allow the artist of the song to feature within the music video, further making my music video less conventional, as within the indie folk genre more recently artist having been featuring a video for each of their new songs on a album only relating when they are all placed together. As this is quite the latest thing to happen,I felt that my artist didn't have to feature within the music video heavily and instead could use another actress to feature, however after making the video I feel some of my target audience may be confused by this approach to making the music video.

To recreate the nature scenes conventionally seen within this genre I chose two main locations to film my music video. One being Oakroad Playing Fields and Hessle Foreshore as this enabled a vast amount of space to create a variety of different action shots as well as they allowed me to film lots of tree shots and allowed me to incorporate different elements of the location in one film shoot. For example, both locations had a park, a pond and a forest meaning I could capture most of my filming in one sitting. 

However, because Hessle Foreshore is quite a long distance away from my house, I mainly only had access to Oakroad Playing Fields because it took quite a while to shoot my scenes and if I needed to refilm the shots it would be difficult to quickly go back to Hessle Foreshore to film. Although the nature scenes do not feature heavily in the music video, I felt that I should incorporate theme somehow to be conventional like a typical indie folk music video. 

My music video challenges many of the indie folk genre conventions as it focuses more on the actress rather then the nature elements. By doing this it breaks the idea that the artist is more interested in making the music rather then being featured themselves which is quite typically heard of in the indie folk genre. Also as my music video is in black and white it would typically be seen as more mainstream to use his effect on a music video however according to some of my target audience they feel it adds to the sobering 'mood' of the video.