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Our music video for Arctic Monkey’s “Fluorescent Adolescent” incorporated the codes and conventions of already made media products throughout the video, poster and digipak. I knew it was incredibly important to use previously made conventions from the indie rock genre to be able to make a suitable music video for the audience, which would obviously fit within the genres style.

We used conventions of many music videos in our cinematography of the final piece. The style of our cinematography was purely bases upon our research products from established bands videos, most indie rock music videos use various shot throughout, however the not common are the close up and medium shots. These are typically used on individuals or to illustrate the band together. Close ups are also used on instruments and other cut aways, for example feet keeping the beat. We attempted to incorporate as many of these techniques into our music video as possible. The close up on individuals is used predominantly to capture facial expressions, showing passion and other emotions such as happiness and determination. These are vital aspects when making a music video as it emphasis' the lyrics and/or put the lyrics into real life. Certain close up could also determine the bands appeal towards the audience, creating a vibe to the band. The medium shots allow both the drummer and singer to appear as one, creating a more solidified cohesive nature to the band. This breaks however when there are drum solos which then show individual talent. Furthermore, we mixed the camera movement throughout the performance aspect (On and off tripod) , giving the performance an edgy atmosphere which illustrates a sense of unpredictability and perhaps wildness about the song, which in fact coincides with the lyrics. Artists such as The Bulletproof Bomb and Catfish and the Bottlemen also use this technique to portray these conventions of edginess and unpredictability but also potential mystery within the narrative, which is then implied through the performance side. The static shots allow the performance to be built up in a smooth manner and don’t over complicate whats happening. Getting the contrast right was important in making the performance. The off tripod also has strong connotations to the DIY feel. As many indie rock bands carry the DIY approach we decided to link the notion of DIY within ours.

The narrative structure is obviously one of, if not, the most important conventions regards to music videos. The group and I decided upon a very clean, linear narrative, very common within our specific genre. Our narrative was based around a middle aged woman, who is frustrated and essentially bored with her tiresome lifestyle. The narrative then progresses onto her remembering she has a school reunion party coming up, she therefore decides to iron her dress, get her shoes and jewelry out, and then put her make up on and do her hair. The music video ends with her leaving the house. The linear narrative approach is the most obvious in this genre as the whole production is based around the music. Not the music video, however, having such an easy narrative is useful as the audience can easily follow the actions, while still maintain the level of engagement. This narrative clearly follows the structure set and reinforced by Todorov. He claims that all narratives have a equilibrium, disruption, recognition of disruption, attempt to mend disruption and finally a new equilibrium, making the narrative a 5 piece story line. Our music video doesn’t have a defined new equilibrium; however you could argue that it’s her breaking the wall between her present and past self. We watched several music videos from several music video genres. As i’m more into rock and indie rock already, i found it relatively easy to pick up on simple narratives that could be the influence for our own one. However rock tends to be only performance with little effort the narrative. For example Green Day’s Longview music video’s narrative is portrayed through performance. You see the band singing about how life is for a teen aged boy through the way their house is, the condition and then these images are exaggerated through the use of the lyrics. The hardest part about the narrative was thinking of a linear narrative that worked with our lyrics so that the visuals weren’t random or had little association with what te song was  about. We decided that the mise en scene of the video would be most important when portraying such an easy and free narrative.

Editing is also a pretty important aspect when creating music videos. The main editing technique we used was cross cutting back and forth between the narrative and performance throughout. The cross cutting adds a degree of pace and action that engages the audience from start to finish. This then allows us to vary the shots distance, length and what we show within a shot. At the beginning of the song, there are no lyrics, just an instrumental for around 30 seconds. This allowed us build the narrative to a suitable point before the song had actually started. The use of cross cutting was also used here to show the duo getting ready and the protagonist developing the narrative. The pace of shot here is relatively slow with each cut lasting around 3 seconds. As nothing much is occurring, the editing is very continuous, allowing the narrative to be built before lyrics are introduced. As the music builds up and the narrative and performance is both cross cutting, the pace of shot picks up, and so does the frequency of cross cutting. This further develops the video, reinforcing the vital role that cross cutting has within music videos. We, at first, found it very hard to get the right balance of performance and narrative as the typical split is 50:50. We didn’t want to cut out parts of the narrative, as that’s the part telling the story. We also had the whole song in performance too. Allowing u to use whatever part of the performance wherever. In rock and indie rock, it’s common to have a 70:30 split in favour of performance as I said before, the narrative isn’t as important in this genre. However, we played it safe with 50:50 and the balance worked out really well.

Mise en scene is also another key component when making music videos. Thinking about key conventions with the indie rock genre include examples such a instruments and specific clothing worn in the music video. These also allow for the bands image to be build up, also potentially creating iconic costumes. For example Angus Young’s school uniform when performing live and in music videos for ACDC. We did a lot of planning into this as creating a band image is important for the audience. We used Pinterest to assemble the style we were looking for, as well as props for the performance. We then talked to our actors, who already wore the majority of our ideas, for example overcoats and bomber jackets. Stereo typically, bands wear blues, browns and blacks when performing, these are heavy conventions used and allow for the band image to exemplify the genre. The Fratellis, Arctic Monkeys and Grizzly Bear all follow these connotations in their work. We also allowed the facial hair and hair of our actors to be whatever. We didn’t care if it was clean or scruffy. Reinforcing the DIY style of the production. With the props, it was predominantly just instruments and a microphone. Many music video in our genre have the band playing in a “live performance” style which indicates raw talent and produced music. The instruments also provide a sense of realism, the band actually play the drums for example. In pop, it’s common for the performance to exclude the use of instruments as the video is purely just about the artist. We included the drums in as many cuts possible as it links to the notion of talent, struggle and determination. All 3 very common narratives with our genre.  The ability to be able to play drum indicates a passion for the music that’s being produced, linked with the lead singer and his microphone completes the full circle that they want to be successful and developing their music.

My digipak and poster also includes a range of media conventions that are suitable within our genre. The majority of the pictures were taken with the studio we did our performance in, resulting in the same kind of appearance with both the video and digipak panels. However, i like this look as the same location and costumes allows the audience to relate to the video with relation to the digipak. Furthermore, the bands image is developed even more by using thi technique. For my digipak, i put the drummer and singer together, making them come across as one. They bosth own the band and the responsibility and power is therefore split in 2. Having them come across as equal to each other is important and done very often within most genres. The audience will recogonie the band based as a duo and not just by the lead singer. This further develops the relationship between the band members and could potentially illustrate their friendship is important to the bands image also. I also decided to have the text of the band bigger than the album name. People will be more interested in the bands name than album name. Likewise, in the future other generations will relate to the music based upon the bands name and album cover, opposed to the knowledge of album name. The colours for my digipak compliment each other suitably with no real struggle to read. The gold also represents wealth and power, which implies a confident and edgy band personality.  For my poster however, i decided to use a white coloured font. This exemplifies purity and passion. I decided to have different coloured text ass i felt it would look too golden if i included that colour into my poster as well as my digipak. The white i very abstract from the rest of the poster, promoting the band and album is a crucial element for the poster and the white captures the notion of that very effectively and subtly. As the key information is white, it allows for the textto stand out over the rest.

In terms of development for our music video, it was fairly difficult to develop the performance’s mise en scene and cinematography as we wanted to use key codes and conventions so instead, we decided to focus on developing the narratives conventions. The editing was pretty straight forward however, we developed the idea of jump cuts in relation to both aspect to the video. Jump cuts show the passing of time and can create anxiety or a sense of mystery. We used jump cuts to enable to cut to the beat technique to work efficiently and successfully. This technique make the piece look more professional and creates a more of a flow and rhythmic tempo to the narrative. The jump cut can also make a boring scene have pace and urgency about it. For example, when the protagonist is seen walking up the stairs, a couple of jump cut are added to make it seem like she’s either in a rush or that her lifestyle is boring and time i going slowly. Jump cuts only really worked in the narrative side of our final product as incorporating them into the performance would miscue the lyrics and lip sync . We were able to counter this problem by adding camera movements. Towards the middle of the song, the pace really picks up a the music is now fully established. Jump  cuts allowed for the narrative, which seemed to be pretty boring to run with the pace of the music without looking out of place. The jump cuts made the entire piece less tedious and without them, the narrative would have dragged.

For the digipak and poster, i developed the idea of a theme. Many indie bands are portrayed with a black and white theme or appeal. This is a heavy connotation within the genre which easily identifies the artists. I decided to change it to a blue theme, I decided on blue as the band is new and appealing to a wide audience. The blue reinforces their edgy image and puts them out there; reinforcing this is the band’s name. I use “The Run Ups” to demonstrate the grind and passion to wanting to be a successful band, the album name “millennials” indicates their age and implies they’re still very young. Therefore standing out from the crowd is vital in order to becoming a popular band. On all the panels with Josh and Pete on, I made their heads be a different colour, other than blue. This makes them two more obvious and allows them t be center of attention. Using the clipping mask tool, I was able to put the image in a circle and then put the original image behind them. This allowed me to change the clipped image to any colour I wanted without altering the blue under layer. This was also a vital tool when making my font. I downloaded a gold texture and clipping masked that over my font. This gave texture to the words and made it more appealing to look at.

We also  challenged codes and conventions of indie music videos with the use of a female protagonist. Seeing  female protagonist is quite rare within the genre as males are usually the preferred choice in regards to narrative, however we felt that a woman was vital to use as the lyrics are about a woman reminiscing of her lively childhood, we did plan to use a male protagonist to start with but it was proving difficult for the lyrics to represent what were were showing. The lyrics are about having wild teenage years and how that life now contrasts to a tedious, tiresome lifestyle he now possesses. The use of a female character also allows the lyrics to relate to the woman and so an obvious link between lyrics and visuals is established.

We further challenged codes and conventions with the use of VHS footage from the 80s. Through audience feedback, we were influenced to add snippets throughout to just reinforce the overall narrative idea. The 80s footage is authentic and realistically, a middle aged woman would have had the majority of her teenage years through the 80s. The short clips add the extra needed context that allows the audience to determine what’s going on. Subtle details also worked very well in relation t this. For example we show the woman applying makeup and the next cut is a flash back scene to a woman applying makeup. This associates the characters together and illustrates that they’re the same person just different time periods. It also allows the idea of the reminiscing to actually happen as she’s doing the exact same stuff she did back in her childhood, portraying that she may still have her spark within her. These second long snippets throughout the getting ready phase builds the narrative to some extent and just informs the audience what’s actually happening. We didn’t add loads in either, this would of caused a potential misunderstanding for the audience who wouldn’t know what was happening.

My digipak and poster didn’t challenge the genre to excessive amounts as it’s vital to keep key codes and conventions as these are what pulls fans and the target audience to the product. This enables the band to grow and depending on size and status, is a crucial step within the industry. Thesrefore my digipak was heavily influenced by previously made codes and conventions.

However, i did think that a difference within the overall theme would challenge and potentially develop at the same time. The theme for my poster and digipak was blue. As the most common way forward is black and white, i though that changing this would be the easiest thing to alter, hence developing it. However, the colour blue is typically undermined and never truly used. I thought the blue could add some kind of atmosphere to the piece coincided with the colour within the circle. The piece has challenged common album digipaks. The blue results in reinforcing the DIY and self made aspect of the whole piece with emphasis of standing out and being different. With the unique colour, it allowed me to create the bands image and characteristics. I also challenged the typical front panel. Within our genre it’s extremely common for the front cover to be a logo or illustration of something that associates with the band. For example Ratboys sketches, Arctic Monkey’ terrace houses, Oasis’ front room and Grizzly Bear’s abstract wall all associate with the band straight away. Instead of a logo, i used the duo on the front cover. I did this to illustrate the members, as it’s their first album, publicizing them is important for their sales and progression within the business.