Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products ?

Editing and camera workThis is one example of my editing techniques I have used in my music video, I chose to have him singing whilst you could also seeing him walking looking down and emotional. This is because I wanted to see his emotion yet I wanted to keep the music video alive and not let the audience get bored sitting and watching constant 'emotional shots'. This is also something funky and different which is representative of Newton Faulkner's personality. I also had a shot of my actor leaning out the right side of the tree singing a line then looking to the left and then the actor leans out from the left singing another line whilstfrom the other side of the tree the same person was watching. I wanted to have this because it added a conceptual feel to the video so my video wasn’tsimply just performance. I had to edit the both of the shots in order for the edit to be as sly as possible I had to lower the brightness on one and increasethe brightness on the other in order for the lighting to be the same so it really looked like they were both in the same scene. I got my inspiration for this shot from a comedy documentary by Dave Franco where he duplicates himself and is talking to himself. I felt this would work well for my song as the lyrics are him realising that its himself he needs to find, and this is ironic as he is looking at himself.

Dave Franco documentary

CostumeI asked my actor to wear his own clothes as due to him being a fan of that genre of music he was likely to wear similar clothing to the artist anyway. However I did ask him to wear a shirt of some sort so that he looked presentable as the costume designer for the music video would have made sure Newton Faulkner looked presentable. I also asked him to make sure it was a colour that wouldn’t blend in with the colours of the forest as if he was wearing green for example it’s likely he would be lost into the forest and wouldn’t stand out in the shot.

In my first attempt of my music video I filmed at the beach and I wanted to continue this idea onto my next video however due to the rubbish English weather and the rain causing not much sand to actually be visible on the beach I had to take my filming elsewhere. However I feel the forest actually worked better than the beach allowed too as I had the chance to use different locations around the forest which made my video more exciting and kept the audiences attention better. A lot of music videos of the same genre also tend to use locations such as beach’s or the forest. I got the idea of using the beach originally from ‘Coldplay- Yellow’ but then after changing the idea I thought of the video for ‘Radiohead- There There’ and their use of an creepy forest with him exploring around and playing with all the things he finds.

Location

Coldplay- Yellow

Radiohead- There There

Concept of using backward speed

Another idea I had for my music video was too have my artist performing and singing some verses and playing around in others which is similar to what Newton Faulkner often does, however I didn’t feel that just playing around would be engaging enough for the audience so after watching the music video for “The Scientist by Coldplay” I thought about the idea of perhaps using the ‘reverse speed tool’. Indie music videos often having the artist messing around in them due to their low budget ‘Do-it-yourself’ attitude that they have. All the artist want their voice to be better than the actual music video therefore tend to just have themselves being themselves in the video and not doing anything fancy. For example in Newton Faulkner's video for Over & Out there is just random clips of him just having fun, just pushing the trolley around the supermarket. I feel this portrays his fun personally which most indie artists want to do. I feel I replicated this fun personality in my video whilst having my actor jumping and running around over stepping stones and over logs etc.

Coldplay- The Scientist

Opening shot of my music video.

This is the opening shot I chose to have to begin my music video, I chose this as I feel this clip sets the scene. Often establishing shots set the concept as well as the location, it sets it up that my video is slightly conceptual due to the speeding up of the clip yet its likely to also be narrative/performance due to having a certain location which is typical of Indie genre music videos. ‘Cinnamon chasers by Luv Deluxe’ is another video of the indie genre that starts with a location shot. I felt this shot set the scene of a chill music video showing the motion of the trees to start it off. It also connotes Newton Faulkner's chilled personality and the fast forwarding of the shot illustrates his quirkiness as this is different to simply showing the trees swaying.

I chose to have the Title at the end as its different to the norm, once again representative of Newton Faulkner who likes to be known for his different personality. I also had it over another image of the location and the sun beaming through and its an artistic shot similar to what other indie music videos do. The video is like a circle he finished in the same position he started with a shot of the location being the starting and finishing image, emphasising how he didn’t work that much out about himself or the situation he is in, during the song. I also wanted it too be bold and clear so I used the clearest font I could that is also readable. On my digi pack as well I have used a font which is clear but not boring. The music is more important than the image.

TitleCinnamon Chaser – Luv Deluxe

PerformanceI chose to have my concept for my video as a performance because Indie videos tend to be any of the 3 and vary amongst them so I had the choice. I felt it would be more fun to play around with performance and then having random shots of the actor having fun in the location of the forest which I chose. I feel doing performance worked well however if I was too do it again I would incorporate a narrative into it in order to flick between performing and the storyline. Other Indie music videos with include a performance and narrative in the video is ‘The 1975- Chocolate’. This is a video which I got a lot of inspiration from with the use of a lot of performance and then random shots used as well.

GenreI feel my music video as a whole is a good representation of a Indie music video. I have conformed to most of the genre characteristics for example having lots of lingering shots on the actor showing the emotions he is feeling whilst singing. Also I have reference Goodwin’s theory of the idea of ‘looking’ he is constantly looking out in the distance, which once again emphasises his emotion. Indie music video also tend to have performance aspects to depict their music talent. Often these artists start off very small so their first few videos tend to be very simple as it would have been cheap to film, also they want people to remember them for their singing voice rather than the music video. One thing that a lot of videos in the indie genre do that I didn’t conform to is the use of black and white filters I decided purely not to do this because I filmed on such a nice and bright day that there was a really warm feel to the video reflecting Newton Faulkner's warm and bubbly personally. I also tried it having a more saturated image and didn’t feel it worked with my video because you could still tell the image was meant to have a bright tint.

Ben Howard- Old Pine

The 1975- Chocolate