Evaluation Activity 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

By Ami Lawrence

The Relationship of Lyrics to Narrative and Visuals‘‘ hear that train, come calling out’’

In our music video, we used the line “hear that train come calling out” to show relationship of lyrics to narrative and visuals. By doing this we filmed a train coming towards use us. This closely relates to the lyrics, to show that we have matched the train with the train line. Showing the train was to show the past/future and how time flies past without you noticing, this isn't a clear resemblance but its easy to recognise throughout the music video. This shows that we have used the Goodwin’s rule of music videos, which states that there usually a close relationships between lyrics and visuals.

Relationship of music to visuals

When first hearing our song, we picked up on the continuous beat throughout the song. We used to this to add effect to the music video, for example we used Connor moving forward on each beat. This helped us show distance moving forward and showed the audience that the editing was effective with the visuals.

Representation of the artist/band

As we wanted to create a narrative and performance based genre, so we wanted to show the representation of the band. We had 3 good looking boys in our band, which showed the iconic boy band. We showed the typical convention for indie rock which was using both performance and narrative throughout the music video. We didn’t challenge conventions as we used the typical convention for a boy band and for the indie/rock genre.

Genre of music and how it is defined

Our genre is indie/rock and we wanted to define this throughout the music video. By using performance and narrative to show the genre, we had to make an believable story whilst making the band fit in to the story. We made sure the band was wearing the typical clothing to show the ‘indie culture’. We added many shots which are an iconic for the indie music video. We wanted the audience to be able to tell the story line of Connor feeling distanced and in love. I personally think we showed it throughout the music video. You can also see in the picture that Connor is wearing a green coat and both band members are in black tops.

Setting/location

The setting/location is a big aspect to our music video, as trying to get the feeling of distance and love in the music video, we needed to make sure the past/future was shown throughout the music video. Using different locations such as an empty field and an balcony showed him watching the distance, and when editing Connor we used a cut to show him moving forward in the mist, this one showed how he was moving forward in time but when he goes to look over the balcony, it shows how he is looking back on time. Another example is the bench, both characters sat on the bench, both looking into the past and future. By sitting on the bench you can see the distance between both characters.

Camerawork and editing

We used many different shots and editing skills to represent the indie/rock genre. We used a lot of close ups and medium shots to be able to show the hurt in face, we wanted to show the close ups of the band members too, by taking close ups of the guitars and drums with the band playing in the background was very effective.

Lighting

We used natural lighting in all of our shots, as you can see in the music video that all the shots are allocated outside which meant we was shooting weather permitted as if it was dark you wouldn’t be able to see any of the filming. In this shot Connor was outside, in the daylight which you can see the sun was out so he represented clear and you can see more details to the shot.

Mise-en-scene

We wanted to use the typical conventions for Mise-en-scene, this meant keeping close ups of the props, such as (in the picture above) a mobile phone, telephone box, musical instruments and even the band. This just shows the props were well thought into, this also allowed the audience to see the effort which are put into a music video, we have to make sure everything is within the continuity and doesn’t look out of place.

Intersexuality or influence of other music video

We used many videos which are related to the indie rock genre. We looked the kooks and also looked at how they used their music videos and how we could use similar camerawork, editing skills and props. I looked at ‘she moves in her own way’ and they have a fun quirky video which sang about ‘love and distance’ which is very similar to our music video. They used a lot of close-ups and so did we.