T1-03 MUSIC VIDEO EVALUATION

Andy Williams

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

Introduction

In this presentation I have evaluated our music video and ancillary products we have created for the song “Bunker Hill” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This evaluation is based on Andrew Goodwin's theory. The convention that we are predominantly show is rebellion but in more of a modern way i.e. Modern clothes, graffiti and isolated backdrops rather than conforming to group socialisation.

Lyrics reflect a visual right from the beginning as our character is standing next to a train track as a speeding train hurtles past. It is not a complete representation of the specific line “Off the bus, onto the train.” but we have interoperated it differently to show lack of socialisation adding to the convention of rebellion and isolation.

The mask featured within our music video meets Goodwin's 4th point of intertextuality as the mask is originally from V for Vendetta all though we did not intend to directly link the 2 together. None the less we decided to make this part of our star persona of the band, therefore when the train has passed the zoom feature was used to show a close up of the character promoting our star meeting the “demands of the record label” using clear symbols/props to promote the band which is Goodwin's 3 rd point . Not only this but it allows us to use this prop to ensure continuity throughout our media products.

These pictures show the progression of the zoom which has been edited to the beat of the song making the mask the center of attention as it fades out from one picture of the mask to another. This again displays a big symbol of our created band “Tooz” whose logo is situated in the top right corner.

By our character wearing this mask it follows the conventions of other artists that decide to disguise themselves when performing even though we see the faces of the performer and the character in the video. This challenges conventions of somewhat similar artists due to the choice of costume but during research in to our star persona we found that many of the artists remained wearing their masks apart from Deadmau5. We have done this so that the faces of the band can be recognised allowing individual persona’s within the band and a group persona based around the mask.

These stills show evidence of Goodwins 5th point of voyeurism being used as our character and performer are shown as if they are being watched without them knowing. Part of the reason that we have done this is to show that the mask is watching our character as it is slowly turning him crazy within his own head which is our interpretation of the lyrics.

We have decided to use an isolated setting that features graffiti when the performer is lip syncing. This is another key factor of our main convention, rebellion and graffiti has also been used in the past to challenge real world problems such as war and was considered rebellious and Banksy is the most known for his abstract images that conflict with society today.

When brainstorming ideas of what to feature we decided to use a narrative and a performance and by using the mask we were able to link the 2 using the mask as a symbol. This is one of the main conventions in a large number of music videos for example the video created for the Red Hot Chili Peppers song “Californiacation”.

We have followed this convention as we believed it to be more interesting for viewers to watch rather than just a live performance from the performer. This allows us to convey rebellion in more that 1 way as we are able to isolate the performer and character as they may not conform to societies ideal image. Other conventions that are regularly shown in rock songs is that the narrative shows romance possibly involving a band member. We have challenged this ideologie by just using 2 subjects for our music video. This is due to our interpretation of the lyrics as we decided to use the mask and show it consuming our characters mind instead of a romantic narrative involving a girl as we wanted our music video challenge ideologies.

One of the tasks given was to create a magazine advert to promote the album “the revolution” and also the band “Tooz”. As rebellion is a key convention of our band we decided to experiment with the use of flames in our image as flames can be uncontrollable, spread quickly and burn almost anything in its way making it a very destructive element. These aspects make it perfect to the title of our album “The revolution”. We have also established continuity between the digi-pak and our advert by using various images that include flames. Using The Gaussian blur effect we have made the character look isolated as him and the flames are the only part of the image that are in focus making them the centre of attention.

Not only this but The Gaussian blur effect shows isolation which is a challenge to the convention of socialisation.

To make this product look like a legitimate magazine advert we decided to add a selection of icons e.g. The iTunes and Amazon logo as the consumer needs to know where they can purchase the product. To meet the demands of the record label we have added the Warner Bros logo as this is the record label we have chosen along with a 5 star rating from “kerrang” which is one of the largest rock magazine’s in the world. Making it relevant to the genre.

For our digi-pak we decided to use a black background, this is so we could use certain images and make them the centre of attention. The intention of this is that the bright colour up against a pitch black background will not only catch the eye of the viewer, but the will be able to identify the band due to the logo and mask and also establish a link between that and our magazine article.

To ensure that the consumer would automatically be able to recognise the band that have produced the album due to the symbolisation of the V mask also the logo, situated on most faces of the digi-pak. To meet the conventions of the artist we used specific images such as the flames, beer bottle and the graffiti.

The intentions of these images is to show conventions of rebellion especially the graffiti that reads “Begins with rebellion, ends in Revolution.” as graffiti is widely used around the globe to convey the points of view throughout society and a prime example of this is banksy and the phrase used relates to the album cover.

To make this product look professional we have added a number of features such as logos, track list, DVD list and a barcode. These are the features that would be added on a real media product to meet demands of the record label and also inform the viewer of what they is available to them on the disc.