Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of 

real media products?

When creating our media products, we kept an awareness of the forms and conventions of media products, especially in relation to the indie genre. Through this, we have made informed decisions regarding the look and content of our products.

In terms of our music video, we used several conventions of the indie genre. In terms of colour, we mostly used sepia and blue tones, which are often seen in indie music videos, such as Lana Del Rey's 'Born To Die' and Melanie Martinez's 'Cry Baby'. We used these colours throughout our video to make it subscribe more to the indie genre. For example, sepia is used when they are inside with their friends, and blue is used at the beginning when coral and I are in the field. By following these colour conventions, we showed that our video is part of the indie genre.

In our video, we also used the iconic symbol of the acoustic guitar, which is often seen in indie videos. We used this again to show our video as being indie, as this symbol relates it to other videos in the genre, such as Milky Chance's 'Stolen Dance'.

We also used conventions of the indie genre through our content and narrative. One feature of indie music videos is experimentation in terms of content, leading to more explorative narratives and interesting visuals. This can be in terms of artistic content (like 'Little Talks' by Of Monsters And Men) or content with an engaging narrative (like 'Wings' by Birdy). Our video belongs in this second category, as our video has a strong storyline and experiments with different ways of portraying feelings, eg with the projections and reverse montage at the end. In this way, we have used the indie convention of creative videos to make an engaging and interesting piece.

One way that we have developed the conventions of the indie genre, and those of the music video industry as a whole, is by basing our piece around a homosexual relationship, which isn't commonly seen in the industry. Although homosexuality is becoming more common in both the industry and music videos, such as with Sam Smith's 'Lay Me Down', these cases are still quite rare. Most indie videos including a relationship show a heterosexual one, such as Kodaline's 'High Hopes' and The Lumineers' 'Sleep On The Floor'. Homosexuality is rare in the music video industry, so therefore by showing it our video is developing the conventions of music videos.

Our video does not really challenge any forms or conventions of indie music videos, instead either using or developing them. We used several conventions in terms of style & visuals and while our narrative may be challenging in other genres (such as the rap genre), within the indie context, which thrives on creativity, our video is not especially challenging.

Our ancillary tasks (the digipak and advert) also use conventions of the indie genre. We looked at real indie products when making this and based them off that. Indie digipaks and adverts often tend to be quite artistic, reflecting the genre, so we followed this trend when making ours.