Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

The key purpose of a music video is to represent a chosen artist within the music industry, evoking emotions and gaining a response from a wide audience. This audience appeal makes the music video overall more successful, and allows the record company to produce more sales both through the video itself being played on various media platforms as well as  television and subsidiary products such as CDS being sold to a targeted audience which makes the artist more of a success. Myself and my group members, Georgia Crandon, Jenna Van Bergen and Rhianna Macleay were given the brief to recreate this through the creation of a music video and a variety of subsidiary products including a promotional poster for my fictional artist, and also a Digi pak. The products and video all had to link together and appeal to our chosen audience within the genre my group chose. We had to be consistent at appealing to this genre and follow the majority conventions in order to make our artist more of a success.

An additional and key purpose of a music video is to demonstrate a short narrative that represents the artist in order to promote them and their song. A music video is a market tool and can also advertise and sell artist products and allow the audience to remember the song that the video is portraying. Each music video conventions according to the artist and songs genre, for example a rock music video features the instruments being played, where as a RNB artist usually features expensive cars and sexualised images of women who are wearing minimal clothes. There are 3 different categories to look at when analysing a music video. These are performance, the artist performing the song; narrative, the story behind the song; and the concept, selling the idea behind the video. These all help to sell the music video and the song it’s depicting which ultimately makes it more successful. This is evident in Christina Aguilera ‘Beautiful’ video where she is pictured singing in a dirty flat, which fits in with the concept of the video and the narrative that everyone should be accepted, and it is ok to be different and to not fit in with conventions of society. Music videos promote these conventions of their music genre in order to appeal to an audience who enjoy the genre different styles and concepts of particular videos may challenge these conventions however to do this is considered risky and can either be initiative and unique which boosts the artists credibility and success or be too risqué and damage the artists fan base as the video is seen to be too strange and therefore unsuccessful.

For my media product my group chose to appeal to an indie/pop audience, which after research into our target demographic our group decided that the target audience for our music video and ancillary products would focus on 12 to 22 year olds. I chose this target audience as they one of the biggest and most susceptible groups of people who will easily be able to engage with the narrative of the music video, and be easily influenced by the style of our artist which will make her more of a success and give her maximum impact. With our representation of a female indie artist who is alternative in many respects but still follows enough pop conventions in order to appeal to the mainstream market. My group chose this style as we believed to have influences from two genres of music gives us more creative freedom, and appeal to two types of audience which strengthens our artist and makes her more of a success. We selected the artist Nina Nesbitt, and her hit UK single ‘Apple Tree’. The song itself is relatively unheard off with a low budget simplistic video. We chose this as we thought Nina’s style could be elaborated and altered to suit our own artist ‘Georgia Ray’ and the style of music she sings is both indie but also current and has a place in the mainstream world. This would make our artist more of a success, as the target demographic wouldn’t have a clear image of both artist and the songs video therefore we could really have free reign at creating a completely new image for our artist and  video without the majority of people having preconceptions of the song and much idea about Nina herself. The conventions of an indie artist we had to follow were designed to appeal to an audience interested in this genre of music.
 Dynamic iconography is often featured in many indie music videos, with Florence and the machine using oversized iconography in her video 'kiss with a fist'. In our music video we had our artist 'Georgia Ray' playing the guitar; this is evident throughout the performance scenes within our video as Georgia stands beside the forest. This strongly follows the indie conventions as nearly every indie artist features instruments being played.  The setting follows conventions as well, as the forest is both naturalistic and simplistic. Something that is frequently used within indie music videos. After research into popular bands found in NME magazine, a reliable source for current trends in music within the indie genre, I saw that many bands videos featured the use of instruments in a performance dominated video. This is evident in indie bands videos such as the Arctic Monkeys and Peace.

Clothing is conventional to indie genre in narrative and performance

 

 

 

 

 

Clothing within our music video appears conventional to the indie music genre as the use of tartan, denim and Dr martens are all examples of edgy and unique styles of clothing which I put together in order to portray both my artist and the boyfriend character as diverse and iconic whilst following indie fashions which include the conventional clothing we used. The locations themselves were also conventional, as places within London such as Camden and Brick lane being a big part of alternative sub genres and the indie music scene. These places were chosen as I could shoot colorful locations making our footage more dynamic and also meaning the narrative of our characters visiting these places conveyed with the indie music genre. For the performance part within my video I decided to once again follow the indie conventions as it would allow my video to appeal more to an audience and by using iconography such as the guitar again convey to the typical indie artist as talent and live music is seen as prestigious and a typical feature of an indie artist. This made the performance more raw and passionate which allows the audience to see the artist as young and talented making her more of a success. The Indie music genre constantly aspires to be inspirational and inspire an audience via fashion, style, behavior and love of music. This convention was followed within my music video as both the narrative and performance follows these conventions and the style created for our artist along with her rebellious behavior and talent showcased via the guitar is what I want my target audience to aspire too. I chose to include some unconventional elements to the indie music genre within my own video, in order to make a more diverse and realistic narrative which would be fitting with my blend of the pop and music genre. The conventional format of a music video is to inspire an audience with a surreal, artistic and at times confusing performance and narrative. Indie music videos are often abstract, however for my own indie music video I decided to showcase a rebellious relationship which is more conventional to the pop genre. This unconventional narrative was followed as it would have more appeal with the target audience as the behavior of the artist would be shown as rebellious and the audience would aspire to follow her iconic actions. By breaking with indie conventions I feel I had more impact on the audience who were able to understand and enjoy the rebellious relationship which is being portrayed, over all making our video diverse and successful as we included enough indie conventions to appeal to that type of audience however with an unconventional narrative the rebellious behavior and style was showcased more efficiently combining a typically indie performance which married both the indie and pop music genre successfully with a greater impact on the target audience.

My research influenced the decision to break conventions of a pop video and use instruments therefore incorporating both music genres which would appeal to a wider audience. The reason behind this is when an indie artist shows that they can play live music, the audience can follow the band or artist by seeing them play live, something which the indie audience do frequently. The style of our artist followed the conventions of indie also, as the bandana and vintage clothing is typical of the indie style, and Dyers theory states that a star will have to appear iconic to attract an audience. By following these conventions I believe our artist will appear more iconic and the younger females within the target audience will want to have a similar style to Georgia, thus making her more of a success. I included this convention to appeal to the indie genre, but also portrayed a rebellious teenage relationship which is conventional of mainstream popular artists such as Rihanna, and it also fits in with Dyer’s theory as rebellious teenagers inspire an audience and make the artist more of a success. We chose to follow conventions of indie music as it appears exciting and in keeping with our narrative, we however did challenge conventions of the indie genre by a portrayal of a troubled relationship. This isn’t featured so much in alternative music and our editing style although edgy and grimy also doesn’t fit totally within the music genre that tend to sick to more naturalistic and raw performance based videos. This was successful as the conventions we did follow for a pop video, a young couple rebelling against society tied in well with our grimy image. This allowed us to be creative and make a successful icon come music star which would ultimately influence and hit our target audience successfully. The music video and ancillary task is complete keeping with our chosen music video. The music video, digipak and promotional poster all link in with each other and appeal to both the indie style of music as well as mainstream pop culture.

Group Digipak and Magazine Advert

Final Music Video

Target Audience Feedback

Audience feedback is vitally important to a production as it allows the media producers to analyze their own work and see where or not the media product has successfully reached the target audience and been a success. This is seen via the feedback an audience give the video or film and can influence future productions as the producers are able to see what has worked well and what can be improved. My own audience feedback was  was seen through the screening of production via the rough cut, focus groups which looked at the target demographic and insured we had included elements that would appeal to a certain audience and also the questionnaires which allowed us to see first hand reactions about our own ideas and possible narrative ideas we could include that would be a success.

This feedback would benefit my production as well as the industry as it would allow myself and my group to have a clear idea regarding who we are aiming our product at whether or not the audience would find our product eye catching. This would determine whether or not our overall product would be a successful as positive feedback means our product was, and constructive criticisms giving myself some scope for improvement .

3 positive comments.

Ami Mathews 19 said, Drew, this is really flippin good!!! I love the narrative, so clever.

This comment appears complimentary to our media product, and is reassuring to me as it proves that our video is being positively received by our target audience. The comment on the narrative again shows that our research into what people wanted to see has been a success, as the narrative has been made successful and easy to understand by the target audience.

Rowan Jones 23, Georgia's hair looks amazing, so hip cx I love her style as well! wish i had a jacket like that.

A humerous comment from Rowan again is positive as it compliments the use of style throughout the video, the fact she used the word ' hip ' also indicates that the style of our artist was successful as she is appearing iconic and conventional to the indie genre.

Daniel Shoesmith 16, Nice one mate, love the colors proper professional! the colours are so vibrant and really adds to the effect of the video

This comment is positive feedback on the cinematography and the element of lighting within our video. It is good to see that this person enjoys the diverse lighting and effect choices and that our lighting structure has been successful and diverse.

3 Constructive comments,

Amy Palmer 19,  I love it, what happens next!! I want to see more of the arist, didnt really get why she was in the forst tbh.

Although this comment to me appears unjust, we could have had a greater explanation of the narrative towards the end of the video, and some form of clarification as to why Georgia was in the forest. This would have been possible if the video was longer however knowing that we only had 3 minutes to fill, I think our final product could not be anymore explanatory.

David Watson 40, Why does there have to be smoking? bit of a bad influence on kids that might be watching this.

David poses an interesting comment, however the use of smoking although maybe controversial just highlights the reckless nature of the teenagers that we were trying to accurately portray. The research conducted shows that many people within our target audience wanted to see a reckless style, and the fact we chose smoking was a further convention to indie music. I would also argue that although David comment is valid and we will take his opinion on board, his age falls outside the target audience age group therefore out video isn't aimed towards him meaning he may not understand or want to view our video making our targeting of a younger audience still successful.

Paul Marks 28, This is great, seems professional yet if im being picky at times the camera appears a bit shakey? dont know if you wanna sort that out or not.

Paul's comment is a valid one, and we did substantially limit the amount of hand held camera work in order to appear more professional. I think we could have maybe spent more time filming in order to obtain a higher quality of footage. This would make our video more successful and on a more professional level.

Overall I have followed the aims of my brief which was to 'create a music video that appeals to a chosen music genre and target audience' The use of narrative and performance combines the genres of pop and indie well and the result is an on trend teenage relationship with a young girl appearing iconic and talented during the performance of the indie song. The song itself built strong lyrical and visual links within our video, and our two ancillary products also followed the conventions of indie music and had strong themes that meant our overall product was sold to our target audience successfully.

The cinematography and locations were diverse and typical of the indie genre as we focused on naturalistic settings that contrasted with urban locations. We also used conventional iconography such as the guitar which conformed with the indie genre and also drinking and smoking which portrayed the rebellious nature of the teens which was wanted by our target audience after we put together our vox pops and research. The style of our video was also successful as we wore on trend clothing that made the artist appear iconic and in keeping with the indie genre. All in all we kept closely to the brief and made a series of successful products that promote the artist and bring the genre of indie to a mainstream audience in a successful and diverse way.