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.