TARGET

AUDIENCE

DEMOGRAPHICS

PYSCHOGRAPHICS

16 - 30 M/F

Any ethnic background

NRS Social Grade: C1 to E

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Explorer

Into fashion but not to obsessed with brands or labels

Hobbies include going to festivals and concerts such as Glastonbury

Keep up to date with social media, especially sites like pinterest, tumblr and instagram as they are interested in art

Listen to: Lana Del Rey, Hozier, Years and Years, The 1975, Halsey

Any gender

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP, OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

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I will be placing a yellow diamond shape on screenshots of our video when comparing our shots to existing music videos of the indie pop genre.

INDIE POP CONVENTIONS

In indie pop music videos, the artist usually tries to give out a message to his/hers audience. E.g. Hozier's "Take Me to Church" music video tries to give out a message that attack policies that are prejudiced over relationships and acceptance - homosexuality.

We would also try to send out a message to our audience in our music video. In this case, our video is about capitalism and government control and how we, as a collective society, should be more conscious about the concept and try to do something about it (similar to the traditional Marxist idea).

We also used Andrew Goodwin's ​idea of the connections between the visuals and the lyrics. Giving that our song choice is "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," and the idea for our video, it was pretty simple to link both of those aspects together. 

Narrative 

Within the narrative itself, we created a link between the visuals and the lyrics by a number of factors. Many of these will be listed below:

To show someone in power we had one of our characters look as though he is in charge of all the other characters. To show that he was in charge, we had many factors such as having him in darkly lit room. This made him seem as though he was an evil character as dark usually connotes danger. 

We also used Levi Strauss' Binary Opposites argument which is a  representation of good vs. evil. We wanted to inform our audience about the division of power. We made this clear by our chosen actors and costume. We had our 'evil' characters dressed in all black and wear hoodies as this is what society thinks to be dangerous, mainly due to media outlets creating moral panics about those who do dress in clothing such as hoodies. 

To show who the 'good' character was, we had her dressed in all white as this usually connotes purity and innocence.

vs.

INDIE POP CONVENTIONS

Whilst researching the genre in more depth, my partner and I realised that most of the music videos for indie pop have been created on a low budget, or at least look like they do. 

Low budget

Location

When planning and creating our music video, we made sure that we would shoot at locations that seemed 'natural' and more like where our audience could be seen at. These includes locations such as Trafalgar Square and local areas.

We thought that it we showed our characters in an ordinary setting, our target audience may feel more comfortable whilst watching the video which will hopefully make them more enthusiastic in taking in the moral of the video.

Shooting at locations that we did not have to pay for also had many benefits. Such as natural lighting and easy access. Having natural lighting was a bonus as indie pop music videos also use natural lighting as they are mostly shot outside too rather than in a studio.  

Costume

In addition, whilst researching existing indie-pop music videos, we found that the main protagonist and such wore usual, everyday clothing. We wanted to add this in our video by not having a big blown out costume that did not suit the video at all.

INDIE POP CONVENTIONS

Mise-en-scene

Lighting

Props

Each mask represents those in society who have been belittled by the unfair division of power.We wanted to include these masks to add to the message of our story which is common in many indie-pop music videos.

In the majority of indie pop music videos, the lighting is quite dark and the video tends to have blue or yellow undertones. This is probably because many of indie pop music videos have dark narratives so the lighting reflects the story the video is trying to tell.

We also had specific posters made that read either 'JOIN US' or 'BREAK FREE.' In the video we had characters placing these around walls.

We thought that the masks represented a sense that people do not have their own sense of individuality and instead hide their true identity. We linked this to Goffman's Dramaturgical Theory  in which he argues that people are never truly themselves when they are with people, they feel the need to constantly impress others. We thought this represented society well as we do not really like showing our real selves 

    in indie pop music videos are very casual, e.g. jeans and a t-shirt. We wanted to show some of this in our video as our target audience clothing style is very similar. 

Costume

INDIE POP CONVENTIONS

Editing

During post-production, editing was the most important part. Not only did we have to edit our video according to what we thought was aesthetically pleasing but also to what our target audience would like to. In order to do this, we looked carried out an audience questionnaire and looked at existing music videos.

Effects

Cuts

We thought that adding a black and white effect onto our music video to help give it a dark feel and make it feel more intense. 

We also added a grainy sort of effect which on Final Cut Pro is called 'Bad TV.' This added to common features of an indie pop music video such as Charlie XCX's "Doing It" video:

In order to for our music video to be well put and efficient, we wanted to make sure that we made cuts at parts of the song in which there were 'loud' bangs. This way, the video looked more professional and suited the conventions of the indie-pop genre as they also have the same quick cuts at loud beats of the song.  We were able to do this on Final Cut Pro.

INDIE POP CONVENTIONS

Camera

Whilst doing some research beforehand, we found that many indie-pop music videos, especially artists like Lana Del Rey and Charlie XCX like to use direct model address. 

During this scene we wanted to have the masked characters walking towards and staring at the camera, we thought that it would have 

Indie pop also music videos tend to use a lot of (extreme) close ups and rule of thirds which is why we included it in our music video.

Handheld

We had many shots that were handheld. These shots added to the suspense to the theme of our music video and helped intensify scenes. We saw that in some indie-pop music videos a handheld camera were mainly used for frantic scenes in which something fast is happening e.g. a person is running.

Direct Address

ECU + RULE OF THIRDS

Close ups and Extreme close ups allow the viewer to see the emotions of that particular character.

Rule of Thirds also allow for more than one thing to be focused on shot. For example, with the still above, the character in charge is watching his 'puppets.' We wanted to show both the character and the laptop in the same shot in order for the viewer to understand this.

INDIE POP CONVENTIONS

CHALLENGES

Usually, indie-pop videos follow a non linear structure in which they include several shots of flashbacks. However, our video follows a linear structure. We thought this would be easier for the audience to understand the message that we are trying to get across. Since the narrative may be complicated enough, we did not want to make it even more complicated for the viewer by making it non-linear.

One of the main people we looked at for this is Todorov. Todorov identified five concepts included in a music video:

- Equilibrium - start of the video where everything is pretty much normal 
- Disruption - something that disrupts the norm of what is happening in the video. 

- Recognition - when the problem is recognised
- Attempt to Repair Disruption - when the characters start dealing with the problem
- New/Returned Equilibrium - when the disruption is fixed and things go back to somewhat normal settings

Laura Mulvey uses her theory of male gaze to argue that in mass media women are filmed from a heterosexual male perspective. 

We did not want to conform to this and instead, show our female characters as people and let our viewers focus on their actions rather than their appearance.

Equilibrium

Disruption

New Equilibrium

Here are examples of some the parts for Todorov's theory from our music video.