Evaluation - Question 4

Evaluation - Question 3

Evaluation - Question 2

Digipack - Ancillary

Evaluation - Question 1

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music productions?

 I would say that our music video uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real music videos with inspiration from real music videos, TV programmes and films and by following rules of music video editing.

Analysing our video according to Goodwin:

Our music video completely adheres to the rules and conventions of Goodwin’s music video analysis, with strong elements of voyeurism, linking to the notion of looking. The first line of the chorus in the song highlights, “Girl I want to be with you all of the time, all day and all of the night”, In what we played off of this theme. The music video shows the male staring at the girl which is followed by a tracking shot of the female walking but secluding everything but her legs. This particular shot creates an element from Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory as the camera lingers on the woman and the event is created from the context of a man’s reaction. Furthermore, these particular shots are placed deliberately during the first line of the chorus where it matches the lyrics of the song in order to emphasise how the band members perceive this woman, but also how the female audience must experience the narrative secondarily by identification with the male. It also shows that I followed Goodwin’s convention of illustrating the relationship between lyrics and visuals.

 

Our music video comes under the category of a narrative performance, with it being split almost  half between continuity and jump cuts. This follows the conventions of many music videos, with continuity highlighting the bands aspect but then jump cuts establishing the rock genre characteristic, again following Goodwin’s analysis.

 

 

 

ntertextual references were key in the music video in order to create references to the 1960’s with a modern twist that the audience would understand. At the beginning of the music video clipped tones of the 1960’s was incorporated into the music video by the radio announcer introducing the band in a way that it would have been done at that time, “and now introducing The Kinks”. In addition the colour pallet we choose represented the transition from black and white music videos to colour in the era. Iconography was created through the choice of buildings as they represented orange tones which are associated with the 1960’s. The clothing was chosen very carefully as in the era we wanted to represent suits as they were often worn but the modern twist was created through the modernisation of the clothing. Furthermore the hairstyles today represent that of the 60’s but again with a modern twist incorporated. The modern twist was played on even more due to modern use of iconography with the Usain Bolt pose used in a single shot. As a group we relied on knowing intertextuality in order to create homage of what the target audience viewed about the 1960’s, but as the music video targeted an audience with a good predomination of the 1960’s should be have already been established as it was where youth is considered to have been created, (emphasised by the artists not taking themselves too seriously). For example the running scenes in the instrumental are developed from The Beatles video ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ where we purposely played respect to the artists by recreating an iconic scene. Through the use of iconography we tried to pastiche the idea of the 1960’s and modern day together with the overall playful nature of the music video establishing the era of the mise-en-scene.

 

 

 

A direct relationship between music and visuals was created through the 1960’s theme that was created with the modern twist. Furthermore a direct link can be made to Levi-Strauss Binary Opposition theory in the way that proxemics are used. Clothing is a key factor in order for the mise-en-scene to have features of the 1960’s era, the male characters wear suits (creating masculinity) and the female in a dress (creating femininity) which indicates the obvious gender roles. The jump cuts furthermore indicate this by indicating specific close ups of the genders body’s, which in turn adheres to the demand of close-ups from the record label. The music video features binary opposition in the way that the jump cuts of the males are more frequent which indicates this patriarchal society that men hold the dominant roles in society and women hold submissive roles. The context of the music video relates to this point as that was how society was in the 1960’s where women wanted to break out of the ‘private sphere’. An example of this is where the woman is faced opposite to the protagonist in the music video.
 

 

 

 Analysing our video according to Vernallis:

The music video also fits with Vernalli’s conventions, especially in the post production process of editing the video. Vernallis states that editing in music videos break all rules of continuity, which was used throughout the music video. The music video was edited by breaking the 30 degree rule by using jump cuts which often cut to a variety of shots, (establishing, close up, extreme clos up and medium shots) on many occasions. The editing also matched the beat and musical phrases of the song.

 

However the music video did slightly challenge Vernallis narrative conventions, following a more filmic form. Vernallis outlines that the narrative shouldn’t have a clear resolution or an ending, but in my music video I do. My video ends with the band members not being successful in winning the woman over and that she was not oblivious to them the whole time she purely wasn’t interested in. The ending is clearly represented to the audience which they should understand when the woman walks away with a different guy.

 

Album Cover:

The Album Cover for the Kinks also follows forms and conventions of real album covers. The front cover is a large picture of the band which infers the genre of pop but with an alternative rock aspect due to the placement and poses of the artists. The purpose of this was for the audience to establish the bands identity which links to McQuails ‘Uses and gratification’ theory of the audience gaining an insight into one self, (similar personality of the band). As our cover shows a lot about our band, it follows the conventions of album covers, as the image on the front of an album cover should be striking and show the artist identity. The bands logo is written in large and the album name written a little smaller in order to create sizing hierarchy of importance. The image on the front cover continues the narrative of the music video which helps the target audience establish the band instantly as the storyline continues.

 The insert of the album also follows rules and conventions as elements of the didgi pack include convergence from iTunes, Spotify and a QR code generated for easy access to the website. As a group we decided that this was an important feature to include due to the advancements in media as nearly everything single product we have created can be accessed by one device, (complete convergence).

 The back also follows all the rules and conventions too, with all the essential information; bar codes, institutional information and barcode. The back cover also portrays the identity of the band as the image is the exact same as the front cover but taken from behind the band members.

 

 Website:

The website that was made for The Kinks also followed forms and conventions of real artist’s websites. We made all appropriate pages; Enter Site, Home, Video, Gallery, Store and Sign Up.  Through research it was found that many artists’ website pages have an ‘Enter Site’ page where the advertisements for the product are displayed, from the album on where to buy and general information. Links to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were also put in place on this page to give the target audience the opportunity to keep updated on news. The discourse of the homepage was in columns where information consisted on news of the band and tour dates to select from.  Every page had the navigation bar at the top in order to flick through the pages of the website like they would be able to on a real website.  The theme of the website was also kept consistent, (black, white and blue) with a standardised font used throughput the website.

However, we did challenge the conventions by using Wix, a flash generator site. We did not create the website from scratch like an artist would usually do but instead used a template in order to create and develop a site that fitted the bands image. Furthermore we had experience in using Wix last year at AS and thoroughly loved how easy the generator was to use and develop a professional looking website.

 

Website Complete (Ancillary)

Website Link

http://callumhind95.wix.com/thekinksa2media

Completed Music Video

Completed Music Video