Codes and Conventions of my Chosen Genre

                    

Formal Codes and Conventions of Music Videos

   

Music Video Choice of Genre

My first choice of music video that I wanted to create is Pompeii - Bastille, the band fit within the alternative rock almost pop band genre. The video has a narrative feel to it as the song lyrics give off themes such as loneliness, the editing used within the video shows the loneliness as we see fast cuts to what looks to be abandoned parts of the city that he is in. 
The cinematography also gives off this feel as many long shots are used where the singer is far away from the camera but he is always on the move, looking around for people. However the video was origianted from the volcano eruption in Pompeii in 2011 and Dan (the lead singer) told NME that the song is about having a conversation with life and death during the volcano eruption. The narrative doesn't necessarily develop like the typical conventions of a music video, we see him alone looking out in the city, him trying to find people and when he does they have become these unknown creatures (death) and then we see him in the mountains but still alone. 
The camera shots used within the music video are typical long shots, mid shots and close ups which we see all the time throughout music videos, these shots connect with the audience emotionally to develop the narrative. The camera movement throughout the video follows the artist around and traces his steps, the usual conventions of shots used within this video are tilts, pans and tracking shots. However the lyrics 'Im gonna be an optimist about this' stand out to me as they connote that he is seeing a big perspective of what has happened and has hope that there is someone somewhere, this is showed through the cinematography as we see big open spaces of land throughout the music video. 
The editing used throughout is jump cuts from one scene to another allowing the narrative to develop deeper. The mise en scene throughout the music video such as the lighting is well used as most of the video is dark and gloomy but with an enhanced brightness to enhance the look of the artist and the town around him. When we do see the artist up close it is when he is singing the song in the spotlights, which used in the video, are his cars headlights a good technique that I would like to try in my own video. The costume reflects the under lying meaning of the video as the artist is in all black, this connotes as him attending the funeral of Pompeii due to volcanic eruption. To the audience the video will be appealing, due to the lyrics, if you understand what the song is about but if you had no idea due to it not being a massive publicized story.
 I feel it does still apply to the audience as it is a catchy typical alternative rock song therefore the cinematography and images attract the audience. Bastilles video represents what the town of Pompeii was like just after the volcanic eruption, a lonely abandoned town. I feel this narrative relates to Roland Barthes theory of how cause and effect equals change due to the underlying meaning of the story. The cause of the volcanic eruption plus the change in the town equals the change of the town and the people within the city, which was shown through special effects throughout the video due to making the eyes of the people who lived there, black and unrealistic. But also relates to Tom O’Sullivan due to him telling the story of this through himself. O’Sullivan believed that narrative theory sets out to show that what we experience when we ‘read’ a story is to understand a particular set of construction which Bastille created for the audience within this music video.

My second video I looked at re-creating is The 1975 - Sex. The 1975 also sit within the alternative rock/Indie genre. The video also has a narrative to it, the narrator is in love with a woman who has no interest in him and already has a boyfriend, but wants to hook up with him. He knows that it will ruin their friendship if he hooks up with her, but does it anyway because he's so controlled by his desire. Within the music video the narrative develops from fast cuts of the band performing in the dark lit room to the actors who are playing the story. 
The ideology of the video related to the meaning behind the song, the artist of the song is made out to be wanting the girl actor within the video but she is too loved up with another boy. The technique used the develop the narrative is the music starting with a very stretched out police siren and we see the boy actor in a red and blue lighting looking through a window but we see his reflection giving us a false sense of the narrative that is is the antagonist of the situation, where as within the video he becomes mental, addicted to drugs and starts causing problems but as we get to the end of the video we see him looking into the same window again but this time the girl is at the other side of the reflection, sitting in the police car, connotations of police and a red colours are things such as bad people and trouble showing that she was actually the antagonist of the love triangle sending the boys spiraling. 
This is shown through the use of jump cuts to develop the story as we see close ups of the teenagers smoking, drinking and being half naked. The camera shots withing the music video are mainly close ups and mid shots, the camera movement follows the boy and girl to track what they are doing. Whilst when the video jumps back to The 1975 lead singer and his band, the camera is very still and intimate with him. There is also the contrast when jumping from the story to the band as the band are in  a low light setting which is made to look more black and white (also relating to the indie rock genre), whilst the narrative is in colour. 
This relates to Levi Strauss thoery of binary opposites but with a twist as we believe at first, the coloured scenes within the video are the good whilst the band are trying to steal the girl away from the boy and these are seen in black and white. However after the narrative develops we see the singer as good, this also links to the lyrics within the last chorus as he begins to see over the love traingle 'theyve all got boyfriends anyway'. Whilst the girl and boy, who were portrayed to us through coloured images, develop to be shown in a bad light by the use of connotations and stereotypes. 
I feel this appeals to an audience category of 16-24 years of age due to it relating to teenage years but it is also having the typical boy loves girl, girl loves boy narrative. Which also relates to Pam Cook who says the standard Hollywood narrative structure should have linearity of cause and effect with an overall trajectory on enigma resolution, which is what happens throughout the video by The 1977 attracting the typical audience of the band.

Another video I have researched into is Kodaline - Brand New Day. Kodaline are also an alternative/indie rock band. The video is not necessarily following a narrative structure as it is captures scenes from a small town following three girls to the beach and a house party, the video is a carless and more free shooting video of activities and in the middle of the video we see a speaking scene of a conversation between the boys and girls breaking the conventions of a typical music video. The laid back feel of the video is shown through the editing due to the cuts not being as fast paced and seeing longer scenes of action and movement. 
The ideology of the video relates more to the genre of the band but also shows the reality of teenage girls and how they are stereotyped of wanting to look good, social smoking and partying with friends during the summer, this is developed within this video however, it does not connect with the lyrics at all. 
The camera shots within the music video are the typical conventions such as long shots, close ups and mid shots with tilts, pans and tracking shots, which are mostly still shots and not what seems to be handheld tracking shots which we normally see throughout music videos. The lyrics numerously repeat ‘waiting on a brand new day’ and we see the contrast of day and night throughout, this shows the whole ideology of a brand new day, this could be the underlying meaning of the video which is what teeangers stereotypically think of happens in summer repeating the same activities such as drinking, smoking, socialising and having fun. These type of shots connect with the teenage audience emotionally attracting them to the video. 
The mise en scene throughout the video is very indie rock related as its careless costumes such as small amounts of clothing but also gives off a 70’s/80’s look and feel with high waist shorts and trousers, denim jackets and crop tops. There is also a scene where the three girls are on bikes in a field, the lighting here is very yellow and not as clear, this lighting gives off the indie/alternative rock look which I am hoping to use within my own music video when putting together ideas. At 2:10 we see an establishing shot with a sign saying ‘Playing tonight Kodaline’ on a pub/barn the ideology behind this gets the band involved within the video without us, as the audience, seeing them visually involved.  
The video attracts the audience range of 16-24 which is similar to my other two videos I have chosen. This shows that the indie/alternative rock genre aims mainly at this age group, which I will take into account in my own music video. Kodaline’s music video has many representations throughout helping us to understand the meaning and recognition of the media text, I feel the video relates to Laura Mulveys (1975) theory of feminism and how we view people represented through the media. 
Throughout this video we start to instantly make our own stereotypes and representations of the three girls, smoking, drinking, care free. This is how men want women to be and see us, which attracts the male audience however we, as girls, see the girls as one of us and we start to compare ourselves, all these three girls are skinny, pretty, care free and unaware of what the next day will bring, which in reality teenage girls are the complete opposite and we want to be them as this is what men want to see.

Skills Development Essay

Over the two years I have gained experience and developed my knowledge widely with the use of cameras. I started my first year with hardly any knowledge of cinematography and first produced a perfume advert after having minimal training with cameras and the computers, we were not given long to produce the advert and I made sure the background of my image was acceptable to be used within the advert as I was unsure of how to cut the background out and make it look professional. I then went on to produce a college magazine as we had a little more training in the editing suite on the tools to use. My images for my college magazine were taken on an OLYMPUS digital camera, this helped me to produce good quality images to edit and to adapt to my magazine. I used the internet to help me research into existing magazines and gain ideas such as layout, context and images. I took images of a student at the college holding folders and reading their work. For my front cover I used a medium long shot which breaks conventions of a typical magazine as the usual image used is a medium close up. This is also when I first created my blog on the internet, this would store all of my research, planning and the products I created to help me evaluate my end result and create my As portfolio. For the main task I decided that my music magazine was going to be in the genre of pop/chart music as I had seen a gap in the market for a more mature and sophisticated magazine, therefore I went on to create a front page, contents page and double page spread using a featured artist that related to the genre. I went on to decide a price and who the main publisher for my magazine would be, researching the main publishers for magazines within the same genre.  

The creativity of my music magazine came purely from a lot of research on the internet and even in shops themselves. I searched the internet of styles through google images and also went into supermarkets to see what the latest music/fashion magazines were on the shelves. I looked at things such as colour schemes, cinematography/images, text and usual conventions of a music magazine. I created my magazine through the eyes of my target audience which was the category of 16-24 year olds. I created questionnaires to gain demographics into music magazines and then take the ideology from them to create the first drafts of my music magazine. Before starting Media Studies I had no experience or skills with how to use Photoshop and this made it hard for me to gain a full potential of editing within my preliminary task where as when it came to my magazine, I was able to play around with photoshop and experiment more with my images and text that I was wanting to create for the magazine. I feel this is shown through comparing my preliminary task to my final product as the cinematography and mise en scene where more carefully thought about after seeing the poor lighting and stances I made my model use in my preliminary task.

I put a lot of time and effort into my research and planning and kept all of this on my blog this enabled me to get the full potential when creating my music magazine. I started my research by looking into the music industry and finding out the background of the ‘big three’ this was, Universal, Sony and Warner. I went on to look into three different existing music magazines and used LIIAR to analyse these and get myself to grips with what conventions are used within every single magazine and how these attract the audience and the ideas and concepts behind them. My research and planning helped me to develop skills in all key areas of producing my magazine from looking at house styles to producing well edited images that followed conventions of my typical pop/chart show genre. I went on to look at demographics and started to understand that there was a lot more of a thought process put into a magazine than it looks, taking into consideration the social class of todays society and having a strong demographic knowledge will help you to boost sales of your magazine. I looked into Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, this helped me to understand the needs of my target audience and what would appeal to them. This research also helped me to take into account the fact I would need to budget the price of my magazine due to aiming at the age bracket of 16-24 therefore many being students and unemployed. I then went on to start creating my front cover, contents page and double page spread by creating draft after draft and getting feedback from peers and teachers to be able to reach a point where I felt nomore changes needed to be made. I had peer feedback which helped me to gain a perspective from the view of my target audience but as well from teachers who would help me to follow conventions and be continuous with my work.

I got to know the main conventions such as using a medium close up of the model to place in the centre of the front cover this intrigued the audience into the magazine due to a successful and worldwide known artist being the ‘centre of attention’ and over powering the sell lines, as this is what many music magazines do. I also used typical conventions such as placing the barcode at the bottom left handside of the magazine with the date of publish and price, having my magazines name placed at the top in large straight forward font to catch the eye of my target audience and being a dominant feature when placed next to other magazines. I followed conventions such as Q magazine and Billboard with placing my sell lines on both left and right of the page and having them evenly spaced. Another convention I took from a real media text is placing the magazine’s website in the top left hand corner under the masthead. I placed a pull quote on my front page which was another convention I learnt as this relates to what the artist has had to say in an interview within the magazine, this makes the front cover look more interesting and does its job of pulling in the reader and wanting to read the article. Other conventions I pulled from real media texts are using the masthead from the front cover in my contents page and double page spread this further advertises the magazine. I added sections to my contents page which were a ‘featuring’ section and a ‘regulars’ section this showed the reader that every month there was new articles yet the regular Album reviews and such. Subheadings are also conventional so I included these to help the reader understand the magazine and what article they was looking at or wanting to read. Within my double page spread I followed and used conventions by taking inspiration from Q magazine. I used a bold heading to advertise the artists name and this made it clear to understand this is also showed my progression of continuity by being able to use the same font throughout the magazine. Whereas in my preliminary task I was unable to follow most of these conventions and stick to the typical continuity throughout.

Once creating my final products I began to analyse my own front cover, contents page and double page spread against real media texts comparing and contrasting the conventions I used and the conventions I broke and how this fitted with the genre of my product. I did this with magazines such as Q magazine, Billboard and Top of the Pops. I went on to answer which media institution may distribute my products as during my research and planning I looked into how Q, Billboard, Top of the Pops etc are distributed this helped me to gain the knowledge of the main distributors of my genre of magazine. Post production helped me to gain feedback from the 16-24 age range category before the magazine would be published this helped me to gain the understanding of what conventions worked well and what didn’t.

Evaluating my own work made me realise that I gained a lot of skills within the production process from gaining an understanding of an audience as well as using photoshop to make such products that I did and opening a gap in the market for the magazine genre pop/chart. To conclude, I feel that I have developed numerous skills from the preliminary task to the main brief task, this was through the use of learning new skills in technology and theory as I had no experience prior to these tasks therefore helping me to create a final product that was successful with fellow peers.

A2 Brief