Evaluation- Fiona Ward

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The location of our band performance was in front of a pavilion, this location was simplistic and a pavilion similar is seen commonly. We chose this as it shows many indie conventions. The pavilion has aspects that are similar to a stage, if we had used a raised, indoor stage with spotlights, this would have looked professional, and that we were putting a performance on for lots of people, using a flat stage outside is simplistic and conveys a 'casually' put together performance. The fact that the audience may have seen something similar before creates a relationship, it shows that the band are just 'normal people,' this reflects Horton and Wohl's theory of a parasocial relationship. This is the image that most indie bands will attempt to portray, the idea is that they do not focus on having a big ego, for example like a rap artist might do by filming in expensive houses or in expensive cars. Our location shows we are focusing on the music not an egotistic image. Also as we are using acoustic instruments at an outside location this shows that we are on a low budget, another thing typical of indie artists. Also being outside with just our instruments is simplistic, it conveys elements of folk bands, which is seen in our music, it gives the impression that the performance is natural, and that there has been no technical alterations to the track, you get what you see with the band.

As you can see Bombay Bicycle Club use a similar location in their video, being one of our similar artists we have researched they also wish to portray the low budget, individual, 'out there' style. This shows we have used similar conventions to this indie band with our location and formation.

 Indie bands our typically urban and quirky, it is common to use aspects of mise en scene that do not make complete sense within the context of the video, it makes the audience look back at it and watch it again. To coincide with our location of the pavilion we also filmed in front of a row of garages, this shows the things i just mentioned, the band looks urban, quirky and low budget, and also the colours of the garages stand out, and placing band members in front of them therefore makes them stand out even if only showed for a few seconds. This is also a shot that proved popular within our audience feedback because of its individuality. Also lining the band members in front of the garage in height order adds a comical/quirky effect, high lighting the fact of how small the female singer is.

Bombay Bicycle Club have also used a similar location in one of their videos, our image is toned down more to suit the colour scheme.

A lot of indie songs have been written about relationships, it is common to see a video that shows a couple, who have problems in their relationship. Andrew Goodwin's theory involves that the visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics of the song, our video illustrates the lyrics of the song, as it is about a break-up. Also we incorporate aspects of Steve Archer's theory that video's should cut between a narrative and a performance to show a real connection with the song.  Sometimes the lead singer/member of the band will be one person in the relationship seen through the videos narrative, and the other person will be played by a model/actor with no relation to the band, as seen in this song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivnj5J6KCYc . It is rare that two members of the band will play the relationship roles. 

However we developed this convention by having the relationship talked about in the lyrics played by two members of the band. So the video portrays that two of the band members are in a relationship but having problems. This is in the narrative side of the video, however they are also seen playing along side one another as a band for the performance footage. Developing this convention makes the bands image stand out, the relationship may be discussed in 'gossip' magazines bringing the band publicity. It also makes the band seem real, the audience sees what they believe to be the real them, this insight in to the real life of stars is what fascinates people, society thrives on seeing in to peoples lives by watching reality tv and reading magazines, so we know that making part of our stars life public would be shocking yet gripping to our audience. It also again conveys that the band is down to earth, creating a relation between the band and its fans. So although this is not typically seen in indie music exactly, it keeps our band in genre yet interesting.

Another convention we have developed is the use of colour to portray past tense in the narrative of times in the relationship where things seem not to be going well. At first after watching a Laura Marling video (as seen here) we decided that desaturating footage would drain colour and give a vintage effect to show past tense as not to confuse the audience, also the dull image helps portray sadness and negative connotations. Dull lighting and bland colouring are often used in indie videos to give a vintage look, however we did not feel like this contrasted enough with the other images. We wanted parts to be instantly recognizable as in the past.

 So to develop the convention we decided to use black and white for parts of the video conveying narrative flashbacks. The contrast from the bright colourful images to the black and white shows the different emotions portrayed in the song. It shows separation and a void from happiness environment. Black and white also shows vintage connotations as this is what tv would have been like in the past. Black and white footage saves any confusion over why the relationship would have one minute seemed fine, then tense to the audience as the effect is immediately recognizable as past tense.

 Conventions we challenged could be that we had a female band member. A large proportion of indie bands are all male like the foals as seen here. It could be said that indie bands often have a reputation of having an attitude and a party lifestyle. Some often portray the image that they are rude and don't care what people say. Having a female band member takes away this edge.

Our female singer brings individuality, it brings opportunities for things such as our relationship seen in the video. It brings a softer more appealing sound to the track also, and sexual attraction can be conveyed by both sexes appealing to a wider audience. It shows folk aspects also as they often have female band members, conveying hybridding of genres. Sigmund Freud's theory of subverted voyeurism states that female artists can appear sexually provocative with a sexual gaze, however we do not use sex appeal in an obvious way as it is not fitting with our genre. 

Another convention we challenged was the imposing of the band on to the tv, this image is not as simplistic as the other footage previously seen. It is more commonly seen in higher budget, R'n'B/ pop videos as it is a more complicated technique. Also the fact that the band is being played on tv shows connotations of fame, taking the ego of the band up a bit. This uses digital effect to offer different kinds of pleasure for the audience. 

This is an example of this shown in this pop video, imposing his image on to what was then modern technology gives a modern feel, contrasting to why we used this technique.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

To elaborate we have put together an image that is conveyed through our clothes that is seen throughout the video, we have not portrayed our female singer according with Laura Mulvey's theory of obvious sex appeal, we maintain an indie style that we are serious about our music. We have a pastel colour scheme throughout all three products, and also have a hand drawn front cover to make the band seem artistic and individual.  

What did you learn from your audience feedback?

Our audience feedback showed us what locations were most effective, such as the garages, so these were used for a bigger proportion of the filming. Feedback for our first version of the video raised timing issues, we realised that our instruments were slightly slower than they should be to make the playing of the instruments look realistic, so using final cut we sped up the time a little to help resolve this issue. We found that people liked the idea of a narrative that reflects the lyrics of the song, so we continued the narrative throughout the song, bringing it to a close with a band shot to show unity once again. People found the stop motion part impressive and effective, so we used the technique again in another part of the video.

How Did you use Media Technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Just to clarify what is talked about in this video media technologies we used include youtube for screen grabs to post on to the blog to show examples of conventions simialr artists have used. we can also use youtube for audience feedback to gain pro's and cons of footage that we have filmed, and change things to better it. The HD cameras give a professional finish to our video. The convergence of being able to takr photos and film on teh cameras is also helpful. Final cut express enables us to cut and edit our footage, to make it fit more in to the genre. Blogger, our hub for work, keeps all our work organsied and our ideas clearly represented with the oppurtunity to comment and give feedback. Youtube clips can be embedded in to html to show visually examples we are talking about. Facebook helped to us to organise meetings and filming times, we also had our own facebook page for our band, we uploaded our video to this which helped to get audience feedback also. Photoshop was helpful as it meant we could work in layers, we could desaturate colour from the pictures to help them to fit in to the colour scheme for our digipack, and can impose text on to the pictures.