Danny Buckley A2 media

Used

Performance

When doing the planning for our media product we found a key feature that featured in nearly all indie genres and that was the performance with an acoustic guitar. Therefore we made sure that we had performance shots in our music video as it represents our sub genre (Acoustic-indie) heavily with the use of an acoustic guitar being in shot or being played when performing. As our song is based around a singer with a guitar in hand, this was important to enhance this feature in our final products including also the digi pack and magazine advert. I found that Indie music artists tend to accentuate the use of guitars throughout their texts perhaps to prove themselves in a way that shows they can actually play giving them a chance to showcase their talents. We showed this view from the very start of the music video with the artist picking up the guitar of the wall and start playing straight away. This gave the audience the view from the start that the artist is a genuine talented musician which is key to the indie genre. We got ideas from videos such as Joshua Radin's "I'd rather be with you" which did lots of close ups of the artist playing the guitar from varied angles this shows that the artist is gifted with an instrument as well as with his voice. so we then used these shots during our music video.

Mise en scene- costume
One convention that we stuck with throughout our media project was that of costume. We made sure that the outfits our artist would wear in our music video and digi pack would all have an indie feeling to them so that they would stick to our genre and make our artist recognisable to the audience.
To reach a decision on what the artist would wear we looked on look book on sites such as asos.com and urbanoutfitters.com to see what and indie dress code is and then we did a post on possible outfits.

We decided to select a parka coat, black skinny jeans and brogues for our outdoor clothing and indoors, a grey jumper and black jeans. I think this combination of clothes really represents the indie genre as this is the typical style and seems casual/laid back that acoustic artists would go for.

These two conventions are ones we stuck with as they are key to the indie genre so it would make our video and digi pack look very authentic and proffesional

Develop

Camera- POV

Our first developed convention was the POV shot. We first saw this particular shot in action during Calvin Harris' video: I need your love. Although its a completely different genre to indie we felt that it would work well in our video. However in Calvin Harris' video the whole of it uses a POV shot. Another factor of the video was the whole thing was during present day, as if they were filming then and there, we wanted to use this shot as a gateway into our artists past. This is how we developed this shot, we used it at certain points in our song to show some of the artists memories. This technique made the video seem more realistic to the audience as they were watching memories that been recorded by the video camera. It also makes the audience part of the Artists journey as they know more and more about the artists as the video goes on. The POV also allows the audience to see the lost love which is a key convention in the genre. so overall the POV shot has allowed us to build up the story in the video without making it boring or predictable for the audience.

Camera- Lighting

We used and developed is lighting, most of the the lighting in our video uses light from the sun however usually Indie videos have an image of the sun at the beginning; however in our video we use this at the end. This is because we wanted to us it as a metaphor for the artist having a new life. The sunlight represents this and it also suggests he has happier times ahead. We felt this worked well as it allowed the audience to see a glimpse into the future of the artist as well as making it more entertaining as we have also used a different type of shot at the end, low angle shot of the sun. We also had to dim and brighten light at certain parts to emphasise the emotion of the certain part of the song. As well as helping to keep the focus of song on the artists feelings, lighting also helped us to make the picture quality better in some parts of the video as some of the footage was far to bright to use. So overall lighting was vital in helping to portray the artists emotions throughout the video, however we developed the convention as well used some lighting were it would normally not be used.

Challenged

Overlay

Overlay, this is where we used an overlap of two shots at the same time. Final cut express was tricky to use at this point as when we got the overlay working it made the people look like ghosts. Then we realised we could use the tree in the middle and use two shots differently on either side. This made the clarity a lot better. We first received inspiration from Olly Murs' video: Dear Darlin. This uses an overlay to reflect the better times for the artist. However we challenged this as we used it to show the artist letting go of the memories he has of his lost love. Overall I think the overlay allowed us to really portray the artists emotions towards the lost love and it also allows us to portray to the audience that he is 'letting go', but in a realistic way.