Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Below is a transcript of what I spoke about in the camera interview:

Explain why you think it is important to evaluate your work

It is vital to evaluate your work, especially when receiving feedback from a target audience because after all, they are the consumers who determine the success of the product. By evaluating your work, it informs you whether what you have already created is working and how effectively it is working but in some cases how it is not working. Following this, it allows you to realise the extent of improvement or adaptation that is needed to benefit your work for not only yourself and group members but for the target audience to receive ultimate satisfaction of the products. Evaluation of work also increases your focus in regard to what needs to occur in the future of the product in aim for it to fulfil total effectiveness and enjoyment. Lastly, evaluating your work is a fundamental process within the project because it assesses whether the brief was considered throughout. In our case, our brief was to create a music video to support the song of our chosen artist in conjunction to 2 ancillary products which include a digipak and magazine advert, promoting the central product. It was our decision however whether we wanted to develop or challenge the genre of which we selected and thoroughly researched. Depending on our decision, we knew it would have a profound effect on the feedback we received from our target audience therefore we understood the importance of making a decent one; a decision which would benefit both us as Media practitioners and also our consumers.

Explain why you picked YouTube to showcase your music video

In addition to the ever-changing music industry developing, the technology we use and simultaneously take for granted each day has expanded whilst becoming more affordable and accessible by a mass audience of which consume it as much as the air in which we breathe. This therefore has a direct effect on the way in which music videos are consumed. Music video consumption has undoubtedly increased over the years due to technology evolving, therefore artists are now using social networking sites to their advantage (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) to announce release dates and share their art form with a mass audience, also users of social media on a day to day basis. YouTube was born in 2005 which offers a free service, available to everyone who has internet access the opportunity to upload, share and view video content of any genre from comedy to music to tutorial to documentary which is why it is so popular with many; because it offers something for every user as each user is unique and has their individual preferences. YouTube is a great online platform to showcase both our rough cut and final music video because it is easily accessible by the audience of young people we are trying to reach through our products. You can also share the URL link of the video to other social networking sites including our main source of communication: Facebook. When promoting our rough cut video to receive vital target audience feedback on what they feel is necessary to adapt/improve upon to make the final music video a success, many group members shared the link to Facebook to inform a large amount of people rather than relying solely upon 'word of mouth' to distribute our product. This proved successful as we gained 250 views (to date) on our Rough Cut upload to YouTube which we were extremely impressed with. We believe the amount of views by audiences have a direct correlation to sharing it on Facebook. Therefore, choosing YouTube to showcase/distribute our products was effective because it is easily accessible and easy to link to/share with various other social networking sites, resulting in more views which in turn increases audience feedback: something we relied upon to make the appropriate changes from our rough cut version of the music video we had created to the final product.

Include 3 to 4 audience comments that you received as feedback of your products

As a group, we conducted an interview with key people highlighted within our target audience to explore what they felt about our final music video. Because our target audience consists of females aged 16-15, we felt it was important to ask a number of people within the age range to receive reliable feedback. Our first interview was with Bethany Smith aged 16. Bethany stated: “When watching an Indie music video, I expect to see the artist perform with an instrument which is typical for the genre. I think you have created a video that links to the supporting products as they are coherent in regard to the components you have combined together such as the artist Indie style image with her messy hair and red lipstick. I also think the locations you have used throughout your music video link to the song Noserings & Shoestrings because it mentions a skate park in the lyrics. Well done!”

We also interviewed Karen Jarvis aged 19 who stated: “I think your framing of shots are good because the artist is central which is important when promoting her. However, I believe that the quality of your camera is not as highly defined as you would expect to see in a professional music video. Also, although I think your digipak follows conventions of the Indie genre, I believe your magazine advert does not. This is because I don't see how the brick wall is relevant as I have seen it used in more grime/hip-hop genres”

In addition to Karen, we questioned Penelope Miller aged 21. Penelope stated: “I really enjoyed your music video, mainly because the storyline links to the lyrics the artist is seen singing in the performance shots. I think that young people can relate to this storyline of a broken relationship and can therefore build a relationship with the artist. I also find your digipak effective because it really shows the artist in a positive light so the artist can act as a role model and potentially persuade people to express themselves with the guitar shots you included too”

Lastly, there was Samantha Hedge aged 25 who we interviewed to receive feedback upon our final music video. Samantha stated: “Although I enjoyed your music video and was introduced to a new artist of my favourite music genre, I wanted to see more of the artist performing because it looked believable and not like the bad lip-syncing videos you often see. I think the narrative was effective because it links to the lyrics, however, I would have liked to see the argument scene at the end earlier on and seen the consequences of her boyfriend’s actions much sooner for dramatic effect to feel sympathy for the artist”

Did you take on board the audience comments/ change anything?

Once I had created a rough cut of my music video I showcased it on YouTube and Facebook. I then received comments which I took on board and used to assist my group in making changes to our music video to produce a high quality final product. A male aged 17 suggested that we should contrast the performance shots and also some outdoor shots so that they flow evenly and improve the quality and appearance of our music video overall. As a group we discussed this comment and decided that we agreed with what the male said. We therefore incorporated an effect onto these specific shots which allowed us to change the brightness of them so they were coherent with the contrast of the rest of the shots in our music video. I believe by taking this comment on board it has allowed the quality of our music video to increase drastically. A female aged 40, advised that we alter a zoom in shot of our artists boyfriend as it zoomed into his chest and not face, and therefore was irrelevant to the music video. We took this advice on board and replaced the camera shot with a more affective camera shot of the artist’s boyfriend which we believed makes the narrative flow more evenly within this section. A male aged 19 suggested that we should crop the mid camera shots of our artists performance. This was due to a different coloured wall being evident in the shot. As a group we decided that this was a vital element to alter in our music video so that the quality of the mid performance shots was not lowered.

How did the comments make you feel as a Media producer and how would your feedback help if you were working in the music industry?

As a group of Media producers creating a product for audiences to consume, receiving these comments on our final music video made us feel as though we had met the initial brief successfully and satisfied our consumers. Although we received a combination of positive comments praising our products, we also received some constructive and critical comments. We were not disheartened by the negative comments however, because if we were working within the industry of music, it would allow us to reflect on which elements we could improve upon to determine success from a mass audience and of course, approval from the artist we were working with. The positive comments however reinforced the fact that we have created conventional products which appeal to our young female target audience. By having people who had never seen our products before (with fresh eyes) commenting on them, it allowed us to reflect upon our creations critically and realise what we could possibly adapt and improve upon if we were provided with the opportunity to do so.

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation of Media products

Explain what you brief was

My A2 coursework required a combination of individual and group work. As individuals, we conducted research into various elements of music videos, music genres and the music industry in general and maintained a blog as part of this. This research was prior to the creation of the music video and ancillary products because it was our research that assisted us in creating the products due to target audience research highly influencing it as they are the people consuming our products. My brief was to create a music video to support the song of our chosen artist in conjunction to 2 ancillary products which include a digipak and magazine advert, promoting the central product. Whilst planning and creating my products, my group had to consider whether we wanted to either strictly follow or bravely subvert the conventions/characteristics traditionally associated with the genre we had chosen. After conducting market research consisting of interviews and questionnaires, we created video Vox Pops showing key people we interviewed and also collated all of the information we found from the general public into easily understandable/visually appealing pie charts. It then quickly became apparent who our target audience was, which made planning and creating our products much easier as we gained an insight into what they wanted the music video and ancillary texts to contain. My chosen artist is named Nina Nesbitt and the song I chose to explore and create visual content for in form of a supporting music video, digipak and magazine advert is entitled Noserings & Shoestrings.

Introduce your group members

My group consisted of 3 other members including Emma Harris, someone I had worked with for our AS-Level task. Emma has a particularly good technical ability when working on the necessary software that was required to use throughout our brief including Photoshop for the ancillary texts and Final Cut Pro to edit our music video. I also chose to work with Millie Cooper. Unlike Emma, I had never worked with Millie before but this was not something that affected our working relationship as we quickly learned what each other’s strengths were and used them to our advantage. We chose to work together because we work effectively and bounce off of each other’s creativity which was imperative for this particular production. Millie has an effective attention to detail which is a good strength to consider when working as a group as it is often easy to forget about what our target audience want from our products. Lastly, my final group member was Ella Sutherland, who like myself was particularly intrigued by camera operating and framing. Ella was mostly responsible for the last section of the music video in which the argument at the skate park takes place; a fundamental scene in which the audience sympathise with the artist.

Explain what your role was and what you were responsible for and what you learned from it

My role within the group was to co-ordinate the mise-en-scene that was used throughout my music video production. The mise-en-scene is everything that was visible on camera from the location which I was responsible for sourcing and managing if anything unsettled our film schedule to the costume in which the artist is wearing on screen. By organising important elements within the production, I had a huge responsibility on my shoulders if things were not how they should be. As part of this role, I had the responsibility of sourcing the variety of iconography. Iconography is a huge part of my music video, especially the artists guitar in which she performs with throughout. As evident during the final scene of the video, my group and I wanted the artists boyfriend to ruin an important aspect of her life which was her beloved guitar. It was obvious that we were not going to smash the guitar used throughout the performance shots as it belongs to its owner, therefore, I managed to source a very inexpensive guitar which was not generally useable. Because of its lack of worth, this guitar was used by the artists boyfriend to vent his anger towards his girlfriend as she discovers his alcohol bottle (“inside his vest”= lyrics) The remaining iconography worked on a symbolic level. For example, the spray paint cans were used to express their love for each other during the shots in which the artist is reflecting upon better times of their relationship. Another example of symbolic iconography is the playing cards. Although they are mentioned in the lyrics (“with his lighter and his pack of cards”), we discussed that by using the printed King and Queen of hearts cards within the pack and allowing the boyfriend to burn them within a skate park shot, it would symbolise how their relationship is detraining, therefore, burning them was an effective way of presenting his attitude towards his girlfriend alongside his self-destructive and “misguided” persona. Sparklers were another piece of iconography used within the video which also worked on a symbolic level. During the shots in which the artist is reflecting upon their relationship, the sparklers are ignited, visible in a close-up shot, but then the final shot is a close-up of the sparklers burning out completely which is representative of their relationship as the spark is now essentially missing; a symbol of their broken relationship. Despite this, within this shot, one of the sparklers shown still burning out which could symbolise a possible hope for the future of their relationship. Other iconography in which I had to source was the artists false nosering, the boyfriends skateboard, the alcohol bottle (which we filled with water), a lighter and cigarettes.

In addition to my role of mise-en-scene co-ordinator, I also gained the crucial role of location manager. Within this role I had to select the appropriate locations to use which were both easy to access and visually appealing.

At the beginning of this production, I expressed my passion of performing and therefore volunteered myself to be used as the artist within the music video and supporting ancillary products. I thoroughly enjoyed embodying the role of an Indie artist, lip-syncing and acting with my onstage boyfriend. I felt it was important to portray the meaning of the song and the emotions in which the original artist felt when writing the song, and therefore I held a large responsibility to ensure audiences would sympathise with my story and believe in my performance.

Although I was the artist and was therefore seen in front of the camera, I also expressed an interest in operating the camera. Therefore, I took the responsibility of filming the opening shots of the artists boyfriend wasting his time at the skate park drinking and consuming alcohol. This was probably my most favoured and enjoyable role because I learned new technical skills such as framing and positioning whilst successfully developing basic skills I learned in my AS-Level Thriller production of which I had the role of Director. During my role of camera operator (although it wasn't my main role) I learned how to co-operate with others, especially the actor in which I had to talk to in aim to make him feel comfortable and at ease whilst being filmed embodying a role he has never before.

I believe that by adopting a variety of different roles throughout this production it has allowed me to explore all of my interests within the subject whilst gaining vital experience that I can take with me and potentially develop upon again in the future.

Did your group work well?

As a group I believe we worked extremely effectively considering it was the first task in which we all came together as a collective. From the start we made it clear who was allocated to each role and had a good work ethic as a collective. All discussions we had were participated as a group and any concerns raised were documented and improved upon as soon as they were addressed. Also, we all conducted research and had numerous sessions in which we all feedback to the group which information was relevant because we believe sharing ideas benefitted each member because one idea could potentially develop another and so forth. We also held consistent meetings to maintain the awareness of our products and the conventions of our genre as we strongly believed that our products would be a success if we developed the genre in any way possible. Another strength of us all working together as a group was that we are all very open minded people which meant any suggestions that deviated from original plan were considered, despite the fact we had a clear vision from the start of how we wanted our final product to be perceived by our target audience.

Explain if you think you have made a successful music video and ancillary texts

In my opinion, I believe that we have created a successful music video, more so than our ancillary products due to the feedback we have received as a result of constructing and distributing them to our target audience of females aged 16-25. My products are successful because they are not only coherent with each other and flow continuously due to the repeated conventional elements embedded within. All products follow the correct characteristics of the Indie genre and develop it by doing so.

What is a music video?

A music video is primarily identified as a 'short film' integrating a song and imagery or supporting the sound which may be produced for many reasons. In a contemporary world, music videos are commonly produced for promotional (financial) or artistic purposes (expressive)

Music videos are created for a number of reasons. Music videos a few decades ago were mainly used to showcase the talent of the artist, therefore an artist’s image was absolutely fundamental in creating success. However, nowadays music videos are centrally used as a marketing tool. An artist may create a music video in aim to promote the single itself, then the next step is people becoming aware of its existence, therefore engaging a wider audience whilst encouraging others to share their opinions and speak about it, thus increasing its popularity. This means more people will listen to the song and will be subconsciously persuaded to listen to more of the artists other works, thus increasing the artist’s success simultaneously benefitting the audience as they become more interested and therefore the entertainment value is also risen.

Another purpose of a music video is to allow audiences to buy into the artist portrayed lifestyle. Although this purpose fulfils that of a similar nature to the above point regarding successful marketing tools, instead of promoting the song, the artist will at some point in the video promote a product/brand. This encourages the target audience to buy into the artist’s lifestyle, leading them to believe that if they were to buy this product/brand they would become more like the artist themselves. However what they are really doing is making the product more successful as they would be selling more, therefore benefitting the company/product/brand more so than the artist as the frame time used to promote the other thing loses time for the artist to showcase their talent. Despite this, it does in some way benefit the artist as it suggests the brand would like to be associated with the artist which therefore displays the fact that they are successful and have 'made it' within the industry.

Music videos are also used to present a short narrative whilst suggesting a snippet of the artists representation and image, an imperative tool used throughout the industry. Many artists may want to create a music video in order for their fans/target audience to have a deeper understanding of the artist themselves. This may be mainly evident in a performance style music video. This may lead to the target audience liking the artist more and then encouraging the success of the song. It may also make the target audience want to be more like the artist as they have learnt something of them which subconsciously promotes the artist themselves as people are trying to be like them.

Attracting target audience, no matter the size (mass or niche) is imperative in succeeding within the music industry, and is mainly reliant upon the record labels efforts to the artist (how much time, money and resources they invest) A music video has many ways in which it can appeal/attract to a target audience according to the genre of music and the artist themselves. For example, if Justin Bieber was to create a pop song, his music video to this track would not appeal to his target audience if he were to promote money, drugs and the derogatory exposure of women within the video, as these are conventions often seen in the genre of hip hop. Instead if he were to have himself perceived to be treating females in a flattering manner and were to have his top off, this would attract his target audience as most of this consists of teenage girls who would therefore see him as desirable. This expands his fan base making it grow and therefore so does his success.

If an audience remember/can recall moments within the video/ it's style/content, the music video is considered a success. A video can be either unambiguous and simplistic or completely different and deemed to be ambiguous, creative, innovative and thus suggested to be addressed as dynamic and diverse. Either overall style can be effective and successful, as long as it is relevant for the audience to relate to and executed properly/professionally. For example, although the video to Thriller by Jackson was released over a decade ago, it is remembered by audiences on a global scale due to it's iconic choreography and elaborate costumes/location/make-up, also due to the strong narrative and performance elements embedded throughout. Due to audiences being able to recall moments of a certain music video it makes the genre and artist successful as they have had an overall effective impact upon their target audience, whether that be mass or niche.

It is absolutely fundamental that some sort of connection/relationship is built between the audience and artist, especially in the past decade as technology has developed, leaving a gap within the online market for the artist to share their art form/opinions/phatic talk with their fans upon social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and most recently; share photos of their lifestyle/performances upon Instagram. In regards to music videos, it is also important that there is some form of interaction within, whether this be eye contact with the camera/showing clips of their performance (with audience members recognised within the crowd) A present interaction within a music video encourages a relationship built between artist and audience and therefore appeals to the target audience as they feel included and important in the artist’s life and will encourage them to continue watching the music video continuously and therefore are listening to the song boosting its success.

Audiences are able to understand more about the song if the music video follows the narrative style and relates/is parallel to the lyrics. This is very important and much like the other purposes of a music video, increases the artists success. This purpose relates to the idea of the relationship built between the audience and artist as it allows the audience a deeper insight therefore understanding also into their tool of expression: their favoured art form.

There are 3 main different styles used to determine music videos. They lay under the categories of concept, narrative and finally performance. They all adopt varying elements and certain characteristics are also identified through all 3. Although some videos may have no literal meaning, others may be figurative and hold more symbolic connotations. Some videos may be purely performance or purely concept whilst others may choose to combine 2 or 3 of the styles to create innovative, inspiring and thus successful pieces of art accompanied by audio. An audience can identify these 3 styles through a percentage, for example the video to One Direction's 'One Thing' is 100% performance from the boy band whilst the music video to James Blunt 'You're Beautiful' is a combination of all 3 elements (possibly a 25% concept, 25% narrative and 50% performance split) However a director choses to split the 3 styles/choses to use which ever style, it will no doubt fulfil the aim of engaging and entertaining audiences.

A concept music video often promotes an idea or movement which may or may not go against the ideals of society. It frequently is used to encourage the audience to become open minded to a situation or idea i.e. homosexuality. A music video which follows this style more so than the other elements is Christina Aguilera, 'Beautiful' because it explores social differences and presents them to be normalities, an issues we as an audience can identify and relate to.

The next style of music video is narrative which is traditionally embedded within the majority of music videos. A music video that has a narrative may be used to allow the audience a deeper understanding of a track as the lyrics and narrative often correlate in order to create this. An example of this is The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars which has an almost equal split between both narrative and performance. Although it has the performance element, the lyrics tell the audience a story of the artists typical 'lazy' day in which he will do a number of things. The dancing men dressed in monkey costumes act out this story, therefore acting as an informative and entertaining narrative which works effectively (on a very low budget too!)

Finally, the most popular music video style is performance. This consists of the artist simply performing the song with the music video which is used to show the actual artist within the video in order to appeal to the audience. The video to Who You Are by Pop artist Jessie J is very simplistic yet effective. The artist is shown in one location of a hotel room, looking into the camera and performing. This shows her expressing her inner emotions embedded within the poignant lyrics of the song and also shows her raw talent for acting as a role model to many young people. A large percentage of this video is elapsed of the artist performing to the camera in a very raw and emotional way. This video does not rely on hundreds of different shots from different angles but instead relies solely on one mid-shot which means it is consistently expressing the artists emotions of struggling to come to terms of who she is, as hinted in the song title. The singular mid-shot repeated throughout depict a static atmosphere and engages audiences to follow her story of identity.

Indie music videos often follow the styles of heavy performance and light narrative; therefore we decided to use a combination of the two for my own production. Understanding what a music video really is and how different styles and components effect and engage audiences has assisted us when planning, constructing, distributing and evaluating our own.

Explain what the codes and conventions of an Indie music video are

Indie is the genre defined as a short-form of "independence" or "independent" and is a genre within the industry of musical distribution. Indie music originated in the 80's with bands including The Smiths and Joy Division who became very successful considering they belonged to smaller, Independent record labels (which is not generally known). Indie bands then turned into Indie solo artists which became increasingly popular in more recent years. Artists classified to produce modern Indie music include our chosen artist Nina Nesbitt in addition to Ed Sheeran, Passenger and Laura Marling who are known to have huge, loyal fan bases, much like The Smiths did in the 80's. The general Indie sound is melodic with the use of simple yet textured and effective instruments which traditionally includes acoustic guitar and the artists voice alone. Instruments which have recently been introduced into the Indie genre include a simple drum beat, keyboard, violin, banjo and ukulele. Lyrics which construct Indie songs often develop a strong emotion without sounding mainstream, a play on words and are often very original. Features/components you would never hear listening to an Indie song would include the use of synthesizers or an effect layered onto the artists true voice which is why it appeals to a niche (independent) audience. Fans of Indie music are known not to want their favoured artist to become too popular as it essentially ruins their originality, afraid they will lose touch of their Indie roots to become mainstream therefore benefit from fame and fortune more so than being associated and admired by a niche audience, gaining more fans and a mass market appeal.

I first introduced my group members to the artist Nina Nesbitt, a new and upcoming artist associated with the Indie genre. Her work has a melancholy sound accompanied with meaningful and evocative lyrics which makes her as an artist particularly popular amongst young females of which we aim to target. Typically within a music video belonging to the Indie genre, audiences would expect to see close-ups of acoustic guitars, live performances, vintage clothing, flowers, eye-liner and red lipstick.

My group was in a good position when creating our music video because the song we chose to work with entitled Noserings & Shoestrings does not have an existing video, therefore we had a completely blank canvas to take advantage of. We were worried that if we chose a song which has a memorable video that our audience would make comparisons between the two, so to use a song that is almost unknown to distribute visually to an audience consisting of females aged 16-25 is a good thing for us. Also, our chosen artist is fairly new to the industry which means she currently appeals to a niche audience. We hope that by creating our 3 products we will introduce new audiences to her music.

Explain if your finished music video and ancillary texts develops or challenges your chosen music genre

I strongly believe that my finished music video in addition to the ancillary texts my group and I have created develops and follows our chosen music genre of Indie more so than challenging it for many reasons. 

We ensured that throughout the construction process we referred back to the research we had collected to enable us to empathise with our target audience as they are the people consuming our products. After researching conventional elements within the genre, we inserted them within our planning process to ensure our products were highly conventional and therefore easy for our target audience to understand and connect with. We also referenced to Indie music videos throughout our construction process to enable us to develop typical genre characteristics which are overall fairly simple. 




All products follow the genre because they achieve an organic outlook, especially regarding the artists image. This is as opposed to an artificial, manufactured image that artists of mainstream genres would use as they would be dictated by designers and/or their record label who would preferably like to sell them as a commodity as suggested in Dyer’s Star Theory. Our artist contrasts this as she belongs to a more organic music genre in which natural instruments are used rather than synthesisers. The use of the iconography of a guitar also assists in following the typical Indie genre due to the sound the audience are listening to being paralell to the visuals and therefore allowing the audience to understand the genre. Guitars are often seen amongst music videos originating from Indie artists because a majority of artists from the genre accquire the talent to play the instrument and therefore allow it to support them visually. By using a guitar, it also follows the genre by engaging audiences further into the product and possibly inspire others to learn how to play and potentially enter the ever growing industry with a fresh talent to offer to audiences. Audiences who favour the Indie genre often prefer to feel intimate with the artist for example by attending gigs and live performances to engage further within their art form, therefore, by using a performance element within our music video it enables the audience to witness the artist perform without seeing her live, an opportunity many would enjoy due to the intimacy of the event as it allows them to connect and potentially build a relationship with the artist by doing so; very typical of the genre. The products also follow genre characteristics of Indie due to the location choices adopted within them. Locations are crucially important to the success of any products because they serve a purpose of being visually appealing to the audience and also represents the artists personality in addition to thematically linking with the song lyrics in some way. After analysing the lyrics to our chosen song, we concluded that it adopted naturalistic imagery in terms of lighting and natural locations. Therefore, we chose to shoot the artists still images to be used in the two ancillary products in a forest location in addition to shooting some natural scenes of the artist performing in the forest. Due to this, it allowed the products to be coherent with each other which therefore enables audiences to make the connection between all products and their conventional elements. We found by watching other music videos of the Indie genre that many used forest locations which is why we felt it was ideally suited to our video. Forests are conventional to our chosen genre of Indie because they have naturalistic connotations, present natural lighting (something we felt was symbolic to the lyrics) and also express the artist to be a relatable figure for audiences to build a relationship with. Forests are also peaceful which was effective for the scenes we shot of the artist performing with her guitar, not concious that the cameras were there to make the audience feel as if they were exclusively (and almost voyeristically) watching her in her own 'little world'; the forest which was presented as her private thinking space in which she could escape to when issues with her boyfriend were arising. The clothing in which the artist is seen wearing throughout all 3 products is also highly conventional and thus follows the Indie genre and what audiences would percieve to originate from the Indie persona. Daisy wears a floral dress throughout the concluding scene of the video in addition to the 2 ancillary products which seemingly follows the trend in which audiences who favour Indie music wear and therefore allows the audiences to refer to her as a natural and inspiring figure unlike artists of the Pop genre for example who may not be viewed to be relatable (mainly due to clothing being unaffordable and promoting top designers) 

When conducting research into other Indie products, we found that the style of music video consisted of a large performance element with the minority remaining as a performance or concept. We wanted to develop the genre by changing this performance to narrative ratio and did so by shooting a large narrative section followed by snippets of performance to distort audiences expectations and thus, developing the typical Indie genre as part of this. When watching videos including artists such as Passenger and Ellie Goulding who derive from such genre, we concluded that they preferred performing to the camera rather than telling and showing story to express the connotations of the song. When creating our video, we considered our research throughout all aspects including the planning, construction and editing to ensure we were vitally meeting what the audience wanted to see and also developing the genre successfully in a way that doesn't quite follow conventions but doesn't challenge them, therefore finding a balance was crucial. Skate park locations are often seen in videos of the Rock/Punk/Hip-hop genre and therefore, by using it as a central location for our ancillary texts, it is unconventional as it is not traditionally associated with the Indie genre.

Although our products are highly conventional, we have chosen to challenge a few genre characteristics associated with Indie to make them appear more unique and quirky and not completely strict to what audiences expect. We have done this by adopting a fast-paced editing style post-production, which breaks the typical conventions of our chosen genre and in turn, challenges it. The scene in which the artist and her love interest are lighting sparklers is the scene in which we decided fast-paced editing would suit, as it communicates the idea that time goes quickly when they are together also connoting a happy relationship, acting as a sense of foreboding for events to come. We also sped up particular shots of the artists boyfriend acting nihilistically alone at the skate park for example the mid shot of him drinking with the graffiti covered ramp behind him in addition to the mid-shot of his cigarette. This technique was easily achievable on Final Cut Pro X and we found it was effective because it further highlights his rebellious persona and suggests that he favours a fast paced, exciting and adventurous lifestyle as opposed to a conventional one. We also used a creative camera shot we call the '360 degree establishing shot' We filmed each panning shot of the skatepark seperately in 4 sections, flipped the shot using FCPX tools, cut them appropriately using the blade tool and finally added in a 'blur' transition to make the sequence appear smooth and coherent. This shot ultimately shows the audience the location in a creative way and allows them to explore it and be put in the artists boyfriends frame of mind by observing the location which is vitally important to our products. It's not conventional to see an innovative camera shot like this within a music video of the Indie genre and therefore we have challenged the genre. After receiving feedback from our audience regarding our rough cut music video, our first and unfinished version which we chose to distribute onto YouTube, we decided to follow an audience members advice. We were advised to crop and contrast a few shots in order for them to look like a more professional product within the industry as it has to compete with other music videos of a higher standard which may have used a much vaster budget to produce. We found that by following this consumers advice, our product appeared more professional and of a higher standard. This challenges the simplicity of our chosen Indie genre as evident in Lorde's video to Royals, an Indie pop record. Within the video, we see the artist perform in front of a white wall which inspired us for our artists performance element. However, Lorde does not play an instrument which isn't highly conventional of what people expect from Indie. Despite this, beside the artist is a light switch which makes the video appear more rustic and natural as opposed to just a plain wall background which is what we have chosen to adopt. Before cropping these performance shots of Daisy, a different coloured wall was evident on the right-hand corner and therefore suggested the video was not shot in a studio like many artists but instead, an ordinary house location which enables fans to connect with the artist as she does not appear as an unrelatable figure. We were also advised to change the contrast of many indoor shots (the combination of close and mid-shots of the artists performance) which would enhance the intensity of colour and alter the naturalistic lighting. We found this allowed us for a more professional and fresh looking outcome but by doing so, it challenged the simplicity of the Indie genre which we initially set out not to do. A disadvantage of challenging the genre is the risk of alienating audiences who may expect to see a fluently conventional product. Despite this, there is an advantage which overpowers the negatives which is that it engages our target audience and provides them with something innovative they haven't seen before and therefore, enjoy our product because it is something different and breaks their expectations, thus becoming more memorable.


Our products flow evenly with each other because they use exact locations and the artist is pictured wearing the same outfit throughout one scene in the video in addition to both ancillary texts in aim the audience will notice this. Therefore, Daisy has increased chances of being perceived as a highly relatable figure who has the potential to become a role model due to her empowering lyrics where she identifies the issue of her ‘misguided’ boyfriend and tackles them throughout the video. She therefore is presented to be strong-minded and educates the target audience.