Evaluation Question 1 draft

For this question I shall be presenting it using prezi.

The media product which I shall be evaluating is my own coursework piece. The song that we decided to use was 'Always where I need to be' by the Kooks. During the planning of my piece I did a lot of research into what makes a music video successful I did this by looking at other music videos which matched the genre of the song which was indie rock, I also looked at the different codes and conventions of a music video so I knew what I needed to place in my music video to make it a successful music video. Looking at indie rock music videos I found a common trend, this trend was that these videos where mainly performance based videos so this made me think that performance based videos is what the target market want and like so we made the coursework piece a performance based video. Another code and convention for indie rock bands was the look they had, so in my research we found that the outfit that most band members had was skinny black jeans, leather jackets or t-shirts with other bands on them this we felt was a very odd look however most bands are owned with  independent record company's so this cheapish look looked very well at showing the genre of the music. Having done this research we tried to match this look as best we could. But we didn't want to copy other bands as we wanted our band to stand out and not just blend in with the other indie bands that already existed. The band members that are in my band are Alex (Paddy) finch as lead singer, Guy finch as bass guitarist, Jack leach as drummer and John Dillon as lead guitarist. These boys looked quite similar which I also found from doing my research that band members may look like each other ever so slightly which also I found the target market like. The boys were dressed in clothes that they thought where indie so all of them had skinny black trousers on. Paddy had a leather jacket and boots on this look was found to match most indie band lead singers so having that was good as its what the target market like. Guy had another bands t-shirt on and jack had a top which he had pulled the sleeves up to make the top like a vest and john had a light blue top on. The look the boys had made them look like a real band which was key in the development of our coursework and it is a convention as most indie rock bands look rather similar. The next convention which is key for an indie rock music video is props that are used. The props that we used for our band are very stereotypical for a band so their was a mic, 2 guitars and a drum set with sticks these props were used throughout the music video. We also paid close attention to the detail needed to make the music video look even more realistic so we had amps for the guitars and had the wires plugged in, we also had headphones for both Jack and Paddy to wear in the music studio, this was vital as this is what these types of band members need when making a song as they need to hear the beat of the song so they can match it with their singing and drumming, these headphones where also plugged in just to add to the verisimilitude of the video. When analysing any type of music video the element that is looked at in proper detail is the camera angles and movement. Before we started filming our music video we did some research into the types of shots that are used in indie rock music videos so that we could see about trying some of those shots in our coursework piece. We used loads of different shots and angles as we didn't want the video to be boring and as this song is quite a fasted paced song we needed to match the shots and durations to the beat of the music. We used mostly mid shots and close ups of the band because this song is an indie rock song and as this genre type have independent label companies their isn't much money involved so the band aren't able to promote themselves that well as they don't have the money to do it, so these bands rely heavily on the music videos to promote themselves so having the close ups means people can see the band members quite clearly, especially Paddy as he is the lead singer as he is the most important part of the band so we needed him to have most camera time and he has a lot of close ups during the video as its what all bands of any genre do as the lead singer is the tip of the mountain when it comes down to the most important band role. During the editing stage of our video we decided to add a little section in that isn't in most indie rock music videos in fact it is a pop thing to do. We wanted something inside the video that challenged the style of the video and gave the band a sort of identity. This then would make the video more interesting and brings the video alive as the rest of the video is in black and white so having that shot of colour works well at making the video less boring to look at.That we did was at the chorus of the video we did was take a close up shot of him singing the chorus which is 'do do do do do' then put the close up in 4 different boxes and add 4 different colours to this boxes so when the chorus came in these boxes would change. During the editing part of our coursework we got many people to wathc this part of our video. The people we choose to watch this part of the clip were people that enjoyed all types of music not just people that enjoyed indie rock music. We did this so then we could get an clear understanding if people liked that part and if we should go agains the conventions and use this section in our indie rock video. This went down well with everyone that watched our music video as those lyrics were great at matching to that part, having something in a music video that makes people want to watch it again is a convention that all music videos should have. Although this video is mainly a performance based video there is a little narrative that flows through as this video shows the band writing their song, recording the song and then finally performing the song on the stage. Performing the song on stage was vital as it what all indie bands do as this also promotes the band and what they would be like when doing their tours. Overall I believe that I have covered most of the codes and conventions that are needed to make a successful media product and a successful indie rock music video.