Evaluation q1
- 1. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? I chose to produce a music video and digipak for an American artist called ‘Brooke Annibale’. A country/folk/pop singer-songwriter whose soft, emotive songs have gained her attention from the producers of hit TV show ‘One Tree Hill’. Several of Annibale’s songs have featured on the show, now in its last season, and widened her audience. The audience for Annibale’s genre of music is growing continuously with big names in the industry presently being Newton Faulkner and Taylor Swift, an international sensation. Audiences will often select a piece of media depending on the genre. Genre conventions help an audience select their desired material when presented with a range of different materials. If an individual particularly enjoys heavy metal they will expect the artist to wear predominantly black clothing, possibly have tattoos or piercings and have angry, or emotion driven lyrics accompanied with loud music. There is also often the notion of a ‘band’, with a focus on instruments in contrast to electronically produced beats. These conventions produce certain expectations for the audience and they then predict what they expect of the material. This may also cross over into what the individual does in other areas of their life, they may choose to dress like a ‘metal head’, start a band or get a tattoo. They identify with the genre so present themselves as having the same identity and will often socialise with others who present themselves the same way. These genre conventions also cross over and change as your look at other genres. It could be said that country/folk/pop has far less extreme conventions in contrast to the heavy metal genre but that doesn’t mean there are not any. A lot, but not all, country/folk artists are of the Christian faith and this sometimes comes across in their music. It could be said that people who share this faith listen to this genre of music, or that fans possibly adopt the faith after listening to the artist. It’s also common that country/folk artists will write about events based on their heritage and past (in other words they will write about what they know). They tend to be respectfully dressed and very subtle in their attire. This contrasts with many R ‘n’ B/dance artists who focus on producing catchy music and going to fashion extremes to gain media attention.
- 2. When studying the ‘similar artists’ to Brooke Annibale on iTunes I discovered an artist called ‘Trent Dabbs’.Upon further research I discovered that he had a music video for his song ‘Follow Suit’. The basic narrative of this video consists of him driving around in the dark, under the streetlights and there is a real emphasis on the lights and it passing over his face in the same pattern as he continues down the road. Although the meaning behind the song is very different from the meaning behind Annibale’s I feel both songs’ music are emotive and catchy. The top row of images shows Dabbs’ video and the bottom row show similar shots from my video. These shots were not actually intentionally similar at the time but I feel it shows the strong link between this genre and travel and enlightenment. Another artist that I feel is similar to Annibale is Taylor Swift. Swift is probably the most famous country/folk/pop artist of this generation and her video for ‘Back to December’ I feel also relates to my music video for Annibale. The video focuses on the male character being alone and him walking to an unknown destination, Swift is singing about the regrets she faces now she and (presumably) the male character are apart.
- 3. In this case the top row shows screen grabs from my music video and the row below shots screen grabs from Swift’s video. A lot of the shots are framed quite similarly and focus on showing the separation of the characters, something I tried to show in parts of my video. In both respects my video conforms to the expectations of the pop/folk/country genre but also has differing factors such as the narrative to the video and my use of split screens. Both videos use performance videos entwined with a narrative, I was unable to do this for my music video due to Annibale being a US artist but I feel the use of narrative alone works just as well. Both videos use outdoor locations predominantly and have a focus on small city/town locations. I feel my choice to use a predominantly rural location was unique but that it also paid off as it showed the isolation more so, plus the indoor shots provided a nice contrast. In terms of my digipak, I had looked at a lot of the album artwork for the ‘related artists’ on iTunes. This is how their album artwork compared:
- 4. Most of the album artwork is quite simplistic and uses soft, beige colours. The top row of album covers does not use the artist and I feel as the most similar to my own work. However, I do deviate from the norm of a lot of the album artwork as I used a screen grab from my music video as the main image for my work. The same applies for my magazine advertisement but I like the link that is formed between the three texts so people can identify and connect with Annibale. Overall, I do believe that my media products largely conform and develop the typical conventions of the pop/folk/country genre as they’re quite simplistic and use very similar camera angle and framing to that of major artists. However, I do believe that my final pieces have a lot of unique qualities that allow Annibale to stand out as someone new and intriguing and hopefully someone that people will want to find out more about.