EVALUATION

EVALUATION - Q1:

One key convention in the indie genre is the use of performance shots which show off the artists instrument. We felt that the use of showing our artist playing an instrument shows the audience how talented they are. This is used throughout the indie genre, as shown here in the video "R U Mine - by The Arctic Monkeys. This is why in our video we include performance shots.

We feel that using live performance we are able to make the audience feel what it would be like if they could have seen this artist live. This would hopefully lead to the fans wanting to see the artists live more. We felt it was necessary to stick to this convention as indie artists main goal is to appear unique and talented, this is best shown if the artist can show that they can play an instrument.
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Another key convention that we followed from the indie genre is the use of rebellious actions, This is important to the indie genre as it makes the artist look "cool" and "careless". This is seen in Arctic Monkey's "R U Mine" also when they have fireworks / explosions going off behind them during a performance. I feel that this also achieves similar effect, as seen to the right, it makes the drummer look dangerous and highlights him with the contrast of white/black.
The use of the white and black makes the drummer also look somewhat like a silhouette, which could reflect mystery, which links back to danger (the unknown).

In our video we used the idea of smashing a guitar, this makes our artist look rebelious and seem to separate himself from society by breaking the rules and doesn't really care about it.
We stuck to this convention as it seemed very important for our artist to look like he is worry free.



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One convention which we developed was the weird part of indie.  By this we mean that we wanted to go outside of the normal music video scene and try something new. This is often done in lots of different ways, all of which intend to make the video more unique and memorable. An example of where this "weird"/"arty" twist on a music video would be in Gotye's "Somebody that i used to know". In the video, the background which Gotye is standing in front of is slowly painted on to create lots of interconnecting triangles, and overtime as the painting is finished, Gotye is drawn on also to become a part of the background. I feel that the use of a strange arty/ weird twist on this video was extremely powerful and can lead the viewer to question the use of the unusual twist and find their own meaning behind it. We decided to go very artsy and unique by creating an effect which makes our main character look like he's watching videos of his life back on a tv in front of him. To develop this weird concept we will be breaking the fourth wall.

This will some what confuse the audience, which in order to make it more obvious we added in pause and play buttons. The use of breaking the fourth wall in an indie video is to make the audience understand that our artist is a real person, rather than just an actor for the music video. This is shown through giving him control of the video that they are watching.
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Another convention which we decided to develop was obvious editing. Editing which was put in for a purpose rather than just to make a video look nice. This is perfectly highlighted in Emma Louise's "Underflow". As seen on the left, a girl is covered in a white concrete like substance, seeming to be trapped inside and unable to move her body freely This use of cgi and editing is used to show off the main theme of the video which is "Exploring an impending emptiness contrasted with the notion of inner hope, a girl breaks through her doubts and finds solace in the surroundings of a surreal world." I feel that the use of editing really highlights the metaphor as the woman is seen trying to break through the rock to become free again, quite like the girl breaking through her doubts. Although our video didnt quite match this in terms of completely altering a video to make an intirely new image such as the one shown in this song, we do however show off how much effect just simply changing the contrast and colours of the video can have on a scene.
The use of black and white in our video was to highlight when the artist was watching back parts of his relationship. The use of adding a slightly grainy and unrealistic filter makes the video more obviously a flashback of the artists past. However using the TV idea we were able to take the generalisation of a flashback and make it even more personal to the viewers as they know that the artist is watching these moments back in front of his very own eyes.


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One convention which we didnt follow was having the artist perform live in front of an audience. This is seen in lots of indie videos, especially those that fall into the "Indie Rock" genre. Live performance is a big part of the indie genre as it shows the audience and the artist's fans how talented they are, and also gives them a slight teaser as to what a live show would be like, possibly generating more hype for real live performances from the artist. This is seen in The Killers "Mr Brightside" where The Killers are seen on stage performing at what looks to be an exclusive club for wealthy people, which is an environment which their style of music wouldn't often be suited to. The live performance is part of an alternative timeline as the singer is seen doing other things during the video, which is often very common in indie videos.
Although this is often proven effective, We didn't stick with this as we wanted to focus our video around the story more than the artists career. This is often the opposite in the indie genre as they often attempt to come across as unique artists who really love making music. the use of a prolonged story that has multiple parts to it shows the audience that this artist is more artsy than musica, which is something we've always tried to portray him as.
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Another convention which we didnt follow was that our video is very focused on an individual person and his individual plot, rather than the video being completely random and silly. A great example of a silly/ random video is the music video for The Arctic Monkeys "Fluorescent Adolescent" Which shows two groups, the Clowns and the adults in suits. Who are just straight out beating eachother senseless, to the point of even killing eachother. Although this seems to be completely random and unnecessary, the video somewhat links to the songs meaning of midlife crisis. The clowns represent an adults inner child fighting to be free again, compared to the adult who has to suppress this urge to be childish again.
 Although we could have also gone with a theme of a weird and unusual video having an alternative meaning, we decided our best bet to suit our artists theme would be to make the video more straight to the point, quite like our artist is portrayed. We felt this shows off the deep and emotional connection that the artist has with these lyrics. Although some of the video doesnt directly correlate to the song, we still did our best to make the video as suited to the lyrics as we could without giving it all away, we felt its best to leave a little suspicion of the songs true meaning to the audience, which also means our artists mysterious and hidden personality.


EVALUATION - Q2 :








EVALUATION - Q3 :
Here links to my powerpoint for question 3: 


QUESTION 4


The most common thing to arise from the audience feedback we received was that the idea of breaking the fourth wall was mostly accepted and enjoyed by most audience members, we originally decided on having three separate breaks in the music video but the early feedback indicated that it would be too long and the comedy factor would have been very worn by the third attempt and as such we decided to cut out the third break in the song. This not only added some symmetry to the music video but it also keeps the comedic value.
The use of shift focus within the music video is something that our audience received very well, this was something that we originally used unwittingly as we wanted to try to conform to the genre as much as possible so we tried to have very alternative shots and angles, in doing this we ended up using shift focus which on the first viewing by our audience they all replied saying how it made it very different and made it seem 'indie'. However some people thought that the constant blurriness took away from the video itself.
Most of our original footage was shot looking directly at the main characters, we also had a few shots that included footage shot from behind the characters and due to some audience feedback, the majority of the audience felt that it felt more sincere and that it fit the plot line of the artist watching his relationship back if the majority of footage was taken from behind the characters as if it was a camera crew following them around. In our final viewing we asked the audience what was happening in the video and 86% of the audience said that it was an artist watching a relationship back.