Music Video
For my media product I chose a song called ‘o.g
Loko’ by a band called ‘Of Mice & Men’ that comes under the metal genre,
this was to be the genre that I focus on when researching, producing my video
and finally designing and making my ancillary texts therefore when creating my
music video I knew that I wanted to challenge and break the conventions of my
chosen genre because this would make it different from all of the other real
media products but at the same time still make it represent the metal genre
that I had chosen. When researching into existing products from the genre it
was clear that the majority had a live performance element to the video
alongside a narrative story however because most bands where doing this I decided to make a live video of montage shots
stitched together alongside an abstract narrative using paint that would tell
the story of the lyrics, in a way that would leave the viewer having to
decipher it in their own way and creating their own personal response to the
video, this breaks the conventions and challenges the forms and conventions of
existing media products.
The song itself didn't follow a common theme of its genre and
because of the ‘boy meets girl’ element that would usually be found in the
R&B genre, this is also another reason that I wanted to break certain
conventions because if the song does, it seemed like a good idea to make a
video that also did that but in a way that wouldn't make it similar to R&B
videos so I decided to combine elements of many genres into one and create an
entirely new product that wouldn't conform to traditional metal music videos,
but at the same time I wanted people to know what genre It was by keeping
certain similarities in there, such as cinematography (canted angles, close
up’s, establishing shots, zooms, pans) and editing (fast paced cuts) elements I
wanted to ensure that I created the same fast paced vibe that is always common
in essentially all metal videos.
I did this by using canted angles, to add obscurity to the
video, zooms that give an element of the environment before focusing on the
character and close ups that really give off the aggression and emotion put
into the music that is always present in this genre, then to back this up I
edited the shots in a fast paced way that meant the song built up an atmosphere
and represented the genre like other videos such as Bury Tomorrow’s recent
video for ‘Man On Fire’
In ways I believe that I have changed and developed many
conventions of this genre as well, this is because the colour of my video is
different to that of modern day videos due to the fact that I have decided to
make the whole video black and white much like older videos such as Motley Crue’s
‘Kick-start My Heart’ Video released many decades ago, this element is also
seen in many modern day videos such as Bury
Tomorrow’s ‘Scepters’ and The 1975’s ‘Girls’ and although this isn't a metal video it shows that Black and White videos are becoming increasing popular in
the modern music scene regardless of what the genre is and it further proves
that not only have I challenged modern day metal conventions but also genre
conventions because black and white is largely seen in other genres by artists
such as Beyoncé and Justine Timberlake and rarely seen in Metal videos.
Furthermore there are a lot of real media texts that lip sync
in their videos however, I chose not to do so because I wanted to create a
sense of realism and capture the band as they were, rather than have them act
out the way I wanted them to and by doing this I gave an element of what they
band are actually like when they perform and practice, although all of my shots
are of the band playing my chosen song, I felt it would be more effective to
edit this way because it challenges conventions of existing media products and
creates a new media product that not only conforms to existing conventions but
also challenges and changes them at the same time.
Ancillary Texts
When It came to ancillary texts I wanted to create a
product that used conventions and created continuity throughout my DigiPak that
could link in with my video in some way, much like artists such as Blessthefall
do in their most recent album ‘Hollow Bodies’ were they have similar images
throughout the Digipak, poster and even in their video for ‘You Wear a Crown
But You’re No king’. I did this by taking abstract shots during the abstract
filming and I used these photos alongside some scenery shots that I had taken
in order to create something new and exciting that would not only link into my
other products but challenge them too, this was done by overlapping two images as
well as changing the opacity and when doing this I took much inspiration from
artists such as Blessthefall and I Killed The Prom Queen, both of whom are
metal artists.
Furthermore unlike other genres, the metal genre doesn’t have
a house style font and it is always changing depending on the artist, therefore
I didn’t have to conform to any specific conventions and had a lot of leeway
when it came to choosing my font, however I decided to go with a simple font that
is not usually conventional of this genre and certainly wouldn’t represent the
genre if I were a consumer picking up the album not knowing who it was or what
genre it came from which is where I have challenged conventions but it is
common in many modern day media products and is becoming increasingly popular
because they are drifting away from typical stereotypes which can link to Tessa
Perkins ‘Stereotypes’ theory (1979) because she suggested that stereotypes are
hard to break which is true because from research people still view the genre
as dark and evil yet media products in the modern music scene suggest otherwise.
I Killed The Prom Queen and Blessthefall's recent studio albums that I took much inspiration from when creating my own media products, can link to Stuart Halls 'Encoding/Decoding' theory of 1973 because I wanted my product to give off a sense of the messsage I was hoping to give off in my song in a way that meant the consumer would have to decode the message in their own way.
When creating my poster I knew that I wanted to create a promotional
album release tour that would combine elements of both my digipak and video
into one therefore when researching I took large amounts of inspiration form a variety
of genres and combined them all into one, this created a product that was
different and in some ways challenged the conventions because a lot of bands
these days have pictures of the band on the tour poster whereas on mine I have
chosen to have images that represent the album and directly link to it however I
have used more traditional conventions such as the use of promoting the band
through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter but one that was
rarely seen was the use of offering a location where people coming to the tour
could purchase the album so I added an ITunes logo on their that tells people
where the album is available to buy. Moreover I noticed that the majority of
promotional tour posters had portrait images therefore I decided to combine
both a Landscape and portrait image into my ancillary texts and with the use of
the opacity tool on Photoshop I could blend one another so that both images
where able to be seen.
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