A2 media coursework evaluation

1. A2 media coursework evaluation Essay format: Must be over 1,000 words Under 2,000 words Must cover 4 key areas overall Blog research out of 10 marks Music video out of creativity 15 marks Music video technical skills 15 marks Evaluation essay 10 marks (20%) How does your product represent social groups or issues? - Male audience - Teenagers/ young audience - Rock genre audience - Ethnic diversity - Rebellious/wild social groups Understand what the typical stereotypes are of the social groups we have chosen (men singing aggressive music drinking beer) In line with our research into the conventions of ‘non-mainstream’ indie-rock videos, we chose to represent our band and lead singer in a stereotypical rebellious, rule-breaking but down to earth and alternative. In the performance scenes, the camera shows a close ups of audience members not enjoying the music, to which the singer gets fed up and marches into a new set towards the camera. As lead singer marches out of the jazz club, suggesting that he doesn’t belong with the upper class, the camera showcases his aggressive body language. During the performance scene of the new set (garage), the bands fashion changes into a much more colourful and casual style. The new environment is also very alternative and indie-styled through certain design aspects like posters, skateboards, which shows their working class and urban backgrounds.… This would attract male audiences, particularly younger men and possibly some younger women. In the social media posts we replicated this representation by including fisheye lens photos and a colour pallet of red and blues to give off the ‘night-time life’ the band live, which would attract the youth social group we are targeting. Furthermore, we deliberately designed our social media to seem somewhat niche and amateur. We believed our band, being amateur musicians with a low budget, wouldn’t be able to hire professional photographers to shoot the band. So we had canted angles and blurred shots on our social media as it would make the band more relatable to the audience. On the digipak we also created the same ‘night-time life’ atmosphere by choosing the same red and blue colour scheme. We took two photos of the singer and guitarist under red and blue hazed lighting in a corridor with a fisheye lens to create a stretched effect on the photo

2. and have the same alternative/ nightlife vibes. We did this as it established the bands image clearly and would attract a youthful male audience whereas the social media was more casual and non-specific in certain posts.

3. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’? Star persona/ branding- relaxed, non-mainstream, rebellious, alternative In the indie-rock genre, it is typical to create a brand/ star-persona for a band of alternative, cheeky energy as it is often popular with the youthful demographic and rebellious teen audience this style of music attracts. In our music video we constructed this branding by featuring lots of fast paced cuts along with the quick pace of the music to create an energetic performance whilst showing the band to be quite relaxed, as if it shows their typical everyday life. The costume and set change from the ‘jazz club’ to the ‘garage’ show the bands true gritty, messy, energetic and alternative characteristic. Furthermore, featuring things like beer cans and a shot of the lead singer drinking alcohol during the performance added to the narrative of the story and showed the audience the cheeky and chilled out vibe the band want to create. Dyer believes that star personas are constructed by familiarising audiences with the visual image of the artists. Through our research we understood that consistency of branding is important to create a solid message for an audience. On the Digipak we replicated the messy, neon and lively branding from the music video by showing the bands performance space through a canted angle, which made a slightly disorientating atmosphere. The messy garage, with things such as guitars, famous band posters and cardboard boxes clearly conveyed the bands lively and carefree persona. Additionally, people who would recognise the bands on the posters would associate their music genre and quality with our band, increasing sales and appeal. Furthermore, we replicated the same colour scheme on the Digipak. This would create brand recognition between the music video and the DigiPak, increasing sales.

4. How do your products engage with the audience? Parasocial interaction- any interaction online with fans that makes them think they really know you/ have a relationship with the artist Is there anything relatable in our media product? Anything the audience can identify with? Our music video offers high energy and lively environment for audiences. Our product typically appeals to male audience members, who will watch the video and be drawn in by the male dominated band as well as identifiable themes such as rock music, beer, garage setting etc… The social media pages continue to attract male audiences as they show technical/behind scene images of the band with lots of sound equipment as well as in the studio as men are typically interested in behind the scenes images and believe that they are seeing something technical and secretive. The technical images also portray the bands talent and shows the skill required to create popular music. Additionally, the bands Instagram attract some young and female audiences through the band’s youthful characteristic and male modelling styled photos. For instance, a post of the bands dog shows that they can be caring and appeals to many audiences as lots of people have a pet , but female fans may be more drawn to posts of the lead singer having a photo shoot. The bands amateur style social media should make them more identifiable to most audiences as they haven’t become rich and influential. The digipak engages our target demographic of young teens and male audiences through the use of imagery. The back of the CD cover offers more information on the band such as their record label, website, how to download their music. This information is essential as it helps push the audience to access the right sites online and increase profit.

5. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions? Conventions of my music genre: - Dark colours - Grey, browns, blacks, blues, reds - Skateboards - Rock elements e.g. postures - Urban settings - Alternative rock might also have a very unconventional element, e.g. jazz club set Steve Neale theory

6. Reasons for conventions: - Easy for audiences to find a genre/ style they like - Recognisable - Fulfils expectations Reasons against conventions: - Unique - Challenge expectations - Original - Apply to a non-mainstream audience In my multiple analyses of alternative/ rock videos, as well as reading theories of people such as Andrew Goodwin, I found that the rock genre is typically defined by use of handheld/ unstable camera style, muted colour pallet and fast paced editing. We wanted our artist to be popular and recognisable, so we decided to include many of these conventions in our video. For example, we had lots of fast paced hand held cuts between the singer and the musicians, as well as showing lots of well-known band posters, such as Kiss, Green day and The Beatles, on the set which blended with the muted colour pallet. However, unlike some other music videos typical of this genre, we wanted to challenge some of the conventions of the genre to make our band unique and non-mainstream. The start of our video was set in a bright and classy jazz club which included audience members on the set. We deliberately chose to be un-conventional in this respect to make our video unique to its genre and make it more memorable. Steve Neale believes that audiences prefer seeing classic elements to a genre, but also enjoy seeing something new and refreshing. In social media posts by real artists such as Green Day and Elton John, we found rock artists often post images of themselves with friends, having fun and behind the scenes in the studio or post performance. We thought that it was important to make our band seem friendly and identifiable to our audience, as well as establish a clear genre and style to the social media. To do this, we uploaded lots of photos of the band members being together to show their unique bond, some being professional and others amateur. We also used an informal and indirect use of language on our posts so that the audience could feel that the band are down to earth and still ordinary people, unaffected by fame and money. An example of this would be the Autumn photo shoot, using a high-quality camera, and then taking a photo on our phones of the singer hiding in the car boot titled “BoOo”. We felt this communicated a friendly brand and amateur persona which was conventional to the band and the genre. Overall I feel my music promotion campaign was successful to an extent. Our key strengths were creating the correct atmosphere and intentions and forming a social media that clearly showed the bands relaxed, youthful characteristics. I feel I did a great job of organising the music video and structuring the create mood and atmosphere for the social media. I learned that in future productions I need to establish a clearer colour pallete for the social media. I think we could have improved on our professional photo shoots. Although they are effective, I believe we could have taken more to make the band look more serious and show they have a sucessful career.