Tuesday 15 December 2009

SW - Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Deconstruction of Music Video

Genre Characteristics

- Using dyer, our music video follows the main genre characteristics of an indie rock music video.
-The main characteristic of a music video is the band involved playing instruments and there are many clips of this as our music video is about 70% instrumental as the band are performing at the garage and at the big venue.
- Other characteristics usually in a music video of this genre are a predominant love story continually happening throughout.


Links between music and visuals

- In our music video there is a very strong link between the visuals and the lyrics.

- This is mainly shown in the chorus and in the title of the song. Throughout the music video there is a narrative of how the band started off playing in their garage and joking about how they want to be someone and then the audience sees the band performing on a big stage.

- In the song there are lyrics that say 'I'm gonna make you love me' and this is where we have involved the girl in our music video and showed the relationship between them.

- We also used one direct link to visual and lyrics at the beginning of the song where the lyrics say 'I loosen my tie, i loosen my tie' and the lead singer is shown at the same time loosening his tie.


Close-ups and Star Image Motifs

We used many close-ups of the different members of the band to create a relationship between the audience and the band. We found that by using our lead singer as well in the love story it allowed him to have more screen time therefore enhancing his star image motif.



Intertextual References

There has quite a few intertextual references, such as:- The dreamy like girl in our music video has intertextual references to the girl in The Killers - Mr Brightside video. This is quite fantasy like and therefore enhancing the post-modernism style of the music video. The band shots in the garage is very intertextual of the indie rock genre.



Performance-based, narrative based or concept based?

Our music video is about 70% performance based as there is the performance part in the garage and in the venue, however this is because it is part of our narrative also, however they just are performing as well. It is about 30% narrative based showing the story between the girl and the lead singer and how the band is outside of performing.

Semiotics in our Print Work



Visual Signs
- The image of the girl in the naturalistic location connotes ideas of geniality and represents the band as true and down to earth.


- The image of the girl holding up the sign saying ‘Only by the Night’, is influenced by the style of artist Gillian Wearing. This artist likes to allow random people to express their deepest thoughts and their emotions suggesting that the Kings of Leon are genuine people who do not have their heads in the clouds and that they are down-to-earth people. This is the main theme of the digipak.


- Throughout the other pages of the digpak there are references to nature which therefore connotes pureness and individuality.


- Even though the picture was simple yet classic, we took the picture in black and white as we thought that it would make the picture look professional and glossy which is representing the band well.


- Using the girl for the front cover of the digipak and for the advertisement is quite controversial because there are not any girls in the band, however because the girl is wearing quite cool and indie clothing she conforms to the conventions of the indie/rock genre.

Linguistic Signs
- The name of the album is 'Only by the Night.'

- Usually artists use a song title in the album as the album title however the name of the album is completely original.

- This connotes ideas of darkness and therefore enigma of the band. This suggestion of 'only by the night' suggests how the band only come out at night suggesting that they like to keep themselves to themselves and don't want to be in the public light.


- There has been a continual theme throughout the digipak and the advertisements with the same font.

- We chose this font called 'Minstral' because we thought that it connoted ideas of individuality and class.


Social myths reinforced or challenged?
- The advertisement and digipak is easily readable and emphasises how the band are real and authentic.

- The professional image and simplicity of the image emphasises the success and easy listening of the album, which would therefore appealing to a wide audience of all ages.

Post-Modernism

Music Video
- Our main postmodern effect is the intertextual references to other music videos. The main intertextual references are from The Killers - Mr Brightside and The Airborne Toxic Event - Sometime around Midnight.


- Our music video could also be considered as postmodern because of the love story going on as it is a typical role of a music video of the indie/rock genre.


Digipak and Advertisement
- Both of them could be considered as postmodern because of the image that has been used as the front of the digipak and the image on the advertisement.


- This image is controversial to the standard indie/rock genre print because of the we found that the images usually on the front of this genre’s print advertisement is a random graphic, however it also reinforces the how using the band is absent from the front of the digipak therefore creating mystery and enigma. This is Dyer’s second paradox - the star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer. Therefore, easy to understand but enigmatic

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