Evaluation Question 1 (Draft)

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

Having decided on my song choice, I began researching into existing bands which represented my chosen genre, so as to gain a clear insight into the typical artist style and consequently the style of video I wanted to create. "Where Is My Mind" by the Pixies falls into the category of "alternative rock", and so I looked to bands such as Nirvana, Radiohead and The Flaming Lips when deciding how to style my band. I then focused solely on the Pixies and having studied their music videos, came across a camcorder effect used in 
one of their latest videos "Indie Cindy" which I then incorporated in my own work. 

After studying the lyrics of "Where Is My Mind", I felt that I could use elements of the "trip" scene in Ben Wheatley's A Field In England in my music video, as the loss of control portrayed in the clip amplifies the lyrics of the song perfectly. I kept this in mind whilst filming, and shot some scenes using mirrored effects which I then edited in a similar style to the film, so as to create a sense of disorientation within my video. 

As well as this, the song's constant references to fish directed me to Green Day's "Basket Case" video, which uses the motif of fish to enhance the inner turmoil of someone who is not in their right state of mind; the video demonstrates this as the fish swim around the artists' heads as a look of bewilderment appears on their faces.Upon editing a first draft, however, I decided to scrap the idea of blending the two shots together as the effect looked faded and took away from the abstract colourfulness of the fish footage, and so instead I edited the shots separately. 

  

 The shaky camera effect which I also adapted throughout my work was a decision I made whilst researching other alternative rock videos; The Cure's music video for "The Lovecats", as well as Beck's visual representation of "E-pro", in particular, captured my attention as I felt that the shakiness of the videos reflected the genre's quirkiness and would intensify the disorientating feel of the video should I incorporate this in my own work. 

When creating my storyboard and deciding which shot types I wanted to include in my video, I looked to The Cure's "In Between Days" video, which was very diverse in terms of camera movement and different angles. The shot first featured at 0:18 in my final video (and then repeated throughout), as well as the shot beginning at 2:16, were specifically created with In Between Days in mind, and also had an impact on the development of the shot at 1:55. 

      

I adhered to a typical performance style video, and so made sure my artists were lip syncing and playing instruments, although amplifying the fish effect by repeating these shots throughout, and ignoring the common narrative as suggested by Andrew Goodwin. My video illustrates the meaning and genre of the song, as most tend to do. Similarly, the tempo of the music influenced the way in which I edited the video; this is particularly shown at the start, as the song begins with a glitch in the music - "stop" - which is thus reflected in the visuals, and then resumed with a lengthy shot of the guitar which mirrors the slow tempo.

 

In order to develop ideas regarding digipak designs, I researched into a variety of existing products by a number of different artists within my chosen genre. I quickly recognised that they were all abstract in design and most colour palettes used were very psychedelic and bold. In most cases, the covers did not display images of the band, but instead featured surreal, eye-catching illustrations which did not bear much relevance to the music. With this in mind, I decided to build on the psychedelic element in my video and use stills of the fish to create a colourful digipak with interesting connotations, which would hopefully draw my target audience's attention to the album. I took influences from Nirvana's Incesticide artwork, which used an image of a giant rubber duck on the back cover, replacing this with an image of a fish. I then created a similar layout when adding the text, as well as using a similar font to reflect the genre. I chose which song titles to use based on other albums by bands such as Radiohead, Pink Floyd and The Breeders. The idea of the fish also bears relation to the surf rock genre which adheres to the Pixies' style and therefore Electric Addiction's.

     

     

When creating my magazine advert, I once again researched others of the same genre to get a feel for a typical layout. Most, regardless of genre, featured the front cover of the album artwork in the centre or extended the image to fit the entire page. In keeping with this idea, I placed the front panel of my digipak on a blank page and developed my ideas from there. I looked through several music magazines and newspapers and found one particular advert for the "Coared EP" by Cheetahs, which placed the album cover near the top of the page and added further information below. I adapted this layout in my own work, placing text just below the image on the right hand side and further down on the left hand side with space in between, drawing the eye to both pieces of text. To ensure that the advert did not look cluttered and to hold the audience's attention, I only included the vital information needed; the date of release, the album title, the record label logo and the band's web address, should the consumer wish to find out more. Another option would have been to withhold even more information and simply write a tagline such as "New Album Out Now", as I found on a "Mars Voltra" album advert; my research concluded that the less given away the better, as generally a lot of text would overwhelm the reader.