In the three products I have created (Video, digipack and advert) I have both followed and subverted expectations. I have done this to appeal to my target market, but also to create something unique to stand out from the crowd. A strong brand will be instantly recognisable but also have suitable uses of colour and image.
In terms of my music video, I have both subverted and followed conventions. The video for the song I chose has a forest in the opening shots. I decided to keep the location as a forest has many connotations, both negative (entrapment and fear) and positive (freedom and renewal). This links to both halves of my music video. Another video I analysed was the video for ‘Counting Stars’ by OneRepublic. This video included a dark, decaying warehouse area for the setting. I took inspiration from this and included decaying metal and wood in my video. The first verse of my video takes place in an area with rusted materials while other segments have overlays of rust and effects such as Bad TV and Projector.
The video links to the lyrics in numerous places. This is sometimes more literal than others, such as the second line of the song when the lyrics ‘sweat my rust’, a close up of rust is shown. This links to the fact that rust is a recurring motif in the video as it symbolises decay and things falling apart in the protagonist's life. A lot of the lyrics link on a more symbolic level, such as ‘this is it, the apocalypse’ The clips shown during the two times the line is said are the protagonist carrying the water butt and images of fire overlaid with trees. This shows the metaphorical apocalypse (a great change) in the protagonist’s life. One of the most important lyrics (shown briefly at the start, at the end after the fade out and on the digipack), ‘sun hasn’t died’, shows a sunset behind trees. This puts more emphasis on these lyrics, such as the rust example earlier. Most of the lyrics are ambiguous, however allowing the audience to come up with their own connections. I chose to follow this convention in some places to increase the importance of some lyrics, but I did not show a literal interpretation of all the lyrics to allow for multiple interpretations and to not make the video have an obvious narrative. This increases the enigma code, making watchers want to continue watching.
My video follows the convention of a relationship between music and visuals.
The start of the video has a slow section with a vocal ‘oooohh’ sound overlaid on a soft acoustic guitar melody. To fit with the slow tempo and soft sound, I had slow establishing shots of the forest with a nostalgic vignette filter. The transition from this section has a rising, high pitched alarm sound. The harsh sound is coupled with a pan revealing the rusted texture of the trailer. The next section has a harsh, dubstep style bass with. To fit with the harsh beat, the inverted, unnatural colours of the x-ray filter are used along with Bad TV and Projector. Thought beats are used throughout the video to keep the flow of the video. These include the clock flashing on the screen, the barrel being dropped and various cuts in the video. The final section, after the second chorus, has the song change rapidly in mood to being more positive and hopeful. Shots of the protagonist looking up and the barrel being kicked away are coupled with the Bloom and Bokeh Random to give a positive, brighter feel. I chose to do this as the song has an ambiguous story to it, so linking the video the the music will allow for even more interpretations.
The video contains no links to the notion of looking. The main reason is because I was trying to make my video unisex, so having a voyeuristic approach could alienate a large part of my audience. The other reason is because the video shows the protagonist’s mental state through his mind’s eye, so having references to looking would put a layer between the audience and the protagonist would push them away. Intertextual were not intentionally included to make the video self contained and to allow it to stand on its own. My video does, however, contain numerous close-ups of the protagonist, however, this is not to promote the album, as the protagonist is not seen on the digipack or advert, but to show the emotion on his face.
I also subverted and followed conventions on my digipack and advert. On my advert, the main image was not of the artist or protagonist, but of the trailer. This is to create an enigma code which will attract the audience. Imagine Dragons are a pretty popular band, so I do not need to show the audience them, but using an abstract image will draw them in. It also follows the ambiguous nature of the video. On my digipack, I subverted the same thing for the same reason. I had no images of the band or protagonist, instead focusing on symbols, locations and textures from the video.
However, I followed the expectation of putting the band name and album title on my digipack and advert and reviews on my advert, which will be used to attract my audience.
Indie rock focuses on nostalgic imagery and dark, earthy colours. I made my images subvert this to stand out more against other indie rock groups. The bright colours initially seen to go against my video. The colours are supposed to show the idea of starting out bright, then becoming dark and broken, before return to bright, just like the narrative of my video.
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