Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Billy Clayton

Genre Characteristics Professor Gunther Kress defines genre as ‘A

kind of text that derives its form from the structure of a frequently repeated social occasion, with its characteristic participants and their purposes’. The statement is suggestive of the concept that aspects of real media products are derived from the lifestyles of certain collective groups in society and can therefore provide audiences with a sense of belonging, otherwise known as collective identity. Our music video for ‘Warriors’ by Coco & The Butterfields both uses and develops genre characteristics, with the given genre of the track being newly formed niche label ‘Fip Fok’; a term used and described by the band as a sound which ‘combines traditional folk music with modern contemporary Hip Hop and Pop music, skipping to the part where people dance’. The track is up-tempo with a positive and outgoing vibe that presents the theme of warriors being unafraid and courageous. This meant that as a group, we had to accompany it with a music video that contained appropriate audience appeal, thus, we came up with the fairytale treatment.

Genre Characteristics in aspects of mise-en-scene

Andrew Goodwin, writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (1992) contributes his theory towards genre characteristics, stating ‘Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics, for example, a stage performance in a metal music video or a dance routine for a pop group’. The locations in our music video uses genre characteristics as the video is predominantly outside, filmed on site of Norwich’s University of East Anglia and the Plantation Garden, a large yet well enclosed Victorian garden that was used for our Alice in Wonderland scene. These locations, both consisting of vast greenery and woodland reuse characteristics from the Indie/Alternative genre, reflecting those used in real music videos such as British Indie band Florence and the Machine’s ‘Dog Days’ and ‘Rabbit Heart’ (2009).

The costume used in the video uses and develops genre characteristics. The combination of modern

contemporary fashion such as Topshop items, red lipstick and a nose ring as well as hair ribbons, vintage dresses and button up shirts both allowed us to gain audience appeal from our target audience of 16 – 20 year old white British females as well as reinforcing the fairytale archetypes created. Our production therefore challenges Goodwin’s theory that females are very often portrayed as sexual objects within music videos as the use of voyeuristic or objectifying camera angles and costume, often seen in music videos by American pop star Britney Spears has been much avoided, encouraging the young female audience to opt for a more positive and equal representation to their gender.

Genre characteristics in aspects of mise-en-scene

Props and objects played a significant role in conveying the use of genre characteristics in our music video. In the introduction, a purple floral teacup has been used accompanied by the label ‘Drink Me’ in order to act as the causer of all means in the video. It acts as an intertextual reference to the original story line of Alice in Wonderland which involves a tea party scene and also targets a wider audience due to it’s similarity to the products of popular English designer Cath Kidson who specialises in bags and stationary of a greatly similar design, provoking a contemporary audience appeal due to it’s highly recognisable status.

The use of sweet confectionary such as candy bracelets and colourful lollipops uses genre

characteristics notable in American singer-songwriter Katy Perry’s ‘California Girls’ music video due to its consistent and predominant theme of candy, reinforcing the utopian setting of our music video. Artificial roses also become a recurring motif in our music video, seen scattered on the steps, along the pathways and across the grass in various shots in order to reinforce the fairytale notion of the video, thus at the same time boosting aesthetic appeal.

The lighting in the video is predominately ambient, with the exception of the Goldilocks scenes

shot inside a kitchen, using the genre characteristics of low budget Indie/Alternative music videos that rely on the natural lighting supplied, such as Welsh singer-songwriter Marina and the Diamonds early video for ‘Seventeen’.

Narrative Structure French Anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss stated that ‘Narratives are arranged around the conflict of binary

opposition’. Our music video conforms to this statement as the narrative is driven around the concept of reality and illusion; Danielle arrives in to the garden with a blue tint present, indicating the blurred lines between illusion and reality, thus reinforcing the power of Danielle’s imagination. the character uses the teacup as a device of escapism in order to achieve the utopian journey in the fairytale world. Once all of the alternate personas of the fairytale world are explored, Danielle returns to the reality of the garden in which she consumed the drink, back to her original state of grey clothing and braided hair, indicating an explicit use of binary opposition within our narrative. Our narrative heavily reflects aspects of popular literature, particularly for children, such as the 1958 novel ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’ in which a young boy named Tom moves in with his restrictive Aunt and Uncle who refuse him time to play outside of their small city flat. This drives him to crave a fun lifestyle, every night sneaking out of bed when the clock strikes thirteen to escape in to a brightly light garden from the Victorian period in which he makes new friends. Like Tom, Danielle finds an alternate universe on her very own doorstep as her own garden takes her on a journey throughout a fairy tale driven world, which like the novel, is heavily ambiguous and non-existent to the real world outside.

The use of a circular narrative has been applied to our music video as Danielle finds herself drinking the teacup once again after a reversed montage occurs, indicating to the audience that the protagonist is to find themselves back where they started. This has been used as it explicitly reveals to the audience that the dream is unravelling and the character is returning to reality as real dreams do, thus providing a sense of relation between the character and the audience.The use of reapplying each scene back to back whilst played at a much faster speed and in reverse uses common motifs of film and television in which the picture has been manipulated in order to contrast with the current setting scenes. It also reflects the circular narrative in Katy Perry’s ‘Wide Awake’ music video in which her journey begins and concludes in her dressing room after entering a dystopian setting. Our music video therefore relies on the narrative structure to anticipate the targeted audiences approach to the storyline; viewers maintain interest throughout Danielle’s journey and are further gripped when the editing indicates that the story has relapsed.

Representation of Youth This Is England is a social realist film directed by Shane Meadows and released in 2006. It follows a 12-

year-old boy named Shaun who comes from a working class background and struggles to find acceptance at school before joining a gang of skinheads with extremist political views and devour in white supremacy. The representation of youth in this product is therefore largely negative; youths are sculpted as restless and rebellious, causing mass destruction to the neighbourhood whilst racially threatening individuals and embodying a deeply sadistic nature. Because of this mediated representation, the idea that young people truly fit this stereotype has impacted various generations and consumers, thus we see this notion repeated in several productions such as the E4 drama ‘Skins’ and the BBC drama ‘White Girl’, another social realist genre production which makes use of untrained actors, unglamorous locations and narrates the ordinary lives of people living in contemporary Britain.

In our music video, we felt it were necessary to represent youth in a very contrasting way, one we believe is more accurate to real life teenagers of today that doesn’t manipulate or victimize, but rather expresses and explores. Danielle’s escapism can be interpreted as a formula of young people searching for happiness and entertainment in day-to-day life; as a group, we believe that teenagers such as ourselves are mistaken for having much more socially hectic lifestyles than we truly possess, thus the music video discusses many youths desire for freedom and creativity whilst encouraging viewers to either relate to the representations shown or from an adults perspective, familiarise and refresh them from previously harsh outlooks on youth in the media, particularly notable in British artist Plan B’s music video for Ill Manors in which scenes from the 2011 London Riot are rein acted. Thus, our music video, unlike Shane Meadows use of the social realist genre, attempts to develop the genre of magical realise as a form of shaping one’s identity, instead reflective of productions such as the 2006 release ‘Pans Labyrinth’ (Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqYiSlkvRuw) which follows a girls imagination in to her own mythical world as a form of escapism from the lack of stimulation in her real life, just as our own music video presents with Danielle’s spontaneous imagination.

Print Productions For my print productions piece, I have used the conventions of a classical 4-panel layout associated with

contemporary CD packaging. I have done so in order to take the niche genre of CoCo and the Butterfields and provide them with a taste of popular radio and music channel based releases, connoting a true album experience that contrasts with the bands collection of smaller scale EP releases. I have also made use of 4 panels to clearly and directly reference the music video for ‘Warriors’ which familiarises the targeted audience with the DigiPak and sets a theme for the course of the album. All 4 panels follow the consistent theme of Danielle embodying the Red Riding Hood persona. I felt this were appropriate as the costume for this persona appears most appealing to the targeted audience of 16 – 20 year old white British females with interests in contemporary fashion and festival orientated music. This is due to the simplicity of the red hood, the use of lipstick and Danielle’s long, blonde hair and nose ring.

The saturation of colours in the photographs which have been altered during the editing process creates a strong contrast to the bare trees and grey sky behind Danielle, reinforcing a sense of Britishness to each panel. A black logo reading ‘CoCo and the Butterfields – Warriors’ in a circular design has been placed on Danielle’s red-hood-covered shoulder on the first panel in order to appear bold and significant, making it clear to the targeted audience what they are buying. The same logo, this time coloured with a red background has been used on the fourth panel in order to once again appear significant against the green bushes. The use of the actresses red lipstick also conforms to Goodwin’s theory that focus on the performers lips is a generic convention of media products such as music videos, however, the usage simply explicates the character as Red Riding Hood as well as maintaining modern contemporary audience appeal, instead of objectifying the female performer. I have made use of bold text titles coloured in white on the back panel in order to grab the focus of the buyer as well as creating an even composure of text dominating one side of the image whilst Danielle occupies the other.

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Magazine Advert I have used typical conventions of real magazine adverts for album releases within my advert. A

new close up image of Danielle surrounded by bare trees shot at a low angle has been used and contains a white text box across the bottom of the poster with the name of the band and title of the track on it above the release date. The font has been centralised in order to maintain a symmetrical aesthetic appeal and create an equal focus between the image and the institutional information on the poster, much like the promotional for American singer-songwriter Sky Ferreira’s promotional poster for ‘One’. I have also considered that the supposed target audience are very likely to be frequent social media users, thus a small Facebook and Twitter icon are placed besides one another on the right of the advert, accompanying the official website of the band in order to gain public recognition and provoke further knowledge of the band to the viewer. On the opposite side, I have placed the web address for exclusively Indie music magazine NME in order to generate hype from the audience who suspect that the magazine has reviewed the group and is contributing to the marketing of this fresh new group. It was important to ensure that web addresses and social media icons remained very small and much less significant in comparison to the name of the band and album as I did not intent for these to dominate the advert, contradicting the purpose to promote the release.