Q1) in what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
For our A2 media project, we were set the task to create a music video, digipak and a Poster for the song Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. During the course of this production, we have both developed and challenged the conventions that are typical in the bands house style so that we may create a valid representation for our final products. We initially researched into the conventions of Alternative rock music videos and researched into similar musicians. We looked at The Killers and One Republic, and found that The Killers house style was contradicting to Imagine Dragons, whereas One Republics house style was relevant. Sara Thornton discusses about "subcultural capital" which is a critique on a musician/band's clothing - we found that Imagine Dragons wore desaturated clothing and jeans which is reflected in our choice of costume in our music video, digipak and poster. This would also satisfy the ideology of 'Anti-commercialism' that Alternative Rock Genre follows. Imagine Dragons represent themselves to be insouciant: in their interview with BBC Radio 3 this insouciance came across. We replicate that in the ending of our music video. Dick Hebdige talks about Musicians & Ban ds having a specific signal which helps create brand identity. Imagine Dragons have their brand identity by their 'logo', which helps their audience identify the music. Their logo is not specifically 'their logo' as they brand themselves as artists - The bands main ideology is finding redemption in nature; they believe that from the negative, positivity can drawn albeit negativity. We reflected this in the Music videos narrative. Steve Neale states that 'genres are instances of repetition and difference' in which case, we follow this convention by repeating the editing style of Imagine dragons, yet challenge it's narrative structure by creating a metaphor of Imagine Dragon's actual video - which actually contradicts the lyrics albeit a metaphor of revolution. We challenged this concept by creating a metaphor of the bands actual ideology: wherein the song has a feeling of post-apocalyptic dystopia which has developed in our music video. The idea of 'Redemption in Nature/Nurture' is initially shown by our protagonist going to school in order to better his academic grades- initially, we show this in the mise-en-scene using schoolwork marked with poor grades, laid across the bedroom table. After going to school and daydreaming about the post-apocalypse fantasy, the protagonist gets given an 'A' grade. This idealogy is also shown in the narrative of the post-apocalypse transition, wherein the Protagonist leads people to an 'arcadia'. visually, we contrast the two scenes by use of a sepia filter in post production, creating a cinematic feel. Imagine Dragons editing style, we found, was slow; meaning that they used longer takes and therefore creates more screen time for the narrative/ lead singer to be apparent which Andrew Goodwin states. We felt appropriate to develop this convention and make it apparent in our video. In terms of post production effects, Imagine dragons use a film grain filter, to create a raw looking music video; this convention is developed throughout the post-apocalyptic scenes in our music video as we use a tint filter to create a 'sepia' effect. To do this we used Final Cut Express, which allowed us to sync the audio and visuals together. The bands main ideology is finding redemption in nature; they believe that from the negative, positivity can drawn albeit negativity. We reflected this in the Music videos narrative. Steve Neale states that 'genres are instances of repetition and difference' in which case, we follow this convention by repeating the editing style of Imagine dragons, yet challenge it's narrative structure by creating a metaphor of Imagine Dragon's actual video - which actually contradicts the lyrics albeit a metaphor of revolution.