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

Throughout our music video we felt that not only does our media product follow some of the stereotypical conventions of the indie music genre, it also challenges it. It follows the conventions by dressing the characters that are seen in the music video in some of the clothes that you would expect to see in that particular genre, skinny jeans and baggy jumpers for example. We feel that although our aim was to try and make our whole theme not to follow the exact conventions of the genre itself but try to make it different, we feel that some conventions had to be followed to attract the audiences that enjoy this type of music. At the same time some individuality was necessary it make our video stand out so that it attracts them over other ‘competition’ such as big bands of the likes of: Kasabian and The Killers.

This personal touch of ours was to include a different setting that challenges the stereotype of the indie music genre. We feel that it was necessary to add this individuality to add something different and refreshing to the indie genre. Throughout the genre’s stereotype we can see that an urban theme is a popular choice as it reflects the nature of the target audience of the genre. For example people who tend to listen to this genre of music often come from an urban background as the electric guitar and drums are popular instruments that are included in this music, apposed to the banjo or classic guitar that connotes classical music and a target audience that comes from perhaps a rural setting who prefer the traditional style of music. However, we decided to go with a rural background for our video, which was a farm. We felt this would be a good setting as farms connote past times as working farms were more popular back then due to the lack of technology that they had to aid them with harvesting etc. Similarly the farm itself is an old working farm, so with both of these things taken on board the farm have the video an old fashioned theme without having to add a black and white theme, however one was added but then removed by us as the video lacked in quality and the picture was a bit less clear. This old fashioned theme highlights some of the old fashioned style of fashion such as plain baggy jumpers and the vehicle that they are in (pick up truck).

• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?• What have you learned from your audience feedback?• How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?