Evaluation. Question 1

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When creating a media product you have to take into consideration the codes and conventions the product generally has and music videos are no exception to this. When the initial process started of creating the music video we had to be very clear on what type of video we wanted to create. As a group we decided to create a indie/rock video, mainly because this is the type of music we all would choose to listen too. When we received our brief one song instantly stuck out to us and that was the song Alright by Supergrass. Once we picked the song it was time to start deciding on the type of video we wanted to create, I decided to look primarily young indie videos for example One Night Only and Mumm-Ra, I wanted to look at these kind of videos in particular because I feel they have a certain uniqueness to them and I find them very interesting to watch  mainly because of the narrative they all seemed to follow. After looking at these kinds of videos I began to notice similarities in all of them, the main thing I noticed were they all seemed to portray the band having fun with there friends and this was something I wanted our video to convey.

 After we looked into the general "indie" music video scene we began talking about our music video, the first thing we had to decide on was the band that were going to focus on in the video. The original name for our band was "Tonic"but as a group we didn't like the band name, we began to think about the band name and we looked at our brief to give us some ideas. In the brief we noticed it said the band had met in school, it was during this we decided to name the band "Two Mile Radius" because normally to attend a school you need to live withing a Two Mile Radius and as a group we felt this fitted the band very well. As we began planning the video we decided we wanted to document the band having fun, much like what I saw in the videos I analysed and seeing as the band are all teenagers we felt this would be the kind of video they would release. Initially we wanted to film a house party with some cafe shots embedded within it, however due to re-decorating and timing issues we had to re-think.

We then decided to film in a pub, in order to achieve the teenage atmosphere the band are about, the pub also has connotations of fun,laughter and youth again something the band are passionate about. After we looked at the pub scenes on the computer it soon became apparent that the video would look dull with just these shots, so we went back to the drawing board. We went back to videos we initially analysed, it was during this process we noticed one things the "independent" bands have in their videos, fun and performance. We decided we wanted to keep an element of fun to our video both with the band themselves and the performances. We decided we wanted to make the video look like a home movie, much like the Mcfly video for their single Star Girl.

As I went to film the fun shots I made it clear I wanted these shots to look as natural as possible so although I set up the angles of the shots and told the bands some of what I wanted them to do they really took it to the next level and it was this that made me really happy about the shots and I began to in vision the video in my head, this again made me very excited. When it came to the performance shots this was very easy to decide upon, we wanted to portray the same amount of fun as we did in the previous shots we also wanted to the contrast of work and play to be combined and it was this that made us decided to use the popular PlayStation game, Guitar Hero. As these shots were filmed we worked with a variety of shots again to give it a more authentic feel. During the editing process it was important for us to keep the video exciting in order for the audience not to become bored. We also included a photo montage, the photos have been placed in the guitar solo portion of the song and I personally feel it gives the video a new depth and it also gives the audience something new to look at.

Overall I feel our music video follows the codes and conventions of any young independent debut music video,I feel it has an organic feel which gives of young,carefree connotations which is something I feel is very important to the video and the band.