The song I chose to base my media products upon was 'Icarus' by alternative rock group Bastille. A main reason I chose this song was purely my love for the band. With such a highly fueled love for alternative rock Bastille are a band I listen to a lot, it was just a matter of chosing a particular one of their songs. It was a preference of mine to chose a song without an existing music video so that there would be no temptation to copy the original. Eventually, after juggling a number of possibilities i settled on 'Icarus'.
Firstly, I was required to follow formal conventions. The conventions which apply to all music videos (across all genres). However, before i could apply these conventions I had to find out what they were. After watching a large number of music videos it soon became clear they all followed a certain number of basic conventions. Therefore, in order to give my own video a feeling of realism I made sure I stuck to these vital guidelines. The conventions of form I discovered were as follows; editing linking with the beat and pace of the song, artist appearing in own video
With the song being categorised as alternative rock it was down to me on whether I would conform or challenge the conventions which have developed withing the genre. Largely, it was my intention to follow the conventions of alternative rock products and so I watched many videos belonging to the genre in order to develop a reasonable judgement of existing conventions. From doing so I was able to discover a whole range of alternative rock conventions which i would be able to relay onto my own music video. One of the most important decisions that must be made when planning a music video is which media concept it should follow. The choice between performance, narrative and abstract is one I struggled with at first but after watching the real live products I noticed that alternative rock focused largely on a mix of narrative and performance.
Another convention I was able to pick up was the negativity within the videos. This was represented through a number of things such as dark costumes, dark settings and usually serious narratives apose to the upbeat, fun narratives presented by Pop videos.
Another feature I took from this video was the texting. Within the video we see the character exchange a number of texts with a female. I feel this is an effective method as it adds an element of realism and allows the video to connect with the young target audience as the modern youth society are constantly on their mobiles. This is why I saw it appropriate to also include it in my video. Like in the 'Why'd you only call me when you're high?' video I also decided to include it at the beginning as it allows the narrative to be established.
I also stuck to the serious narrative convention as well a stick to the lyrics and editing to the beat. The story which I created is basically one of a boy who is jobless and slipping towards alcoholism. His girlfriend has left him due to his excessive drinking and on top of that his depression is now leading him towards drugs and suicidal thoughts. He's leaving a horrible life style and his constant thoughts of taking his own life are leaving him 'flying too close to the sun'. When he discovers his ex has infact left town and has no intention of returning into a relationship he returns to a cliff he'd earlier visited and jumps. Down he falls 'towards an early grave'. And we are shown a flashback of what has lead him to taking his life. The subject I have chosen to base my video on is a serious topic, alcoholism. I have created a short story to show the youth what kinds of mental states excessive drinking can lead to in a hope to deter all viewers from making a similar mistake.
As well as researching into music videos I also looked at a number of alternative rock digipaks and promotional posters. Largely I found these to be relatively simplified i.e. not much text and dull colours and so this is something i wanted to reflect onto my own products.
Slightly against conventions though, i opted to use an alternative model who wasn't the artist themselves but instead the main character within the music video. Largely, if a person is used on the front of a digipak it will be the artist however, the fact I'd followed all other conventions meant I needed something to stand out from the rest and with the artist name in big accross text the centre of the cover I felt there was enough self promotion to allow for an alternative picture. I also deemed it more appropriate to use an image linking to the narrative of the video to enable the seriousness of the song to really hit home for the audience and draw further attention to the hidden meaning of the lyrics. Despite most alternative rock bands using themselves on the front of the digipak's I was able to draw insperation from various acceptions such as Fall out Boy who, like me, used random model to promote their album.
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