Evaluation Question 1: Abinav

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

The indie music genre is known to be unique and artistic in the way is conveys itself in a very unique yet powerful way. It rejects typical flashy and dramatic traits associated with the pop genre. 

Take Lana Del Rey for example:

She is known for her sensual music paired with her retro sense of style. Even her music videos have a vintage look with the use of grainy film stock, distorted/heavily filtered colours and extended shots. 

This video style used in Summertime Sadness is visually pleasing and is aesthetically similar to Birdy's Shelter. Here, the narrative follows the character running through a forest environment, and the emphasis again is on one single character.   


I took inspirations from indie music videos like these in order to conform my product to the genre. I believe because the music and artists were very similar in identity and style, the effects worked amazingly. 

Comparison of mise-en-scene

The red lens flare and grainy image stock were added as special effects in the final process of post-production and was highly successful in making the film look more artistic and also impressed the audience.  

The cinematography and narrative takes inspiration from Shelter which contains an excessive use of slow motion to fit the slow beat music. There is a single character running through a woodland area depicted through several close and long shots to show expressions and the environment.

In Whispers, the handheld camera movement is mimicked throughout the film to get a natural feel as if the viewer was right there in the field with the protagonist. The music is slow and melodic, so I slowed down the footage as well to give it a dreamy effect. I edited the footage to the beat of the music which I previously practised here.

Following my research on the conventions of music videos, I applied Andrew Goodwin's theory to my music video to guarantee it conforms to all the aspects of a real media product.

1) Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
As mentioned above, the grainy film stock, lens flares, slow motion, hand held camera and several other aspects of mise-en-scene all add up to it being a product of the indie genre.

2) There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals

The colours fade with the lens flare

Here, the deer are the 'children' on the forest

Close-up on the hand 

3) The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist
The video starts and ends with a close-up of the character's face, with frequent ones in between. 


4) There is frequently reference to the notion of looking and voyeuristic treatment of the female body

The camera lingers on her legs and body. 

The handheld camera movement makes it appear as if our character was filmed by a non-professional, perhaps a voyeur. Her costume reveals her legs which suggests Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory. 

Female sexualisation in Beyonce's Single Ladies

Even though there is an aspect of 'looking' it does not sexualise the character as much as it would in a pop or  R&B video (reference Beyonce's Single Lades). The subtle appreciation of the female body conforms it to the indie genre. 

5) There is often intertextual reference  
The character, costume and setting is repeated in the artist's digipak and magazine advert (see below). 


Whispers has a noticeable to other music videos. There is almost footage of singing, except for a line at the end. This is because I wanted to focus on the narrative and cross cutting from a performance sequence to the storyline would alter the continuity that I wanted to sustain throughout my film. It therefore utilizes Todorov's 3 part narrative structure, with a clear beginning(forest), middle(journey) and end(city).

The video ends with our character having reached the city. 

The fact that I focused on the narrative more than the music is rather uncommon in the indie genre but can be seen in some examples like Ed Sheeran's Give Me Love where the song acts as a background music to a narrative-focused film.


This video also inspired me to add a sound bridge at the beginning and end of my music video where the diegetic sounds of birds chirping in nature fades to the non-diegetic song(Also seen in Milky Chance's Down by the River), and then back to diegetic sounds of urban environment. 
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The album cover on the digipak took similar inspirations from real media products. From my research, I found the most common features on album covers:

• Close-up picture of artist
• Name of artist boldly presented 
• Name of album in smaller if not same sized font

Print products of the indie genre also seem to have these features in common:

• Distorted/heavily filtered colours
• Illustration
• Creative fonts
• Grainy image

I put great emphasis on the cover since 50% of our survey said that it is what attracted them to the album most. Therefore, I followed examples of Lana Del Rey and Twin Shadow and chose to have the artist on the cover itself. What I discovered was that artists and bands often had illustrations, if not a female on the cover. Women are commonly used to represent or put a face to their(music artist's) music as they manage to captivate the audience and sell. Therefore we chose our model Kelly McCarthur to represent Elena Garcia's music. 

In comparison to another indie album

The fast that the costume, hair, makeup, setting and character was the same as in the music video creates a synergistic connection and allows audiences to recognise the link between these two digital and print texts.  

Like all other artists, I used the same image of my cover to advertise on my magazine advert. 

Institutional information and format is followed.