Q.1 b) GENRE

For Section A question (b) 25 marks,you  select one production (of your own) and evaluate it in relation to a media concept. The list of concepts to which questions will relate is as follows:

• Media language(film language = camerawork, mise-en-scene, editing, sound)

• Audience

• Representation

• Narrative

• Genre 

GENRE 1 (b) Select one production and evaluate it in relation to the media concept of genre.
 [25] 


My A2 Production was a cross-media product composed of a music video of the track 'Helena Beat' for the indie rock / pop band Foster The People to sell their album 'Mind Games'. As part of this task, I also produced a carefully tailored digipack design for the album and a magazine advert which would create awareness of the product. In short, I used codes that would maximize all parts of the production as a promotional tool to sell the album and promote the band: exactly what the music industry expects.


Although these three components have different genre conventions, I never forgot that audiences need to see the each part of the package as part of a synergistic whole, so that the advert attracts and addresses audiences with bold graphics and clear text, stating when the album will be released and featuring the band prominently, while the music video will employ a variety of genre codes to spark new audience interest, reassure committed  fans and withstand repeated viewings. Finally, the digipack should have very clear links to the music video with the stars prominent, the style and overall feel of the layout reflecting the band's identity and reinforcing its brand through the appropriate choice of image, colour, font, layout and general design.


My music video treatment reflects both research into genre conventions and visual codes that reflect the band's identity. For me, of overriding importance was the need to convey to audiences the band's genre: Foster The People are distinctive and have a quirky approach that sets them apart. They are indie yet have mainstream appeal. Columbia senior VP of promotion Lee Leipsner said, "It was one of the only alternative bands I remember in a while that you could actually dance to. And the fact that the record has a groove and rhythmic feel to it—not heavy guitar-based at all—gave us a wide opportunity to cross the record." Therefore,our treatment reflected this. For example, we observe the genre convention of cutting the visuals to the beat, in particular during the repeated chorus of 'Yeah yeah and it's OK' which has a upbeat optimistic feel. Here, we also make the visuals spell out the words of the chorus quite literally, using the letters of the table top game 'Boggle' and in another chorus treatment the letters of the board game 'Scabble'. 

This is a clear example of the convention of illustrating the lyrics with the visuals. As we used CGI to create this, I would say that it also reflects the increasing trend of using CGI in music videos which have become increasingly sophisticated visually with spectacle highly valued. When I compare my genre treatment with earlier examples, say Robert Palmer's 'Simply Irresistible', it is so much more dynamic, busy and arresting: Palmer offers audience a very static set piece with few surprises. Such a treatment would not sell the product nowadays. We also opened with CGI: we hoped that the way a low angle CU shot of a retro vinyl LP on a turntable transforming into psychedelic colours then cross dissolving into the wheels of the band's bicycles would be an arresting mixture of retro, fantasy and realism as we follow the band's bike ride on their journey into the recording studio.

Andrew Goodwin observes ('Dancing In The Distraction Factory') that the visuals may provide illustration or amplification of the lyrics, or there may be disjuncture. As our band is indie, we wanted to amplify the lyrics with an alternative, more distinctive approach: for one thing, our lyrics don't really offer the possibility of literal treatment for every line, but they do make certain really key statements that their young audiences would relate to, in particular, a certain angst or depression that can knock you sideways and make you want to stay in bed. We had to reconcile the 'inner' or private, secret reality of what it's like to be in a struggling band with the equally important need to showcase the band's success and polished performances. 

In other words, we included both front stage and backstage footage: we observed the convention of polished public stage performance, complete with close-ups on the guitarists and lead vocalist, which is essential in building the brand and promoting the star (Richard Dyer), providing authentication of skill through lip synching and the chance for keen fans to see their stars in close-up, building relationships, and allowing them to engage with their heroes. In these scenes, we followed genre conventions of bright stage lights, some canted angles to suggest movement and dynamism, and a lot of cutting between performers to convey exuberance and cohesion: the band as a successful group.

However, we also intercut the performance shots with the back stage story (Irving Goffman's model of front and back stage behaviours here interpreted quite literally). Here, the audience sees the band in rehearsal, struggling, falling out, getting it wrong but trying agin. The lighting is darker (for Barthes, this code would convey the darkness of the spirits), there is the use of hand-held and also fish eye lens, all to suggest the diary-like record of the band in real life, providing a flatteringly intimate insight for the audience.

Therefore, this narrative was very different - if you can call it narrative, because I would support Heidi Peeters' view that narrative in music video is much more about building the emotional environment surrounding the band or star and thereby making connections with the audience than about plot or interpreting lyrics. For Peeters, this ability to connect the band to the audience is the KEY GENRE CONVENTION: 'One would be surprised at how the majority of theorists still consider music videos to be visualizations of a song. While they may seem discontinuous .., the shots (in music videos)are highly connected through the image of the star.”

“The star promotes the phenomenon of identification, a process by which viewers become attached to a star, ranging from emotional affinity limited to the context of the movie theatre to projection, by which fans try to become their idols through imitating speech, movements and consumer patterns.'

To complete my analysis, I must explain that my digipack used genre conventions of photos of the band taken from the music video as well as details of the album tracks. Whereas in the video I could develop both the brightly coloured upbeat side of the band's experience as well as reveal the more intimate struggles, I chose exclusively bright, densely saturated colour and very geometric, symmetrical layout and patterning for the digipack: these design elements appear in the video in the chorus treatment and are very eye-catching, therefore suitable for standing out on the shelf in a shop and attracting attention when featured on the magazine advert, a genre convention that I observed, along with institutional information, bar codes and in the case of the advert, release date.

To conclude, I made an ALTERNATIVE treatment. That is, I showed both the public face and the private struggle of the band. Both narrative treatment and cinematography shows this dichotomy (opposite worlds). I didn’t create a Utopian world of which the star seems to be the instigator, as claimed by Richard Dyer's Entertainment and Utopia. What I did is create the world of the band, the place where they hang out, practise, play and fall out, in a more realistic, indie way. I agree with Peeters that “Narrativity does not seem to be an absolute necessity within the medium.” 

“The fact that music videos in this sense are primarily poetic does not mean that clips never contain narrativity. Most music videos do develop a storyline, embedded within its poetic structure and some clips even contain introductory story sequences or non-musical narrative sequences inserted within the video number but "outside" its musical score. Narrative in clips becomes a device to structure the poetic clip world and make it more accessible and recognizable to the viewer.”

What I did is create an emotional connection with my band through a series of poetic montages.