Question One: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music videos?

 

                                             The Smiths - There is a light that never goes out

Oasis - Wonderwall

Within our video, we have aimed to both follow and conflict with existing conventions of the indie genre. As you can see in "There is a light that never goes out" video, there are clear similarities to our video. The video aims to create a gritty, urban feel with an evidently British concept. Shots are primarily based around the city, which is what we also aimed for in our video. The Smiths video's all consistently revolve around there roots and have a very British working class influence, this is evident as there locations tend to be within estates consisting of terraced housing. We took on this idea and aimed to keep the shots within urban areas. We decided to follow these conventions as even though we aimed to contradict the lyrics, we thought keeping the secure, British style of The Smiths would show our understanding of the genre and our ability to read and mirror the conventions of the "indie" style. Obvious ways in which we followed conventions are that we used a full band in an urban setting, a house party. This therefore appeals to our target/teenage audience. In our video as you can see above, you see the main character traipsing the streets, visiting the pub and smoking through a vandalized subway, all aiming to reflect his roots, express his british culture and really fulfill The Smiths iconography. 

However following the conventions and style of The Smiths and indie genre, we also aimed to contradict the lyrics and play around with the concept of the title, "This Charming Man". We based our character on somebody who wouldn't traditionally be seen to listen to The Smiths. Our protagonist is a working class "chav" who goes against the idea of a charming man. Stealing, smoking and being rude are his key traits and are literally the opposite of the concept of the song. This adds both a comic and deeper value to the song, also making it slightly more interesting then sticking to the genre and making it less tedious. 

We did not exactly use and apply postmodern ideas within our video, however we aimed to use modern social technology by displaying content from the ever expanding social networking site Facebook. This therefore will appeal to our target audience who will recognize and instantly relate to the reference. This is a form of intertextuality, as we are utilizing another media form for our media form. This can be seen as developing conventions for our particular genre. Within the days of The Smiths and other bands like The Cure, Rolling Stones and other classic bands, the key to promoting there bands was through flyers and word of mouth. We acknowledged this idea and thought of how bands marketed and promoted themselves in a postmodernist society. We then decided that it would only be appropriate that we show this transition of technology and promotion within our video.