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

My media product is a music video for the song Monster by the indie/alternative rock band The Automatic. The video’s imagery revolves around politicians playing a game of football. I chose this idea because I liked the contrast between the formal and elitist portrayals politicians convey and the casual game of football, a sport loved universally regardless of class or country. Throughout the video, I chose to have the politicians transform into monsters. This is hinting at the immoral behaviour and corruption often synonymous with politicians.

Charles Peirce’s ‘Types of Signs’ theory According to Charles Peirce, signs are split into three different types; iconic, indexical, and

symbolic. Iconic signs are a direct representation of that object, and so it is usually a drawing or a photograph. Indexical signs are those that have a direct connection with an object, e.g. foot prints in the sand to show somebody has been walking there. Symbolic signs are where the connection with the sign must be learned as a social construction, e.g. the flashing green man to let us know we can cross the road.

Ferdinand de Saussure deconstructed signs into further parts, describing what comprises a sign that we recognise.

- The signifier: the actual image of the sign. Alone this is always arbitrary and meaningless - example: a pizza

- The signified: the meaning behind the signifier - example: delicious and tasty - The sign: the combination of the signifier and the signified - pizza is recognised as a delicious

and tasty food, however the image of the pizza would be nothing without the learned knowledge that it is tasty, which is the signified, and the message of tastiness could not be represented without the image of a pizza, the signifier

Applying the theories of signs

I have used various signs throughout my music video. One of the examples is on the freeze-frame of Tony Blair swearing. The act of sticking up your first and second finger backwards to people in the UK is a symbolic sign. This is because if we had never seen that sign before, we would think nothing of it, however society and the media has turned that sign into a learned message, that being “I don’t like you”. If the two fingers were facing the other way, it would be the symbol of peace, ironically the complete opposite of the swearing fingers sign. In this instance, the signifier is the two fingers and the signified is the message of hate. By having this image in my music video, I am challenging the media’s representation of politicians, which is to be formal and respectable, with a politician that’s angry and crude.

Monster masks are worn in the video in order to present the duality of the personality of a politician; his public presentation, and his inner monster. The monster masks are also symbolic, as monsters indicate evil. The signifier is the monster mask, and the signified is the message of fear and evil associated with monsters. Therefore, the resulting sign becomes that the politician beneath the mask is an evil monster.

Paying homage to Trainspotting (1/3)Scenes from Trainspotting

Scenes from my music video

Paying homage to Trainspotting (2/3) I have developed an already existing form of media in my music video, with that media being the

film Trainspotting. The specific part I have loosely replicated is the scene in the beginning when the gang are playing football; as the camera focuses on each individual during the action there is a freeze frame on each of them and during this time their character nickname appears in writing on the screen next to them. The still of each character with their name lasts about two seconds before reverting back to the action, and subsequently on to another freeze frame for a different character.

This technique achieves the effect of not only introducing the characters to the audience, but doing so in an engaging and light-hearted manner. The characters are not introduced necessarily by their actual names, but more so by the name they go by among their friends, and namely the narrator of the film, Mark Renton. By introducing them as their nicknames in the informal situation of playing a Sunday league football game, this allows the audience to feel more close and connected with the personalities and also to possibly relate to them as a lot of people like football. It also gives an unconventional, indie feel to the movie which goes well with the rest of the film.

Paying homage to Trainspotting (3/3) I chose to make a pastiche of this Trainspotting scene (the four friends playing football) because I

felt that as well as being a great piece of cinematography, it also pertains to my music video a lot; one similarity is that as in the scene, there are four characters in my music video. Another likeness between the two is that these characters are all playing football. However, a big difference is that in Trainspotting the technique of having a character's nickname appear in writing next to a still image of them is extremely useful as beforehand we were unfamiliar with them and so they were essentially total strangers to us, whereas the cast in my music video are all portraying famous politicians and require no introduction. If I did not implement the craft of visually displaying their names in text, it would not matter as they would be recognised regardless. Although, while it is not necessary for identifying the cast, it is indeed useful in terms of breaking down the walls of formality and achieving relaxed images of the high-profile politicians. To increase the sense of casualness between audience and characters, like in Trainspotting I also chose to call the characters by nickname rather than actual name. I chose the nicknames myself, and they are as follows:

Barack Obama = Bazza David Cameron = Davie George Bush = Boy George Tony Blair = Teddy Blair

These informal and even silly nicknames attain a level of equality among the viewers and actors through an established ground of humility created by the nicknames. Because normal, everyday people have nicknames it therefore becomes a representation of regularity and commonness.

Looking at my genre (1/2) I have been studying music videos from my chosen genre of music, indie rock. Videos from

indie rock bands typically have: - concept/narrative music videos - bright, colourful videos - an informal, relaxed atmosphere - typical indie clothing (skinny jeans, hoodies, colourfulness) - surrealism

Videos of other indie bands such as Foster the People, The Moons, and The Black Keys all contain some of the elements mentioned above. My music video uses these conventions that are typical to indie music videos in a few different ways. One way is that it is a narrative-based video, as it shows a game of football in a linear storyline. Secondly, I experimented with the colours in post-production in order to make my video brighter. I did this so the vivid colours would grab the viewers attention. Lastly, I also have aspects of surrealism in my video, as the transformation from politicians to monsters transcends the physical boundaries of our world. However, I have not made use of the casual indie clothing that is often found within the videos of my genre. This is because I made the choice to have my actors wear suits, as I wanted the politicians to look like they were ready for an important meeting of some sort, making it all the more bizarre when it is revealed they are playing football. By having them all wear suits, I am challenging the convention of informal clothing usually seen in indie music videos.

Looking at my genre (2/2)

‘I experimented with the colours in post-production in order to make my video brighter. I did this so the vivid colours would grab the viewers attention’

‘I also have aspects of surrealism in my video, as the transformation from politicians to monsters transcends the physical boundaries of our world’

Inspiration for masks The reason for using masks is to effectively portray specific politicians, as opposed to finding lookalikes. I

chose to use these types of masks as opposed to rubber or even plastic masks that can be worn over one's entire head because I loved the simplicity of the style and this I feel achieves a comedic effect which is what I'm aiming for. My inspiration to use these types of masks stemmed from the music video 'Cut Me Off' by American rapper Cam Meekins. In this music video the director used the faces of celebrities stuck on paper plates to obtain a similar humorous result as me. Whilst I did not want to use paper plates myself, as I thought it looked somewhat tacky and resembled an aura of a nursery arts and crafts class, I appreciated the purpose of the simple design. Bearing that in mind, I needed to figure out a way to maintain that sort of rudimentary look, and so I chose the next step up which was cardboard masks. By doing this, I have used and developed a form of media, which in this case is Cam Meekin’s video.

Image from Cam Meekin’s video Image from my video

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