Music Video Final Edit

Print Production

Front Cover

Inside Left

Inside Right

Back Cover

Magazine Advert

Pitch: Avalanche

My music video features two clear binary oppositions. The Villain and the Superhero. The narrative is from the villains point of view and his day to day bad behaviour in his local neighbourhood and his prolonged desire to defeat the Superhero.

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product with ancillary texts (In progress)

The idea behind my print production is quite simple. As it is a four person band I followed the rock convention of rock by have the band members on the CD covers. Furthermore, the fact that they are an unsigned band it helps the band to get visually recognized and increases their chance of success and fame. I decided to do an individual portrait In order to emphasis that each band members plays a huge role in creating the music, it is a team effort in every song and therefore they each deserve their own side of the CD cover. I used a brick wall to convey the concept of working class. They all had to work hard in order to achieve any sort of success. They are perhaps trying to represent the ‘normal’ people that struggle in the ‘real world’ and that things were not simply handed to them. A bit like Ed Sheeran who used to busk in his home town before his fame.

Generic and Visual links: In order to convey the multiple genres in our band rock/indie/psychedelic I used multiple visual techniques in my print production. Firstly rock conventions, is shown through the individual portraits of a band as it is so commonly seen in rock bands CD cover where you so often see the whole band on it, as rock conventions emphasise the performance in their music videos. However I also tried to challenge the generic rock CD covers by giving each member their own slide of the cover in order to emphasise that each individual contributes to the band’s music with their own unique style, whether it Is rock indie or psychedelic which is why the Avalanche band has such a diverse genres in their music. Indie genre is represented through their clothing fashion, it is also diverse and each member have their own style whether it is a simple jumper with stripes or a colourful funky shirt. Whereas a punk or rock band would be wearing dominantly black with chains and piercings which is a common style for rock bands/sub-culture. I also interpreted psychedelic genre through the use of coloured bricks. The use of mass colours is heavily seen in psychedelic genres as it portraying the effects of a drug called LSD which was so known during the 1960s and it is apparent through the use of Adobe Premier Pro in our edit of the music video, for example the 3D colour contrast and the heavy use of ghost effect which is also known to be seen during a trip on Acid LSD. The use of bright colours such as yellow and pink is simply further giving a first impression of happy music and a positive vibe. Even if not all songs are happy, majority are.

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (In progress)

The genre of our music video is indie rock as they both have conventions of rock such as being a 'four man' band but the music style fits more with the indie side of the music industry as it is fairly unique and upbeat. In our music video we follow a narrative approach as the purpose of it is to tell a short story which follow the indie conventions as it is often seen in indie music videos as oppose to rock conventions of having band performance.
Narrative - In our music video of the hit single 'Avalanche' we have created two binary oppositions who are the two main characters. The superhero who represents the good and the villain who represents evil. This is a common ideology that we have based our narrative upon, the ideology is based that one cannot exist without the other and therefore they have to co-exist in order to create a balance or symmetry.  The story is told through the antagonists character who is filled with jealousy, anger and hopelessness in which is expressed through the his actions such as staring through a strangers living room window, attacking and kidnapping  the superhero and of course public urination. By making the Villain the prime subject and following his story, we are ultimately giving the control and 'power' to the Villain and therefore making him the most significant character,  disrupting the equilibrium. This clearly links to a common narrative structure theory by Tzvetan Todorov who believed to be able to apply to any film narrative, he believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern. They all go through stages called the equilibrium, disequilibrium and acknowledgement solving the problem and returning to the equilibrium. However we also challenge Tzvetan's theory in our music video by using a cyclical narrative structure in which is very rarely seen in rock music videos. Our opening scene starts of in a forest in which the disequilibrium is already happening (it acts as a preview) and then cuts to the beginning of the song where the villain wakes up/jumps up from a garbage bin where the equilibrium has not yet been disrupted, we then end our music video in the same way, as he wakes up from his 'lovely' dream.
Mise-en-scene/Clothing - Our music videos location is important as we wanted to film somewhere where it is peaceful and everything is at its harmony. Therefore a quite peaceful neighborhood is a perfect location as our villain can disrupt the peace and act as a villain would do. We also used a forest as the location for our 'torture scene this fits well with the villain as this is his dream to defeat the Superhero and therefore it is quite personal and perhaps emotional for him which is why he wants to be isolated from the public and enjoy his moment in peace. We could say that we challenge the convention of a villain as they are usually portrayed to be outspoken for the public to see and hear. However these two characters are actually just normal humans without any superpowers but merely have opposite intentions. Furthermore, the use of face paint acts as a clothing, hiding the identity of our villain and acts as an enigma in our music video. It further shows how evil people are among us in perhaps everyday situation we just do not know peoples true identity and intentions. The use of anorak / hoodie emphasizes the deviant use of clothing as it further hides the face and therefore the personals identity which may correlate with criminal activities.  

How are the conventions of the indie genre evident in Foster The People music video Pumped Up Kicks - In progress

Common settings for Indie conventions are usually located at cities, neighbourhood, studio, parks and woods these locations usually create mysteries which makes the audience focus on the performance in stead of the narrative, this way it makes the audience to focus on the talent and passion of the band rather than their success.

Foster The People is an American Indie Pop band consisting of the lead singer Mark Foster and drummer Mark Pontius. The band's production actually consists of a variety of genres such as Indie Pop, alternative rock, indie electronica, alternative dance and Neo-psychedelia. His father encouraged and persuaded him to follow his musical career. This led him to move with his uncle in Los Angeles. He worked various jobs during the day and at night found himself cruising down the nightlife and parties where he engulfed all the different tribal subcultures. After several unsuccessful tries to create a band he ended up finding a job as a commercial jingle writer spent eight consecutive weeks at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, making it the first Billboard Alternative Billboard Alternative Songs number-one single to crack the U.S. top 5 since Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody" in 2009. Furthermore, 'Pumped Up Kids' received a Grammy award  nomination for Best PoP Duo/Group Performance. Mark Foster was very concerned with the upcoming trend in depression with today's youth and he expressed his concern on CNN's website saying "I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' when I began to read about the growing trend in teenage mental illness. I wanted to understand the psychology behind it because it was foreign to me. It was terrifying how mental illness among youth had skyrocketed in the last decade. I was scared to see where the pattern was headed if we didn't start changing the way we were bringing up the next generation." In writing the song, Foster wanted to "get inside the head of an isolated, psychotic kid  And since the upload his music video YouTube on 4 of February 2011 it now has reached 225,650,198 views.


Foster The People being an indie rock band follow the conventions of rock in their music videos by having a band performance integrated with some kind of narrative. Furthermore, because Indie rock usually has a much slower tempo and a softer tone than rock they do not follow the generic conventions of rock such as black clothes, long hair and strong back lights which are usually the case. Instead they wear casual clothes such as a plain any coloured shirts , some kind of pants/Jeans and converse shoes. And even though converse shoes and Jeans are often seen in rock bands they do not give the impression that they wear them as a statement but rather because they simply enjoy the fashion. In the 'Pumped up Kids' has a non linear narrative combined with band performance. Cleverly the narrative is simply some 'random' footage of the band hanging out and enjoy their time while surfing and playing frisby. This is perfect for the song as it is intended to encourage those who are suffering from mental illness or depression which is what the song is about, almost simply saying "Enjoy life". Foster The People being a new band at the time, needed to be actually be seen by the audience in order to attract fans and perhaps show and give the audience a taste of how they would be live. This is where the band performance comes in.
A similar indie style music video is by 'Snow Patrol - If there is a rocket tie me to it'
 as they also have a few shots of them enjoying their time by walking on the beach as a group and sending out flying lanterns, both videos have recreatiional activities and also band shots, even though Snow patrol is a solid rock band you can see the rock conventions in Indie bands. 

Music Video Mood Board (Collaboration)