Q1) in what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

For our A2 media project, we were set the task to create a music video, digipak and a Poster for the
song Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. During the course of this production, we have both
developed and challenged the conventions that are typical in the bands house style so that we may
create a valid representation for our final products. We initially researched into the conventions of
Alternative rock music videos and researched into similar musicians. We looked at The Killers and
One Republic, and found that The Killers house style was contradicting to Imagine Dragons, whereas
One Republics house style was relevant.
Sara Thornton discusses about "subcultural capital" which is a critique on a musician/band's clothing
- we found that Imagine Dragons wore desaturated clothing and jeans which is reflected in our
choice of costume in our music video, digipak and poster. This would also satisfy the ideology of
'Anti-commercialism' that Alternative Rock Genre follows. Imagine Dragons represent themselves to
be insouciant: in their interview with BBC Radio 3 this insouciance came across. We replicate that in
the ending of our music video.
Dick Hebdige talks about Musicians & Ban ds having a specific signal which helps create brand
identity. Imagine Dragons have their brand identity by their 'logo', which helps their audience
identify the music. Their logo is not specifically 'their logo' as they brand themselves as artists -
The bands main ideology is finding redemption in nature; they believe that from the negative,
positivity can drawn albeit negativity. We reflected this in the Music videos narrative. Steve Neale
states that 'genres are instances of repetition and difference' in which case, we follow this
convention by repeating the editing style of Imagine dragons, yet challenge it's narrative structure
by creating a metaphor of Imagine Dragon's actual video - which actually contradicts the lyrics albeit
a metaphor of revolution.
We challenged this concept by creating a metaphor of the bands actual ideology: wherein the song
has a feeling of post-apocalyptic dystopia which has developed in our music video.
The idea of 'Redemption in Nature/Nurture' is initially shown by our protagonist going to school in
order to better his academic grades- initially, we show this in the mise-en-scene using schoolwork
marked with poor grades, laid across the bedroom table. After going to school and daydreaming
about the post-apocalypse fantasy, the protagonist gets given an 'A' grade.
This idealogy is also shown in the narrative of the post-apocalypse transition, wherein the
Protagonist leads people to an 'arcadia'. visually, we contrast the two scenes by use of a sepia filter
in post production, creating a cinematic feel. Imagine Dragons editing style, we found, was slow;
meaning that they used longer takes and therefore creates more screen time for the narrative/ lead
singer to be apparent which Andrew Goodwin states. We felt appropriate to develop this convention
and make it apparent in our video.
In terms of post production effects, Imagine dragons use a film grain filter, to create a raw looking
music video; this convention is developed throughout the post-apocalyptic scenes in our music video
as we use a tint filter to create a 'sepia' effect. To do this we used Final Cut Express, which allowed
us to sync the audio and visuals together.
The bands main ideology is finding redemption in nature; they believe that from the negative,
positivity can drawn albeit negativity. We reflected this in the Music videos narrative. Steve Neale
states that 'genres are instances of repetition and difference' in which case, we follow this
convention by repeating the editing style of Imagine dragons, yet challenge it's narrative structure
by creating a metaphor of Imagine Dragon's actual video - which actually contradicts the lyrics albeit
a metaphor of revolution.