This is something which I had to take into consideration when planning my own ancillary texts and music video. In order to complete my research I had to look closely at already existing digipaks and video's fitting the genre of folk/acoustic music in order to gain an understanding of the stylistic requirements and features generally included.
One Theorist 'Michael Shore' argues that a performer is no longer a performer of his/her own music and instead they are a materialisation of the commercial exhibitionist, purely selling features such as their image and body in order to be in the spotlight.
This is a strong argument and one which I agree with. When looking at nearly every popular music video there is a clear theme running through out, this being women flaunting themselves and arguably selling their bodies and their sexuality.
I wanted to steer away from this popular out take on music video's which is described as 'pornography' by theorist 'Andrew Goodwin.' Instead I wanted to film my artist with his guitar to show he is a true musician and film a music video which would amplify the existing music and not purely be a mechanism of promoting or selling the artist.
Here are some examples of digipaks for popular artists compared to those of folk/acoustic artists.
These are three existing digipaks for female popular artists. Each one is photographed in front of a dark backdrop and the focus is purely on them. There is no instrument on any of these and they are all dressed in sexually revealing clothing.Compare this to albums of folk artists.
These are the digipaks of three existing folk artists. There is quite a large difference in their albums compared to the popular ones. In each digipak the artist is seen holding their instrument, which shows the audience that they are proper musicians. Because of this they don't need to wear revealing clothing or hold seductive poses in front of the camera as they have their music to sell themselves with.
When planning my digipak I used media texts such as these to base my creative idea's around.
Steve Neale argues that genre is an 'instance of repetition and difference.' Because music is divided into different genre's, each having their own image, their are certain aspects and features which are repeated, in order to make them identifiable.
When I came to photographing my model for the digipak and advert I did take some photographs with him holding his guitar or having the guitar positioned close to him, but when it came to the editing process these pictures weren't appropriate for layering text over. Instead I used a picture where my artist is in the background and I have used a shallow depth of field to make him out of focus. There for the focus is less on him as he is blurred and more on the strands of grass in focus in the foreground.
Below is a prezi presentation I have created to show what media texts were influential to me and how I have used and developed the forms and conventions of these real media products in the creation of my own music video.
Redundancy and entropy play a big part in music video's. Nearly all music video's have one resounding redundant feature which is miming. How ever certain features can be added to music video's in order to create a more entropic feel to them. Making a music video more entropic challenges the conventions of music video's and can be potentially dangerous. This is because music video's main purpose is to be pleasurable to the viewer, by adding in entropic features your adding in aspects which the viewer may not understand, there for taking away some pleasure of watching of the video. This may also change the reading the viewer makes of the video.
I have made a more redundant video in the sense that I haven't been risky with dress sense, I have included the guitar being played and I have filmed my footage in a non-highly-entropic place. All of the above are redundant features of your typical folk/acoustic video.
You could also argue that I am still playing on womens sexuality by making my female model an object of temptation and desire. How ever, I have portrayed this is a more classy way through the use of double layering my footage and not dressing her in revealing outfits.
The use of my visual imagery of the apple is a redundant feature in the sense it isn't an object you see in many video's, or used in the way I have done. But I its not so entropic that it has no relevance to the video what so ever, instead I have used the apples to create an interesting, eye catching feature, which does symbolic reference to Adam and Eve.
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