In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms or conventions of

real media products?

Ancillary text: OurFront Cover

Real media Text:

Use:The typography we have used throughout all ancillary texts is ‘Cooper’ because we decided to keep it simple and straightforward. We made the name of the album and name of the band in big, bold, white letter so that the font looks simplistic and is clear for audiences to read which is a similar convention that other real media products also uses. Audiences can concentrate more on the image of the band members whose picture is placed on a canvas, making parallel between the name of the album ‘Canvas’ and the image of the canvas it self. In addition, using the same font through all texts shows that we are aware of continuity skills between our products and makes our product look more professional. Similar to the album of Artic Monkey’s, Favourite Worst Nightmares who's background includes empty streets with semi detached houses which are in black and white, however the objects that are inside the houses are in bright colours as we can see through the open windows. We also tried to apply this technique on our front cover by placing an image of the band on a canvas and making their clothes stand out by increasing the level of brightness/saturation.Develop:We tried to develop on the idea of a black and white background of real media texts such as Artic Monkeys/Maroon 5/Khesha album covers as we decided to use a gradient tool (of the colours white/black/grey) in our own media product to attract more attention towards the main image of the band members. In addition, we also applied the gradient tool to our main image whereas the Artic monkeys and Maroon 5 just used a black and white background. We believe by adding the tool also to our main image it makes the image even more stand out and attracts the audiences attention from a far distance. Furthermore, we also developed the idea of just using a simple font as other real media products do, we added a outer stroke to the letters and included a shadow effect to make the name stand out towards audiences from a far distance. Challenge:We believe that we have challenged the forms and conventions of real media products in a lot of different ways. For example, the fact that we put together the main image of the band and the canvas makes our front cover look unique and links well with the album name ‘Canvas’. Unlike, the typography on the album cover of the Artic Monkeys which is squashed and difficult the read we chose for a simple font to make sure that our audiences are able to read from far the band’s name and the album’s name. Most album covers use different type of font for their albums name and bands name however we chose one particular type of font in order not to make the audiences get confused. Unlike, most pop album covers the main image of the band members is big however, we decided to use a small picture of them but still make them stand out by increasing the levels of brightness in the image.

Ancillary text; our backcover:

Real media text back covers:

Use: In our music album back cover we decided to use a medium close up shot of the band members in order to show their facial expression clearly. This convention is similar to the album cover of Maroon 5 who also used close up shots of their band members. Furthermore, we made the lead singer look into the camera which is a similar to the inlay cover pose used by Artic monkeys but instead we used it for our back cover product. The typography we have used is the same throughout the whole products (CD front/back cover ad music magazine) in order to show that we have used continuity editing and brand identity. In addition, we used the white and red colour for the typography as we believe these colours will make the typography stand out and red is a colour associated with the pop genre. Develop: I believe that we have developed a lot of conventions from real media products, for example, we have used bright colours (red and white) which many pop genre albums use in order to make their prodyct stand out however instead of using a lot of different type of bright colours we mainly used two bright colours. Similar, many real text albums use artists that are posing in a neutral way i.e Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, therefore we made our band members look/pose neutral as well. However, to make them more stand out we changed the levels of brightness and lighting as well increased the levels of saturation.Challenged:We challenged conventions of real media texts by making the image look as if it has been painted on a canvas. This subverts the typical conventions of real media text because normally they use pictures that are very sharp and clear to see. In addition, most real media text have a clear background however, we chose to make the background slightly blurry to emphasis more importance towards the band members.

Real media text inlays:

Ancillary tasks: our inlays:

Use:We used similar pictures for our inlay covers that would link well with the overall theme of thewhole CD album. Also when searching about real media inlays we realised that album inlays Are mostly plain photos of artist in unusual settings where they usually would not take pictures.Therefore we decided to take pictures of the band just sitting on a bench. In most band album inlays you have got the lead singer standing out from the rest of the band for example in thealbum inlay of the Artic monkeys the lead singer looks into the camera while others down. We decided to use this similar idea however instead of making the other band members look awaywe placed the lead singer a level higher on the bench to show audiences that he is main singer.This pose also shows how relaxed the artists are in different environments.Developed: Most inlay covers are simple and straightforward, we added this similar idea however, in order to make our artist stand out a bit more and give the inlay a more ‘pop’ effect, we decided to change the colour of the background to black and white and have the band members in bright colours.Challenged:I don’t think that our inlays have really challenged the conventions of real media inlaysAs we mostly used typical forms and conventions to create the product.

Ancillary task; our music magazine advert: Real media music magazines:

Use:For our music magazine cover, we used the same image as our back cover because repeated Images of band members are likely to stick into the audiences mind. We also used a plain blackBackground because like most other magazine covers i.e Madonna/Kathy Perry use a simple background to make their artists image stand out therefore we used a similar convention. Furthermore, the typography on our products are all the same to show continuity betweenthe products. Also we added face book and twitter web addresses because most of our audiencesuse these website to find out more information about artists and their songs.Develop:We realised that most music magazine adverts used bright colours however the advert did not necessarily link in with the CD album however we did want to link these two products in order to show that we used continuity. Therefore, we decided to keep the colours of the jackets thesame through out the four products (front/back/inlay/magazine advert). Challenged:We challenged the conventions of real media magazine adverts by putting a copy of our CD albumOn it so that audiences would be able to make cross references between the texts. Also Madonna’sMagazine advert used different type of typography while we decided to use one particular typebut make important parts stand out by making them bigger. This prevent audiences of gettingconfused.

Our Music Video: Real Media video’s:

Our music video has similar conventions of real media music videos such as:Katy Perry – Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlyXNRrsk4A(revealing of geek look to new look)

Similarities to other music videos; use of stereotypes (Geek; glasses, Popular girl; fashionable/pretty, Boyfriend; strong/good looking)

Chris Brown ft. Tpain – Kiss Kisshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNII9PDlFJ0&ob=av2e

Our music video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynT2YGg6pjg&feature=youtu.be

- Katy Perry – Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlyXNRrsk4A

Other similarities between our video and some other music videos such as Dance dance by TheFall Out Boys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6MOKXm8x50&ob=av2e is the fact the geek changes his look in the bathroom however, audiences are not able to his face yet,this is to build up suspense

Our musicvideo

Fall Out Boys

Further more, we also liked the idea in the music video’s of pretty girls shownin slow motion to emphasis their beauty. Therefore we decided to use this similarconventions in our music production aswell:

The Lonely Island – Jizz in my Pantshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLnWf1sQkjY&ob=av2e

Wheatus – Teenage Dirtbaghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC3y9llDXuM&ob=av3e

Our music video

Challenged:We also tried to challenged the forms and conventions of real music videos asmany band members in music videos wear similar clothing to the performers. However, in our music video we allowed the people who volunteered to sing along with our song lyrics to wear what they wanted to wear. Also as the song is sing by boys we challenged the conventions to use girls instead to sing along with the lyrics. Further more, our band members are from differentEthnic backgrounds i.e Indian/British and Albaininan whereas most pop music bands are fromWhite ethnic backgrounds for example The Artic Monkeys and The Kooks. We have also added stop motion to our music video in order to create a more unique effect to our pop music video as normally other pop music videos do not use this effect.