Evaluation

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

Examples of existing media products

In this page I made somewhat of a collage of existing media products that are available at the moment. I have shown this in many different medias for example there is a screen print of music videos from YouTube, there is digipak photos of a band and there Is artist promoting their digipak and lastly music that is available to buy online in iTunes.

Conventions of real music videosFrom my research I found that the conventions of real pop music videos were similar on many occasions. Many of my researched music videos for the pop genre were performance based or narrative based or either had both of them. It was unlikely to see concept based real music videos as there was not as many out there. One pop music video that follows narrative based is Taylor Swifts ‘You Belong With Me’. This music video also has few scenes of performance based.But overall the music video is a narrative where it tells the story of the main character who is a shown as a geek and is in love with the other character who is a ‘jock’. Another narrative based video is ‘One less lonely girl’ by Justin Beiber. In this music video we can see the artist is trying to confess to the girl. Using performance based he has interacted with his audience and also crated an easy fun atmosphere while watching the video.

watch video here This is a concept based music video by Katy Perry . There us no story line in this music video and is rather random. As you can see in the screen prints below, there us the artist herself , there is a large man who is shown to be turning into a glass blood/wine. then there is the dog that is just walking around.

Taylor Swift-You belong with me

Katy Perry – Dark Horse

Justin Beiber – One less lonely girl

Halestorm- Love bites Hard Rock

Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine

In this slide I have shared some screen shots of a different genre of music videos. Both of these songs are from the `hard rock genre. As you can clearly see there are some clear similarities in these two music videos from the same genre.

The conventions used are close up medium shot and long shots. These are the most used camera shots in these music videos this is to attract their audience. By using close ups of the artist the audience can almost relate or feel the emotions that the artist is feeling and the long shots and medium shots are to show the other members of the band, playing the instruments like drums and guitars. Using the close ups has also shown the audience of the main singer of the band.

In both of these music videos the transition from one shot to another is very quick and not stable, this is to keep up with their fast tempo songs. From my research I have also seen a huge number f hard rock songs being in black and white, this is to create a mysterious or disturbing effect that would match along with their loud music and voice.

Conventions in our music videoThe conventions of real pop music videos were having close ups of the artist while she sings, this was for the artist to have an interaction with the audience. I saw that this convention was used in other genres as well like hard rock. For our artist to have an emotional attachment with the audience I saw that close ups were important this is why we have used close up scenes in our music video.

This image on the right is a screen shot from our music video , we have used this close up to show the audience that the artist in that scene is happy and enjoying her time with her boyfriend. But from another close up scene from the music video we have tried to create another emotion attachment with the audience which is sadness.

The second close up scene is where the artist is singing, by having a close up performance based we can see the artist singing but also showing her unhappy emotions through her face.

Another conventions we decided to have in our music video is a narrative based. From our research we found out that most pop songs have somewhat a story in their music video. This is why we have decided to give a story in our music video instead of it being a concept based music video. The performance based of our music video is the artist getting over her boyfriend while she is lip singing and as she is thinking about the memories that they had together which is the narrative part of the music video. From this narrative part we can see how much they were in love, and how they broke up. On the bottom are screen shots of the narrative parts of the music video.

We decided to go against concept based videos as it would not attract our target audience. There would have been no story and rather just random things happening in the music video, for example Katy Perry’s ‘Dark horse’.

Real digipak ConventionsWhile I was researching digipak conventions with in the pop genre. I have focused on these two digipaks as both of them are from the same genre ‘pop’ and there is many things that I found similar in these two albums.

The conventions of pop has been shown clearly in both of these digipaks. The main thing that you would pick our from the digipak front covers is the mise-en-scene. The genre of pop has been represented with the use of mise-en-scene. Cher Lloyd in her album cover is wearing fashionable clothing, she is wearing a striped black and white top and black shorts. Her outfit is interesting and could attract the audience with the accessories she is wearing.

Little mix in the other hand has close ups of the members as their front cover. Unlike Cher Lloyds front cover we can’t see Little Mix’s clothing, but what stands out is their makeup and hair colour. All four of the girls have different coloured hair, making them all look like fairly fictional character from a story book. For Cher Lloyd’s front cover , the font she has decided to use for her name resembles comic book fonts. She has used that font to appeal to her young target audience.

From these two album covers I learned that the overall look for a digipak that is for the genre ‘pop’ should have a have a clear title of the artists name and the album name. The colours have to be suitable so it can attract the audiences attention just from the first look. The picture also has to be suitable and of good quality. There has to the company logos and a barcode along with any other copyright information. This is important if we want the product to look like it could really be sold.

Our Digipak

Looking at real digipak conventions gave us a better understanding of real digipak conventions that should be added to our music album. For example we learned from digipak conventions that a album cover for the genre ‘pop’ had be colourful and bright, along with this the image of the artist should interest the target audience. Cher Lloyd’s album image is a medium shot and is very attractive as the background is out of focus it emphasises her beauty. It highlights the artist and the album and artists name. When you look at our front cover a similar effect can be found ,for example we have kept the background plain white this is to keep the artist as the main focus point but the background being just white has also helped highlight the album name and artist name.

The artist in our album cover is wearing attractive, fashionable clothing. Just like how Cher Lloyd has used accessories to show a sense of style we have used a colourful fashionable Aztec dress. It is important to have the artist wearing fashionable clothing because the audience will want to follow that trend. We have placed a barcode and also the company logo in the back page, this is to show what record company the artist works with. There is copyright logo to protect the album and the songs from any illegal selling. What we haven't used in our digipak is too much colour like Little Mix's back cover. This is because we are aiming for slightly mature audience of 15-20 year olds, using too many different colours would not be suitable. We have used colour to make the album look from the pop genre but just the right amount as we wanted it to look professional as well.

Real advert conventions and our real advert

These are two digipak advertisements by two different artists. The conventions of a digipak advertisement is to have clear details summarised. For example for both of these advertisements they are not filled with writings/text . There is a subtle amount of text that are the more important overall for example the artist name, album name, date, and one song that most people would recognise. They have decided to put these in the advertisement as they give the most important details, there is always one song that is used in the advert because some people would recognise a certain song but not the artist.

This is our final digipak advert, after looking at the conventions of digipak we knew what was needed to make our digipak successful. We have used a close up photo of our artist, this is for the audience to recognise her easily. Like other digipak adverts we have placed important details on the advert. We have placed “one of the best albums this year” top pf the pops because we wanted to attract the audience showing and telling them about how good the album is. We have also used social networking sites that would let the audience have an interaction with the artist.

How the use of conventions might attract or appeal to an audience.

The use of conventions in our final media products can appeal to our audience as it shows clearly what genre it is from. This is from the use of text, colours and also image we have used in our final products. The mise-en-scene used in our final products could attract the audience because the clothing and jewellery are fashionable. The makeup and hair can also attract our audience as it fits the pop genre and it also give the audience something to replicate.