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

forms and conventions of real media products?

Laura Haynes

CameraWe conformed to the convention of close ups of the boy in the dunce hat in order to help build and emphasise emotions within the music. We decided to use a close up of Oli in the dunce hat to emphasise the attitude of ‘not caring’ and bad attitudes of the people associated with recreational drugs. One piece of information that we found from researching into similar artists and their fans is that they all had a similar attitude – which was that they did things for themselves and didn’t care what others thought of them. One of the bands that we looked at was ‘The chemical brothers’. They also incorporated close ups in their videos to display the attitude of not caring. Therefore, we conformed to this convention within our own music video.

We also conformed to the convention of using mid shots in order to show body language and costume to connotation values and attitudes of our artist. We especially did this with the boy in the dunce hat to highlight the very confident attitude that also reflects that of the fans. The dunce hat also is associated with aggression which is stereotypically associated with men- which is the main gender of our target audience. We were inspired to do this after watching the music video ‘Firestarter’ by The Prodigy. The attitude in this is bad ass and not caring at all – we wanted to conform to this convention in order to get across an element of this attitude within our music video.

This is a screen shot from ‘The Chemical Brothers’ video ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’

This is a screen shot from ‘The Prodigy’s’ video ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’

Camera• We also conformed to the technical convention of using long shots and wide shots in order to show location. We

decided to design a meth lab. We made specific choices as to what we wanted to include because we wanted to also conform to the symbolic convention of using locations familiar to our target audience to enable them to identify with the artist. Even if the fans had not all been in a meth lab before the neon lighting created connotations to clubs and the dunce hat location of a school was particularly apparent as some of our target audience are teenagers and are at school or the elder fans have been to school.

We decided to use wide shots and long shots from watching the music video ‘Ebeneezer Goode’ by ‘The Shamen’. We liked how this appealed to their target audience as they used locations that were easily identifiable.

<<<Such as a club And a street>>>>>

We decided to build a meth lab that was smoky and dingy so that it didn’t look like a proper meth lab and made it clear that this is an illegal, underground operation. We decided to throw mud, food colouring and cigarette butts on the tables to make it as gritty as possible to fit in with the attitude of the music. We built this setting in order to fit with the product exactly and link with the popular TV show ‘Breaking Bad’. This ensured that it appealed to a wide range of audiences and it suited the music and target audience. We also brought in another audience of the fans of Breaking Bad. Therefore, we conformed to the symbolic convention of establishing the domain of the artist and appeal to a wider range of audiences.

We decided to use dark artificial lighting to help create an ominous tone and a dangerous atmosphere. We used neon lights and put them against the tables. We did this to emphasize the genre of music – electronic and highlight that we are aiming at a younger target audience and the music will be fast paced and energetic. We were inspire to conform to this convention by the music video ‘Talking to a stranger’ by The Avalanches

EditingWe decided to use fast paced editing in our music video in order to emphasize the fast, upbeat tempo, the rhythm and the trippy theme/ emotion of the music. We decided to do this so that the editing would mirror the pace of the song. We did research into what other artists also did this within their music video. We found that the music video Fatty Boom Boom by Die Antwood inspired us to use fast paced editing and cut on the beat as this seemed to be the most interesting and alerting for an audience.

EditingWe also decided to use discontinuity editing such as jump cuts in order to create high energy and a sense of frantic movement. We decided to speed some shots up and place them next to the same shots but in normal time. This created a great visual that linked in well with our theme of someone on a trip and worked well with the fast tempo of the song as it kept the audience alert and visually entertaining for the whole three minutes. We were inspired to do this from researching into the artist ‘The Chemical Brothers. This was because we watched their music video of ‘Setting Sun’ – we really liked how at the times 0:13-0:20 the shot was sped up to create a disorientation that really add to the genre of the music. Therefore, in post production we played around with this idea but we decided to juxtapose this to the original shot to make it even more entertaining for our target audience. We especially did this because our target audience were teenagers who have, stereotypically, short attention spans and so we wanted to make our video as visually entertaining as possible.

PropsWe did not have any instruments within our music video but we did decided to include shots of the DJ decks as they are highly symbolic and highlights that the music is from the electronic genre. However, when looking at other artists such as ‘Basement Jaxx’ it can be seen that we have subverted the convention of electronic music as they do not show the DJ Decks or any instruments throughout. However, we thought that this was a good idea because it emphasized the fast pace music and the tempo. Therefore, it helped us to conform well to the convention of fast paced editing.

DIGI-PACK FRONT COVERWe followed the convention of having the name of the band and the name of the album on the front cover. This is a typical convention of all digi pack front covers. However we looked at the band ‘The Chemical Brothers’ for inspiration for our digi pack. We liked how they had a separate front to distinguish between their band name and the name of the album. We thought that this would be able to kept cohesive through to our website as well if we had a specific font for the name of our band. We also really liked the fact that the name of the album was separate to the name of the band. From an early stage we decided that we wanted two different fronts and to separate them on the page. As our band is related to a younger target audience and one that has a uninterested, badass attitude. Therefore, we thought that having a scruffy, not neat element to our digi pack would be appealing. Therefore, we photo shopped the label with the name of the single on the record onto our front cover. We liked this because the messy writing on the ripped and dirty label reflects the attitude of the target audience. We then decided to use a futuristic font for the name of the band to highlight the electronic genre which uses new technology and is all about the modern era. This will also reach and appeal to our target audience because it shows that it is modern and for young people. We thought that the fact that ‘The Chemical Brothers’ had a photo of them on the front of their album helped tell the audience the attitude of their music. Therefore, we wanted to have our band on the front of our album, but including an element which helped to express this confrontational attitude that has connotations to recreational drugs. Therefore we decided to have the artists in the location of the meth lab wearing the hazard suits. We also wanted the confident, confrontational attitude to come across even stronger. So we decided to have them looking straight into the camera so that this attitude of ‘we know who we are and don’t care what you think’ attitude is extremely clear.

DIGI-PACK BACK COVERWe decided to follow the obvious convention of putting all the tracks from the record on the back cover. We weren’t too sure how to layout the text though. Therefore, we looked at Gorillaz for inspiration. We thought that they would be too different from what we wanted as they were mainly inspired through the use of animation. However, when we looked into their products we really liked the idea that their composition of the text on their back cover - text was aligned to a certain side. We also liked how they would either use very dark colours to not distract from the titles of the songs or they would have the bulk of the design on the opposite side of the back cover. Therefore, with our back cover we decided to use the left hand side for where the text would be making it very dark so that the text could be easily read. We then decided to use one of our images of the artist in the hazard suit and mask. This looked effective because the colour gradually got lighter the further right you looked at the image. We also thought that the colour yellow and hazard suit would ensure that it was cohesive with the front cover. We then decided to add purple neon lights. This was because it appealed to a younger artist and again had connotations to futuristic/ modern music that was cool. I also thought that the neon lights could help signify that this type of music would be played in clubs and again had a younger audience appeal element to it. We decided to use the same font as the font that we used for the name of the band as this ensured consistency and was quite a futuristic font that was easy to read and helped to sell the genre of music.

Website HomepageWe were inspired by ‘The Prodigy’s’ homepage when designing our own. We followed the conventions of having the menu bar along the very top of the page and the name of the artist underneath. However after looking at the title on the prodigy’s website we decided that we wanted to make a banner of our own for the title to really draw the audience’s attention to it when they went onto the homepage. We liked how bright The Prodigy’s was but we thought on the light background it wasn’t extremely clear to read. Therefore, we decided to but ours on a black background and have white letters. To highlight it even further we decided to put a yellow border around it. We also really liked how The Prodigy’s layout was very neat and structured but it was the font that accentuated the genre of music and attitude of the artist. We decided to copy this layout and try and layout the text and menu bar very simply but have a text that highlighted the electronic genre and appeal to the younger target audience. Therefore we decided to use the font ‘Pacifica Condensed’.