Evaluation –

Q1. In What was does your media product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions of real media

products?...

In the research stages of my product I looked at a number of theories and conventions that surround music videos, album covers and websites. I also looked at things such as brand identity which too come into play when designing a music product for promotion. I first looked into methods and conventions of music videos as this our main ancillary task to complete so I felt I should have full understanding of this before I moved onto research other products. I found there were 3 categories of video styles that had specific characteristics always present in music videos. The first was a Performance

video, in a performance video the object of camera focus is dominantly the artist itself. This type of video was the most widely used and often used in Rock and pop genres. The song I used for my music video was an alternative rock song, so I acknowledge that this type of video style should be used in my video.

However I didn’t have to use only one style in my music video and this brought me to the other 2 styles. Narrative – in which the video has some type of story or theme to it that is often unrelated to the subject matter of the song, it is suited to most music genres and would allow me to be more creative with my music video and other ancillary tasks connected to it, so I decided to use this style alongside the performance scenes.

I didn’t want to choose the other style, Abstract as this style of video is normally very random and content is often detached from the music and/or lyrics of the song. It is usually a series of seemingly unconnected images edited to fit the pace of the song. I wanted something that would illustrate the lyrics of the song as this I what I wanted the video to be concentrated on as well as the fast pace.

After I acknowledged what style of music video I wanted I then looked into conventions that were used in all music videos, despite of their genre, as labelled by theorist Andrew Goodwin. He labelled six features, one of which saying that music videos often demonstrate genre characterists, such as a stage performance for a rock band or dance routine for a girl pop/dance/R&B band. I followed this theory by shooting a stage performance scene for my alternative rock song which was included in my music video.

He also went onto say that there is often a relationship between the lyrics/music and the visuals. Either the visual can illustrate the lyrics and convey the meaning of the song, or they can amplify, exaggerate or repeat an effect, moment or phrase from the song, as well as contradict or completely ignore the song...>

My music video also had a narrative section in which the story follows what I portrayed from the lyrics of the song, and the fast pace of the video which includes some running scenes were illustrative of the hard and fast paced beat of the music.

Another one of his theories I used was the one stating there is frequent reference to the notion of looking. For example shots that may show a television or computer screen, or showing a point of view shot where the camera is looking through another lens (telescope, binoculars, glasses etc). I followed this theory with a brief over-shoulder shot of my character looking at a picture on his phone towards the opening scenes of my music video. I didn’t have to use all the theories and didn’t feel the voyeuristic treatment of women or intertextual reference were necessary in this video so I didn’t use them.

To follow the conventions expected of the rock genre I researching into some existing rock music videos to see the conventions and methods they used. Some artists I researched included the artist of the song I used, Linkin Park, Coldplay, Muse, 30 seconds to mars, my bloody valentine, nine inch nails and others, all of which are artists in the rock or alternative rock genre.

My findings were that music videos of this genre often have some sort of deeper meaning, even if that meaning is not immediately clear. I followed this theory by basing my narrative story in the music video on what I portrayed from the lyrics of the song. I felt the writer was trying to illustrate his anguish and despair brought on by a loved one, and how its was bringing him down to the point of depression...>

My story closely followed this feeling with the theme of a lost love and the anguish and pain he felt over her departure. I also included a scene toward the end of the video that shows the character coming to terms with what has happened and moving on, which I took from inspiration of the lyrics often used throughout the song “you’ve lived what you’ve learned” as I thought it could add an interesting deeper meaning and lesson to the video. Another convention of rock genres is that most videos tend to contain topics such as depression, drug-use and hard living in their storylines, which I portrayed through the depression and despair the male character in the narrative was feeling. I also complied with the theory that stated rock videos often follow the lyrics of the song very closely or completely disregard them, and I felt my storyline followed the lyrics very closely.

As I was creating a music product for a band I needed to create a brand identity across all three products. A brand identity is a certain style which would consist of colour-schemes, fonts, costumes, makeup and motifs that re-occur throughout all of my products. They must all look somewhat similar in style to create one overall product. Some artists examples I looked at were Lily Allen and Coldplay. I looked at a music video from each artist, complimenting album and their artist website. From my findings I noticed that the Lily Allen song ‘smile’ had a very upbeat tune and the narrative video followed a story in which the artist is walking through the run down streets of London which transform into something more beautiful and cartoon like. This style was continued in the design of the digipack and website which also used bright colours and cartoon like themes.

The same applied for the coldplay video ‘every teardrop is a waterfall’ which used animated designs across the video setting to illustrate the song. Again these brightly coloured designs were used over the digipack and website designs.

To create my own brand identity I used the colours of my band logo red, black and white and incorporated them in the websites colour scheme. I also used the orange amp filmed in the video as a motif for the band by adding it to my digipack.

I think I took methods and conventions into account when creating all my project tasks and tried to incorporate as many conventions as possible into my work. I am pleased with what I have come up with and don’t think there is anything more I could have done to ensure my tasks use methods and conventions of real media products.

Also I used autumn orange colours over my digipack which followed with the autumn woods setting in the narrative video, as well as the autumn leaf image in the digipack and the Amplifier which is orange in colour, the stage curtains in the performance scene were also orange so I felt this colour should be used over my design. I used similar font styles that were simple in design, bold, and very angular in shape. over my digipack and website so they would also create one overall product.