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

MUSIC VIDEO 

One part of our media product, the music video, uses the forms and conventions of real media products by developing the stylised features of the ‘rock’ genre. We achieved this by using quick, short cut shots and multiple close up shots of the main singer, holding the microphone in a conventional, ‘typical’ way a rock singer would, syncing the lyrics and acting to become more believable to the viewers. Also there’s a lot of movement and jumping on the bands part associated to this genre of music and video as it works in sync with the jumpier, rockier parts of the song and drum beat. For the band parts we used a studio that created the conventional, informal ‘garage’ mis-en-scene, we decided to do this because it helps draw in the audience as the band seem more relatable and realistic to viewers. 

In our music video, as a group we decided that we would use and develop conventional ideas and use different lighting in specific areas of the video to create an affect with the audience. In the band shots, the lighting is generally clear and light so that the viewer can clearly see the band playing, and creates a friendlier, more casual atmosphere on their parts, which may not be generally associated or conventional in the usual music videos of this genre.

We decided that in our narrative shots, we would use a mix of lighting to portray the connotations of the relationship, using  darker lighting in the parts where the relationship had turned sour, and lighter when they had just met and everything was fine between the two main people/group. The challenged the conventions of real music videos in the editing and portrayal of our video, the relationship shown is brief and simple, and quickly turns bad between the two, but the filming isn’t overly glamorised and shows a realistic story between two people. We used the split screen  and greyscale in the beginning to quickly and briefly introduce the main characters to the viewers, to separate it from the rest of the video and to show them smiling and happy, which would later contrast to the ending, which is also split screen /greyscale, but with the boy upset, which makes them different, but also links the video’s beginning and end together.

DIGI-PACK

Our digi-pack uses and develops the conventional themes and colours of the genre of band, we used the darker colours in our digi-pack and linked them to our poster so that they would be simplistic and neutral, contrasting to the upbeat, lively video and showing a different interpretation of the band, which also goes against conventions of the genre in that you’d expect a lively digi-pack to promote the band, however we wanted ours to be different and stand apart in the way it reached out to audiences. We decided we would keep the digi-pack and poster minimalistic and simple, using mostly neutral colours to contrast to the conventional portrayal of Rock genre musicians, who usually dress in vibrant lively colours, which we chose to interpret into our final music video of the band.

We used conventional pictures in our digi-pack, including mid and long shots of the band to present them all together and united, although there are no extreme close ups of the band, which is slightly unconventional. However, we used an unconventional mode of address in the digi-pack and didn’t have any direct appeal to audience except for the background image where the band is looking at the camera and viewers. 

We used the conventional method of having a list of lyrics on the back of the digi-pack in the foreground of a faded out picture so they were enhanced and more clear to the audience to see and read them easily and also having the title of the band and name of album at the front of the digi-pack for the viewers to see. However, unconventionally we have chosen to fade the front cover and create a less stereotypical, calmer view of the band, contrasting the genre and making it more artistic and interesting. Also, we have decided to include lyrics from the songs and put the down one side of the digi-pack to make it more interesting and appealing to the audience, using the same dark red text font throughout and linking it to our poster.

POSTER

The poster that our group has created was largely based on our research of magazine covers and photo shoots of bands and artists in the genre of our band, so that we would have an idea of what our product would initially look like. We took multiple shots but decided to use this image for our poster because it has a very conventional layout with the lighting on the main singer of the band and him being in the foreground and main focus of the poster, with the other members stood behind him in a pose that shows each of their faces and presents them each differently to the viewer with their facial expressions and stance, and you can get a very clear view of that from the image.

Also because although the image is filled with the band, it also has a simplistic view that we were aiming for that links to the digi-pack we have created, with similar colours that associate with the genre and theme of the band, with a light easy-going appeal to the audience through their clothing and expressions, but also having a darker background and shading that enhances the bands appearance in the picture. Our poster stays with the usual forms and conventions as it includes the whole band stood together in an intimate/close picture which represents them as a united front to their audience, however the fact they are not striking a huge pose and acting for the picture can be sometimes unusual and contrasts to the jumpy, liveliness of the music video, showing both a casual and slightly more serious side to the band through each. The fact that each member looks quite easy-going and friendly also makes them more appeal and relatable for the audiences, which may be considered conventional in posters and magazine shoots as they want to appeal and reach out to certain audiences of the genre.

Our poster challenges conventions of usual media products in that the layout is very simplistic and basic, which isn’t usual for the genre of music it is, as they’re usually busy and lively, and we did this to create a very neutral, contrasting and simple view of the band with simple colours linking to the other  products we’ve created, and only having minimal text  with only essential information for the audience so that the poster wouldn’t look too crowded and complicated, but instead represent the calm, easy-going nature of the band and it’s members. Also this then draws the attention of viewers directly to the band without  complicating the image. We used the same font and style of text in our digi-pack and poster to link the two together and also used the deep red colour as it’s a darker shade that can be associated to the genre of music, which then adapts the conventions of normal posters into our own work.