I N W H AT WAY S D O E S YO U R M E D I A P R O D U C T U S E , D E V E LO P O R C H A L L E N G E F O R M S A N D

C O N V E N T I O N S O F R E A L M E D I A P R O D U C T S ?

Evaluation Question 1

The song that I chose was a cover version of the song 'Toxic' sung by Yael Naim, (Originally sung by Britney Spears) who helped create a big influence to my music video as her version of the song is so different to the original, My media products depend greatly on its genre of Indie because the cover version was much slower and portrayed more of an emotion with the lyrics, because in this version the lyrics are quite depressive, so I decided to emphasise this with my actor.As a result of that I decided to stick with the Indie folk genre to keep both the song and music video closely linked together, Indie stands for independent, so I had the goal of making sure I put my own independent twist into the video.When comparing the cover version to the original song and the original video, the cover version by Yael Naim shows more of the depth of the song lyrics that could relate to the audience and my music video creates the story that the artist is trapped in a toxic craze of love and pain but that she has a kind of twisted love for it.This relates to Goodwin's theory of 'particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography'

Music Video

One main convention when it comes to music videos is the repeatability factor (Steve Archer) and I made sure that I presented this into my media product, by showing the artist express a lot of emotions and tell a sort of hidden story that may not be understood at first, in just 4 minutes.Throughout my music video I used the typical conventional method of close-ups because I wanted to keep the focus on the artist’s emotions and expressions throughout the video and the song. In addition, showing off the artist themselves, relates back to Dyer’s theory of The Star Image which says that the star image ‘is achieved by continued consumption of the star through his or her products’. The artist’s image is the main thing that I was aiming for in my music video, as music videos are also called promotional videos so my main goal was to sell the artist as well as the video.

One video that I used for examples of shot ideas was 'Blue Jeans' by Lana del Rey which is also quite a slow depressive song like 'Toxic', in this video its creates an emotion portrayed to the audience by showing close ups and extreme close-ups of the artist face showing her emotions. This also influenced my idea to make my music video entirely black and white as I thought that when in colour the surroundings brought more attention to but when I turned one clip black and white all the attention was then brought onto the characters face

The narrative in my video relates back to the lyrics and weirdness of the cover version of the song, and for the narrative I based my video on a sort of storyline that consisted of the star being trapped in what looks like her bedroom, as this is typically portrayed as the place where heartbroken love stricken people go to cry and let the pain out. I portrayed my artist/actor to be so hurt and in love that she turns crazy and love the pain that is given. To enhance this I got my actor to let out not only sad emotions but for her to smile and laugh to show the crazy part of the character she was showing.The movement of the camera is also an important convention that I included in my music video, particular panning of the artist's body and location, I used this especially to establish the setting of the bedroom, showing the audience that she is only in one room, I did this to give the audience the idea that she is trapped in her room because she is so hurt and crazy from love and heartbreak.I believe my video also embodies the key feature of Andrew Goodwin’s theory that there is a relationship between bother the lyrics and the music to the visuals. The artist is also seen engaging the audience, either by simple miming to the camera or just by using different close up shots, allowing the audience to connect with the star.

I had to spend time finding shots that I could use that would catch the audience’s attention to draw them in even more. I got this idea from not on listening to the song but by researching other music videos. One video that caught my eye was 'Standing in the way of control' by Gossip. This song is contains a lot of fast beats that follow the track. Which is one thing that I wanted to incorporate into my music video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opWBRRCTDXg

Music videos normally contain a lot of cuts to keep the audience interested especially fast cuts so after listening to my song I made notes on when I could incorporate the cuts to the beat. There are a lot of fast beats within it that can be edited to have lots of quick cuts put into them; by doing this it shows that I am aiming to adhere to the typical conventions of connecting the video with the track , I used my editing skills to do this throughout my whole video.

For the lighting and colour, my whole video is in black and white. I used my resources to look at other black and white modern music videos to see how they can still use noticeable lighting. So for this I concentrated the lights toward my actors face to highlight her features and emotions as it is usually close-up shots that are used to create an closeness with the viewer, and when lip synching is involved that’s what sells the artist to the audience the most.One example that I found that was similar to my idea was 'Broken Hearted girl' by Beyoncé, as even though the video is black and white there is obvious extra light used to enhance Beyoncé’s face, projecting her emotions towards the audience and making her face the main attraction part of the video.This relates back to Archer’s theory of studying music videos, he said that 'lighting and colour are used to emphasis key features from the song'

Digipak

Based upon the research that I have done into Digipak I found out that most Dipaks include images of the artist, or images that relate to the artists songs, I wanted to use this convention when creating my Digipak. For the front cover of the Digipak I wanted to have a striking photo that can be noticed from a far and the audience can relate to by seeing the unique styling of the artist and remembering it.Other classic conventions used in Digipaks are things like a track lasting, barcode, credit block, logos and if the font fits in well with the CD layout. I made sure to incorporate all of these things into my Digipak to make it the best it can possibly be.For the back cover I included another striking image of the artist that even if the Digipak is seen from the back an audience will still be able to recognise the artist from the styling and individuality of the Digipak . As well as adding in the conventions of a barcode, logos, websites and the all-important track listing on the back cover. For the track listing the font is completely different to the font on the front cover because the writing goes over the artist’s hair so needed a bright colour to make the writing stand out, as well as relating to the bright colours inside the Digipak.

I wanted again to include Dyer's theory of the star image. So on the inside of the Digital I kept with the theme of the star image and made the whole of the inside just images of the artist, these I believe made the Digipak stand out and become intriguing to the audience. For the inside I made the pictures Vibrant and Interesting to show off the different skills that I used to create the Digipak, as well as surprising the audience with a completely different inside showing them the distinctive style of the artist.

I positioned the Artists name at the top so it will be the first thing that an audience would see.For the back cover I used a completely different style of writing as the other writing that I had used didn’t look as creative and eye-catching as this text did, to make it stand out over the artists hair aswell I added in a bright red colouring to it. This proved to be effective and impressive when reading through my audience feedback.

For the font and style of the final digital I used a number of different types of text for the front cover, inside panels and the back cover of my Digipak. For the front cover I chose a specific text for the artist’s name to attract the audience and a more simple text for the title of the album. I used the colour of black for the artist’s names text to stand out in front of the white background whereas for the album name texts there is a hint of colour used in it to signify the hidden splashes of colour used inside the digital.

Outside Middle Cover Inside Right Panel

Magazine Advert

For the magazine advert I wanted to keep the digital and the advert consistent with one another, so that an audience will see the magazine advert and be able to remember the striking image and recognise the digital and the artist. Aswell as seeing that the magazine advert was promoting a new album.

So instead I challenged the typical conventions and covered the cut off bit with writing to distract audiences from that fault and turn their focus onto the writing on the rest of the page. Continuing on with the text, I use the same artist name text as I did for the digital lie many other artists put on all of their albums like a kind of branding of the artist. Helping the audience remember them more. By recognising their individual style. To attract an audience I made the writing twice as big and filling up the top half of the A4 magazine advert. One convention that I challenged and develop was the star ratings from popular magazines. I included these to give the audience the knowledge and expectance of what the digital would be like.

For the main image I wanted to use the same image to keep bother the magazine advert and digital linked together, as well as making the image as big as the page to make it stand out more, one challenge I found when creating the magazine advert was that the image was cut off and I had no way of making the image bigger without cutting off main parts of the artists body.

I made sure I did this by using the Digipak front cover image on the magazine advert so that audience will recognise the artist and become familiar with their own personal individual style. This is why I also used only images of the artist for the magazine advert and Digipak, so that an audience could recognise the star image straight away, aswell as being able to recognise the unique style of that certain artist.One thing that I had to change was the

writing of the album name as it didn’t show up in front of the dark background. Therefore to make it stand out I made it bright red so that audiences can see straight away the name of the album