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

Conventions of genre and music style

Throughout my music video I challenge many aspects from Andrew Goodwin’s theory of how genre or music style is represented through visuals. I also use some of the theory in my music video. My song choice for the music video is classified as indie, so I attempted to make my video as ‘different’ as possible to many other music videos. This way the indie audience would possibly take interest in the video. So to do this I chose to use a completely different narrative that other videos I seen haven’t used. My character personality is also different, he is comedic and has the personality which you would not have seen in anyone in the real world. Performance is also involved in the video, to connote this I simply made my character hold a guitar and play it in most of the video. The reason for this is because I noticed that many indie bands have made performance music videos and this is what represents their indie genre. Most indie performance videos involve the actual band members playing, I didn’t have access to the real band members so I had no choice but to go against this convention which I’m happy with since going against conventions is also part of idea of being indie.

My music video

The character in my video wears a mask, this is the most iconic feature that represents him as well as the whole video. Usually in horror movies the mask would be a symbolic feature that represents the killer, murderer or even the villain, e.g. the Scream series. In this case my video is not a horror genre so I challenged Goodwin’s theory. The mask is just to simply make the character humorous looking and also to represent his current identity as the video is about the character finding a new identity or a new life.

Filmmaking ConventionsFor my video I wanted to attempt to make my video look professional so I concentrated on the variety of camera shots, continuity and the rule of thirds. Throughout my video, the shots are carefully chosen to fit that current scene. For example I use a medium tracking shot to follow the character to make it seem that the audience is progressing with the character, and a point of view shot to create a view of which the audience can also experience. There are quite a few close up shots of the main protagonist in my music video. According to Goodwin's theory some record labels require close up shots to represent the star as being unique. I challenge this aspect as I don’t have any of the band members as the actors for the video, so they can’t be uniquely represented in front of the audience. For the continuity I made sure the character would be moving consistently without looking unbroken. Another thing I looked out for is the character’s clothing, these had to remain the same throughout the video. Composition is vital, I used the rule of thirds to position my subjects. I attempted to fill up most of the framing so there wouldn’t be too much head space or ground space between the character. Most of the shots will contain the main protagonist in the framing. Because this is a narrative that hugely involves this character I wanted to make the audience focus on him making them almost feel as if their on a journey with the character, which is why he is in most shots.

I didn’t do any advanced editing for my music video. Putting the clips together so there wouldn’t be any continuity error is one of the conventions for editing. I did this so the clips transition smoothly, though a few clips do suddenly jump to another scene but I think the result looks effective as the I believe that the audience would have guessed what happen since the main protagonist is quite predictable. I added a black and white filter onto my music video. Nowadays many music videos from all genres have filters or effects to enhance the video, I followed this convention so it would appeal more to the audience, without it the video will look plain and boring… The black and white connotes realism, documentary and possibly negativity. You might not notice but I added black bars on the top and bottom of the video, making the video appear more wider. This is actually a film convention but I noticed that a lot of music videos I seen on YouTube also have black bars. I decided to add it on my own video as I thought that it would suit a narrative video, films are always narrative so I thought I would create a cinematic feel to the video… An example of a music video that contains that black bars and black and white filters would be ‘Maybe In The Dark’ by The Crookes which is the band I chose to do.

DigipakI have made use of many conventions form existing cd albums as well as going against them. Some of the obvious conventions I have included are is a title and front cover image. The font I have used is similar to the ones used in The Crookes’s older albums. I did this because the font represents the band and so it would link with the older albums. I also used white coloured text, again to link with the older albums and so it would contrast with the background.

For the spine I simply put the title of the album and the band name like most albums do. The font and colour scheme is the same as the front cover.

The back cover contains typical conventions of an album such as the track names. To make the album more realistic or to resemble an actual product I even put copyright information, bar code, record label and a compact disc logo. These will give an impression to the audience that the product looks professional as existing products also usually include these conventions.

Usually in existing products you would see that many albums that contain images of the artist or band members have their identity clearly shown. I challenged this convention as the subject on my album cover has the bottom half of the face cut off which keeps half of his identity hidden. Another convention I challenged is direct address which many album covers have - my character is looking towards the right. Examples that actually use this convention as

I have used an InDesign template to create my Digipak so that all of the measurements would be accurate and would closely resemble an actual cd album. The major difference is that my album has six sides whereas most albums in the real world have 4.

Poster (Print Advert)My poster contains many conventions from actual products as well as a few I developed. The colour scheme and theme is similar to my album cover, most real life products also do this so I decided to follow this.

The only direct address is the small ‘join us’ text on the bottom right corner, most people in the modern age would have Facebook or twitter so the direct address would apply to them. Usually in most posters the subject on the poster would be looking directly at us but I challenged this convention as my characters are looking at the bottom direction.

Some modern conventions I also added is a QR code, the website, review/rating and social website logos. a mention of the available cd versions to buy. The ‘New album’ and ‘out now’ are just below the bands name. The new album being a bigger font so that it stands out and also make the audience understand what the posters all about.

Most people would have android mobile phones and they would have the ability to read QR codes so that they could gain information using this method if their comfortable with it. The internet is also something most people would have access to as it’s easy and quick to use so I also added a web address which most print adverts would typically have.

The ratings are from actual music magazines, these magazines are indie genre so therefore creating a link with the poster and my band genre.

Other than the title and ‘new album out now’, the rest of the text is smaller as these are the information that the audience would only be interested in if the band image or title captured their attention.

The layout of my poster is unique (I believe), the images are on each side of the poster which creates a sense of balance. The title is the key signifier of the poster, the images are on each side of the poster meaning that the viewer will have to look at the title instead since they won’t be able to look at each image at the same time. Another reason the title stands out more is that it overlaps the image almost making it look as if it’s coming out of the page.

Barthes CodesHermeneutic code (enigma code)

The hermeneutic code is the main code that I have focused on within my products. Reason being is that I believe that the audience will be more hooked into watching the video or looking at the album cover and poster if there is mystery or hidden meaning to it. In my music video the mask is used to hide the main protagonist’s identity making the audience wonder who is behind that mask. The Identity of the characters on my Digipak are also half hidden creating a similar link of the ambiguous theme. There is also enigma to the narrative, my character walks around searching in people’s houses we don’t actually know why and that is what makes us want to keep watching and find out. A similar video I found and analysed is Kasabian’s Man of Simple Pleasures music video. My music video is actually influenced by this as the main character in the video also wears a mask and travels around.Proairetic Code (action code)

The proairetic code is in the narrative of the video. The action in the narrative is the character Walking, we don’t know where but he is walking but the audience will eventually realise that he is heading towards more houses, there is still enigma left as we don’t know why he’s going to the houses.Semantic Code

The semantic code could possibly be the mask of the video as it connotes humour. This could also be the guitar as it represents performance which connotes that the genre is indie. Cultural Code

In my music video I intended to represent the indie culture by creating a narrative that is unexpected or different to many other videos. The band is from England and I also filmed in England therefore creating a cultural link.

ConclusionIn conclusion I have used, challenged and developed conventions from existing products to fit with my target audience. I’ve chosen my conventions carefully in order to represent the indie genre and also to create a successful final product. I