In what ways does your media

product use, develop or

challenge forms and conventions

of real media products?

Fateh Khaled 8703

Introduction

• My music promo has used, developed and challenged forms of conventions of real life media products in various ways.

• Firstly we have developed the conventions of real life music videos this is because our music video is a performance based and a narrative based; these are the two most common types of music videos that are produced and are very conventional indeed.

• However instead of just going for one style (ieperformance based) we decided to go for both; this is because we wanted to diversify our music video and keep the audience engaged as much as possible.

• The artists in my music videos are conventional this is because our band is all male which is the gender you associate with in most pop bands. For example, Bastille, The Script and Maroon 5 are all pop/rock bands consisting of all males.

• In terms of location, our music video takes place in a house and the local town (public area) as well as a studio where the performance piece occurs. Our music video can indeed can be challenge the conventions of a regular pop promo, for example a large proportion of music videos that are performance based are usually in front of a large crowd however our group decided to take a mellow approach and have the lead singer (myself) performing in a drama studio as opposed to singing in front of a large crowd.

• In terms of props, our music video matches the key conventions; for instance the use of the microphone (performance based segments) is very stereotypical in performance based music videos as you usually see the singer holding a microphone, this gives a sense of reality and allows the audience the familiarise the voice with the singer.

• However, we also challenged the conventions at the same time, this is because in the performance based segments you only see the lead singer (me) singing which is very unconventional for a pop band as you would expect all band members to be in the performance based segments playing instruments/backing vocalists. This is unconventional as people watching the video may depict singer as a ‘one man band’.

• In terms of editing, our music video is conventional this is because the majority of music videos are cut to the beat; we therefore have met that expectation and believe that cutting to the beat is essential.

• We also added a letter box in post production (the two black lines at the top and the bottom), once again this is vital and a key convention in music videos because it gives that music video ‘tone’ and ‘feel’ to it.

• The music promo was also colour corrected which once again is necessary in post production, for example natural colours in music videos are vary rare and a lot of music videos are colour corrected before they are published.

• One other way we challenged the conventions of a music video is that the song does not play straight away. We see the actor putting in earphones then the song begins, this isn’t very conventional in music videos as they tend to start straight away however we thought doing this gives our music video a twist.

Costume

• In terms of costume and make up, what our band members wear in the music video is indeed very stereotypical this is because they are wearing casual clothing which is becoming increasingly popular in music video nowadays, our members are seen wearing jeans, t-shirts, jackets and shirts. These particular clothing items are associated with young people which is a reason why we wanted to depict this in our music video.

• However, in the 80’s pop music videos tended to wear suits and dresses in their music video however casual clothing in music videos are becoming increasingly popular.

Goodwins theory applied to my music

video

• In terms of Andrew Goodwins theory my music video would fit under ‘amplification’ because it is a mixture of narrative based and performance based.

• Andrew Goodwin believed that it was important for an artist to be involved with the music video by performing or acting as the role of the main character or the singer, my group took this as an advantage as one of the members (myself) was the lead singer whilst the other member (Jeremy) was a main character, this enables us to get a special connection with our audience and reach out to them.

Digipak

• In terms of my digipak design I had followed various conventions; for example a digipak has either 4, 6 or 8 sides. I chose mine to have 6 sides which fits the criteria of a conventional digipak.

• I decided to use a maximum of 3 fonts in my digipak, this is a key convention as most digipaks range from 2-4 fonts, digipaks do not go beyond 4 fonts because it overcomplicates the design and makes it look unprofessional.

• My digipak also had a specific colour scheme which was kept consistent throughout the different sides; I used four main colours (blue, red, yellow and green) to represent each band members. These four colours were shown throughout, this is conventional in digipaks as they are said to have the same colour and design to give the audience a sense of familiarity.

• I also used a barcode and the record label logo (Warner Music Group) which are conventional in a digipak this is because the product is sold at shops and in order for it to be sold a barcode must be displayed and it must contain specific information such as the artist name, record label, who owns the music etc.

• My barcode is quite unconventional in the sense that it is a custom made barcode using the words ‘Bangladesh’ I used this font by downloading it on ‘DaFont’ but it gives an extra touch to our product giving our consumers that warm feel.

• However, one final point about my digipak is that it is quite unconventional in the sense that it has two discs – this is very uncommon for recent digipaks as they tend to be stored on one CD. Technological advancement has meant that storing music on CD’s has been better than ever before with most CD’s having the capacity to store 25 songs however both my discs hold 5 songs each.

• Although it is uncommon I believe it works effectively because it means that the album can be spit up into two which has different meanings.