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

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


Our brief was to create a music video, magazine advert and digipak to promote our chosen artist, in order for me to do this I have looked at various music videos to get ideas and inspiration for the song that we chose, Black Eyed Peas - Where Is The Love. The Black Eyed Peas are difficult to place into one specific music genre as they vary in their types of music. Although we found it difficult we thought that they would best fit into the categories of R&B, Hip Hop and Rap. 
I therefore have decided to merge these conventions associated with the genres into my music video. Throughout all the videos I have watched the various genres are represented as wealthy rich black males, often fairly run down locations, glamorous girls, money and parties. We have challenged some of these conventions as we wanted our music video to stand out and we did not want to portray the same effect of these videos with ours, we wanted to portray a sense of  guilty towards the video.



Firstly I am going to talk about how my music video has used forms and conventions of real media products from the same genres of mine. In terms of location in the music video Akon - Ghetto, it is situated in a urban area which we have also used throughout our music video, the urban setting gives the video a more poverty based feel to it in terms of the run down areas. There are tracking shots of Akon walking which we have also used in our music video, this is used to promote the artist as one and gives the artist a more important role, these tracking shots are often used throughout videos of the genres of R&B, Hip Hop and Rap. 
Various handheld shots are used in the video which suggests to the audience a poverty-stricken scene and portrays the artist, showing that he is not formal and is perhaps a fairly rough character.




 In the music video Eminem - Lose Yourself it uses forms of conventions similar to our music video, the artist performing in front of crowds which is often seen in other various music videos relating to this genre which is rap we used this convention of some extent.

 

Here is a example of our concert performance within our music video, similar to the concert performance in the music video Loose Yourself by Eminem.

We have the whole band performing in front of crowds which gives the video a more realistic feel to the audience. The costume that the artist is wearing is fairly poverty stricken by the use of a plain  t shirt and trousers which we have used in our video with the main character to portray the lack of wealth he has. The urban setting used in this video is similar to our music video and is generic and reflects the lyrics which we have done in our music video as the lyrics talk about war and suffering.

 This image represents a urban location which is a common occurrence in music videos relating to the genres of Hip Hop, R&B and Rap. We used urban locations throughout our music video to emphasise the lack of wealth the characters have within the video and to illustrate the locations to the lyrics in the song.

The ratio of performance to narrative is roughly half and half which also is similar to our music video. This is a convention of most videos we have looked at and found it would suit the genre well if we included it within our music video.




With regards to the music video 50 Cent - In Da Club it is very different to our video in terms of the conventions used and therefore we have challenged the conventions of this video to our music video. There are various black males starring in the video and glamorous girls which we had not included as we wanted our video to focus more on the artists and the lyrics poverty of the characters, whereas in the video by 50 Cent the artists are portrayed as very wealthy and muscular.

 The characters in the video are wearing various amounts of jewellery which emphasises their power and wealth which we have challenged as we have used to jewellery to portray the lack of wealth and suffering the characters are going through. Here are examples of wealth portrayed in the 50 Cent music video and the artist can be seen with various amounts of jewellery whereas in the two other pictures you can see that the costumes we have used are much more plain and emphasises the lack of wealth.



In the music video Rizzle Kicks - Down With The Trumpets we have challenged the forms and conventions used. The artists in this video are dressed more casually and stereotypically dress as teenagers do, which we have not used, we have portrayed the artists as more scruffy and poor which emphasises that they are underprivileged.
In terms of narrative and performance this video consists of all performance and no narrative which gives the artists more importance whereas in our video we have used a equal proportion of both narrative and performance to focus on the artists as well as the locations and the storyline within the video.
Also the artists are always shown together performing as one throughout the video whereas in our music video  the artists are shown separately which introduces the characters effectively here we have developed the convention of narrative and performance roughly having a equal amount.



In the video Don't Go by Wretch 32 we have challenged the various conventions in the video which consists of a smartly dressed black male and many different cutaways. In our music video we have used a equal amount of narrative and performance compared to this video it has no clear narrative but a series of cutaways.
Although we have challenged conventions in this video we have also met some conventions relating to our music video. We have used many close ups of the artists performing  and many long takes that are kept consistent in our music video which is similar to this one which helps focus on the main artists and their importance throughout the video.

 These images show the conventions we have met by using close ups of  the artists performing and are used throughout the video to emphasise that we have followed this typical convention of this specific genre.

There are large amounts of fast takes in Jay Z - Empire State of Mind music video which suggests a more upbeat and modern tempo, unlike our music video which is a more slow and calm atmosphere with a series of long takes to emphasise the journey the character overcomes.
The video consists of more industrialised locations which again we have challenged as we have used a more urban like area to portray and relate the location to the lyrics.

Digipack


Here we have challenged conventions within this album cover as a city can be clearly seen, where as for our digipak we have used a urban setting to emphasise the poverty and relation to the lyrics of suffering with the use of run down areas.










                                       


Below is the image used for the front of our digipak

We have met the conventions of this genre in terms of the artist on the front of the digipak, from example digipack album covers have a reoccurring theme of the artist on the front of the cover which promotes the artist and shows the importance the artist has. We have followed this convention as you can see from the picture to the left, this is our front cover for our digipak and we have promoted the artists on the front to introduce them to the audience and to portray their  importance. We felt that this would make the digipak stand out more and also promote the location of a urban area and this importance throughout the video.

The conventions of a digipak include things such as:

• Record label
• Bar code
• Track list
• A image usually the artist/s
• The artists website
• Release dates
• A sticker saying 'Featuring..'
• Copyright logo
• Producer
• Artists name, and song title also seen along the spine of the digipak.

We have used all these conventions as they are normally seen on a digipak, although we have developed the conventions of a digipak by using a QR code on our digipak back cover along with a bar code so that audiences are aware of newer technologies and can attract different groups of audiences that use this technology.

We have met the conventions of a digipak with the use of our artists placed on the front cover as in most digipak front covers you expect to see the artists on the front which you usually do. For example the image below shows the band Black Eyed Peas with all 4 members of the band on the front cover which is similar to ours as we wanted emphasise the bands importance and them being as 'one'.

This image is our front cover for our digipak and as you can see is fairly similar in terms of the artists all together as one on the front like the Black Eyed Peas album cover.

The font we used looks fairly urbanised and modern which is how we wanted it to look to relate to the rest of the music video as being set in a urban area. We have developed this font from the Black Eyed Peas album as the font on their album looks very futuristic which we did not feel would look good, and we thought that a more urban looking font would look better and fit better with the song and the artists.

We also have developed conventions of digipaks from our specific genre as we found on most R&B, Hip Hop and Rap album covers there are is a large amount of songs on the back of the digipak. We have developed this by only using a small number of songs so that the audience are able to focus more on the image on the back and we felt a large amount of songs would not be needed, below is the image showing the  small tracklisting.

For the inside cover of our digipak we challenged conventions from our specific genres as we decide to include all the artists sat down together to emphasise that they are a band and that they are important, we did this so that our ancillary tasks would give a clear message to the audience as to who our artists are.
Although we have challenged conventions for the inside of our digipak we have also met forms and conventions, inside of digipak covers tend to be simple but effective which we have tried to carry out in order to create a relationship between the ancillary tasks and our music video to our target audience.

Magazine Advert


Some regularly occurring conventions for a magazine advert are as follows:

• Logo
• Website
• Same image as the digipak
• Name of artist/band
• Record label
• Release date
• Same Font/Colour Scheme
• Sticker that says 'includes the single..'

We have met all these conventions of a magazine advert apart from the sticker that says 'includes the single..'  we did not include this as we didn't want the magazine advert to focus on the song but more of the artists and their importance of the advert. We have also challenged and developed our magazine advert as we produced it in a landscape format which is not usually seen or used with magazine adverts.

This magazine advert below is very colourful and and attracts you from the corner of your eye,  and also the font and artists are clear and gives the audience a clear understanding of who these people are. Also the text is style is fairly similar to our magazine advert as we wanted these to look similar in terms of the artists on the front and the font used which we have done so in order to make it look more professional and one you would see in everyday life.
These images are similar as they both include the website, where it can be purchased from, the artists on the front, the logo, the digipak front cover and the name of the band. This shows that we have met conventions specific to this genre which is Hip Hop, Rap and R&B.

We have developed conventions of a magazine advert as on our advert we have included quotes along with a star rating which is not usually seen on magazine adverts within this genre. This made the advert look more professional and realistic and gave the audience feedback and information that they could use.

In terms of challenging conventions of a magazine advert, we have done so with the use of black and white. We have created the image with a black and white background and the artists are in colour and clear to see, this usually is seen on some magazine adverts within this genre and we did this to make the artists clear as to who they are and as being 'one' and to also draw the audiences attention onto them and create more power and importance towards them.

We met with the convention of using a similar or the same picture as to the digipak. We edited it so that the background is dull yet the artist stand out with colour.We did this so this image which is used for the magazine advert can promote the artists more than the song because we wanted the audience to know what the band looks like to make them more recognisable.

One of the major convention that sets it apart from a digipak is the release date. We did not see any release dates on the digipak which led us to think that this convention isn't normally used within the RnB/Hip-Hop music advertisement industry. However apart from The Black Eyed Peas magazine advert, it was a very common conventions used within all genres. We wanted to use the same font as the title of the front cover of the digipak because we felt that because this was a different advertisement, it should include something to make the band stand out and be recognized which in our case was the same font.

Another convention we met was of the website. We met this because we wanted to give some leading information to the audience if they wanted to know more about the album or the band as a whole. Not only that but we felt by imprinting this onto the magazine advert it would give it a more professional finish, which it did.

In terms of developing conventions we have again developed many conventions for example we have included a website which is towards the bottom of the advert which is often not used on magazine adverts and we used this to give as much information as possible to the audience and to make the advert look more professional.

In conclusion we mainly used conventions as we felt it would fit in more with the specific genre and look more similar to other music videos relating to this genre, although we have developed and challenged various conventions to make our music video stand out from similar products.