Evaluation 

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

Throughout my media project I researched the codes and conventions within the products I was creating. By researching similar traits that each product offers between them I was able to conclude with a list of similar conventions that most CD covers follow for example. By researching into my project first I had some further understanding of how to develop and plan specific media products. When planning the task I decided to follow suit to many of the conventions I found that ran throughout the products in which I researched. In doing so I am able to gather a simplistic yet effective way to design a layout towards my products.

For example the CD Front Covers that I researched each had the artists name as the main forefront to the CD almost viewed as a brand or company advertising, this was nearly always found centered at the top of the cover or shifted to the left. My CD cover followed the forms and conventions I found, by doing so this allowed for my CD cover to look professional, as its similarity was high to that of other Covers that would be on the shelf. In making mine stand out it simply comes down to the image used, its this that’s the forefront of the CD cover that grabs a consumer’s attention. Most CD Covers that I viewed had an effect placed on the forefront image to differ it to that of a standard portrait. I followed the same form to my CD cover by creating a pop art effect of a local band to give the CD cover some originality. Sub titles I found were always pictured below the artists name therefore a consumer can easily recognize that that’s the albums title. Therefore it seems obvious to follow suit to make my layout look like an actual CD cover. With the CD cover there was a sort of unwritten rule to follow as each Album follows the same sort of rules, yet just differ slightly towards image, placing of artists name and title.

The poster in which I created had the same basis for a layout that other posters I researched obtained. Many of the posters viewed had the artists name placed at the top heading of the page, therefore this is easily viewed as these posters feature within the pages of music magazines therefore readers tend to look at the top of the page for an article heading therefore it’s the first thing that they would have viewed, the artists name. I developed the information provided within my poster, many that I viewed stated the date in which it was to be released; yet I just offered an “OUT NOW” in big. Bright, bold font that’s easily displayed. The information I provided challenged many forms of music posters. As I produced mine in much larger font, placed at the center of the bottom of the page to allow for the image to be portrayed clearly as that’s my forefront image. Many music posters found amongst the pages of the likes of NME and Rolling Stones found that their information text (i.e. release date, album title, formats) was depicted at the top below the artist’s name. I found this to be crammed and didn’t split the page up well, i.e. having too much blank space within the bottom of the page. I challenged this form of displaying the poster due to the previous point made, it didn’t split the page up well and I believed having text displayed within the bottom and top and leaving the space in the middle for the forefront image to shine through would work best and I believe it did so.

Within creating my main task, the music video I kept referring back to previous videos that I looked at and wrote down notes on similar conventions they all follow. One main key that shone through was the depiction of the artist within the music video and the amount of times they appeared. This was split up by mid-shots to close ups of the character to almost distinguish that this is the artist/lead singer. With having chosen a band video I knew that I could go down two routes, have one video with a narrative story and nothing else or split a narrative story up with shots of the lead singer singing using various shooting techniques. I decided to use narration broken up with an artist singing, this way it breaks up from the story line, doesn’t let the story take over from the song and also creates more meaning and sends across a more powerfully message if the story is based on the lyrics of the song, a relation I discovered through Andrew Goodwin’s Theory that there is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics. Having looked at various types of music videos I found that mid-shots and close up shots of the artist are mostly predominant throughout. Within my music video I created various shots to gather the flow of the artist moving around, this was obtained through cuts and fades in place. Most music videos have short yet many different clips of the artist singing, as mine was a slow song with a simple tempo I decided to challenge this convention. I used slower transitions and longer shots to get that slow tempo feeling to place it in time with the music. By including direct address by the artist towards the audience it allowed for more powerfully meaning of the lyrics and highlights the fact that the singer is a performer. This was definitely a common trait that ran throughout all music videos analysed and was a must to be included into my own task.

Within my actual narrative of the story I had to follow codes and conventions of a film in a way, yet focus on the main points I wanted to get across i.e. I had to really highlight the fact that he gets bullied to make it a primary message towards an audience. During the post-production stage I had to determine what shots to use and how to place transitions and cuts ect. By looking at most music videos it’s clear to see that the main transitions are determined by the cut, cross fade or fade to black. In honesty I believe this work the best as the other look tacky and cannot be placed within a music video as the ones offered on imovie for example were for fun ect such as the Wipe. Using various shots to distinguish a story line, such as close ups of characters face to project emotion, or objects such as the mobile phone to show that’s the alarm clock ringing ect tells the story and almost feeds the audience information.