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?

For the task we had to create promotional materials for a song from an unsigned band of our choice. We had to create a music video, a Digipak and a magazine advert for that song. The music video would be intended to be seen by as many people as possible to gain a large interest in the bands song. It is meant to appeal to the audience and be something that they would enjoy watching and would want to watch again and show other people, thus creating a large interest in the video and band. Music videos are meant to be creative and a good music video would stand out and be something that people would take notice of.

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass

This video got the band a lot of attention and OK Go are now well known for their music videos and they get a lot of recognition for the quality of their music videos and the creativity involved. Without their music videos the band would not be as well known and would not have received the recognition and praise they now get. The Digipak is a way in which the CD is packaged and distributed. The Digipak is different to standard the jewel case for CDs as there are six panels, often containing images that are all related and Digipaks are often considered to be more collectible than a jewel case CD. Digipaks are often limited, or special, editions that would appeal to big fans of the band. 

Example of a Digipak

The magazine advert is a poster style image that would often match the artwork of the Digipak and would be there to advertise the song and band. The advert would often contain bits of information about the song, such as the title, name of the band and the release date of the song. The sole purpose of the magazine advert is to sell the song and to grab people's attention and appeal to the target audience. 

Example of a magazine advert

A music video will often feature narrative scenes, performance scenes, or both in the same video. Often there is a lot of focus on the band and the band members. It is common for there to be a lot of close up shots of the band members during performance scenes and it is also very common for the band members to act during the narrative scenes of the video. The videos will often feature many quick cuts between shots of the band members playing their instruments. 

Example of a close up shot from a music video.

Example of a full band shot from a music video.

These two examples are from music videos by indie-rock bands. Music videos from this genre tend to feature a lot of performance shots and some narrative.

Franz Ferdinand - Matinee 

This music video has a large performance aspect right the way through yet it also has a narrative integrated into it. This video is a bit 'tongue-in-cheek', something that isn't uncommon in the genre. It is not very serious and at times quite fantastical. Throughout the video, the band are seen in matching costumes, something that is very common throughout this genre. Although it isn't as common to see band members wearing the exact same costume, it is very common to see band members wearing very similar costumes in the music video. 

The genre also has effects on the Digipaks and magazine adverts of the song. The images on them would differ between each genres. For example, pop songs would be more likely to have bright, colourful images that would appeal to the masses. A heavy metal band would have darker images that may only appeal to fans of that genre. Magazine adverts and Digipaks for indie-rock bands would often feature the cover of the album on both the advert and Digipak and they would often be relatively simple with one main centrepiece.

It is very conventional for videos of this genre to have a heavy focus on the band members, in particular the frontman of the band. It would be common for the frontman to be the main protagonist in a video from this genre. It would also be common for music videos of this genre to contain humour and be a bit ridiculous in places. The dance scene in the Franz Ferdinand video above is something that is ridiculous and fantastical and scenes of this nature is often seen in music videos of this genre. 

It is also common for music videos of this genre to contain a lot of low angle and high angle shots throughout the video and many close up and extreme close up shots. Colour effects are often sometimes used. Throughout the Franz Ferdinand video there is a grainy effect in many of the shots. The lighting is also very low in many places, something conventional to the genre, yet it is also extremely high in other places, breaking the standard convention. 

During our own music video we used close up shots of the band. 

We used this kind of close up shot throughout the music video. This style of shot is very common in music videos of the genre and in music videos in general. We were influenced by many videos of our genre for this kind of shot in particular the video for Reptilia from The Strokes. We looked at this video for inspiration and ideas a lot. This music video follows the conventions of this genre a lot in terms of performance shots. 

Example of a close up shot from the Reptilia music video.

We also decided to use several extreme close up shots of the frontman of the band. This is very common in music videos of this genre and follows convention greatly. 

We used these shots because it is something that we had seen in music videos of our genre before. Once again, the Reptilia video is the best example of this as it uses close up and extreme close up shots throughout the whole video, particularly in shots of the frontman.

Example of a close up shot on the frontman from the Reptilia music video.

We also used low angles shots in our video. This is something that follows the convention of music videos for our genre. 

This shot shows the band from a low angle and clearly shows the 'corpse' in the shot. It is meant to look like the shot is being taken from the bottom of the corpse, looking up at the band. We took inspiration from the video for Club Foot from Kasabian.

Example of a low angle shot in the Club Foot music video.

The video for Club Foot follows many conventions of music videos from this genre so it was a good example to look at. The low angle shot from the video is very conventional of the genre so we decided to use a similar shot in our video.  

We wanted our music video to be set in a party style atmosphere and we wanted the actors costumes to be very casual, like something that would be worn at a house party. Although it is conventional for the band to be wearing matching, or similar, costumes, we went against this convention in our video.

The costumes for all of the characters are very casual and do not match particularly. At a house party people would not be wearing matching outfits so in our video we did not want people to be wearing matching costumes. This goes against the standard convention for videos of this genre.

Example of matching costumes in the Franz Ferdinand video.

In the Franz Ferdinand video all of the members of the band wear matching costumes and all of the actors also wear the school uniform style costume. 

We decided to just use a friends house for our shoot. The main focus of the video is in the kitchen of the house. We decided to do this because of the title of the song ('Corpse in the Kitchen') makes it an obvious choice. We also decided to use the living room for some shots of the video as it is a typical place for people to be during a house party.

Example of a shot in the kitchen.

We didn't have to use too many props in the filming of the music video. One of the main props was beer bottles and cans. We used these props as they are items that would be seen all over house parties and they really add to the setting of a house party. 

The other props we needed were the instruments. Instruments are key items for the performance side of the music video. We used a guitar, a drum kit and a microphone in our music video. We managed to get all of these instruments through friends who let us borrow them for the shoot.

Throughout most of the video we used simple, straight cut transitions. However, we also used some fades and wipes and we used a fade to the black during the video too. 

Example of a wipe mid transition.

We decided to use the wipe transition for some of the shots as we felt it was more necessary. For example, the screenshot above is going from the 'corpse' to a cutaway of beer cans. We decided to use a wipe here as it is the start of something different and is something away from the 'corpse'. 

Example of the shot as it is fading to black.

We decided to use the fade to black during this shot as we felt it worked well due to the low lighting of the shot and the relatively high lighting of the next shot, we felt the fade to black worked best. We also finished with a fade to black as we felt that it would suit the narrative of the music video. 

We used a mixture of both narrative and performance in our music video. We split the narrative and performance aspects equally and at the end of the video we merged the two aspects together. We used the narrative side of the video to show a house party. Most of the narrative shots are set in the living room of the house whilst the performance shots are in the kitchen. However, the narrative does enter the kitchen when the victims and the discoverers enter the kitchen and discover the band. We decided it would make more sense and be better if we mainly focused each side of the video in different rooms and have the two sides meet.

This close up shot is a key shot as it is important to keep convention with the genre and this shot follows convention perfectly. 

This close up shot is also a key shot as it follows the conventions of the genre due to it being a close up performance shot.

Again this close up shot of the frontman of the band helps the video to keep convention.

This low angle, high lighting shot is key as it follows the conventions of the genre well and it features the whole band in a performance aspect. I also think that it is one of the strongest shots in the video. It also links to the narrative of the music video due to the 'corpse' being clearly visible. 

I think that this is a key shot as it clearly establishes the house party style setting.

This is a key shot as it shows the two corpses together and the shot is panning up their bodies.

I think this is a key shot as it is part of the breakdown and I believe it is the best shot of the music video. The low lighting and low angle of the shot make it follow the conventions of the drama and the whole band performance aspect is also met. 

We used illustration in the video by taking inspiration from the 'Corpse in the Kitchen' theme. We decided to add the house party element to the music video though to make it more interesting and exciting. The song lyrics mention one victim later being joined by another victim and we clearly showed that in the music video. The setting of the music video is also an example of illustration.

Our Digipak and magazine advert follow conventions of the genre as they are quite simple and have a main focal point. However, the background pattern in both the Digipak and magazine advert are quite rowdy and bright, something that would catch the audiences attention. 

Blur Digipak

The Digipak above is very simple and has a bright focal point that would catch the audiences attention. 

The front cover of our Digipak

The front cover of our Digipak is very plain and there isn't much on it. However the bright colours of the cover would grab the audiences attention. Our magazine advert follows conventions by being very similar to the front cover of our Digipak.

Our magazine advert.

The Digipak front cover and the magazine advert are very similar with the same colour scheme and font being used in the two. However we made some differences to the framing of the magazine advert. We used a crime scene theme throughout the Digipak and magazine advert due to the 'corpse' theme of the video and the song. 

As you can see, we followed the crime scene theme in all of the slides for the Digipak. This follows convention as it is very common for all of the slides on a Digipak to follow a similar theme and style.