Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

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

Music Video

My creation of a music video for The Scripts song ‘Talk You Down’ challenged forms and
conventions of a music video by having no lip syncing or performance from the artist at all within the video. These are very strong conventions within music videos, especially when the artist is a band and this is also empathised due to the genre of the band being indie/pop-rock. As a replacement for the lip syncing I used lyrics on the screen so they were then visual as well as auditory.

By using scrabble letters to this I again challenged forms and conventions of an indie/pop-rock music video. I felt that the scrabble letters worked well with my video as they allowed for a break between the narrative story. I gained the idea of using scrabble letters to get the lyrics of the track onto the screen from an song 'Electric Feel' by MGMT who are an american pop/rock band.

 I also used shots of my female cast member writing the lyrics, which also challenge the conventions of a typical video. However I think both of these ideas were appropriate alternatives and I felt that they fitted into the video concept, especially the writing of lyrics due to the fact it was wrote by my female cast member in an almost ‘love letter’ like form.

I have used and developed forms and conventions of music videos by having a narrative story
throughout the video and also by having a love/break-up theme to the music video. I began my video by using a lot of tight close up shots of my main cast member which is very common in other music video and in particular videos of a indie/pop-rock genre. As the pace and the beats in the song picked up speed the range and style of shots I used progress from extreme close ups and close up shots in mid shot, establishing shots, hand held shots and also high angle camera shots. As the video progressed I decreased the length of the shots and had quicker edits to match the beat of the song. I feel this worked extremely well with the song as it showed the how quick the narrative story (relationship between the two cast members) can change.

Once the video establishes to the audience that the video is about a break, after the first 50 or so seconds the camera shots and locations I used change. I aimed to portray to the audience that the male is chasing after the female to save their relationship and by using a range of locations such as the train station and inside a car and also by using a point of view camera shot from the males perspective.

This challenges all of The Scripts conventions as they tend to film the main artist throughout the video mainly lip syncing however I have changed this trend but I have however still gave the males perspective throughout the video. I also tried to show that the two cast members were seperate by having a shot of the female writing a letter which is also the lyrics. This also challenges forms and conventions as the female is a huge part of the video and the story is centre around her.















I also used and developed forms and conventions of a music video by using a variety of CCTV image camera shots. I gained this idea from a number of music videos but mainly from the song ‘Miami 2 Ibiza’ by Swedish House Mafia & Tinie Tempah. Although this could also be seen as challenging music video forms and conventions due to the fact that this idea came from a video of a totally different genre which is R&B. However these shots gave the impression and concept which I wanted which was to be shown as if the video was being watched back such as a CCTV camera footage is, i.e. so it is not in real time.

CD Digipak

With my CD Digipak which I produced I aimed to have the idea of a represenation of an advertisement for the front cover. To do this I took a picture of The Cube because this had a large bold black window on it and I thought this would be suitable to use as a billboard area. I think the front cover works well and is very eye catching to the target audience. I kept the back cover very simple by using an image of a row of bollards and then placing the track listing from The Scripts album over the top of this image. Although this was a very bland and simple shot I used this image becuase it had a good depth of field. To this cover I also added a unique bar code, The Scripts record label and also copyright infringment text, by doing this it made my CD Digipak look more authentic. I then moved onto the two inside covers. For these I used a large image of my cast and spread this across both covers. However this looked very ametuerish so I included a signiture style text of the artists/group name in the bottom right hand corner.

                        

These are some exsisting CD front covers from similar artists. I can see similarities between all four of these existing CD covers and my creation of a CD Digipak for The Script.

The top two covers from One Republic and Razorlight are similar to mine in terms of the placement of the bands name and focus point of the Digipak is the single main image of each band. These two are also very sdimilar to the inside covers of my Digipak as the single image of the bands draws all the attention right into the Digipak. I think the dull but bold colours really help gain this effect and also by having a plain background.

These two CD covers from Scouting For Girls and Plan B are similar to mine by having an advertisement theme to them. The Scouting For Girls cover looks to be a poster style image with a radio which is a very popular way of promoting music. Where as the Plan B cover looks to be set at a gig or concert event. This one is extremely alike to my Digipak due tom the focus on the title as it is promoting the artist.

Music Magazine Advertisement

These are some of the pictures I took for my music advertisement which in some ways are very similar to other images which are on real music magazine advertisements.

The effect/feeling I wanted to portray with this advertisement was a relaxed/socialising atomsphere. I did this by taking plently of pictures of my cast members both as a group and seperatly. I edited these and placed them into photoshop elements where I created the advertisement. My idea of a collage like advertisment came from researching and looking at other similar artists magazine advertisements and pictures taken of the artists. I realised after doing some research into this that the majority of the images of these artists were just general pictures and not pictures of them doing music related things as I had originally thought. I also felt that the idea to include as many pictures as I could on the advertisment was important because after all the Music Magazine advertisements purpose is to promote the band. Therefore I felt the closer I could make the audience feel to the artists the more succesful the advertisement would be.

Completing My Music Video

I have now completed my music video by adding the Music channel logo and text at the beginning and end of the video.

Beginning My Evaluation

I have began my Media Studies evaluation where I will look at my Music Video, CD Digipak and Music Magazine Advertisement. I will evaluate my research and planning, construction and feedback on all three of these tasks.

I have planned to do question 1 as a blog post where I will talk about the three tasks and use images from my video and existing videos to support my evaluation along with videos and other types of media where possible.

For question two I will produce as a prezzi presentation. I will also keep this media rich and try to keep the text to a minimum by only including key points.

I have decided that a movie will be suitable for questions 3 & 4. I should find this simple as I have used Final Cup Express a lot recently. I will include images of my video, CD Digipak and music magazine advertisement and may even include video in these.

Completing My Music Magazine Advertisement

This is what I have chosen as my final Music Magazine Advertisement. I have used a selection of images of my cast to create a collage effect. I have used a range of different effects on the images by using Adobe Photoshop Elements and I also used tools such as the rubber, opacity tool and text tool. I think that this advertisement is simple but it portrays a message which is suitable to The Script and its audience based on the genre of the band and their music.