Evaluation One

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Evaluation 1: In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I believed that a successful music video would be to establish a visual representation of an artist or band and to give a great entertainment value. I chose to base my media productions on an artist named Example because I felt he has a large personality and I would be able to think creatively and create media products to appeal to audiences. Example is part of an electro house / dance genre and had a style that I was interested in myself which I felt would be suitable as I would be doing mass research into the genre.

I chose the song ‘Changed the Way You Kissed Me’ as it was a popular and upbeat song. Conventionally electro house and dance music videos are usually committed to the theme of having locations that are either bright sunny days or dark rave like locations. They use lots of interesting lighting such as strobe lighting and effects. I wanted to develop this convention by having a switch between realistic day time scenes and darker and exciting atmospheres.

I did not want to follow commit to only one of the three generic types of music videos but to merge narrative and performance together. I felt this way I would be able to excite the audience with climatic performance but also interest them in a small narrative to keep them thinking. This developed my simple but effective narrative and performance concept of having my artist in a narrative where he is unhappy with his life and goes on a journey to find something exciting and also having performers creating the high energy to match the song. The narrative was developed based on Bulmer and Katz’s uses and gratifications where individuals use texts for various different reasons such as knowledge, personal identity, socialism and entertainment (escapism). I believed that the narrative would have the gratifications of personal identity and knowledge as the narrative resembles Examples own life of struggle before becoming successful, which the audience can relate to as they would have their own struggles and triumphs.

Mise en scene establishes the genre of the music video and creates the right atmosphere for the music video. I wanted the audience to recognise the locations being used to bring a sense of belonging to them and to make it realistic. With the genre of Electro house and dance there are some conventions of an urban or vintage style, I wanted to follow this as style and fashion is important to my target audience and it is a simple way to appeal to them. This lead to my decision to use locations such as Brick Lane, Camden, Piccadilly and Southbank as they have unique and interesting art all around the areas. I believe they represent a middle social class, how they enjoy life without luxuries through the creative graffiti art and unique styling’s which a positive outlook on life. It also makes the viewing experience more believable for some types of music videos as it makes it more naturalistic and recognisable. This shows that I am following the conventions of a dance music video as it is relatable and stylish.

As my narrative followed a journey it felt necessary to follow the convention of having lots of tracking shots. I also wanted the audience to have a more intimate relationship with the artist so when he is having a deeper emotional response I used lots of close ups and extreme close ups to make it more personal, again using the gratification of personal identity. A good example of where the audience will be engrossed in the artist’s journey would be the low angle close up of his face as he looks around the location frustrated. Also being a performance based music video I wanted to make the shots looks interesting and exciting so I used lots of high, low and tilt shots when shooting the dancers to make it more aesthetically pleasing. This also allows the audience to see the dancers in a more interesting and unusual way capturing their attention.

Andrew Goodwin suggests that a music video should advertise its material; this brought me to include talent that may be overshadowed in reality. Dancers in music videos are conventionally behind the artists as backups but I felt to go against the convention and have the dancers as main characters in the music video. This is to demonstrate their talent and skill and to become a motivation to the artist in the narrative. There is a growing popularity of street and hip hop dancing which makes it appealing to the audience. The talent demonstrated by the dancers allow the video to be coherent repetitively which allows the audience to watch the video’s many times without losing interest, which Goodwin suggests. Goodwin suggests voyeurism as a convention in music videos; however I went against that convention and decided to have the girls similar to the boys. I decided to dress them in an urban style and boyish style; this is to prevent any sexual appeal. I wanted the girls to gain attention through the means of their dance and using hard hitting choreography which match up to the boys in the video. I believed the effect of this would be that the audience would be exhilarated by the power / dance battle between the girls and boys.

Music videos have to be very interesting and eye catching for an audience to enjoy it and using editing is the most important part of ensuring this. I followed the conventions of having a music video that featured lots of jump and cross cuts as it is believed by theorists that we are now apart of a culture where there is only a three minuet attention span. I also ensure that all my cuts matched the beats of the song for continuity for viewing pleasure.

I wanted to keep an urban theme throughout all of my media products as I did not want my target audience to become genre confused and to create a memorable style to represent my artist. I wanted to keep the sleek and edgy style to match my music video, I wanted to use darker tones but use certain elements in the pictures to brighten the product to make it eye catching.

A digipak is a important aspect of the media products as it has to reflect the attitude and personality of the artist. As example was classed as a dance / electro house genre it is conventionally known that digipacks do not usually feature the artist and use poster art or a minimalistic design. I wanted to challenge this convention as I believed that the artist is very important and should be the main showcase. I however I used some creative designs and imagery in the digipacks as well as realistic photography. I used photographs of Nike Blazers to appeal to the fashionable sense of the audience and photographs of the artist to gain publicity and acknowledgement. I then also created computer generated images to create a unique and interesting design. I felt the mixture of the types of images would create a slightly dystopian view as if the artist lived in an anamatic world. This made it interesting for the target audience to look at and also persuade them to buy the digipak against the other digipaks on offer.

The magazine advert was also important to appeal to people other than the targeted, this means that it has to draw attention and persuade the reader to become interested in the album / single. Again I followed the convention to have all the products coherent, for the first magazine I ensured a bold and graffiti styled font to grab the attention of the readers and immediately suggest an urban genre.  I used the bright conventional colours to suggest a more commercial and dance genre. I wanted to go against the convention of having the artist in a serious body language/ facial expression. I wanted the image to stand out so I took the image of my artist when he was not ready. This created a slightly comical yet interesting image. I thought that this would make my artist more appealing to the reader as it makes him look less superficial and realistic, someone they can relate to. In both posters I followed conventions of having websites, artist name and album name. This allows the reader to have a choice whether they want to find out more information which is also appealing.

In my billboard advertisement I wanted to make it more iconic. In the area where it shows all the information for tour dates, albums and artist information my inspiration was from RUN DMC, they are extremely well known and I felt that the reader would automatically associate my artist with RUN DMC. The group is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential acts in the history of hip hop and urban culture. However to differentiate my artist and RUN DMC I ensured ‘Example’ was central and had the street name named after him. This allows the reader to immediately understand that it is a advertisement for Example and not RUN DMC.

Throughout my media products I followed many of the conventions to ensure success with appealing to the target audience and for continuity for ease to watch and read. However I felt I have challenged a few to keep my media products authentic and to allow the audience to remain active and give them choices.