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

Our task was to produce a music promo for a new unsigned artist as well as to create promotional items, a Digipak and magazine advert, all in-keeping with a chosen theme, genre and style. The single we chose was 'One More Year' by Fij, an indie band who we found on Unsinged.com.

The purpose of these components are all important in shaping and selling an artist,
Music videos:
Music videos are mainly used to promote a song/artist/band by creating publicity around the promo they are also a key to making money for the record company.
They can give the audience a feeling of access to the band and help give songs understanding. Music videos can be very unique giving them instant hype and coverage especially through social networking.

Digipaks:

These are used to attract the target audience to purchase the artists music. Their key purpose is also to package and protect the actual disk. However in most cases of digipaks they may contain more than a CD due to the extra panels allow for more information such as an artist/band biography, photos, posters or lyrics. Unlike CDs didgipaks are made from card not plastic, this gives a better finish and make the product look more appealing and a much more desirable product.

Magazine Adverts:
Magazine advertising is a great way to reach specific genres through music magazines, the purpose of the advert is to publicise the album/song release, as well as the band/artist in a way which appeals to its target audience. Magazine adverts also allow for other information such as tour dates and reviews.
Music promos are made up of many elements which can make them conventional. These are some of the main features we would see in a music video:

Although many of these may be dependant and vary due to genres there are constants through-out promos

Camera shots

Narrative and performance

 The most common ratio of narrative an performance is 50:50 as this gives

 a good balance of showing off the artists abilities as well as looking authentic, and giving the artist/s a chance to be creative or give a song understanding in order to promote themselves further.
Purely narrative videos are usually seen from unusually ‘arty’ bands who are trying to be unique and make a statement. Full narrative videos are also good for telling a story.

(Alt-J breezeblocks is a full narrative music video used to tell a story)

The other extreme of this would be all performance; this is common in the genre of rock/metal as the music is centred around heavy sounds of guitars, drums and other instruments. These videos are generally lively with lots of crowd shots, close ups of instruments. A benefit of this type of video is that it makes viewers want to see bands/artists live, therefore promoting tours and increasing sales.



(moodboard of performance style videos)

Our Promo had an even distribution of both narrative and performance. The narrative was an illustration of the lyrics which told the story of a life of friends, parties and hangovers. We created our narrative by using lots of extra actors to create the party scenes, we had to frame shots carefully to make them look as busy and realistic as possible.



The performance of the video was singing as we did not know anyone who could play an instrument we chose a track with mainly lyrics and electronic sounds. We had to lip sync the video in order to make it look authentic, we had a lot of practice with this due to our preliminary video which we spend a long time syncing a fish.

Editing

In the majority of music videos are edited in time with the track so that the it cuts to the beat of the music. Different songs and genres have different paces ,this can make videos fast paced or slow paced, either way editing to the music make the video fit the track and seem more effective.

In our video we tried to keep with this rule and used straight cuts between beats as well as using longs shots such as the book for intervals in the music to show contrast between lyrics and instrumental.
Other editing used in Promos are effects and transitions. Common effects used in videos are to alter colours and exposure. For example pop promos are often very bright, colourful and bold, these shots will have been increased exposure, contrast and saturation to make them appear cleaner and more eye-catching.

 However in other genres such as rock black and white effects are common as they create a classic and timeless feel.

In our video we only altered certain shots such as the bottles as these look much more effective when highly saturated as the stood out and looked lively. We also had to change the brightness of some shots of the actor due to lighting difficulties we wanted to keep continuity through out by matching up brightness levels.

The made use of editing in our video was when creating the stop motion footage we had to edit all the photographs we had taken and turn them into film by using imovie, we had to remove and incorrect frames and export the photo sequence as a movie. Then we could change the speed to a suitable pace.
When lookign into stop motion we were inspired by Coldplay's music video 'strawberry swing' as it showed the use of stop motion with drawings and was very creative and colourful:

Another video were where inspired by was Bruno mars 'Just teh way you are' as the ribbon in the tape made the face move in a stop motion style, this was idea was somethign we really wanted to include in our video.

Another editing technique used when making our promo was Imovies green screen.This was the effect used to create the moving face.

To create the effect of a face moving in a book we had to take a very still shot of out actors face so that once edited the face did not move behind the wrong layer. First of all we layer the image of josh over a plain white photo.

Next we used the green screen option to edit the layers.

 Next we used the crop tool to select just the face area that we wanted to see.

We then cropped it and tested the video worked

Finally we used the video editor to make josh's facial features black and white and stand out. we did this by increasing exposure and contrast and decreasing brightness and saturation

This is the final video we created which we will export and then import into the rest  of our promo

Mise-en-scene

Costume:
Costume varies from each genre a typical pop costume would be very stylised and fashionable. Female popstars are well known for wearing revealing outfits to make a statement and appeal to fans. This supports Laura Mulveys theory who said that because film makers are predominantly male, the presence of women in films is often solely for the purposes of display (rather than for narrative purposes). The purpose of this display is to facilitate a voyeuristic response in spectators, which presumes a ‘male gaze’ one that is a powerful controlling gaze at the female on display, who is effectively objectified and passive.

 
In the typical indie genre a similar artist to ours was Jamie T, we base our actors look around these as it looked effective in his videos. The look is casual as gives an urban, relaxed vibe.

We also took a lot of framing and general inspiration form Jamie T's video 'Sticks and Stones' as this  was a very typical indie song with a similar mood and meaning.

Lighting:
Pop promo videos are general very brightly lit as they focus on the artist and getting their face known. The brightness also enhances colours making the video seem more vibrant and interesting to the audience. This bright and colourful style in pop is influenced by the pop art movement.
In contrast to pop, rock promos are conventionally very dark and use very contrasting lights to create shadows influenced by expressionism

In general music videos use lighting to focus on the artist/band. In performance videos flashes in the lighting add to the atmosphere of the gig and make the video seem lively and energetic. The lighting also helps to show contrasts in the band and the audience as it highlights the important people in the video.

Our video used lighting mainly to highlight our actor throughout, although our original plans were to have dark party scenes with just our actors face highlighted which is conventional for this type of shot, we had difficulties as the camera was unable to pick up shots unless they were well lit.

 

Location:
Pop videos are conventionally shot in large studios where backgrounds can be green-screened on, alternatively they are used to show the typical 'popstar lifestyle' and are set in exotic countries with sunny beaches, blue seas and yachts, a clear example of this is from 1980 where Duran Duran made a big budget video for their song Rio. The video is very conventionally pop for its location as well as use of lighting, colour, costume and props which all convey the 'popstar lifestyle'

This may be as pop promos statistically have bigger budgets and spend more money on the video to promote themselves

The indie genre uses less extravagant settings such as rural settings/cities/woodland

as seen in the jamie t video. our video fits this location convention as we have used the locations of  a train station, alley ways and streets, parks and a home.

Props:

Illustration, Amplification, Disjuncture

Within performance and narrative videos usually fit into a category of either Illustration, amplification or disjuncture.

Illustration:
Conventionally illustration music videos use narrative to illustrate what is happening in the lyrics directly.
E.g. REM- everybody hurts, this is a good example as the lyrics are  represented by the images happening.

Amplification:

This is when a section of the lyrics of one idea from the song is taken and amplified into the music video.
E.g. Coldplay- the scientist, This is a good example of amplification. The video revolves around the line 'take me back to the start'

Disjuncture:
Music videos which are unconnected from the lyrics. They often try and create a new meaning for the song using abstract ideas and images. These videos are common for arty bands who are trying express their independence and uniqueness.
E.g.Radiohead- No suprises, No suprises is a great example of didjuncture as it has no relation to the lyrics and is a very bizaire idea.

When we analysed our lyrics we interpreted the song and illustrated the story which the lyrics were telling. We also gained information about the type message being put across from a BBC interview by the band. The song was about having one more year before each band member left for university and the fun times they have had, however lyrics describe a typical night of fun and drunken antics followed by the consequences of the next morning.
We made a conventional illustration of the lyrics by fitting most sentences with a matching shot or putting a series of shots together to tell certain parts of the story:

Genre

Our track was described as an Indie/electro/pop genre.

With relevance to our chosen genre, the indie genre has such a large range of different music styles and sub genres it is difficult to state its conventions.

However traditional indie rock will be quite dark and show props like guitars and drums, most of the narrative will focus around musical abilities.
Pop conventions have influences the indie music scene creating quite upbeat indie music, creating the indie pop genre.
The indie pop genre however is much clearer as it uses bright lighting and focuses its attention around the artist/band. A key feature of this sub-genre is using bright bold colours, similar to the popart movement.

Vampire weekend are an example of an indie pop band who have used colourful props in lots of thier music videos which match the colourful upbeat music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e0u11rgd9Q

Electro sounds could also be heard in our track due to the use of electronic production. Conventions of electro music videos often contain bright and very colourful lighting shots as well as dancing and live performance are a common shot seen too.

Justice are an electroband who make some intrestign videos, however these conventions can still be seen in thess videos:

Digipak

Conventions of a digipak are that they show:
-Album name

-Artist name

-Track list

-Album artwork relating back to other promotional materials

-Artist biography with information about them and inspirations/meanings behind tracks

-Reviews which help promote the album and make it look better

-Record/music company credits and/or logo

An example from the indie genre is Mumford and sons, they are a folk/indie band who have chosen a very simple and minimalistic digipak to show that they are timeless and original. It is a 3 panelled pack with a booklet for lyrics/posters/extras in a sleeve, a plastic dick holder and a panel for album artwork. The image is similar to the cover which shows they like to keep a consistent house style throughout. The white backgrounds work well to emphasize the black CD and square windows which the band members are sat in.

Our Digipak needed to be conventional but still stand out to get our artist noticed. We used drawings in a sketch format, to be different compared to other indie digipaks. By using the drawings they also link to our music video, which will bring attention to each of our music products.

To make our digipak convetional we used made sure we had all the relevant features such as:

- the album name and artist name on the front cover,

- we put a track list, bar code and common logos on the back panel of the digipak. 

-We have used artwork which relates to our video, the art work we have used are photographs which we have edited to show only certain colours as this made the digipak look less busy and made the part we wanted stand out. The sketchy images are the main links to our video and advert and are what will make the digipak get noticed and stand out. The CD is a still from our music video which is very significant as it is part of the video which peopel remember and pick up on. The bottom right panel is where our Bonus CD would go, we took lots of stills from the video and collaged them together, this fits with our theme as the collage style relates to the scrapbook with all the photo stills in it.

-We have included relevant artist information and a short band bio.

Magazine Advert

Conventions of a magazine advert are that they show:

-Album name
-Artist name
-Relevant images/artwork which is in-keeping with the theme of other promotional materials.

-Tour dates
-Album release dates
-Album reviews
-cost of tickets/album

Our Advert Is similar to our digipak with imagery and links to the music video too.

To make our advert conventional we have made use we used certain elements:

-The album name and artist name are clear and bold on the advert, they are the largest texts and are what you are drawn to. We have also incorporated them into the image so that they draw your eye to them as well.

-The images used are relevant to our video as the trains and bottles are a frequent image which is making our band recognise able through images. The sketchy theme also has this effect.

-Dates for tours and album release are the information the advert is giving out, these have been kept in the same font and are fitted onto the page to look as though they are part of the paper. We have also used a red circle sticker which draws your attention in and can be used in other adverts.

-Album reviews are very conventional as good reviews are used to make people want to buy the album, we have used reviews in a rating system so that we could incorporate them into the image.

Although most adverts focus around one central image, we have developed this convention to show more feature and collaborate them into one picture as this is more colourful and eye-catching  it also helps to relate images to other promo pieces and therefore create more links and publicity.