In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Behind Bad Luck- Superman
In our music video we have evidently used a variety of forms and traditional conventions in order to produce a fantastic music video. One of typical conventions displayed in our music video is the used of lip syncing by our led singer. When the lip syncing is done over and over again in each scene before it is spot on it ends up looking very effective as you can see in our music video. This form of convention is very important as if the lip syncing is not accurate in a music video then it ends up looking very unprofessional and fake, this is also a factory which cannot be hidden as the audience will easily spot this error out which will discourage them from watching the video or buying the CD. For such reasons, we made sure that we got the lip syncing spot on from each movement of the lips to facial expressions throughout the video to make it as real and possible
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| Slow motion lip syncing |
We also used forms and conventions of real media products by having a narrative in our video. In almost every music video there is a story/message behind the video. Artists do this deliberately to say something, this could be relating to their personal lives or just a message they want to get across to the audience by the use of music. Our music video is also like this as it is all about a student who reunites with his childhood superhero Superman and pretends to be him by wearing a giant red cape and saving innocent lives.
Another typical form of convention which is evident in real music videos is the use of instruments. In regards to our genre being Ska the use of instrument is a traditional feature which is evident in a number of Ska music videos. In order to make our music video as realistic and possible we felt that it was important that we followed this convention so that our video is an embodiment of all the qualities real Ska music videos have. This was one of the reasons as to why we added a band performance scene in our video to emphasis the idea that it is a traditional Ska music video.
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| Tom \(from our band) |
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| Ska artist Ska-P |
Here you can see the similarities in the use of instruments from professional Ska/Punk Spanish artist Ska-P with a band member of our own music video. This supports the idea that we have used real media products to help construct our own music video.
Andrew Goodwin a media specialist came up with an idea of there being six specific music video conventions. One of them is a clear link between the lyrics in a music video and the visual images displayed. Andrew Goodwin's theory is right in this case as you can see in many other music videos including our own music video. Our music video is illustrative, this is because she you see happening in the video is said in the lyrics. This displays a relationship between the audio and visual supporting Goodwin's convention theory of a video to visual relationship.
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| Image of Tom being Superman, corresponds to the lyrics |
Another of Goodwin's theory which he says is evident in music videos is a particular genre of music which has a particular characteristic. This convention is demonstrated in our music video as it is an embodiment of the typical boy band video. This supports Goodwin's convention theory as we have made a typical genre video.
Furthermore, Goodwin also recognised another convention which he felt was present in music videos. This consisted of the idea of there being an intertextual reference to something else during the course of the video. This convention is evident throughout our music video as you can see symbolic references to;
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| Connor walking out of the door Sherlock Holmes series was filmed |
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| Close-up of Tom, referencing Sinead' O Connor's video- Nothing compares to you |
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| Tom pretending to be Superman |
This again supports Andrew Goodwin's theory in particular forms and convention being present in videos.
Another key convention we made sure we followed was to work within the Superhero genre. By doing this we have evidently followed the current trend as the majority of the popular films at the moment are in this genre such as big blockbusters films from the 'Big 6' from the lights of The Amazing Superman 2, Captain America and there is also a new X-Men film which is said to be coming out in the summer this year which is being spoke about everywhere from Twitter to magazine adverts. By us doing this it has enabled us to make a relevant music video target at the modern audience as many will find it appealing as they do to other Superhero based films.
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| The Amazing Spiderman 2 |
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| 'Superman' AKA Tom |
On the other hand, there are also particular conventions in Andrew Goodwin's theory which we have challenged via our music video. One of Goodwin's ideas says that there is always a voyeuristic treatment of the female body in videos. This convention has been challenged by our music video as this idea is not present. There is no reference what so ever throughout our music video to the sexual female body parts, this contradicts Goodwin's convention and proves that he's conventions are not compulsory in order to make a professional and successful video.
In conclusion, it is evident that we have used a lot of typical conventions to construct our music video. Most of these forms and conventions were done subconsciously as everything just seemed to come together after planning the basics for the video such as the costumes, locations, shot variations and storyboard.
Digipak
Our digipak can be seen to use forms and conventions of a professional album cover. In the majority of boy band covers it is typical for them to have all there faces displayed somewhere on the cover
This is the front cover of the previous X Factor winners JLS of there 2012 album called 'Evolution'. As you can see, all the faces of the band have been placed on each corner of the cover posing for the camera. Our music video can be seem to embody the same idea behind this cover as our front cover also displays all the members of our band together. This highlights the typical use of the band image convention.
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| Digipak front cover |
At the back of our digipak we have all the tracks present in the CD and also details of record company including distribution and copy right information. This information is also on real digipaks which demonstrates our use of traditional packaging conventions
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| Back of JLS digipak |
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| Back of our digipak |
As you can see there is a strong similarity between the back of the pop band JLS's digipak and also our groups one.
The creation of our digipak from the images, designs and use of colours on the back cover is evidently looks like a tradition Ska band cover. This shows that we have used forms and conventions in our genre in order to appeal to our audience. This can be seen in the comparison between the famous Ska band 'The Specials' back album cover called 'Specials' with our digipak. As you can see the checkered design is evident on both products, this shows thats we have followed typical element within the Ska genre.
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| Back of 'The Specials' digipak |
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| Back of our digipak |
The six different panels in our digipak all participate in forming a specific image of our band. This can be via our use of background cover and also pictures. In five of our panels there is a black and white checkered pattern in the background behind the pictures. We deliberately did this in order to emphasis the idea that is a Ska digipak. This checkered background also gives an insight into what should be expected in the CD as if someone was to see this on a shelf they would immediately know that they will be purchasing Ska music. Another element which contributes in the band image is our choices of images. Again we made the images black and white to exaggerate the Ska theme .We also placed Tom (the lead singer) on the actual base where the CD is placed in order to highlight his importance in the band because he is the led singer. This contrasts with real digipak designs as artists also use specific forms to display an image of the artist.
This is a real digipak design of artist Jack Johnson. As you can see, the theme of nature is displayed in each panel, this is supported by the use of images with the leaves on the CD disc and tree on the top right of the digipak. This is similar to our digipak as we also have a key theme across our digipka which is Ska.
On the spin of the digipak we have the original band name and the name of the song. This feature is displayed on real digipak covers.
We have not challenged the conversion of genres as we have stayed within the content we are working with which is Ska. This is evident in our digipak via the use of colour schemes and use of costumes displayed in the images our ourselves.
Magazine advert
Our magazine advert reflects the same ideas and image as our digipak. This can be seen in the use of images as the image displayed on the advert also present in our digipak. This displays a relationship between our digipak and magazine advert as it means that people wanting to buy our album can easily identify it on the shelves in their local HMW store because they will recognise the image from the adverting poster on the digipak cover. As well as this, there is also a relationship between both of our products via the same use of colour scheme. The images of the band members which is displayed on our digipak is in black and white and so is the checkered background. These ideas are reflect in our magazine advert as the background images is also in black and white along with the checkered design.
We have also developed our magazine advert by adding something's to it which are not common in all real magazine adverts. We had added a critical comment from a Rap representative 'Mojo' saying "Behind Bad Luck are super would be an understatement". As well as this we also added additional information on the Band's movement by writing across the middle of the advert "One tour through April and May". These additional features have developed our magazine advert making it different from other standard album/song adverts because we have made it more informative and pervasive giving people even more reasons to want to buy our album.
This is a real magazine advert from Hip-Hop artist Mr Hudson with his album 'Straight no Chaser'. As you can see, the advert for this album is very dull and plain with not a lot to offer as it states is the artist, the name of the album, the release date and a featuring track on the album. My groups magazine advert has developed forms and conventions in this real media advert as we have added logo's to inform people on the availability locations for our album, we've added a critical opinion and also ratings from newspaper company's on our album to make the advert more persuasive and eye catching. These key developments on the standard magazine advert will prove to be beneficial because offers more reasons for people to purchase the album/song CD.
Our magazine advert uses forms and conventions of a real advert from an album. On a magazine advert for a song or an album the release date and the location of its availability is always presented somewhere in the advertisement. As you can see in our magazine advert we have stated these as the album is "Out now" and there is a number of logo's at the bottom of the advertisement where the album can be located at from the lights of HMV and downloaded on iTunes. These features can also be seen in a real magazine advert as you can see in the UK trap artists Wretch 32 on his album 'WretchRospective'.
In his album advertisement the release date is stated as it was 'Out Monday 6th 2008' and available to purchase in HWV and the website '7Digital'. This shows that we have used typical magazine advert format to construct our own advert for out album.
This typical magazine advert format can also be seen due to the name of the artist (band in our magazine advert) written in a larger font compared to the other text along with the title of the album. This can be seen in our magazine advert and also in Wretch 32's advert for his album. This shows how we have used traditional forms of a real magazine advert to make our own advert.
Across our magazine advert and digipak there is not a real consistency in the use of font. This shows that we have challenged the typical forms and conventions of a real digipak and magazine advert as in a real digipak and magazine advert the use of font tends to stay consists across the two products.
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| Jack Johnson- In Between Dreams (Digipak) |
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| Jack Johnson- In Between Dreams (Magazine advert) |
In both of the artist's digipak presentation and magazine advert the same font has been used.
