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

Music video

In the production of our music video, we opted to utilize previous conventions of music videos which have already proven to be successful (based on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Music Videos). We also attempt to sometimes challenge established conventions to bring attention to the video, so it is not quickly skimmed over as being "just another band".



In terms of camera shots, the earlier drafts of our videos contained mainly mid shots and a few close ups. The use of mid shot in music videos is good in that it enables the audience to see the facial expressions (and thus emotions) at a reasonable enough degree, whilst also capturing important body language. Some dancing may also be captured with a mid shot. However it was evident that we did this too much; long shots could enable us to communicate ideas using mediums such as mis en scene (in terms of background).

Too many medium shots video

We improved on this via getting more shots, particularly longer ones. An attempt was also made during editing to incorporate more close ups, to capture the emotions and lyrics. Virtually all songs have the artist expressing (through both facial expressions and body language) the emotion of the song, and we wanted to capture this, too. See below:

Majority of this video contains the artist
lip syncing at the camera. Towards the end,
genuine tears are shed. The genuine emotion
showed has made this a famous video known
by many.

Note the artists' smiling expression. 
Whilst not on the same emotional level as 
O' Conor (right), it still demonstrates 
the usex of close up as a means 
of mirroring the song's emotion.

Lighting was another thing we took into account. Since our song was very upbeat, we had to find places with sufficient lighting that would reflect the upbeat nature of the song, to compound with the song's own atmosphere and thus enhance the experience of whoever was watching the music video.


We also stuck to the conventional manner of using straight cuts. We felt that using fades or dissolves would feel too slow, considering the upbeat nature of the music video. We do use a fade at the end, but only because we wanted to the picture to mirror the artists' voice - it was the last thing you could hear as all the other instruments faded out. 

We also used a variety of outfits to keep the audience entertained and not make it look like an amateur attempt at a music video. In particular, we used suits as most artists are known to be dress-y in their attire for music videos. For example:

Wearing such outfits has connotations of power and authority associated with it, which is the kind of artist(s) audiences will want to follow.

In terms of props, we utilized instruments. This is again another convention of popular music videos, which usually contain the band behind some sort of plain background, such as in this video:

Again note that the background is relatively plain;
focus is on the artists and instruments

We also borrowed from the above video in that we decided to use little dolls to represent the protagonist. We also opted to present those parts in the form of a stop-motion animation. We believed that something normally not used would help bring attention to the band, rather than completely conforming to used conventions. See below for the example:

(Above) Not your usual protagonist

(Above) Again, not your usual protagonist.
Note that despite this technique of narrating
having been used before, it is still not common
enough to be classified as a "typical" convention.

The stop motion type animation also gives a bright atmosphere to the video, which compliments the song which is also upbeat, itself. Note that connotations of animated characters tend to be children's shows, and generally upbeat things. In this way the stop motion helps the audience feel the emotion of the song better.



Magazine advert

The purpose of the magazine advert is to draw attention to the band and it's product. It can do this by standing out through methods such as relating with the target audience, or making the target audience feel certain emotions which make the advert memorable.

The conventions our magazine advert uses:

We stayed within the usual conventions of magazine adverts - as these established conventions have demonstrated themselves to be successful.

Digipak
The digipak design should be eye catching; it needs to be able to attract a wide variety of audiences, in order to spread the word of the artist.
At the same time it needs to conform with the design of the other products to create a sort of 'brand recognition'.

Here are the conventions that our digipak has used:

Note that we break a convention of digipaks by providing a small "Thank you" note in the inside of the digipak.
By doing this we hope to reassure the customer of their purchase by making them feel appreciated.

Music video review

Upon showing our music video for review to some teachers, we were given the following tips:

• There is a massive lack of shot variety
• Our music video is loaded to the brim with nothing but mid shot, and the occasional shot where the singer moves his face closer to the camera
• We also lack enough shots of the animation to make the story coherent
• It may be that the audience gets confused and just doesn't understand what the animation is about
• This could be fixed by either having more shots of the animation, to make a coherent story
• Alternatively, we could just take shots at more locations
• Park seems fine

Music Video - Tonight I let You Go; NOT FINAL DRAFT

We chose to remove the animatics we would've had an as we felt that there may have been too big of a contrast with the rest of the video. We felt that perhaps the presence of animated, animatic figures would've stood out and left the audience feeling confused; especially when we consider that the rest of the video is just of the band.

We could perhaps attempt to focus more on the animated figures, so as to blend the two different forms of media in. However we feel we do not have enough shots to make the animated characters' roles more prominent.

Music Video Titles

Here what our music video looks like with the titles:

There is the font, Badaboom BB, in action.
We feel that the non-traditional way of displaying the titles willl help draw the target audience, who may not be looking for something 'mainstream'.

Adding the animations in

We've been doing some editing today, adding the animations in.
Here's some screenshots so far:

Music video - Things need to be added

Upon reviewing the music video, we decided that perhaps it would be best if we added the animations in anyways.

The video otherwise seems too lacking, and if we correctly spaced out the animations we could possibly merge the contrast between the two together.

Another option is to make the contrast blatantly purposeful, to stir a stronger emotional response from the audience. This could arguably make the music video more memorable to an audience, thus expanding the audience.