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

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
When making my media products I mostly conformed to the conventions of real life videos, websites
and digipaks. However, I did also challenge and develop some of the conventions, mostly on the
music video.
Andrew Goodwin stated music videos show stereotypes and conventions of a genre. We followed
this idea and conformed to the rock genre in all three of our products. By following the conventions
of rock music, the audience is able to tell straight away what kind of genre the band are in and it
reinforces stereotypes e.g. we conformed to the genre by using dark colour which reinforces the
stereotype that rock music is quite dark and moody.
When making the music video, we researched existing products from other rock and punk bands to
see what the main codes and conventions of rock videos were. We also looked at other genre of
music videos, such as pop, to see what they did similarly to rock videos. Dyer stated that pop bands
are photocopies of other bands. We found that this was true
when researching rock music videos. Most bands had casual
clothing and the lead singer was always in front and got most
of the attention. We were influenced by Sum 41 who wore
casual clothing but it wasn’t dark like other pop punk bands
such as Good Charlotte, but instead wore colour such as green
and blue but weren’t too bright. The band in my music video
did the same by wearing casual clothes such as jeans, hoodies
and t-shirts and they didn’t just wear black or one colour for example, the lead singer was wearing a
grey and green top with a navy top underneath.
Another convention that we conformed to was the setting. We used a live, concert setting to show
the band. Most pop punk videos show the band performing in front of an audience, not just in a
studio. By filming in a concert environment, we were able to capture both the band and the
audience which also reinforces stereotypes of rock concerts or gigs such as mosh pits and head
banging. By showing the band in concert, we are constructing an image of them. Dyer’s star theory
states that stars and are not real and that they are constructed images. We are constructing an
image for the band using the performance elements of the video. By watching the video, audiences
would see the band as having a relationship with their audiences and fans and that they are serious
musicians that like to play live.
W e also followed conventions with the type of shots that we used. Although we used variety of
shots, we used mostly close ups and mid-shots of the band and the lead singer. In most music
videos, there is a focus on the singer and they are usually shown through a close up or a mid-soot so
that their face is the main focus and we did the same. We also used a low angle shot so that the
singer seemed bigger than the audience and showed that he was superior to them because he’s the
lead singer. During the band shots, we used wide shots so that the audience could see the whole
band but most shots were either mid shots so that the audience could see the band member playing
the instrument or extreme close ups of the instruments while they were being played.

2. A way that we challenged conventions in our music video was with our shots of scenery. We used
establishing shots and wide shots of London throughout
the video to break away from the narrative and
performance of the video. The shots were quite bright
and had coloured lighting such as blue and red. These
shots conform more to the pop genre rather than punk,
for example in Roll Deep’s video for “Good Times,” they
show locations that the artists is travelling to. The shots
that they use of iconic London things such as taxis and
the underground are similar to shots that we used.
My digipak conformed to most of the conventions of punk rock. The colours and pictures we used on
the front and back cover conform to stereotypes of the genre. We used dark and dull colours and we
used a picture of scenery that was quite low quality and slightly out of focus. This gave the album a
grunge like look to it. The booklet inside contains the lyrics of the song, pictures of the band and
information of the band. The pictures inside the insert are also dark and the majority are in black
and white which conforms to the genre and gives the album a grunge punk look. By having different
things in the booklet, we are fulfilling the needs for a wide variety of audiences, for example, fans
that like the music have access to the lyrics and other audiences that like to watch the band have
pictures of the band performing live.
I decided not to challenge the conventions when it came to the digipak. The digipak should show the
audience what genre it is and fans of the band should instantly recognise it as the band’s product. I
think that by challenging the conventions of rock punk on the digipak, it would confuse the audience
and it wouldn’t be clear what genre the album was by looking at the digipak.
I wanted the website to advertise the band’s music and keep audiences up to date with what the
band are up tp. By adding tour dates and news on the website I have conformed to the conventions
of other music websites. I also added links to navigate the audience to a site where they can get
concert tickets from. There are also links to social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook as
well as Google that I added because I know that they are popular sites for my target audience.
There’s also a phone site so the website is compatible with mobile devices. This means that my
target audience can get access to the website both on the computer and their mobile phones. Music
websites have to keep up to date with the latest websites and apps that their target audience is
using so that their website remains recent and interesting to the audience.
By having the logo and band name at the top of the page, we have conformed to the conventions of
a music website. On most websites, the band or artists name is the first thing that the audience can
see. I also found that rock and punk bands follow the
theme of their current music. For example Fall Out
Boy have changed their website theme and
housestyle so that it links with their newest album.
They’ve changed their font that they use throughout
the website, images and the logo so that it matches
their digipak. My website does the same, keeping to the same colour scheme and fonts as presented
on the digipak. This is to make it easily recognisable by the audience. The colour scheme of grey,

3. black and white conforms to the genre as they are dark and simple colours that are often associated
with the genre.
Like with the digipak we decided not to challenge any conventions. It’s harder to challenge
conventions on the website because it has to do the job, of advertising and keeping fans up to date,
well so it was more appropriate to use conventions.