Q1 evaluation

1. I N W H AT W AY S D O E S Y O U R
M E D I A P R O D U C T U S E , D E V E L O P
O R C H A L L E N G E F O R M S A N D
C O N V E N T I O N S O F R E A L M E D I A
P R O D U C T S ?
Q U E S T I O N 1

2. Throughout my research and planning process I analysed media texts to recognise codes
and convention which informed creative decisions in my ancillaries and my main task.
This includes deconstructions of music videos that use rotoscope animation, most of
which were also from the music genre of my chosen song (indie-rock), and album
digipaks and magazine advertisements for albums also under the indie-rock umbrella.

3. One common theme that I found in nearly every album digipak example is the yellow,
purple, and pink in the colour schemes. I personally really liked the look of these colours
together so I incorporated them into my own album cover for my first ancillary task, using
purple gradient as a background, pink and yellow for the hair, and splashes of yellow on the
face and hands of the figure. The title, artist name, and track list on my digipak are white,
which fits in with the convention of either black or white text (which I found on the
examples I looked at), and it provides some contrast against the purple background. There
is also some white brushstrokes on the front design too which helps to bring the entire
cover together as a cohesive piece.
Example digipak
covers. Purple,
yellow, pink and
white very
prevalent.
My album cover,
following this
theme.

4. One way in which I challenged a convention was my use of handwritten titles,
names, and track lists in both my ancillary tasks. Most of the digipaks and
magazine advertisements I looked at used the typical computer generated fonts
as opposed to handwritten (or in a handwritten style). I handwrote all my text
(except the small print on the back cover of the digipak and the small print at the
bottom of the magazine advertisement) because of my focus group feedback;
they thought it matched the loose style of the front cover design more than set
fonts.
There is also a slight difference between the album cover font and the advert
font; I felt that the advert needed a pink font layer under the white to create
something more visually interesting because half of the piece is just text. I also
did this on the back album again because of all the free space. The album cover
however is just white text because I think the simplicity compliments the detailed
design that takes up most of the cover.
Front cover drafts with different fonts Final front and back cover

5. All of the music videos I looked at had shots of both the singer miming the words to the
song and shots of the band/artist playing instruments. These shots made up nearly all of
my piece as it is a “performance” music video (theorist: Sven E Carlsson) as opposed to a
“conceptual” video with a narrative. I think animation is perfect for this type of video
because it has a visual focus and therefore the animation doesn’t distract you from any
important narrative.
There were close-ups of the singer and band in the videos I looked at, but they also had
a variety of mid-shots and shots where you could see the whole band, not just a single
person. I would definitely improve my video by adding some of these shots if I had
access to a studio. This would also give me the chance to create some interesting sets
instead of the mostly plain backgrounds in my production.
A shot from my music video A shot from Paramore’s “Hard Times” music video

6. I followed the typical where the text
on the magazine advert gets
progressively smaller to highlight
the artist name and album name as
the most important pieces of
information.
My poster very much separates the
design from the text, whereas the
examples I looked at tended to
incorporate the two aspects much
more smoothly; the separation
works with my design because it is
an intricate illustrative piece, text
over my design would make the
advert appear cluttered.

7. The middle 8 of my music video definitely bears some
similarities to the videos I analysed. Both the examples
and my production have a long close-up shot for the
majority of the middle 8 intertwined with shots of
instruments. Vesperteen’s “Shatter in the Night”
incorporates the instrument shots by overlaying them
onto the shot of the singer, and Paramore’s “Hard
Times” cuts to some shots of the guitar and drums. My
video also cuts to a guitar shot, and then has a section
of fast-paced cuts to drums, guitar, and the background
singer.
The singers are also all centrally framed and look into
the camera when they are singing/miming. I really liked
this because combined with the long shot of the singer,
it puts all the focus on them.
My production