The document discusses the creation of promotional materials for a fictional band. It describes how conventions from the band My Chemical Romance were used and adapted. The poster used handwritten text and original photography while keeping information like tour dates. The digipak challenged conventions by not including band pictures but keeping the "Dead Pegasus" theme. The music video mixed live performances with a narrative involving gender stereotypes, as in MCR videos. Feedback found the blending of conventions and new ideas appealing. Overall, the products synergized themes like handwritten signs while adding new elements.

1. Emily Twyman

2.  To challenge forms and conventions of MCR’s real
products, we used our own photography which
replaced the artwork that MCR use on their
promotional posters. This made the product brighter,
but did not stray too far from the genre conventions as
we hand wrote the sign, which reflects the authenticity
and individuality that is important to our target
audience.
 We kept conventions such as the information included
in the poster the same, such as: a link to tour dates,
websites and Digipak release information, because
these things are necessary to capture our audience’s
attention and communicate information to them. This
will also help make both the band and genre
recognisable.

3.  We both developed and challenged the
typical conventions of real products when
we created our Digipak, especially in
terms of the main image. We haven’t
included any pictures of the band, which
is a usual convention for this genre, but
we have kept the ‘Dead Pegasus’ theme,
part of a concept that was used in MCR’s
last album Danger Days. Dead Pegasus
was an oil company within this conceptual
world and we have reflected this deatail
by photographing the flames, and have
also made the metaphoric name ‘Dead
Pegasus’ literal through the use of the
Pegasus toy in the main image. The fact
that we have challenged these
conventions will appeal to our audience as
the genre that our band represents is
associated with individuality and
independence from the crowd.
 Our Digipak uses forms and conventions
of real media products as it has been
designed according to the typical layout
and format, therefore has qualities such
as the track list and record label logo.

4.  We used conventions of the genre
and specifically of MCR’s real
products while making our music
video. We did this by taking their
idea of mixing live performance with
narrative, which is a common theme
in their music videos. Our narrative
mostly followed a the same style as
MCR’s as it included similar
characters that play out conflict
found in society (such as in their
earlier videos in which characters
faced high school drama’s but they
also carry on this theme as they get
older, showing that they have grown
up but still deal with problems that
real people deal with; connecting
with their audience), but we
developed our plot, making the girl in
our story the heroine. As this gender
inversion reflects the challenging of
stereotypes that is so prominent in
this genre, we felt this would also
appeal to the audience.
These stills
show how we
have used
conventions of
MCR’s live
performance.
These show
similarities
between
the two
narratives,
although we
developed
ours to
include the
challenge of
gender
stereotypes.

5.  We feel that we met our audiences expectations
well as we carried out research on Survey Monkey
and in the form of interviews before making our
products. The people we collected our data from
were part of our target audience, so we asked
them for the things they would like to see in a
promotional package and took into account their
answers, but also developed some of their idea’s
to create something new that would attract their
attention.
 We also got feedback after we made our
products. We asked similar people to those in our
first set od research and they said that they
enjoyed both the ideas that used conventions of
MCR’s existing products but also they liked the
challenging of genre stereotypes and the ‘outtake
style’ at the end of our video- both ideas we
developed.
 The audience feedback was both useful and
relevant for us to be able to make a set of
products that appealed to the audiences needs.
 However, from making these products we also
found out that feedback is only part of the
process and our own creative ideas and research
were more useful for the task we were given.

6.  I think our three products synergised
well together and also worked well
with MCR’s existing products.
 One theme that has worked well and is
clear to pick out in all three products is
the use of the handwritten font on
cardboard signs. This created
idiosyncrasies individual to these
three products while still appealing
to the audience as the individuality
is something that our genre and
audience can relate to, as well as
the audience personal to MCR
within that genre.
 On our poster we used a washed
out effect while editing our
photography which made the
picture look a little bit older and
more personal, which links to the
theme above. This is mimicked in
our music video by the pale winter
weather.

7.  RESEARCH: For our research, we used social
networking sites such as Facebook and survey
monkey to send out surveys and find out who our
target audience was and what they wanted from
the product . We then used sites such as Wikipedia
and YouTube to conduct our own research into our
chosen band and genre. This was all recorded onto
our blog.
 PLANNING: For this stage we used Google maps/
street view to plan where we would film and used
scanners to put our paperwork and draft
storyboards onto our blogs. We also used our
mobile phones to keep our cast and crew updated.
 CONSTRUCTION: The most important form of
media technology we used in this stage was the
Canon 600DSLR camera, which we used to film our
video and photograph the images for our ancillary
products. To get these prepared for editing we
transferred them to the MacBook using a memory
stick, then opened them in Final Cut Pro and
Photoshop CS6. To use Photoshop we had to
develop our comfort with the use photo editing
software, such as layer resizing, layer styles and
filters. In Final Cut Pro we discovered how to edit in
a non-linear fashion as it was quicker and easier to
edit this way rather than to start at the beginning
and work though to the end because of the way we
had filmed and saved the footage. In this stage we
also considered how digital formats ‘talk’ to each
other so transferring between video and print is
easier.
 EVALUATION: In this stage the most prominent
technology we used was slide share, to make our
presentations more attractive for our blogs.
Allstageswererecordedontoourblogs.