The document discusses conventions in hip hop/R&B media representations and the student's media products. It analyzes how their music video, digipak, and magazine ad both follow and challenge conventions. The music video represents the male and female in a more modest way that counters typical revealing portrayals. The digipak uses colors and images similarly to real products but shows the couple affectionately hugging. The magazine ad promotes the artist realistically to get national support.

1. Allin Nuh
Evaluation 1: In what ways does your
media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?

2. Media Products
The three media products we created are:
 A Music Video
 A Digipak
 A Magazine advert
Our music video is a Hip Hop/R&B themed genre,
so we had to use unique codes and put real light
on the artist. The codes and conventions we
followed weren’t easy to go by as it was
distinctive.

3. Types of Hip hop/R&B
representations in Media
Women:
 Represented in a voyeuristic manor, where they tend to have less
clothes or more revealing clothing to be exact.
 They tend to worship money and love any man with a bit of money, that
is a extremely negative light on female as they seem to have their
independence stripped of them.
 If you look at Lil Kim – Lighters Up, she really does highlight all the
negative of Black females, as not only voyeuristic, but also violent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8l_0N8lLWY
Men:
 Men are represented in a money hungry, jewellery loaded, violent
promoting way which is extremely negative and can be deemed
offensive to many people.
 They tend to wear a lot of jewellery to emphasise on how much money
they have and how proud they are of it. They also look down on women
as objects and really degrade them in a huge manor.
 If you look at French Montana – Pop That (remix), this really shows
where women stand in their lives, just as objects and nothing more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X98HX5nbsCI

4. Conventions of music video (Hip
Hop)
Men in Hip Hop:
 Jewellery
 Baggy clothing
 Tattoo’s
 Sunglasses
 Jeans
 Gold Teeth (occasionally)
 Trainers
Women in Hip Hop:
 Minimal clothing
 Fake hair
 Jewellery
 A lot of make up
 Bikini (occasionally)
Hip Hop music videos are usually
explicit and very violent
promoting stuff. Men are
represented as the more
successful sex, where ‘money is
power’ and women chase the
man with money. This way of
thinking goes back to the 1950’s
Italian Mafia days where Hip Hop
artists such as Rick Ross and
Jay-Z take inspiration from.
2pac – Keep your head up,
challenges the stereotype
completely were he looks to
women as inspirational figure
heads and how all men came
from a women, so they should

5. Setting the lighting
Our Music Video Drakes Music Video
The similarities between both music videos is that we are pretty much
using the same lighting in certain parts of the music video. I think this
really does show that this is a hip hop music video as it is not too bright
and has a element of darkness in it, which again shows this is a hip
hop music video.

6. Clothing
Our Music Video
Lupe Fiasco
Music Video
Our Music Video
Lupe Fiasco
Music Video

7. General Theory
This is where the lyrics establish a general feeling and a sense of
subject rather than a meaning. The tempo of the music often
drives the editing. The Genre might be reflected in types of mis-
en-scene, themes, performance, camera and editing styles.
Camerawork, has a major impact on meaning, the movement,
angle and shot distance all play a part in the representation of
the artist/band (for example the use of close-ups will show
inferiority and importance). Editing the most common form is
fast-cut montage, rendering many images impossible to grasp on
first viewing, so ensuring multiple viewing. Often enhancing the
editing are digital effects, which play with the original images to
offer a different type of pleasure to the audience. Intertextuality,
not all viewers will recognise a reference which would not detract
them from their pleasure in the text itself, but if he viewer was to
realise the reference it should increase the audience's
engagement regarding the product. Lastly exhibitionism, this is
where the powerful independent female artists portray an image
where the woman is being sexually provocative and apparently
in control of and inviting a sexual gaze.

8. Andrew Goodwin’s Theory

 Visuals illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music.
Genres often have their own music style/iconography. Close-ups
should always be included. The artist/ band might want to
develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star
image. Voyeurism is a common theme within music videos.
Intertextual references are also popular. Goodwin argues that the
female performer is frequently objectified principally for display
purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and
editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised
treatment of the star.
 Looking at our music video, comparing similarities with this
theory isn’t really hard; In fact it’s pretty easy. Our music video
does place emphasis on the main artist by using camera angles
such as close-ups on the artists face and jewellery. A star image
was definitely created with the main artist being involved in the
main ‘glamorous scenes’. However, voyeurism is also shown in
the music video with the male lusting over the female.

9. Lyrics and Genre
 Lyrics:
 Once in love
Strong
Now it's long, long gone
Because the pain, pain, pain
I remain all alone
Because I want you [Repeat: x2]
I been thinking bout
I been thinking bout
I been thinking about you lately
Thoughts take me to when we were close
Addicted 2 your love, feel I need another dose
I know it's a feeling
That should be long gone
Things seem to come up
When I hear our song
Golden brown girl, it seem so long
Since I heard your voice
Where did the king go wrong?

 Lyrics: These lyrics aren’t very visual but more or less have a deep feeling of emotion and love instead of visuals and
physical motions. The audience should sense a type of emotion and love when listening to the lyrics, but the music isn’t really
slow and mellow so it would be difficult at the same time.

 Genre: looking at the lyrics, it’s obvious that the mis-en-scene has to create a heart throbbing and warm feeling in the
audience. This kind of feeling might bore young teenagers who aren’t really into all that lovey dovey stuff but maybe some
elders in mature relationships or some who just got out of some might find this very interesting.

 Editing: the music tempo plays a huge part in the video; the cutting of the scenes is basically down to the tempo of the music.
As the music is pretty fast in some parts, a lot of cutting has dominated in the music video.

10. Our Digipak
We added the red in our
digipak to connotes
love and affection,
consequently what our
genre represents.
As you can see, our digipak is pretty
Similar to Rihanna’s ‘Loud’
album/digipak. The use of red heavily
impacts the cover of the whole digipak
and essientally gives the viewer an
idea this could be about love.

11. Digipak – Album cover
The digipak front cover contains
a picture of the both male artists
facing opposite directions. If you
look closely, male artist 1 (Carlo
Gambino) has his face a little
tightened up, this suggests what
genre he represents. Male artist
2 (Jay-S) has his face slightly
more loose and relaxed, which
could represent the R&B genre
he represents.
When looking at the design of
the album cover, it has been
heavily influenced by Lupe
Fiasco & Trey Songz album
cover with both artists facing

12. Digipak
Digipak’s usually have a distinct structure, therefore meaning it was important
that we followed that structure and kept it looking good but at the same time
being unique. It was pivotal to have promotional material on the digipak so we
develop our actual concept of promoting the artist, which was our original aim.

13. Magazine Advert

14. Conclusion (Music Video)
How we used conventions:
 The main artist is wearing a baseball cap with lots of
jewellery which signifies the genre (hip hop/R&B)
 The use of special filter effects such as Crisp contrast and
cold steel to make key scenes from our video look similar
to real media products.
How we challenged conventions:
 The female in video was completely modest and covered,
this counter types the hip hop/R&B music genre as
females usually tend to have little or no clothing.
 The male representation is also challenged were the male
has a really soft and subtle touch with the female,
something you don’t usually see in hip hop music videos.

15. Conclusion (DigiPak)
Our digipak definitely had conventions of real media products. The
images we used in the digipak were like real images you would see on
any R&B Digipak, only the lady was more modest and covered up. The
image of love was definitely there when the couple are hugging and
posing happily together
The colours we used had a big impact on it and made it way more
realistic and love like. The red connotes love which again is linked back
to the R&B genre and the Black connotes sophistication which can be
linked back to the Hip Hop genre.
Structuring the digipak was important and most digipaks you come
across have the same structure, which is why we followed the basic
structure to keep it as real as possible.

16. Conclusion (magazine advert)
It was important for us to make the main artist, Carlo
Gambino, look as good as possible and that’s exactly
what we achieved here. The digipak uses conventions
of real media products, the colour scheme is the same
as the digipak and some parts of the music video too.
We added logos such as HMV and iTunes to make the
advert look more realistic and serious. This helps us
promote the artist and the song much better.
The British flag in the background is there to show that
this one artist is representing a whole nation, therefore
trying to get the whole nation behind him and support
this brand new artist.