Media A-Level coursework evaluation

1. EVALUATION QUESTION
TWO

2. Artists are able to access a large fanbase through the use of social media
and create themselves and commodify, so transforming themselves into a
'sellable' product. Artists promote themselves or the music they create.
Female artists usually chose to present themselves following Laura
Mulvey's 'male gaze' as they promote a 'Baby one more time' was bought
under scrutiny for how she was presented as a young school girl yet it was
turned into a sexualised concept. More women since have came under fire
for the way they present them selves and the arguments about expression
or oppression. A more recent example being Fergie's 'M.I.L.F' video where
the women were all in skimpy clothing, and it caused controversy with the
objectification of the women and their bodies.

3. Some other alternative artists focus less on the artist and more on the
product they are creating and advertising. Pop and R&B artists usually rely
on the performance on themselves, as in Rihanna's 'Needed Me' video she
is represented as a young beautiful woman, yet she does have a thin,
opaque garment on that restricts younger audiences from watching it.
The themes of using herself and promoting her sexuality in her album
covers as well, it shows links and continuation between the work she
creates, showing herself as an empowered woman.
People create a synaesthesia of what they hear in some R&B songs and the
images they expect, audiences have an expectation of Rihanna in their
head with the product she has made herself into with previous videos and
images.

4. LINKS FROM MY VIDEO TO MY
DIGIPACKI heavily relied on the use of colour
within my music video and on my
digipack, I wanted to use bold, bright
colours to enhance the images and
artist visual style. After doing a
photoshoot with Gemma and choosing
the image that looked best, I had the
idea of incorporating flowers in the
digipack somewhere so created a
background with sunflowers all over
it, for the use of colour and the
connotation of yellow and happiness.
Although yellow doesn't feature in my
video, there is the use of colour
strongly linked throughout to display
emotions.

5. DESIGN FEATURES
On my digi-pack I used a simple design to make the focus on the artist and
the use of the colour theme. I went onto photoshop and I used layering a
scale effects to make the sunflowers in the background, I liked the look of
multiple flowers other than having one flower where the CD would be.
I wanted to take some other photos of Gemma instead of using one from
when we were filming as it meant I could play around with them more and
use one photo I liked and make it what I wanted. I could've used a photo with
Gemma and Mikey, but I felt I wanted it to be about the solo artist and not the
song I had decided to do. Looking back I would have done more yellow tones
in the music video or had sunflowers placed in some of the shots, to create a
clear link in between them.

6. In regards to marketing strategy the 'my boy' track
would be the lead single that Billie Eilish would
release from her 'my boy' album. Using the first
release song as a starting point for the album, to
show clear artist style and links between the
songs.
Similar to James Blunt's single 'You're beautiful'
the album cover for it had links to the video where
it is raining all around him in a jacket at the
beginning. It shows how it is a popular concept to
increase the amount of people that view the artist
as a sellable product, as they would have a clear
connection for all their work.