1. In What Ways Does Your
Media Product Use, Develop
Or Challenge Forms And
Conventions Of Real Media
Products?

2. Music Video
When we were given the task of creating a music video,
we firstly had to find a copyright free track because of this
we were slightly limited with song choice, however I knew
that I wanted to create a video for the Indie genre of music.
The typical conventions of a video belonging to this
particular genre are showing the artist/band outside
typically by oneself, rural areas such as the countryside or
beaches and filming during sunrise or sunset. However, I
went on to develop this point by creating a Narrative
Concept video, I filmed in locations which can be seen in
Indie video’s such as the beach, lakes and a woodland
area, although I wanted to create a concept video, I still
wanted to make sure that the target audience were aware
that they were watching a video which belonged to the
Indie genre.
My song choice is a typical ‘Indie Folk/Rock’ track. The
audience would be aware of this due to hearing the mellow
guitar and the light hearted lyrics, these are both strong
signifier’s of the genre. The song, ‘My Bike’ is upbeat
although the lyrics suggest a difficult time for the artist, this
suggested to me that I would need to develop these lyrics
further in order to understand, I then came to the
conclusion that a Narrative Concept video would be
appropriate to show the audience that the artist is feeling
confusion and emotional discomfort.
Although editing the shots out of
time to the beat would have
conveyed more discomfort to the
audience, I felt as though this may
not have worked for an A-Level
student music video as it may have
appeared that I couldn’t edit
correctly. Because of this I edited all
of my shots to the beat to create an
upbeat and fast moving video which
is also typical of the Indie Genre.
Even though my video is Concept, it
still has a narrative and therefore a
Narrative Concept. What is seen on
screen links to the lyrics that the
audience are hearing this has been
explained by Andrew Goodwin and
this point of the lyrics and visuals
matching is one of five points which
make a good music video.

3. In the majority of music video’s the
audience are able to see the lead
singer or individual band members in
an attempt to increase sales and ‘give
the audience what they want’ , however
I haven’t shown an artist or band
member due to my video being
concept. This house style can be seen
in my ancillary products too but they
have been developed further.
I also chose to develop one piece of
footage further and edit it in Premiere
Pro using motion control, this is the
footage of the sea appearing to be in
reverse. I done this to reinforce
confusion amongst the audience as this
part of video definitely causes some
confusion on the eyes as we know the
sea doesn’t move that way.

4. I have previously mentioned that my video and
neither of my ancillary texts feature the band, this
challenges typical forms and conventions due to
there being no facial recognition for the audience at
all, however I felt that for my video to be successful
then I should carry on with the state of confusion
throughout all pieces.
I also challenged forms and conventions by
creating a Narrative Concept video rather than a
traditional Narrative, by choosing the Concept video
this would make my video stand out among other
videos belonging to the Indie genre.

5. Ancillary Products
Research was also useful for creating these
products due to me not being able to
remember what an advert would look like. For
my research I used Google to find adverts
belonging to different genre’s of music , which
enabled me to identify typical forms and
conventions. After this I was then able to plan
and create my advert, I used all of the typical
forms and conventions such as a release
date, the album title, the name of the band,
digipak image, place of purchase and the
cost. Although I used both ‘the album title’
and ‘the name of the band’, in my case these
are the same for both. My digipak is self titled,
therefore I only needed one major piece of
writing on my advertisement.
I also had to research digipaks to gain ideas
and knowledge. From this I noticed to
reoccurring forms and conventions, these
were the band/artist’s name, the album title, a
track list and a barcode. I used three of those
which were the album title, a track list and the
barcode.

6. The images that I used for my front and
back cover were taken with a Canon
600 and of a bike which was being kept
in the college bike shed. I had originally
planned on keeping the bicycle as a
traditional photograph, however I wanted
to also incorporate ‘neon’ into it
somehow, one idea that I had was to
wrap the bike in fairy lights at night and
take a photograph but then I was told
that would be difficult to do and would
involve a lot of editing afterwards.
Because of this I then came up with the
idea of altering the hue and saturation of
the photograph once I had loaded it into
Photoshop, here I was able to mess
around with the colouring until I was
happy with how it looked.
Although those two images were
original, my double page spread was a
still taken from my premiere pro timeline
of the first shot in my video, I done this
for the audience to be able to link the
video and digipak together making it
recognisable and rememberable.
I also changed the hue and
saturation of this image, this
house style was kept
throughout my ancillary
products. I wanted the bicycle
to stand out from the bricks
and therefore make it look as
real as possible, this meant
that I had to duplicate the
layer and rub out the bricks in
order for me to edit just the
bicycle.

7. The digipak challenges typical forms and
conventions by being unnamed/self titled,
however this has become more and more
popular within the last year due to
Beyonce releasing a self titled album at
the end of last year.
Neither of the ancillary products show the
band and instead show the bike which
has become their icon and makes the
video, digipak and advertisement
recognisable as they all feature the bike
in an edited version or at least the
original unedited bike. This challenges
forms and conventions by not showing
the band.