The document discusses conventions used and challenged in the media product created by the author. It summarizes how various elements of the product: 1) Conformed to traditions like having a plain white performance room to make the band stand out. 2) Developed new forms like creating a futuristic screen board using after effects to relate to the electronic punk music genre. 3) Challenged some conventions, like using UV paint on dancers' bodies which is more common in R&B than electro-punk.

1. Catherine Dixon Task 1 In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Screen grab 1: For the performance element we conformed to traditional methods. By having a performance room painted plain white to make them stand out even more, showing how important the music is. This follows Keith Negus’s organic ideology of creativity which is the ‘naturalistic’ approach. With this kind of approach, the image of the band is ‘enhanced’ by the record company. It also enables the audience to look at the band which could be used to attract teenage girl audience who possibly idolise the band members. This convention is used a lot with boy bands who have similar performance elements, e.g. McFly (screen grab 2) Screen grab 1 Screen grab 2

2. Screen grab 3 and 4: Used after effects to create this futuristic screen board to portray technology which is related to this style of music, electric punk. It also appeals to the audience, who we imagine to be geeky. It appeals because it makes the band seem up to date with new forms of technology. The use of technology reflects the predominantly male audience who are targeted by this genre of music and also accounts for the emphasis on female bodies just like in the video ‘Ayo Technology’ by Timberlake. (screen grab 5) Because we have created this futuristic board ourselves as it does not exist it is visually stimulating and is therefore not constrained by believability. Screen grab 3 Screen grab 4 Screen grab 5

3. Screen grab 6: We used the UV paint to highlight and accentuate their bodies with patterns. This aesthetic appeal challenges conventions of this style of music as it is often R&B that sexualizes women rather than electro-punk. This approach is used to attract new audiences to this type of music. The idea of UV paint was influenced from these screengrabs of love lockdown by Kanye West. Screen grab 7 Screen grab 8 Screen grab 6

4. Screen grab 9: This is conforming with lots of music videos of today. To appeal to the male audience we have good looking girls wearing revealing clothes dancing around. We removed a lot of these shots as we wanted to make it more subtle. This is why most shots of the dancers are in the dark with only UV pain on them to suggest their bodies rather than display them.

5. Screen grab 10: Because we wanted to develop the form of new technology we used inventive lighting to create visual impact, where we created silhouettes with green lasers in the background, highlighted by the red laser on her body, making it new and futuristic. This use of conspicuous lighting is typical of music videos as it suggests the atmosphere of a club or rave environment. Use of dancers helps link the video to club culture which appeals to our targeted audience, as this is key to their youth lifestyle.

6. These panels are from our DIGIPAK cover. We have subverted by not having a photo of anything on our front cover or a CD title. Yet we have inverted convention by putting the band name on the cover.