1. Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
During this project, we have attempted to create products as close to the real
thing as possible. We wanted to create something that could easily be shown in
the real industry. To help with this, we analysed many other products related to
our chosen project: Music Video, Digipak and Poster. The song we chose was
Adele – Turning Tables, which, although falls into the “pop” genre, does not
necessarily fit into the usual conventions of quirky, fun loving, up tempo
sounds. The song is a lot more heart-felt, and meaningful than a usual pop
song. We watched many of Adele‟s other music videos, and other slower pop
songs that are a lot more like our chosen song. Most of them seemed to have
darker colours, some in black and white, and tended not to follow a story during
the track. We took on board many of the ideas we found by watching existing
media pieces, and our own music video was entirely in black and white, and
didn‟t follow an actual story, it hinted at one already there. Although this goes
against the usual conventions of a pop song, if we had used what was
expected, it would not have worked with the song as well.

2. We looked at many other music posters to gain further information into what to
include in ours. We decided to create a tour poster, as this is what is most likely
to be seen in the real world. We looked at many Adele posters and pictures and
discovered that in the images used, she is often looking very solemn and sad.
We used this in our own poster, using quite a high contrast, black and white
image to create an attention grabbing poster. We chose a red font for the main
title “Adele”, as this grabs attention and connotes love, which most of her songs
are about. It also contrasts with the black and white image and grabs the
audiences‟ attention.

3. The digipak we created included 5 images of “Adele”. Again, they were all in
black and white, as this is very conventional of Adele herself. We chose to
create a “Live Tour CD” as this would go well with our poster and it is a bit
more interesting than just a normal studio recorded album. We kept the
same font throughout the poster and the digipak, as this keeps them all
related and involved together. The images we chose to use are all very
striking and eye catching, as they are quite high contrast, which we thought
was much like Adele‟s real album cover for „21‟.

4. Our music video is entirely in black and white, much like Adele‟s video for
„Someone Like You‟, and kept it basic with someone standing, singing at the
camera. We used clips of a male part, suggesting he is who the song is written
about. However, we decided not to use an actual storyline as we thought the lyrics
were powerful enough on their own. We also used letters being written on a white
board, which was a creative idea, going against the usual conventions of this type
of music video. We also slowed down certain parts, and included other creative
effects, which we believe will make our music video memorable.

5. QUESTION 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary
products?
As well as creating a music video, we were also asked to create a poster and a
digipak. All of our products were completed in black and white, excluding one part of
the poster. We believe this keeps them all closely related, and easy to tell apart from
others. We also used the same font throughout, which we believe makes the
products look much more professional and neat. The photograph we used for the
poster was also the image we used as part of the digipak, which obviously links the
two. Again, in the real industry, artists often use the same images for products of the
same project, so the public knows that they are by the same person and including
the same recent songs/projects.

6. QUESTION 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We showed sent the link to the music video to friends and family and received
mainly positive feedback.
“I think you have created a very successful music video. The use of black and
white is very attention grabbing and memorable and it fits the song well. The poster
is very eye catching, and the red lettering stands out well. I like the use of plenty of
images for the digipak, and how the whole project is in black and white. This
connects all three of your products and makes them stand out from others.”
“The editing could be slightly cleaner on the video, although the syncing of the
music with the characters can be very hard to perfect.”
To create a better music video for our target audience, we should, in the future,
spend much longer at the editing stage. After spending a lot of time trying to find a
main character, we weren‟t left with long to film and edit the whole thing. Spending
more time at this stage would create a much cleaner and better music video
overall.

7. QUESTION 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?
The media technologies we used were:
iMovie
Adobe Photoshop
Scanner
Camera
SlideShare
Prezi
Blogger
iMovie: We used iMovie to create a horror film opening during our AS course.
However, using this program to create a music video turned out to be much
harder and more complicated to sync the song to the clips. The other factors of
iMovie are very successful and helpful in creating an interesting video. We were
able to slow parts down, speed parts up, turn the whole video black and white
and experiment with cutting effects. This program helps to easily create a very
interesting project.

8. Scanner: We used a scanner to copy our storyboards and other notes onto a
computer, so we could include them on our blogs. It is a very quick and simple way
to add any sketches that could not be created on a computer. We also didn‟t lose any
of the colour or writing we had created on the loose sheets of paper.
Camera: The video camera we used to record the music video was quite a basic,
although still respectable Sony camera. We had to borrow it from the school, as
neither of us had our own that was compatible with the software we had to use. The
digital camera we used to take the photos was a Nikon D3000, which has very high
megapixels, so we were able to properly edit the photographs and make them as
large as we needed them to be. This helped us greatly as we needed the images to
be very clear and crisp, and that‟s exactly what we got.
SlideShare: We used the website SlideShare to upload our PowerPoints, so we could
then embed them into our blogs. It is a very useful site, as it is very simple to use and
keeps your slideshows available for whenever you need them. However, on occasion
it has not worked, and frozen mid way through uploading, therefore it is not always
reliable, but still very useful.
Blogger: We used the a blogging website to upload all our planning and ideas to. This
made things a lot easier as we could clearly see what we had and what needed to be
added. We were also able to embed videos and slides, documenting all of our work.
However, there is not much else you can do on the site, and it is often very slow,
therefore there could have been a better way to upload all of our work.

9. Adobe Photoshop: We used Photoshop to create both the poster and the
digipak. We used it to edit the photographs before including them, and, as we
are both A2 Level Photography students, are quite familiar with this program.
We managed to successfully edit the photos, turning them into black and white
and enhancing the detail and the contrast between the colours. We were then
able to add the text, and rearranged it until we felt happy with it.