media evaluation questions

1. Evaluation Question 1
Q1. In what ways does your music promotional
package use, develop or challenge the forms and
conventions of existing music video/ promo
packages?

2. The authenticity of music videos
It’s a challenging task to distinguish the convention of an
authentic music video as each independent director takes
a different view on what makes an affective video. There
are various media conventions which complement the
common things associated with a music video, such as: a
narrative performance; lip-syncing and disjunction. Whilst
using primary and secondary research techniques in order
to create an authentic music video, I found that the niche
audience of my media piece would be more inclines to
watch a video which was heavily based around a narrative
performance. Taking inspiration from various rap videos,
such as ‘Ghetto Gospel’ by Tupac and ‘Stan’ by Eminem,
my own music video complimented the existing
convention of a stereotypical rap video. This increased the
repeatability of my music video as it was engaging for the
audience and they were inclined to watch the
performance more than once.

3. Narrative performance
Although, my music video was primarily based on a narrative
performance featuring two main character, lip-syncing was
also a vital convention in order to differentiate my music
video from an opening sequence. My primary research from
questionnaires and group meetings led me to believe that my
music video didn’t necessarily need to include a character
with the ‘star image’ who also imitated the lyrics within the
song. After consideration, I believed that lip-syncing was one
of the most important conventions of an effective music
video. This didn’t change the storyline of my media piece but
amplified the connection between the lyrics and the images
illustrating the song. Some of the images featured within the
song were quite abstract but still created a synoptic link
between the lyrics and the storyline, for example: “the only
protection is the talk of a tool” illustrated with the main
character carrying a knife. The synaesthesia of these images
inspired a visual image which was associated with the lyrics
of the music video.

4. Cultural signifiers
There are many cultural signifiers within my music video,
which compliments the media conventions of an authentic
rap video. The stereotypical image of my main character
represented a large majority of black rappers from the
UK, but also in America. The metanarrative within my
music was based heavily on infamous life stories of
rappers such as 50 cent and Skepta, who were involved in
drugs and gang violence from a young age. The song title
‘Stolen Youth’ represents the harsh realities of gang crime
and violence in some of the poorest parts of the UK, and
what some teenagers have to do to survive in today’s
society. This ideology is reinforced by The Auter Theory.
This theory primarily concentrated on a specific director
instead of the music video produced by them. This is
effective as it can help to learn how real conventions of a
music video by tracking a producers timeline of music
influence and how that affects their creative decisions.

5. Montage editing
My music video relies heavily on montage editing, where
each scene is cut in time with the music and the structure of
the song, in this case: verse – chorus – verse. A series of
establishing shorts, fast cuts and zooms were used within my
music video to illustrate the storyline in the most effective
way possible, complementing the conventions of an authentic
media text. This technique was taken from ‘Beware’ by Big
Sean who uses the steady beat of the song to make the
images fluent and slow moving to create a calm atmosphere.
Whilst anaylsing many videos, such as ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’
by Snoop Dogg, I decided to incorporate a split screen
technique into the first scenes of my music video. The split
screen’s primary purpose is to allow a long period of time to
move by quickly whilst still ensuring the same amount of
action is taking place. This enables the same piece of film to
be shown but in a concise and compact way. The split screen
I created used three pieces of film, which challenged the
normal conventions of a normal music video which usually
only uses two. After taking into consideration the small
amount of space I had to create the sequence, it was easier
to use two pieces of film to create the split screen.

6. Promotional poster conventions
The compulsory promotional poster used a variety of
media conventions which would feature on a professional
advertisement. These conventions include: magazine
review, album title, artist name and record label logo. The
creation of my promotional poster was influenced by the
techniques used by Andy Warhol – who used contrasting
colours to create a collage style piece of artwork.
Incorporated into my advertisement was the artists name
‘Roots Manuva’ and the album’s title ‘Stolen Youth’ whilst
presenting an image of the artist merged with a young
boy who represents his ‘stolen youth’. The background
image has been taken from the original digipak photo,
creating a huge synoptic link between all of the
compulsory media pieces – allowing the audience to know
that they are connected.

7. Promotional poster conventions
My poster also included a parental advisory sticker,
magazine review and company logo – as seen in similar
articles featured in a famous music magazine called NME.
The article review (including a five star rating) created a
sense of authenticity which ran throughout the media
piece. By using the conventions of a promotional poster, I
was able to develop my own knowledge of advertisements
and technology but using consumer power and persuasive
language to engage the nice audience of my product and
hopefully make them want to buy my album. The
typography at the bottom of the advert contains a
website, which in reality, would hold tour dates and recent
news on artists music. This immediately appeals to
younger generations who are active on social networking
sites and would be interested in the artist – appealing to
the target audience of my product.

8. Digipak conventions
Within my digipak design, many conventions and
techniques were used to create an authentic piece of work:
 A parental advisory sticker is placed on audio recordings
in recognition of excessive profanities or inappropriate
references, with the intention of alerting parents of
potentially unsuitable material for younger children. Also
a company logo shows who the copyright is provided
for.
 Copyright information is found on the back of the album
cover. In general, copyright is a form of legal protection
given to content creators through the assignment of
specific rights to works that qualify for protection. This
shows the institutional context of the media piece.
 The album title and artists name – allowing the
audience to know who is credited for the album.

9. Digipak conventions
The main influence of the design for my album cover was from the popular album
‘Nothing Was The Same’ by Drake. This album cover features a hand drawn image of
drake as a child, which has a reversible cover with the corresponding side featuring
Drake as a gown man. This was not the first album cover which had used the idea of
past and present, Lil Wayne and Biggie Smalls also created digipak designs of young
versions of themselves. I thought this was a very effective piece of artwork and after
researching more into the creator of the art work (Kadir Nelson) I gained some
knowledge on how to design an imaginative album cover following the conventions of
a real media text. Altogether, I believe that my digipak design closely mimics the
conventions used within real media texts - in order to make it look as effective as
possible. The close synoptic link between the two ancillary texts allows the audience to
know that both media pieces are connected in a way which makes them engaging to
read or listen to. If I were to redesign my digipak in order to appeal to a wider
audience, I would include a QR code, as the development in technology means that
more people are able to access the internet and therefore able to access more
information about the artist and the album.