gihion

1. EVALUATION QUESTION 1 –
In what ways does your media product use, develop of
challenge forms and conventions?
1. Digi pack
2. Album advertisement
3. Music video
ORDER:

3. In order to create this product, I made sure that
I looked a range of pop Digi Packs in order to
gain inspiration on what to include on my own.
I conformed largely with the typical
conventions of a pop Dig- Pack by using what I
learned from research on already existing
products of what particular editing techniques
and camera shots were most common and
how they would be eye catching to the
audience and make it more likely for them to
consume the product. There was a range of
different pop products to gain inspiration from
so I took inspiration from more than one Digi
pack, the products I used for guidance were
Rihanna’s album –’loud’, Ariana Grande’s
album – ‘my everything’ and Marina and the
diamonds- ‘the family levels’. From these
products I was able to gain inspiration for what
I needed to include in my own and developed
these conventions as well as challenge them.

4. Digi-Pack
Overall, I tried to make my Digi pack similar to others by including
related photos, for example Rihanna’s Loud album has a set colour
scheme of red along with light soft colours which allow her and the bright
red features like the roses, her hair and make up to stand out against it.
Her theme is red rose throughout the Digi pack which helps the all
images tie in well together and the consistent use of the same font help
this as well . The images she has used for the separate pages are all
photos that tie together with part of her body being on different pages.
Marina’s album is also similar as she also has a consistent font that is
continued throughout the product. However she has no set colour
scheme and no theme throughout the Digi pack which makes hers
different.
I challenged these conventions as my Digi pack does not have a set
colour scheme, however it does have a set theme which is an urban,
youth theme that carries on throughout. I have also used different fonts
on each page of the Digi-pack to give a different feel to each quote and
image. For example on the close up page the quote reads ‘you fill my
head with madness’ I have made the ‘madness’ capital and slim which
emphasises this word and links well with the photo. What makes my Digi
pack tie well together is the green font that I used for the name of the
album and the list of songs along with the thin green boarder around it
as it goes with the green clothing of the artist on the front cover and also
the vibrant colours of the graffiti tunnel on the back page and the green
graffiti wall on the front cover. I have therefore developed and also
challenged some conventions of the Digi pack but it is still identifiable as
a pop product.

5. I found that in these Digi packs, there were a range
of different camera angles used. For example in
Rihanna’s Digi-Pack ‘Loud’, she uses a close up
for the front cover. This brings the audience close
to the artist and shows off her facial expression
which goes well with the genre. I therefore decided
to use a close up for one of the images of my Digi-
Pack in order to bring my audience close to the
artist and show off both her stance and facial
expression to go with the genre. I also decided to
add a quote from the song that related to the
image.
For the front cover, I decided use a shot that allowed the
audience to see the artists full outfit, however I did not
want to use a long shot in order to do this, therefore I got
the inspiration from Ariana Grande’s album cover to get
the artist to crouch down or curl up in order to see what
she was wearing. As you can see Ariana is on a stool on
her knees, where as my artist is crouched down to the
level of the camera to show her clothing whilst still being
close enough to see facial her expression and features as
through researching existing products I found this is a
typical convention of a pop Digi pack to be able to clearly
see the face of the artist hence why it is typical to have
close ups on the front cover. I therefore challenged this
convention by not having a close up on the front cover.
Digi - Pack

6. For the back page of my Digi- Pack, I decided to challenge the
typical conventions and present the list of the songs included on
the album in a different way to how it is typically done. For
example the list of songs on Rihanna’s album done presented in
a list going down the side of the page, others are also typically in
the centre of the page and going down. However I decided to
put the songs in a horizontal list with boarders. This was the
songs are still clear but are just presented differently to others
which makes my Digi pack unique.
I also decided to use a photo that was not of the artist which is
typically done for the back cover. Instead I used an image that
was taken during the shooting of the music video of people on
quad bikes in the graffiti tunnel. This linked to both the music
video and also the genre as this was an urban and relatable
scene for my particular target audience. Therefore by doing this I
challenged the typical convention of having an image of the
artist on the back page.
I also made sure that I was also including all information about
the Digi- Pack along the bottom of the page, I made sure to
include a barcode which is essential for purchase and also a
boarder on the edges of the page as this would be the sides of
the Digi- pack once in a CD case. This includes the name of the
artist and the name of the album and also the logo of the
producer of the album.
Digi- Pack

8. Before creating my Advertisement, again I
made sure I researched existing products
to make sure that I was able to gain
knowledge of the typical codes and
conventions needed to allow this to be
identified as a pop product that is
advertising another pop product (the Digi-
Pack). There was a range of products that I
looked at to get inspiration for what I could
include on the product such as Jessie J’s
and Rihanna’s advertisement. By doing
this I got ideas for font, and how the name
of the album should be clear on the page
and not too many different fonts should be
used, the use of buzz words to pop out at
the audience and grab their attention and
also the type of images to use for example
it is common to have close ups to the
artist. However I did not conform and
develop all of these conventions, I instead
challenged some to create my own unique
advertisement to make sure that mine
stood out against the rest and was more
appealing to the audience to see
something similar and identifiable, yet
different.

9.  I used Jessie J’s album advertisement for
guidance when creating my own. As you can
see both mine a Jessie J’s advertisements
have a shape that covers about half of the
page with the information of the album on top of
it. I thought this was a very good idea and it
also helped set a colour theme on the page.
With Jessie’s one being black, gold and white
with both font and other features such as mise
en scene and the background playing a part in
that. My colour scheme is green and black with
again the mise en scene, font and other
features play a part in this. What makes these
different is that I decided to use a long shot
instead of a close up of the artist as I wanted to
allow the audience to again see her clothing so
they could relate to it. However in order to do
this and keep the green shape across the page
that gave the product a nice effect, I made it
translucent so you could still see the clothing
and background underneath, but at the same
time, the information that is in bold still stands
out to the audience, as well as logos of social
media sites related to the artist and album.
Album Advertisement:

11. Our music video develops forms and
conventions of the pop genre as we made
sure to include things like urban, bright and
vibrant settings, urban clothing, and a clear
narrative that went well with the lyrics to the
song and also allowed the audience to relate it
to themselves, as most pop songs do . We
also made sure that our camera techniques
and editing techniques were similar to those of
this genre also, this included things like; flash
cuts that jump to different scenes rapidly which
is commonly found in pop music videos, ‘slow
mo’ and ‘sped up’ effects, various camera
techniques such as close ups to show facial
expression, long shots and to show gesture
and costume and establishment shots to show
scenery that the audience can relate to . We
also went an extra mile and created footage for
our projector scenes that are also used in pop
music videos. In order to do this, we allowed
time for research into already existing videos
in order to ensure we were conforming to these
typical conventions so that our audience would
be able to identify the type o music video this
was and also be drawn to it a lot more.

12. For my A2 media coursework, two other members of my class and I created a pop music video to the
song “What If I Go”, using a female main artist featuring a male. Before we created the video, we made
sure we researched existing pop music videos in order to ensure that we were incorporating the typical
conventions in our music video. We used videos such as Tori Kelly- ‘Dear No One’ which is where we got
our inspiration for our narrative which is similar to ours as as in her video she is looking for someone,
other pop videos like Beyoncé – ‘XO’ and Ariana Grande ‘ The Way’. We used these videos in order to
conform to the typical conventions of a pop video which allowed us to ensure that it was easy for the
audience to identify this product as a pop music video, and relate it to others in this genre and also to
themselves.
Before creating our actual video, a member from our group created a mock up of the video and its
concept using clips of these 3 already existing pop videos to the song we were using in our video. From
this, we were able to gain inspiration to develop the new conventions and techniques we learned from this
video in our own video.
Getting inspiration
https://vimeo.com/186113997
Here is the link to the
Mock up that was
created.

13. Music Video
Once we had gained knowledge of the typical conventions
of a pop video, we made sure that we were able to
develop these conventions in our music video. For
example we made sure we used a range of camera
angles that were typically found in these videos such as
close ups with the artist singing to the camera in a bright
and vibrant environment such as the one in Beyoncé's
video, and long shots and mid shots in order to show the
clothing of the artist and also their stance. We also made
sure that we challenged some of these conventions as
well. For example, referring to Tori Kelly’s music video,
she is unaware of the person she is looking for, where as
in our video although it has a similar narrative, our artist is
aware of the person she is following and therefore we
used different techniques when filming in order to do this.
For example, in Tori’s video she uses a split screen effect
when walking past the male in her video to show the
separation, where as in our video we used a wide shot to
show that the two characters in our video are closer and
she is able to see the person. Therefore we developed the
narrative of this video, but challenged the way in which we
created ours.
We also gained inspiration for our projector scenes for Ariana
Grande’s music video; ‘The way’. In her video she is also dancing
to the music and mouthing lyrics as our artist is doing in our
video. This therefore develops this convention. We also thought it
would be a good idea to do this because this would allows the
audience to see the artists facial expression and also her ‘fun
side’ as she dances around , which appeals to this target group
and therefore allows them to relate more to it.

14.  With reference to Andrew Goodwin’s theory of
‘illustrative’ music videos, this represents this as the
lyrics state; “where ever you go, I go with you babe”
and in the video, she is actually following him,
therefore this shows a clear link between the lyrics
and the narrative of the video as many other songs
within this genre do. Such as in Tori Kelly’s video,
she is singing about finding someone as she walks
down the street looking for them in the video.
Another theory of Goodwin that this video
relates to, is Notions of looking. The audience
watches the artist and gains pleasure from
doing so. An example of this would be when
the audience see the artist having fun at the
fun far and during the projector scenes. Just
like when the audience view Ariana having fun
during her projector scenes.