This document summarizes Alex Townsley's media product which is a digipak for the band Alt-J. The digipak challenges conventions in several ways: the artwork is abstract rather than showing the band; iconic imagery from the music video is edited for the CD/DVD rather than using the standard front cover artwork. The posters also challenge conventions by focusing on a narrative about domestic violence rather than more typical band promotion. The music video similarly challenges conventions through its shocking domestic violence storyline and use of unconventional camera techniques like breaking the 180 degree rule. Overall, the digipak and accompanying materials challenge conventions in their artwork, narrative choices, and filming style.

1. Evaluation – (Alex Townsley)
In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?

2. The Digipak
A convention is the way a certain media product stereotypically goes about doing
things. For example, in this circumstance – the way a band usually creates a digipak.
As you can see from the production process of the digipak I aimed to create a digipak
which went against the conventional approach. When researching the band ‘Alt-
J’, I found that their album case was very unusual. I believe that they chose to do this
in order to reflect their approach to music. I chose to incorporate this idea into our
digipak.
The artwork I chose to use is a very abstract piece of art which a student had painted
at my college. I took a photo of the artwork and heavily edited it to create an
unconventional piece of artwork; this goes against and challenges today’s conventions
of album art.
The same artwork runs throughout the rest of the digipak for continuity reasons (using
conventions of today), apart from the CD and DVD. Instead of going for the easy
option I decided to try something different by taking an iconic image from the music
video and editing the hue/saturation of certain colours so it would blend in the with
the rest of the piece (Challenging conventions)

3. Digipak continued…
Here is the casing for Alt'J's award winning debut album 'An Awesome
Wave'. As stated previously this casing isn't stereotypical of that of a
popular band. We took inspiration from the layout and artwork as we also
aspired to break the rules and conventions. The band aren't visible on the
album cover - stereotypically you would expect to see the band on the
cover (going against conventions.)
As you can see the artwork I chose you wouldn't stereotypically associate
with a mainstream band. It is a very mysterious and ambiguous piece of
art as the meaning of it can be made by anyone's perception (Going
against conventions) Also, like the Alt-J album I haven't shown the band
on the cover. This challenges conventions.
Here is the back of my Digipak. As you can see continuity is
evident as it is the same piece of art that is used of the front of
the Digipak. (Using conventions) I suppose you could say that
the back of the Digipak is relatively stereotypical. The layout,
text, font are all conventional of the genre. As stated in the post
called 'Digipak' we didn't want to over complicate things in the
Digipak so decided to go for the simpler option.

4. The Posters
Part of the promotional process was to create an poster for the digipak. Instead of just creating
one poster for the digipak, I decided to create another one for a tour - as I felt without one it
wouldn't fully promote the band.
This is the poster which advertises the digipak. In terms of conventions
of today's posters I think it. When researching other magazine adverts I
found that a lot of characteristics run throughout them all - (using
conventions) - for example, the majority contained an image of the
actual front cover. The album artwork was also the background.
Quotes from high-profile music magazines were also prominent - as
you can see I have stuck to those conventions as magazine adverts are
vital to a band's success which was noted when I were doing our
audience research.
This is the tour poster I created to develop a full profile for Alt-J. As
you can see the album artwork is used in the background for
continuity which follows today's conventions. When designing the
tour poster I reasearched many of today's bands' tour posters to
gain an idea of what to include. The layout follows the conventions
and I would class this as a stereotypical tour poster.
The process of creating all the posters and the digipak was through Photoshop - using the
professional software allowed us to create an industry standard piece of work.

5. The Music Video
My music video both sticks to conventions and breaks the rules of today's conventions. The music
basically follows the story of a relationship which is subject to domestic violence - a subject which
is shocking and sensitive which goes against conventions. You can see an example of the domestic
violence element during the shaky point of view shot displayed below. The narrative is certainly hard-
hitting. My reasoning for creating this video is because appearances and material needs are deceiving as
to what could actually be happening behind closed curtains. This ties in with Andrew Goodwin's
conventions of music videos as he states one of the stereotypical parts of a music video is the narrative.
As you can see, this shot from an existing music video is
similar to the one above (follows conventions) The only
difference between the two is the fact we adapted the
standard close-up to a POV shaky cam. (An uncommon
characteristic of today’s conventional music video, goes
against conventions)

6. The Music Video Continued…
The mise-en-scene plays a big part in the video as the connotations define who the
protagonist/antagonists are. A shot which I think portrays the woman's feelings and personality is
the bathroom shot.
As you can see - the use of blue in the location and the characters clothes
highlight the mood and the personality. Something else to note is the shapes
presented - they're all very sharp which create a very uncomfortable feeling -
which I feel highlights the situation, which is what we wanted to achieve. The
mise-en-scene is defining in any music video but I think the way we used it is
relatively unique and different - other examples include the two candles
in which one if them is blown out to signify that the other is standing alone now (displayed below). Which
displaying how one person in the relationship has left the other.

7. The Music Video Continued…
Another element of mise-en-scene which is very important is the characters. One character which appears
very mysterious in the video is the singer - which the characters cannot see - he is the singer of the band
(using conventions) who interrogates and questions the protagonist and situation throughout the video. My
reasoning for containing the singer was to highlight how trapped the couple are inside their abusive world
(they cannot see him). Using the singer also follows the conventions of today's music videos.

8. The Music Video Continued…
The camerawork we used I feel was very effective in telling the story of their relationship. We did
many example so the audience can create connotations. A good example is the one below. We
used a high angle shot to portray the vulnerability of the women and power of the man.
High angle shot to portray
inferiority of women.
Low angle shot to reflect
power of man
Using camerawork techniques like this is classic of conventional music videos.

9. The Music Video Continued…
 of the most obvious ways in which I broke the conventions of today's music video is when
One
we cross the '180 degree line' - (A rule stating that a camera should be placed somewhere
inside 180 degrees on a particular side of the invisible line of a shot filmed in sequence.) Right
from pre-production we had the aim of doing so to create confusion and a sense of inbalance
in the film. Also we felt this approach to filming contrasted well to Alt-J's style.