The document discusses a student media project that created a music video, DigiPak, and magazine advert for the fictional band "Dead Pegasus" emulating the style of My Chemical Romance. It used conventions like album artwork, track lists, and social issue themes. Some conventions were challenged, like using photography over artwork. Feedback found people enjoyed the clear connection between products but some missed the attempt at challenging gender stereotypes. Research involved fan sites and official music videos to understand conventions. Production software included Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, and online surveys and blogs.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
Our DigiPak uses conventions of real media
products as it has a conventional design, of a
front cover with album artwork and the name of
the album, a back cover with the track list on
it, other album art and the main CD/DVD
sections. However, we developed My Chemical
Romance’s album conventions. We built on an
idea they had previously used in the Danger Days
album, a fictional oil company called ‘Dead
Pegasus’ the title we took as the name of our
album.
We used the simple image of a Pegasus and used
it in our DigiPak and magazine advert. This was
challenging some previous My Chemical Romance
conventions as they normally have actual artwork
as their album covers, whereas we used
photography. We also used brighter colours in
our DigiPak and magazine advert which
challenges conventions of alternative/rock artists.

2. Our music video used conventions associated We used themes of rebellion and
with the alternative genre and My Chemical fighting against bullying which
Romance specifically. We used conventions such conformed to alternative music
as social issues and the inversion of gender video traits.
norms. For example, the boy in our music video
was being bullied and the girl was fighting
back, whereas, in many music videos for different
genres it would be the opposite way round.
Above is a still from our music video showing the main
female character standing up for the boy.
We used conventions of real media products by combining live
Above shows
performance in a studio with a ‘plot’ to create a jump-y and similarities in
youthful narrative. I feel that our music video used many framing between
conventions of one of our inspirations, the video for ‘I’m Not ours and My
Chemical Romance’s
Okay’ by My Chemical romance. This created an idea of videos
synergy and associated our products to My Chemical
Romance.

3. What have you learned from your audience
feedback? Overall, I feel that we could
have created a more
Our audience feedback conducted on professional outcome if we’d
SurveyMonkey showed that people liked the way had more time. However, the
that our products connected and felt that there feedback seems to show that
was a clear connection between them. People felt people enjoyed our products
that our music video had a clear narrative but and that we achieved the
some of them didn’t see our attempt to challenge majority of our aims.
gender stereotypes.
When asking interviewees about the good aspects of our music video
we had good responses:
Interviewee one (16, Girl): I really enjoyed the music video, I felt that it
really challenged the stereo type of gender roles by having the girl help
the boy. Also the love story narrative was really cute.
Interviewee two (17, Boy): the way that it was cute to create a more
jumpy and slightly disordered style was really interesting.
Interviewee three (18, Girl): I enjoyed the use of live performance as
this is common in this genre and it is important to show the band. I also
though that it was funny how there was an out take at the end of the
video, it made me laugh!

4. How effective is the combination of your main product and
ancillary texts?
We chose to use a theme of urban/social
issues mixed with fantastical images of a
Pegasus toy, we thought our rough
themes would create synergy throughout
our music video and ancillary texts. We
focused on the idea of rebellion and
youthfulness, with images of fire
throughout our DigiPak and poster.
It is clear to see how
our DigiPak and
magazine advert are
connected through
colour and style and
main themes, such as
the
Pegasus, cardboard
and connotations of
fire (for
A still from our music video showing people example, matches).
holding up cardboard spelling out the song
title ‘Summertime’. The images of cardboard
create synergy throughout our main product
and ancillary texts. I feel that this is effective
as it creates a house style in the project.

5. How did you use media technologies in the
construction and research, planning and
evaluation stages?
Research and Planning:
We used the web-logging site ‘Blogger’ to upload our work
from pre-production to post-production. While researching
we used fan sites for My Chemical Romance to discover what
fans wanted from their products, we used websites such as
‘Fanpop’ for this purpose. We also used YouTube to view
previous official music videos for My Chemical Romance songs
which helped us to understand the conventions of their
videos and follow and develop them. We conducted market
research on the website ‘Survey Monkey’ and created a
questionnaire which helped us collect and analyse the
responses we got.
Production:
In the production of our main product and ancillary texts we
used many types of software. When creating our DigiPak
and magazine advert we used Adobe Photoshop to edit our
photographs, add text and compile the products. When
making our music video we used Final Cut Pro. We used this
to edit the sections of video and link up the audio. Had we
wanted to use effects we would have also used Final Cut Pro
to edit in effects.
We used a cross-process effect in ‘Picasa’ before
adding in the text and the contrast effect using
Photoshop.