2. How do my products use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
Front cover CD Cover Inside Cover
Rear Cover Poster
3. Conventionally, My research suggested that most if not all of the front covers
(for example) had a photo of the artist on the front. This is obviously because it
better advertises the person rather than making the audience read the cover to
distinguish its content they can look at a person and instantly associate
someone with something i.e. Eminem with rap music. However, my front cover
(Bottom right) doesn’t follow this.
It consists of the artists name, the name of the
album and the design of the cover. I chose this for a
number of reasons. Firstly, its contemporary,
simplistic look is better than filling it with patterns
an d more colour because then I feel this would not
be aimed at my target audience. So I used research
to distinguish that conventionally, the designs for
this genre is either VERY simple or VERY
complicated, and with simple, dominating colour
schemes. Also, when I tried to add a photo on this
product and others it didn’t blend with the scheme
and layout which would completely ruin the
product. So I have only used a photo of my artist
on my poster (Left) as this will be (in the real world)
in a different display compared to that of the CD.
However it does run similar conventions because it
has a large, bold title which is often the case with
many real world products so can therefore be seen
to run with both unconventional and conventional
methods of design.
4. Again, my CD cover follows the unconventional method of ‘No
photo’. Often the design of the front cover is on the CD. Bruno
Mars “Doo wops and Hooligans” (Far left) is an example. I have
however at least kept it similar by using the same font colour and
style. But I wanted a different design to the appearance of my CD
cover. So I have used the albums songs around the outside of the
CD as a border and then added modernistic feel by putting lines
running either side. I think it looks quite good considering its
changes from the other products
As with my front and rear covers. The inside cover looks to
replicate a similar design but differ slightly from them so they
aren't the same. Again, this idea has come from research from one
of Eminem's albums. Although he has photo/animated photos on
his album they all look like they are from the same album product
so this is what I have achieved here. I simply removed the artists
title and enlarged the album cover. Making it bold, still simple and
effective.
Lastly, my rear cover completes the package by keeping the same layout. But I
decided because I had more information on it compared to that of the inside
and front covers, that the songs list should take main attention when looked
upon so I used a white font for drawing the eye. Additionally, for the more real
life effect, I have used images such as a barcode and small print legislation to
complete the cover.
5. Andrew Goodwin's theory for music videos
For my music videos analysis, I will challenge its conventions in terms of Andrew Goodwin's
Music video theory. Goodwin Believed that all music videos should follow six key steps in
order to be successful and professional.
• There is a relationship between the lyrics and the
visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or
contradicting the lyrics.
• There is a relationship between the music and the
visuals, with them illustrating, amplifying or
contradicting each other.
• That genres are complex and diverse in terms of music
video style and iconography.
• That record companies will demand a lot of close-ups of
the main artist/vocalist.
• That there are likely to be inter-textual references to
other forms of media within the music video.
6. There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with them illustrating,
amplifying or contradicting each other.
The duration of my video is fast paced. The only time it ever noticeably slows down is when the room is
very dark and you can only see around 2/3 of my actors face.
This means that there is also a lot of cutting to scenes every few seconds. (Mostly to match lyrics and not
change of music pace). However as mentioned, whenever the music changes, I have made it noticeable
that the way I shot my footage changed to correspond with it. So, when the music returns to its fast pace
the light levels return to normal and so does the amount of cuts every few seconds.
7. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating,
amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
My music videos visuals correspond with the lyrics at certain points. This is because it doesn’t necessarily have a
storyline. So when the lyrics get to a certain point where my actors can act out something that is described during
the song, they do so. For example, “come here little kiddies. On my lap” My actor offers a gesture to the camera to
come and sit on his knee.
However, in the vast majority of the video, it is difficult to replicate the lyrics through visual action because it is fast
paced and the words are too quickly spoken before my actors can show them as actions in any way. An example of
this in my video was that I hit a problem with the part of the song that goes “Black girls, white girls, skinny girls, fat
girls, tall girls, small girls, I’m calling all girls”. It is rapped too fast for my actor to speak properly so I instead
decided to use still photos of him holding up the words. This is an unconventional method in music videos
especially for my theme because the point of rappers is that they are supposed to be able to talk quickly. So in order
to overstep the problem I had to improvise by taking photos and then edit them onto my video in such a way that
the pictures appeared fast enough and changed to the next one in time before shortly going back onto the video.
This therefore keeps the relationship of lyrics and visuals going and only in a few other points on my video do we
see him or other people not rap the words. This is also because it is more of a humorous thing when we see actions
rather than words because a majority of this song in the real video isn't taken seriously at all.
