Katy Lewis created a music video and album packaging for a school project. She researched conventions of real media products to incorporate effective techniques that would make her work look professional. This included color correction in the video to make scenes brighter or darker, lip syncing during verses, and using different camera angles and shots. For the album packaging, she featured the artist on the cover, included clear writing of the name and artist, and added a parental advisory logo since the song contains profanity. She also included proper copyright information on the back cover to follow industry standards.

1. Katy Lewis

2. My music video uses many different forms and
conventions of real media products. Later I will
explain how.
After thorough research into music videos I noticed
some frequent and effective features that are used
in most. These are the basics and I tried to
incorporate as best I could into my video.
Without these techniques, my video would look
unprofessional and amateur. It would look exactly
like a school student had created it and nothing
more, and so I tried to include as many of the
following features as possible.

3. The colour correction was essential on my music video as without, it
looked horrendously dull and too pastel-like. This is used in almost
every media product, as there is a very small chance that the
exposure and colours are correct at the time of shooting. As you can
see from the image below, colour correction makes everything
brighter, more vibrant and more crisp. Or, in the case of some of the
clips in my music video, it can make it seem darker and more grey. I
used this for the clips of Ben and Kayleigh, as it was a memory, and
so I wanted to use colour correction to represent this.
IN WHAT WAYS DOES MY MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

4. Lip synching is used in almost every music video where an
actor is involved. If the person in the video is singing from
their point of view, it almost certain there will be lip
synching. I used this in my music video during the first
verse, as was a long one and had some good shots to
represent this. I made sure the shots were from as many
different angles as possible so as to ensure I demonstrated
that I can use match-on-action, instead of having one single
shot.
IN WHAT WAYS DOES MY MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

5. In music videos of today, they are filled with
different angles and perspectives for shots. I tried
to include as many different shots as I could in my
music video, though due to the nature of the
video, with it not being very abstract, I could only
use the basics like close ups, panning shots and
still shots to convey the meaning of the music
video. I included a sweeping shot in the video
when the actress falls asleep, to represent her
essentially ‘dreaming in the clouds’, but this shot
didn’t go as well as I had planned.
IN WHAT WAYS DOES MY MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

6. Album covers and digipacks have several different
conventions and codes which could be shown in different
ways.
They have developed over the years as being something, if
not more important, than the music video itself. These are
lasting impressions of the artist, being the tangible copy of
work. The audience can refer back to this work and so it is
very important. Also, for any new listeners of the artist, this
will be the first impression. Almost a ‘shell’ for the CD – the
outer wrapper for the music itself.

7. I used an image of the ‘artist’ on my front cover for the
digipack as I felt it was important to see her. From my
research, I have noticed that Kat Nash features on a few of
her album covers, and so I thought it was important to
recreate this.
IN WHAT WAYS DOES MY MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
In a lot of professional digipacks, the disk tray has something
circular or rounded to form the base of the disk tray. I
recreated this with the arcade game circle. It is bright and
playful with the added connotation of the seaside, which
linked in with the sand and deckchairs from the other two
pannels.

8. In other album covers, the name and artist are extremely
clear. Unless the album cover is recognisable or iconic, or
particularly attention-grabbing, the name of the album and
artists will almost always be on the cover of the album. I
make sure my writing was in white so it stood out from the
background.
IN WHAT WAYS DOES MY MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
I noticed that on any album cover that contains swearing or
profound words, there is the parental advisory logo. I placed
this at the bottom of my album cover, to make sure the
album looked as professional and audience-ready as possible.

9. On the back of every album cover there is a
small print stating copyrights and licensing etc.
After looking into other digipacks, I read the
copyrights and designed one fit for Kate Nash’s
album. I used the correct record label and
publishing rights. I also made sure I wrote the
dates correctly and used each logo for the
record labels, as well as the DVD symbol and
Compact Disk.