A2 Media Work

1. Evaluation Question 1
In what ways does your music
promotional package use, develop or
challenge the forms and conventions of
existing music video/promo packages?

2. There are many different types of music video,
which makes it difficult to define the exact
conventions of music videos.
Despite this most music videos do have some
shots of the singer lip syncing to the main track.
To incorporate this idea, I have added several
shots of the main singer lip syncing to the lyrics
of “Insomnia”.

3. The Types of Music Video
• There are several main types of music video
• Narrative-Tell a loose storyline based on the lyrics
or mood of the song
• Abstract-Have visual images seemingly
unconnected to the artist or lyrics
• Conceptual-Explore a concept based on the lyrics
or mood of the song
• Performance-Feature a “live” performance of the
artist singing the song, usually at a concert.

4. Editing Styles and Techniques
• Music videos rely heavily on montage editing with different types of footage
juxtaposed against each other. I have used this with shots of the singer lip syncing
indoors jumping to outdoor shots.
• The pace of the video needs to match the pace of the song. “Insomnia” starts slow
but speeds up as the song goes along. At the start of the video, I kept the pace
slow with long sweeping shots of the set. As it progressed, I switched to faster
shorter shots to up the pace and keep the video moving. I also fiddled with some
of the footage and increased the speed to match this faster pace.
• Edits should be in time to the song. I have tried to match the cuts to the beat. I did
struggle with this, especially during the first half of the video, but I feel I managed
to improve as the video went along.
• Music videos are split up to match the structure of the song. My video is split into
four parts, a slower introduction to go with the songs intro, a faster middle section
as the song speeds up, a section of lip syncing in time with the lyrics, and another
fast section at the end of the video, when the songs pace is at its fastest. Keeping
the different sections of the video unique to each other will keep viewer interest
and help to prevent them from getting bored.

5. Post Production
• Music Videos rely heavily on post production so that they can achieve all of the
quick cuts and shots they need as those shots would not be possible to achieve
with just standard footage. I have used post production in my music video to
match the visual style of existing Faithless videos and speed up the pace of the
video so it is roughly in time with the song.
• The first piece of post production I added, was the monochrome/black and white
visual style I added to the video. This visual style is used often by Faithless so I
used it to match their visual style to appeal to that audience.
• I also took two shots and stitched them together in several places to quickly switch
between them. I spent time making sure they were timed up to the frame so that
the sequence would be as smooth as possible. This is the scene where the singer is
running out of the door and is a production technique that I took from the existing
Faithless “Insomnia” video.
• I also sped up several sections of video and played some footage in reverse to give
a sense of quickly going back and forth. The footage consisted of someone walking
across the shot so it appeared they were going forward then back then forward
again. I tried to time this up to the pace of the video.

6. Digipak
When designing the Digipak, I looked at several existing CD covers from faithless
and looked at what visual styles they had. The one that I decided to follow was
the “Mass Destruction” and “Insomnia” CD covers that had a distinct black and
white visual style that matched the style I used for the music video.
The song list on the back cover includes songs taken from the “Forever
Faithless” album.
On the back cover I added a barcode, copyright information and a record
company logo. This is on the back of nearly all CD covers as it is information that
is required to be shown in order for the product to be sold.

7. Magazine Advert
When designing my Magazine Advert, I looked at a number of
existing magazine adverts to determine what the conventions of
magazine adverts are. All of the adverts I saw when browsing had a
focus on either the singer or the CD cover. To incorporate this into
my design, I focused on a close up of the singer, while showing the
CD cover at the side of the advert. The image I used is mostly black
and grey which gives an eye catching contrast to the bright white
text that I used on the advert.
Another important convention that magazine adverts follow is
providing important information to the customer. This information
includes record company logos, copyright information, available
formats etc. I have included this at the bottom of the poster next to
the preview of the CD cover.