The document discusses how a media product uses, develops, and challenges conventions of real media. It analyzes a music video for the song "Walking on the Sun" by Smash Mouth. The video incorporates several typical conventions for music videos, including demonstrating genre characteristics through a narrative storyline and unusual camera shots. It challenges conventions by omitting a live music performance and focusing solely on the narrative. Audience research, including surveys and interviews, informed the video's production to match viewers' preferences. Post-production feedback confirmed the video successfully incorporated intended conventions while maintaining a humorous tone.

1. 1. In what ways does your
media product use,
develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real
media products?

2. Music Video

3. Andrew Goodwin-Dancing in
the distraction factory
A book wrote by Goodwin himself in which he talks about
5 codes and conventions that all music videos have in
common. These elements that are all included are-
1. The demonstration of genre characteristics
2. A relationship between lyrics and visuals
3. Demands of the record label (this may include lots of
close ups and thus leading to the artist developing a
certain motif or visual style which reoccur across all
their work)
4. Reference to the notion of looking/voyeurism
5. Intertextuality or the reference to other media
products

4. Genre characteristics
• Smash Mouth are classed as a pop/rock genre and this genre of music
typically use interpretive visuals in their music videos so we used a
narrative story of one guys journey to find the girl he loves.
• Interpretive music videos are normally combined with cut away’s of live
performance however we chose to challenge this typical convention and
chose to leave a stimulated “live performance” out. We decided to
concentrate more on the narrative side instead and this allowed us to
include a more humorous feel to the video, which reflected the lyrics and
beat of song.
• Seeing as it was a narrative genre we chose to use unusual camera shots
like POV shots to tell the story. This gave an interesting first person
perspective to the video and places you in video. The audience can then
feel a closer connection to the main character.
• Edits and special effects are both characteristics of 90s pop music videos
as technology was less advanced then so we chose to incorporate a few of
these, like split screens and fade to white’s, this gave a retro and amateur
feel to the video.

5. Lyric and visual relationship
• Seeing as the style of our music vid was interpretive we really
concentrated on idea of a lyric/visual relationship that could appeal to
both existing fans and hopefully attract new ones.
• We used fairly literal visuals but we built off the ‘feeling of the song’
rather than lyrics. To do this we used rhythmic cutting to the songs beat.
• In the above example, the lyrics were “somebody once asked could I spare
some change for gas” so we used a literal visual of swapping ‘change’.
However he’s not using money for petrol like the lyrics suggest so this was
less literal lyric/visual but still strengthens the songs concept about
changing and being happy in life.

6. Demand of the record label
(close ups)
• We challenged this convention as we did not include
any live footage so we don’t have any close up of
‘artist’ but we did however use close ups on our main
character of the narrative.
• Below are examples of shots we included like an over
shoulder MCU looking at his reflection in mirror, which
focuses us on the clothes making a point that he’s a
nerdy character. An ELS and another MCU were also
used which shows us the contrast of his clothes to
what the public are wearing. He’s in a suit which is
stereotypically not social norm, which adds humour to
the video.

7. Notion of looking and voyeurism
• This is a typical convention for most music videos so we
included a lot of examples of screens.
• As well as the notion of looking we used polaroid picture
which is quite retro in style, this links to genre of 90’s music
as they didn’t have things like Instagram and Facebook then
(which is what we intended to use originally). The picture
also adds an emotional touch which reinforces the
narrative as it shows feelings towards the girl.
• In a way it could be argued that we used voyeurism as he is
looking at girl in a romantic way through the POV shots at
the end of the video. The girl is also blonde too- this is a
suggestive Propp stereotype.

8. Intertextuality
• We incorporated this into our narrative to enhance the
storyline and add to the humorous feel.
• We reference the Shrek films a couple of times (see
examples of him turning Shrek off and seeing the Shrek
DVDs in a store on his way to see the girl). The audience
will recognise song from the film’s soundtrack. Shrek is
also a comedy film so it links with the humour of our
video.
• We also used product placement of Berroca as the
slogan is “You but on a good day” which sums up the
narrative of our video. The audience will hopefully
relate the slogan to the music vid adding slightly
comical element aswell.

9. Other conventions
• Split screen’s are sometimes used in narrative genres
to help with the storyline. So we used shots of a similar
composition (a wide shot of him walking away from
the camera) which emphasises his journey.
• Rhythmic editing is another typical reoccurring
convention of music videos. As the narrative was a big
part in our video we thought it would be good to
include this technique as cutting to the fast upbeat
tempo enforces the ‘feel good’ mood and engages the
audience.

10. Advert

11. • Research showed us the majority of adverts had a border of empty space
so the information about the album could stand out clearly to readers. We
used this convention when designing our own advert.
• Another convention we included was the release date in bold text, again,
making it stand out clearly to readers.
• The use of the album’s artwork is typical of album adverts, creating
continuity within the brand making it more recognisable.
• The use of a retailers official logo (in our case HMV) and web link
enhances synergy within brand and also references other technological
entry points. The web link is useful as it gives readers a chance to find out
more information on the band and album that isn't included on the
advert.
• Because we used these conventions it made our advert look professional
enough to appear in NME/Kerrang.

12. Digipak

13. We wanted to maintain a theme with the previous
albums Smash Mouth had released so we included text
of the album and artist’s name on the cover. To also keep
with this theme we used the same text as the magazine
advert for the artists name. We skewed it so it laid flat
on the ground in line with the pavement which added an
unusual element of fun which is typical of Smash Mouth
albums.
We also included the album and artists name on the spine
so if the album were stacked on display in a shop it could
still be easily recognised. We kept it simple in contrast to the
actual cover so again, easy to spot the artist.
A normal convention for a digipak is the track list included
on the back so we included this feature but we also
challenged the typical convention of numbering the tracks
because we thought it looked neater.

14. During our research we found that another
reoccurring feature was that normally digipaks will
have an image that spanned out across the inside of
the whole album when opened. So we used a
panoramic (took on an iPhone app as it was easier)
as it links to the music video, because this is the
street he walks down (again, adding continuity).
Overall, the digipak uses Smash Mouth
conventions of bright colours that are
quite childish and appears a little 90’s
retro. The montage edit of images from
the production of the video adds a
personal touch to the album which is
good for existing fans as it feels like
they’re engaging with the band.

15. 2. How effective is the
combinations of your main
product and ancillary
texts?

16. Henry Jenkins
• Talked a lot about media convergence-which creates
integration within a media sector. He explains this is
because 2 companies want to expand and consumers
wanting to access media in a way most convenient to them.
This, in turn, can also lead to synergy where consumers
access a brand or product through a variety of sources.
• It is important that we took a synergistic approach within
our promotional package in order to sell Smash Mouth’s
album, as well as thinking about what technology has an
impact on todays consumers. We had to ensure each part
of our promotional package was suitable to create a
recognisable brand for Smash Mouths album to increase its
outreach to consumers, and increase sales.

17. Music video
• This gained the widest audience because music videos can
be accessed through different forms of technological
convergence like laptops, tablets, phones, games consoles
and TV music channels which could be played anywhere.
Our target audience were teenagers and young adults who
are more likely to use these forms of technology.
• The video targets existing fans of Smash Mouth and also
similar artist like Reel Big Fish (found through research)
because nowadays channels which videos are viewed, like
YouTube, give you recommendations of other artists. The
interpretive style of our video also appeals to those who
are familiar with the genre but the lack of stimulated
performance included challenges genre conventions which
is unexpected and could keep the audience interested.

18. Digipak
• Our audience research suggested many prefer to buy music on things like
ITunes rather than a physical copy. So we incorporated the music video
and digipak in a number of ways. The album artwork appealed to the
younger audience as it spreads awareness of the band to those who don’t
buy physical albums from shops. The bright colours help the album stand
out on shelf to those who are not used to going out and buying a physical
copy.
• As we took elements of the music video and put them into the digipak to
maintain continuity between each component of the promotional
package, we thought this created a recognisable brand.
• The front cover is a photo of the main character in the music video. The
skateboard adds a comedy element because he can’t actually skate so it
becomes a recognisable symbol of the video. There is also a similarity
between the feel good, fun style of the video and the use of fun, childish,
bright colours (continuity).

19. Inside is a montage edit collage of
photos from the production of the
music video which links the video and
album. This appeals to existing Smash
Mouth fans making them feel closer to
the artist. Whereas the cover draws
attention with its bright colours to
different consumers (who may also
recognise the skateboarding photo
symbol from the video), the inside
works to appeal to existing fans.
The text works with the advert creating a
house style associated with the band
and different albums of theirs.

20. Magazine advert
• This targets our target audience more specifically as it is
featured in a specific music magazine. So the consumers
who see it are more likely to be interested in Smash
Mouth’s music genre. NME/Kerrang would be most likely to
feature a band like Smash Mouth because they feature
pop/rock artists therefore the consumers who come across
our advert will be more likely to buy the album.
• We tried to follow typical conventions like adding a release
date, album title, artist name, website, official retail shop
logo and lots of empty space as a boarder. By using the
digipak’s album artwork the consumers can recognise it.
• The lined paper links the ancillary advert to the school
flashback scene in the music video which is quite a subtle
use of convergence. The colourful and retro composition of
the album cover may seem interesting to consumers which
makes them want to find out more about the band by using
different entry points like the digipak and music video.

21. Overall the combination of main product and
ancillary texts work together efficiently as each
component helps to reach out to lots of
different consumers as lots of different media
sectors are involved. Each component of the
promotional package can act as a different
synergistic entry point because a may only have
to buy/see one to decide they enjoy the band’s
music and then go onto purchase album (digital
or physical).

22. 3. What have you learned
from your audience
feedback?

23. Survey monkey-audience
research
• Pre production we conducted research on survey monkey in order
to gather ideas on what our target audience liked . We considered
these responses in order to successful product. The questionnaire
itself consisted of 10 questions and gave us quantitative data which
we analyse to find trends with the answers given.
IMPORTANT POINTS
• Our target audience were between the ages of 17-30
• Things that were popular in a video; comical elements, narrative
structure, reference to lyrics
• Dance routines should be avoided for the pop/rock genre
• Although this is good in some ways because it was quick and easy
to send to large quantities of participants and also very easy to
analyse, there wasn’t enough detail in responses. This meant that
we needed some more clarification on some answers like if people
said they liked a connection between lyrics and visuals, how strong?

24. Interviews-audience
research
• Provided better responses than survey monkey as it was
very informal and allowed us to get some expansion on
answers (we used the same questions as we used as in
survey monkey.)
• We also included some questions on what features of
digipak the audience liked.
IMPORTANT POINTS
• Platforms such as YouTube are the most popular for
viewing music videos .
• Technological convergence is an important thing to
consider-the TA used mobile phones to view most videos
and to download music from ITunes.
• Also became clear that physical copies of albums aren't
widely purchased by our TA anymore and they are more
commonly downloading music straight to their devices or
streaming through apps like Spotify.

25. 4. How did you use media
technologies in the
construction and research,
planning and evaluation
stages?

26. Technologies

27. RESEARCH
Survey monkey gave us responses that were easily
interpreted into graphs which made the answers easy to
compare. We used closed questions in order to get
quantitative data to help us plan all the elements of the
promotional package. The biggest benefit of survey
monkey was that it was quick and easy to send out large
quantities of TA via social med (we used Facebook).
As you can see from this response
everyone appeared to like special effects
in a music video but most of them only
preferred them in a certain genre. So we
made sure we took this on board and
ensured we asked this question in the
qualitative interview, so we could get a
clearer idea to make sure we didn’t
include anything that didn’t appeal to the
TA.

28. • A DSLR camera and tripod were used to conduct
the interview. The tripod gave us a steady shot so
we conduct an informal interview in order to
expand on the quantitative data gathered on
survey monkey. Windows movie maker was used
to edit the interview clips together and create a
clear, linear structure of question/answer
responses so it was easier for us to analyse and
appear more viewer friendly and creative on our
blogs. Movie maker was also a quicker program
to use than Premier which we found was more
time consuming and we didn’t want to spend too
long on the interview video as it wasn’t our main
concern.

29. How useful was audience
research
• It was useful as it helped confirm to us our ideas about
what people liked that we were unsure of (like the
narrative journey, we really liked this idea but weren't
sure it would be suitable for our TA but the audience
research confirmed it was). The interview and survey
responses matched up which was positive and easy to
take features from, making it accurate and reliable
research.
• We also were notified about how important the
influence of technology was to our TA (and the fact
they didn’t really buy hard copies of albums anymore).
• If I ever re-did this portfolio I would definitely include a
bigger sample size for my audience research as well as
a wider range of consumers to get more research to
compare too.

30. Incorporating research into
texts
Digipak-we found that using bright and
colourful photos grab the attention of
potential consumers so chose to touch
up our album front cover to make it very
vibrant. SCREENSHOT
We also discovered from feedback that
narrative structure is something that is very
popular with our TA, as well as adding a
comedy element. So, for example, we chose to
dress our main character in a silly and
humorous costume choice of a suit.
Our interviews suggested a lyric visual relationship should be subtlety
incorporated. So here George is giving change to the flower woman
while song says ‘spare some change for gas’. We also tried to portray a
visual relationship between the overall message of the song and our
fast edits of the video. Thus, mimicking the upbeat happy attitude of
the song.

31. Post production feedback
• We received this comments from friends via Facebook and actual
verbal feedback from family and peers and tutors in class time. We
found that there was a general response of it being ‘really funny’
and people ‘really enjoying it’. However these were not
constructive enough comments so we had to push to get comments
that we could take criticism from. Although it’s good to know that
people understood the humorous nature of our video that we were
trying to portray as it suggests our use of typical codes and
conventions were successful.
• The students in our class gave more constructive feedback like how
steady the shots were and they also recognised the codes and
genre conventions we followed.
• The feedback was useful though as it positively reinforced that we
met the codes and conventions we intended.
• Examples on the next slide. THERE IS ALSO AN EMBEDDED VIDEO
LINK ON THIS BLOG POST UNDER THE SLIDE SHARE POWERPOINT
OF OUR TA’S RESPONSE WHILST WATCHING THE VIDEO-

33. ‘It didn’t look staged, it looked like
it was actually happening.’
‘The use of a cutaway was really
interesting and helped with the
context of the story.’
‘I didn’t get the POV shots of
walking down the street until
explained that it was supposed to
be him on his journey, looking for
things to buy the girl.’

34. Planning stage
• Without technology the planning stage would
have been extremely difficult. We all used a
Facebook group chat and IMessage on
Iphone’s to communicate as a group. These
chats allowed us to come up with ideas
outside of lesson time and keep us up to date
on issues or any questions that we had
throughout the whole process so everyone
was aware what was happening at all time.

35. Construction stage
• A DSLR camera and tripod were used to shoot the video and
take photos for the digipak/advert. The tripod gave us a steady
shot which looked very professional. The shots on the DSLR were
1080p which also allowed us to film high quality shots, again,
giving it a professional feel.
• We used Adobe Photoshop to create our magazine advert and
also our digipak and this program allowed us to play around with
the different layers and text tools. We used a variety of tools like
vibrancy levels, contrast, dodge and burn which came in handy
when creating the album artwork because we wanted to create
a very bright, vibrant, cartoon style. We wanted to maintain
house style across all elements of our promotional package so
used dafont.com to find a font that matched our ‘childish’ theme
because Photoshop only had a small variety. This text then
became a recognisable aspect of Smash Mouth branding. We
imported this text font into Photoshop using the ‘run’
programme.

36. • Adobe Premiere was the programme used to construct our music video.
As none of us had ever used it before it took a bit of getting used too and
was very time consuming at the start because we had to trial and error a
lot of the effects as we’d never seen them before. It allowed us to
manipulate footage creatively in a non linear way which was useful to us
as we ended up filming clips in a different order. Also allowed us to put in
video transitions, like cross fades, which helped our narrative used
between open shots to give feeling of time passing.
• Another feature we used was the fact we could layer footage using 2
different platforms so the 2 clips could run simultaneously. The cop and
move tools let us create a split screen effect (which is a typical convention
of music videos).

37. Evaluation stage
• Blogger was probably the most important piece of technology used as it is where I
presented all my work for the advanced portfolio. It is easy to access through
internet and also set out very easily so I could organise my work clearer for
examiners and tutors to view. It allowed me to embed videos, images (both from
the web and ones I took myself of my work) and scans.
• Powerpoint and SlideShare-Blogger also let me embed slideshare powerpoints too.
Slideshare was a site I had used in my foundation portfolio and I decided to use it
again because it was successful. It also gave me a better structure to work with
and allowed me to split text up and insert images easier.