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

2. Performance
In my music video which is of the rock genre I have followed conventions by having a
performance scene. Performance scenes are a key convention of a music video in general but
are found in the majority of rock videos. First of all I began to research different videos to get a
grasp of what to expect in terms of cinematography, mise-en-scene and editing. Some one
examples I looked at were “Peace” by Kids In Glass Houses and “Loverboy” by You Me At Six.
Both of these videos had performance scenes running along side a narrative.
The typical things you would expect to see in terms of mise-en-scene in these videos would be
instruments, guitars, drums, amps etc. This is something I had done in my music video as I
have set out the performance scene as if the band are onstage and playing to a crowd so you
can easily see the musical equipment of the drums and the amps easily conveying the feel of a
live gig.
Furthermore the way the band dress in the video is very important to determine the genre of
the video. If the band were in tracky bottoms and trainers it would not fit conventions of a
rock video. From viewing other videos clothes like skinny jeans, denim jackets, converse shoes
are worn, stereotypical “cool clothes.” Because of this the band in my video are wearing those
“cool clothes” skinny jeans, converse, band t-shirts etc.

3. Performance Continued…
In terms of cinematography I took influence from the videos I studied. In the “Peace”
video there are lots of close up shots of the band which show an up close and personal
feel to the band something you might not get at one of their live gigs. Also we wanted to
get across the energy and movement of a gig so using hand held shots and using quick
tilts and pans got across this energy as well as the band moving. We decided to do this
as the song is a fast paced song and we wanted the video to match the pace. There's
nothing worse than having a video that is slow paced with no energy or movement in
other words just boring.
An example of this would be The Beatles “Hello Goodbye” which uses the same shots
over and over again with some shots lasting 15 seconds which is boring an slow paced.
We wanted quick shots with quick edits and movement in the performance scenes to
show that.
Here is an example of the
close up shot from the
“Peace” video and a close
up from my video showing
the influence I took from
the videos I researched.

4. Narrative
Music videos are driven by their narrative storyline which sometimes reflect the theme
and lyrics of the song. My narrative reflects the theme of the song which is isolation and
loss as the song is called “Black Cloud.” Despite the song being an upbeat number the
lyrical content is quite dark and I wanted to reflect that with my narrative storyline. The
majority of videos having a narrative and performance interweaving between the two and
my video is no different. In the “Peace” video they have extras with a different storyline
however in the “Loverboy” video it is the band creating the narrative by them getting
arrested.
With my video I wanted to create a narrative with extras to give something different to the
video than just the band. Our theme for the narrative was isolation so we wanted to
capture that by close up shots of the main protagonist and high angle shots to show the
struggle and lower status he has in comparison to the other actors in the video.

5. Ancillary Texts
My first thing I wanted to do was look at existing digipaks and posters for albums. I look at albums
such as You Me At Six – Sinners Never Sleep, Muse – The Resistance and Biffy Clyro – Only Revolutions
(All of which I had a physical copy of). All had similar conventions including album artwork, images of
the band and a track listing on the back of the album cover. I took this on board and created a digipak
with a good album artwork, tracklisting and an image of the band to show a professional feel between
by music video and the ancillary text.
Another key convention I found was that the CD itself was in a sleeve much like an LP as opposed to on
show like a normal CD. Therefore I wanted to use this I feel only a selection of albums will do this and
is something a little bit different. I also included a “Thank you” page on the digipak. This is were the
band thank their family, friends and label etc. on their journey as a band which is found on every
album I looked at as well as the majority of albums in general.
However this can be found in different places, some albums come with a lyric booklet and the
“Thanks” comes at the end of that. With mine however I wanted a page dedicated to thanking people
who would have helped the page rather than having it hided away.

6. Ancillary Texts Continued…
When it came to creating an advertisement poster for the album I first of all looked at
existing posters to get an understanding of what to expect and to find the key conventions. I
looked at three poster adverts (You Me At Six – “Hold Me Down” and “Cavalier Youth” and
Muse – “The Resistance.”
I found that the main thing I needed to create a strong poster was a good main image to
draw people to look at it. In all three of these examples it was the album artwork which
understandably is a great idea as people will see the advert they will be able to recognise
the album artwork once the album is released. Furthermore I noticed that a bold yet simple
text stands out much more than some crazy off the wall text. Therefore I chose a simple
black text which was called “November Sky” which really stood out against the colourful
background of the album artwork and was easy to read the information given.
There tended to be a small review on the poster such as, “One of the most eagerly
anticipated albums of the year” which creates a real buzz around the album and will get
other people interested in the album. Using this example I used a small review on my own
poster (“The best album you’ll hear all year”) which if I’m honest makes the album sound
better than it probably is put it is a good advertising technique.

7. Because of the ever changing world that is the music industry the way albums are released is always
changing. Downloading is one of the most popular forms of consuming music however there are some
people out there including myself who loves a physical copy of the album. In the last few years vinyl has
made a big revival with things such as Record Store Day. Because of this bands have changed the way
they release albums and this has been reflected on posters as they now include what format the album
will be released in. Because of this is I decided to include what my album will be released on which I
decided would be CD, download and vinyl. Therefore I am catering to a lot of peoples needs in how they
consume music.
Finally I looked at where albums are advertised which included several different places. Posters are
advertised on places like bus stops or billboards in the U.K which are a great source of advertising as the
general public can easily see them and possibly buy that album. Down in London a lot of album
advertisements are in the London underground which is one of the main ways of transport in the capital
city and therefore a lot of people will see these adverts and reaching out to a greater audience. Because
of this I created an advert for my album at a bus stop by importing an image of my album poster over
the original poster which would therefore appeal to a wider audience than my target audience of rock
music fans.
Also I found that album advertisements are found at festivals such as Reading and Leeds which does
cater to a particular audience of music fans. However it could target people who haven’t heard of the
band or aren’t into that kind of genre of music but want to get into something different. I collected
some images of album posters from festivals and copied my album poster over the top on Photoshop.
This is a great way of advertising the album as so over 100,000 people attend festivals like this so
therefore a fairly decent amount of people seeing my poster.

8. TheoryRichard Dyer’s representation theory can be reflected in our media texts. (“How we are
seen determines how we are treated, how we treat others is based on how we see them.”
Rock music in general could be represented in quite a negative way and therefore for some
people our narrative storyline could be a true reflected of rock music fans, some people
would however completely disagree with this argument. He also asks who is this speaking
to? Well it could be speaking to music fans who are going through a hard time due to
whatever circumstances and that they can get through their problems just like the
protagonist in our video, far fetched I know but it’s an idea. Because of this representation
of rock fans we can bring in Tessa Perkins’ study of stereotypes. Possibly rock fans are
stereotyped as a bit weird, loners and wear dark clothes, well in our video I guess the
protagonists ticks all the boxes are a stereotype. However Perkins does state that for
stereotypes to exist there must be some truth in the matter.
Levi Strauss’ Binary opposites study can be brought in to our video here as our main
protagonist wears all black clothes and could be considered a weirdo and with no hope.
However the female antagonist at the end of the video wears all white and is the
representation of hope therefore creating a complete opposite. Speaking of the female
antagonist this is were we can bring in Laura Mulvey and her theory of “The Male Gaze”
which in this instance can be criticised as in this video the female isn’t there to be sexually
objectified and men aren’t seeking voyeurism from it so in that sense we are going against
what she believes. However where are these stereotypes coming from? From a Marxist
point of view it’s the ruling class hegemony passing down these values that we should be
against these so called ‘outcasts’ and be prepared to work hard rather than be who we are.