The document discusses the evaluation of a music video, digipak, and magazine advertisement created by the author for a media studies assignment. It analyzes how the products use conventions of real media, such as including band members in the music video like other indie bands. Feedback on the music video was positive about the thriller/mystery aspect but some found it confusing. Survey results informed the video's production to attract the target audience of teenage girls interested in rock-pop music and narrative videos. Microsoft Word, Premier Pro, YouTube, and Facebook Messenger were used at different stages of planning, editing, sharing, and coordinating the project.

1. Evaluation of Music Video,
Digipak, and Magazine Advert
A2 MEDIA STUDIES

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

3. Digipak
It is a convention of the Digipak for the theme to be
taken from the front cover. In our case, we followed a
varied colour scheme, where the CD resembled the
theme of the track list, and the DVD followed the red
theme of a section of the front cover. Although the
theme is not distinct, the colour contrast of the digipak
resembles the theme of darkness in our music video for
the song ‘The Last of The Real Ones’. The links between
our products are very subtle, with a link being the
colour purple heavily linking to the magazine advert and
the CD.

4. Magazine Advert
Usually the magazine advert is concentrated on a
particular element of the actual CD cover. In this
case we concentrated specifically on the members of
the band and used photos from the same photo-
shoot to create the look of the magazine advert and
then the look of the cd front cover. The logo for the
band is the same on both the digipak and the
magazine advert, creating more emphasis on what
the band is trying to sell, and catching the viewers
attention.

5. Music Video- Locations and their interpretations
Another convention of an indie-pop music
video is that they are usually set in
locations such as woodlands and cities to
create a sense of mystery. In our music
video we filmed in a city, a graveyard, a
park, and social settings.
We filmed using a city like setting in order to add to the convention of
indie bands wanting to advertise art and creativity and the clash of two
ideas [the enigma of the guy against the vibrancy of the girl] as cities are
home to backgrounds of many people, and it helps add to the contrast of
the two main characters.
In our music video we filmed part of our narrative in a graveyard.
Typically in Indie style music videos the locations are low budget, and
help to express the storyline (being more mysterious) as part of our
video is that the audience interpret it the way that they want to.
Whether the girl dies and he is just missing her, he kills her- giving the
storyline a more morbid view…
We filmed in a park like setting which is a setting increasingly used by
indie bands and artists as it helps connect with the audience as these
settings are generally easily accessible to the public, making the
experience more emotional and easy to understand. This meant we
used this location as a way to show the relationship in all of its stages.
Typically, social environments such as this are not seen in indie music
videos as locations are used to represent ideas and creativity like a
woodland area, a city street etc. The cafeteria doesn’t provide much
room for artistic interpretation. The café is just used to hold the
storyline together- following connotations of a more pop video due to
the vibrancy and pace of the environment.
According to Andrew Goodwin’s theory
of the seven conventions within music
videos he mentions iconography of
something that is memorable beyond
the music video. For example, the
flowers are used within the video and
then again within the digipak as synergy
between the products.

6. The music video follows the story of a
young man walking along a street with
some flowers, which is broken up by
short clips of 'flashbacks' of a
relationship between him and another
girl (shot from his perspective), in order
to make the viewers assume that he is
going to visit her. This follows the
convention of indie/pop videos that
have a narrative or a story to be told.
The flashbacks are used to separate the narrative from the present; it
shows the relationship between the two main characters as context to
link the story together. This is used to emphasise the conventions of a
storyline usually found in indie-pop music videos. In the flashbacks, the
guy always seems to be following the girl, showing the disconnect
between the two, and the contrasts of their characters.
The character walking down the street reiterates a sense of journey and a
story, as he is going from one place to another. His facial expressions,
pace, the way he holds the flowers represent the change in character and
emotion. This creates more of a sense of mystery as the opinions of this
character are distorted for the viewers as he goes from appearing to be
caring, to being creepy (due to the final scene and shot of him in a
graveyard).
Music Video- Characters and Flashbacks
In the video, the female character is seemingly outgoing, and interacts
with her friends, and is seen in social environments. The convention is
that the characters are so different, and the story is told in a way that
engages viewers with the twists and turns in their relationship.
Andrew Goodwin also discusses ideas such as
voyeurism, in systems of looking, particularly
surrounding women as part of his 7 conventions of a
music video. Our music video follows this convention
as the guy in the video comes across as a bit of a
stalker, and watching the girl from a distance which
follows the convention of he ‘male gaze’. We also
filmed a scene where we used a mirror to reflect the
face of the guy looking through pictures of the girl on
social media.

7. Music Video- Including 'members of the band'...
Having members of he band feature in the
video is another convention of indie music
videos. In our digipak and music magazine,
we used the same person as our front man
as we did to star in our music video and
play the lead role of the person walking
down the street with the flowers. This is
similar to another alternative/indie band:
The 1975, as Matty Healy is their lead
singer and he is always the main band
member shown in their music videos.

8. How effective is the combination of
your main product and ancillary texts?

9. The colour scheme of the CD links to the purple colour
scheme of the track list on the back of the digipak, along
with the ‘Mania’ title on the magazine advert. The red
colour scheme of some of the font on the front cover and
the colour of the DVD links them together. The design of
the background image behind the discs and on the inside
‘thanks page’ links with the purple overlay on the white
on the magazine advert (which the colour scheme of
purple connects it to the CD and the track list again). The
main connection between the CD cover and the magazine
advert is the photo shoot of the ‘band members’ being on
both, and the use of the style of ‘T’ used in the name ‘Fall
Out Boy’, which essentially links both products back
together forming the identity and aesthetic of the band
and their music. The flowers over the CD and DVD
resemble those used in the music video of the guy walking
down the street. Steve Neale talks about instances of
repetition and change with following conventions. Our
digipak as a whole with the music video does not follow
direct conventions with that the colour scheme changes
throughout while still being able to be linked together.
This symbolises the rebellious acts of heading away from
expectations in the pop-punk world. Overall, all of our
products represent the album and song as the vibrancy
between the two, relates to the effect of the music video
as a whole.
Digipak

10. What have you learned from your
audience feedback?

11. During class time, we watched our video with our peers. The response was positive, as they
liked the thriller/mystery aspect of the video. The filming of the guy walking down the street
was a main aspect that acted as a lever for understanding the video, which reached many
people. Also, we did not use a live band (a typical convention of Indie genre), which helped
create more of a connection between the audience and the characters, thus adding to the
understanding of the video. However, some others struggled to decipher the intended
meaning, whether the ending of the video made sense with the rest of the video, as maybe
some of our ideas were not portrayed too well, with the downfall of the relationship not
appearing as we intended on screen. They spoke of how we filmed it, and how for the most
part, not using a tripod added to the effect of the story being from someone's point of view
rather than a third person perspective, but in parts, appeared messy to watch.
Peer Reaction
From this, we learned that some messages may get lost in translation if we have too
much going on in the video, or trying too hard to make every aspect work. There
were probably a couple of times we struggled to film the way we wanted to, which
ultimately impacted on the presentation of the story. However, the things that did
go well, with the guy walking down the street, we are happy with the appearance of
that and the acting portrayed by the person we used to take that part. The editing
and the desaturation of the ‘flashbacks’ parted them from the present which worked
out effectively for the overall music video.

12. In response to our video, some other people enjoyed the
cinematic element of our production with the story and the
way that the song had been represented. The way we used
editing to emphasise significant points within the video, as
mentioned the cutting to beat and pace of the action
matching to the tempo of the song: these elements strike at
the audience keeping them engaged and enticed with the
performance as they watch the love story unravel. As a
response to the title ‘The Last of The Real Ones’, we took
the route of this guy in the relationship being unable to let
go of this ‘real love’ he thinks there is between him and his
partner/ex-partner. This is significant in understanding the
intended media from us as producers to the audience.

13. Survey Monkey
We used Survey Monkey in order to conduct our audience research for our music video and digipak. We asked the
audiences gender, age, music genre preferences, the types of music videos they watched, how often they watch music
videos, their favourite music video and why, what would attract them to a music video, and what would you expect from a
rock n’ roll music video. These questions covered the relevant information we needed in order to produce the best music
video we could to attract the wider audiences. We found that most of our respondents were female, aged 13-17 years old,
with rock-pop being their favourite genre of music to listen to. This was significant as our music video is based on pop-
punk / rock and features teenage friendship groups which would attract the audiences that mostly responded to our
survey. The audience responded that they preferred narrative style music videos which meant we used this to create a
storyline for our music video to appeal to those people. Some answers showed that it is important to some viewers that
there is a connection between the artist and the audience, and the character of the artist to come through in the video as
well. So we used the conventions of the genre our band is from, and researched their traits to give them an identity
through our video, such as the guy walking down the street with the flowers and hood giving off a sense of the pop-punk
genre, and the storyline reflecting teenage years which Fall Out Boy try to convey in their music.

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

15. MICROSOFT WORD
04/02/18
I used Microsoft Word to lay out the information that I
had collected about the band and to insert images of
the band to add variation. I changed the font size and
style to further enhance how easy it is to read.

16. 04/02/18
Here, I took the first page of analysis I did on the
music video for ‘A Change of Heart’ by The 1975 to
show how I used Microsoft Word to lay out and
insert images around the text to make it easier to
read and navigate. I changed the font size and style
to further enhance how easy it is to read.

17. As before, I used Microsoft Word to lay
out the information and insert images
around the text so that it is easy to
read and look at. I changed the font
size and style to further enhance how
easy it is to read.

18. I used a table format on
Microsoft word to lay out the
Shooting Schedule (left) and
the Risk Assessment Form
(right). The table was easy to
format and adjust to fit the
information on as required.

19. We used the three way colour corrector to
adjust the colour levels of some of the shots that
were too dull where the lighting didn’t match
other shots .
PREMIER

20. We used cross dissolve transition to make
edits softer and fade into each other so
that the music video flows better.
PREMIER

21. Relocating film clips after moving the project. For
example we uploaded our video to YouTube after
it was completed so that it was accessible for
others to see.
PREMIER

22. Setting the edit in and out points to edit
down clips for the timeline. This helps
make the clips fit the pace of the song so
that it flows better.
PREMIER

23. By uploading my documents to slide
share, the file type changes so that it can
be transported onto blogger, where my
entire work-piece is placed.
SLIDESHARE

24. BLOGGER
On Blogger, all of my work is clearly laid out and
easy to read and navigate. All of my work can easily
be viewed by clicking on the posts

25. YOUTUBE
We used YouTube to officially publish our final
music video as this site enables a wide
audience to view our work and receive
feedback. It was also easy to do and the link is
very easy to find and open.

26. We created a group chat on
Facebook Messenger to make
communication easier whilst we
planned for our days of shooting
the video. All members of the
group were involved, input their
ideas, and helped to organise the
schedule.
FACEBOOK
MESSENGER