The music video, album packaging, and website work together to create a cohesive brand for a new pop artist. The music video tells a story of teenage friendship through bright, stylish imagery. The digipak and website maintain consistency through their color scheme, photos of the artists, and focus on promoting the band's identity. These elements are designed to engage the target youth audience and represent themes of friendship, youth, and a fresh start for the band. The products would be distributed through the band's record label, providing promotional opportunities through owned media properties.

1. Creative Critical Reflection
Yusra Alam Khan
Music Video
(Media Studies Advance Portfolio)
CIE

2. How do your products used or challenged
conventions and how do they represent social
groups or issues
My A2 portfolio is a Music Video. The song I've chosen for it is “ALL TIME”
Conventions of MUSIC VIDEO
I have selected a POP genre song. And for my music video I have used and challenged the
conventions of this genre. Following are the conventions that I used in my music video:
• Artists are clothed in fashionable, stylish and mainstream outfits. The leads of my music video wear
different stylish cloths through out the video and the extras wear same cloths which differentiates
them from the leads.
• Artist are portrayed as happy, enjoying and content with life. Its clearly seen in my video that the
artist are happy and enjoying their lives as balloons, confetti, water fights, playing with ball are
used, this connotes happiness. Moreover the cloths of the leads are bright in color which also
symbolizes happiness. Lighting is bright too, that again symbolizes joy.
• The lyrics are normally based around love or relationships. The lyrics of my is about friendship. It
tells us about the relationship between friends, the bond which can cross any hurdle and will last
for a lifetime.
• Pop is that the song usually is between 3-5 minutes long with a set structure and a consistent beat.
And this convention is strictly followed by my music video.
• Pop music videos have either performance based, narrative based or concept based videos. My
video is performance based video. In my music video for ‘All Time’ the teenage boys are shown to
be having fun and enjoying life . An ideal life of a teenager is shown in the video.

3. Now, some conventions that I have challenged are listed below:
• Pop music videos stereotypically are associated with people in their teens as many people in their
youth enjoy partying and clubbing . A lot of the imagery created is base on sex or partying..
However in my music video I have shown nothing like this. I had a different approach to the
audience.
• Moreover, artist are expressed in a very sexual and seductive way, trying to lure the audience in;
very show/staged like. However current artist choose to dress in provocative ways portraying a
sexual atmosphere. Women wearing revealing cloths while men are shown shirtless. These
conventions are not used by me instead I have shown the ideal fun filled side of teenage .
• The directors of the music video wants that audience take the artist seriously, so they show them
performing. And therefore close ups are used too. In my music video I’ve used no close ups
however to all the performance is done solely by the artist. The idea behind is that, the audience
will know who the artist are, what they can do and that they are serious about their music.

4. Conventions of DIGIPAK
• The front of the digipak always have close ups. Mid shots or medium
shots of the artist to enhance, promote their identity and make them
recognizable. I have use this convention, the members of the band
“The DUO” are looking direct in the camera. This can be connoted
that, they are confident about the future, that what will come next for
their music career.
• The other convention I used is the Plain Background to emphasize
the artists. The background of the digipak is plain, giving no
information hence focusing on the artists and suggesting that the
main concept are them.
• Props are often link back to the genre of the music or are something
that features more than once in the video. The cloths that are artist
are wearing in the cover are the same as they wore in the music
video.
• The main, bold, single word title of the album ‘US’ is essentially the
main focus and reason for the album and tells the potential listeners
the general moral and meaning for the songs included. The word US
also has connotations such as ‘trust’ and ‘friendship’ that reflect the
artists relationship with each other. The disintegrate effect supports
the reason for the making of album, suggesting it is a turning point in
their life and career that they are leaving the past behind and aiming
for the future, hence why they are looking straight in front.
• The other technical aspects of the front cover have been combined
to create the ‘pop genre’ feel to the album. This has been created
through the use of the plain background, fashionable and
mainstream style of clothing and hairstyle, all that are current
sightings of pop artists. Therefore make it obvious to buyers that he
is a pop artist.

5. • The back of the digipak has List of songs, so that consumer
would know what songs are on the album. There are 9
original songs of the band and 1 feature song, in my digipak.
• The back of a digipak always has a Bar code so it looks
professional and use for purchasing purposes. Moreover
Copyright information is also given along with the Record
company logo with who the artist/ band has partnered with
to distribute and promote their album. All of this information is
given at the bottom the digipack . Barcode, then copyright
information and then the record label logo “Warner Music”
• Again the main image and focus is on the artist that re-
instates their importance and their creation of the album.
Wearing uniform, to state their targeted audience, this
connotes that the album is mainly for the youth.
• The image of the band members takes up roughly half of the
back and their picture is blur to give more emphasis on other
things for example: the list of songs or the record label.
• The Tag line at the Bottom “THE AVERAGE GUYS NEXT
DOOR”, is used for the audience to know that they are just
normal guys. This is a good attempt for promotion.
• Usually the color scheme for front and back of the digipak is
the same, however in my digipack I used the color scheme of
the front of the digipak as the border for the back of the
digipak.

6. Conventions of Pop artist Website
• The Homepage of the website typically features things like: • The
artist’s logo • A menu bar/ Form of website navigation • A picture of the
artist• An auto-playing music video (the most recent or most popular
one). This is the homepage of my artist’s website. The logo “DUO” is
on the top left corner. The menu bar is at the top. Their also the sliding
bar strip, with 3 slides, slide 1 has the name of the band, slide 2 as
shown the pictures of the artist and slide 3 has a clip from the music
video playing. And below are the latest new, show dates and other
information given. However the full information is not given, if the
audience wants to read about it they will click on read more and they
would be taken to the respected pages where they can read the whole
story.
• Navigation Most websites have a horizontal navigation bar across the
top of the page for easy navigation around the website, however some
use a drop down navigation bar and put all information on one page so
that you can scroll down to find what you want. The usual tabs are
News, Events/Tour dates, Music, Videos, Gallery, Bio, Social/Contact,
and Store. My website has horizontal navigation bar at the top of the
page. The Tabs I have are: “Home”, “Bio”, “News”, “Tour”, “Music”,
“Gallery”, “Store” and “ Contact”.
• In the gallery on the website, the primary photo is one of the artist. This
can be one photo, possibly the one used on the cover of their album, or
a collage of photos from tours, gigs and photo shoots used for the
promotion of their album. Since the artist of my music video are new in
the industry the gallery includes, pictures from their photoshoot for their
album “US”, along with images from the music video. In the gallery
page, there’s again the slide show of their different photos along with
the proper gallery itself.

7. • Loop Track A lot of the time, pop artists include a feature that allows you to
listen to their music while on the website. This is a technique used to draw in
the audience and their fans, so that they hopefully buy the music. Sometimes
a link is used to open another window where you can listen to the songs. This
way you can please both people who want to listen to the songs and people
that don’t want the music playing on repeat while they go through the
website. In my website in a single page the audience get the songs along
with the whole music video and behind the scenes from the music video. I’ve
also put on the digipak photos so that the audience can know that album is
out and ready to be sold. However, the videos are free to watch but for the
songs the audience have to purchase them.
• Other than that, on the website, there’s a whole page about the artist/band,
how they were formed, what are their future aims etc. as seen in this picture.
We have some photographs of the band, the whole story how they were
formed and an exclusive portion for both the members of the band, where
they have told about themselves.
• Then we have “Tour” and “News” page, through these pages, the audience
can easily get the knowledge about where are the upcoming shows, and can
buy tickets from there too. Where as the news page is concerned, the
audience van not only know what the band is up to plus they can subscribe
too, so that they could directly get the updates instead of logging on to the
website.
• The “STORE” tab is for merchandising and selling the album itself. There are
numerous shirts available with the title of the band, the album, the logo and
their pictures. All of them available to be purchased.
• Last on the menu, we have the “contact” tab, where, the audience can
message the band about anything they like. Along with band’s social media
contacts.

8. Social Issues
The music video shows the the life of an average teenagers, how they live their life to the fullest. How
they are carefree and love to spend each second of their life having fun. The bad side of a teenager’s
life is not seen for example, clubbing, drinking, skin show clothing, sex etc..
Social Groups
The characters in my music video shown, it can be connoted that they belong to the upper class.
Following are the reasons why:
• In the beginning of the video, the second lead is shown with IPhone 7 in his hand. Apple is an
expensive company and since the phone has launched recently and the lead has it, shows he has
the money to buy it and hence it proves that he belongs to that class.
• Since the music video is shot in eastern country, many schools do not have media labs or
swimming pools. Only elite schools have those. Therefore, it also shows the class of the leads.
• This is also shown on the digipak especially the back of the digipak, the image of the band
members wearing uniform of an elite school and the background make it more obvious.
• Same is the case with the website.

9. How do the elements of your production work
together to create a sense of “BRANDING”
A BRAND is sum of all the feelings, thoughts and recognition (positive or negative), that
people in the targeted audience, associates with a company, or a product or service.
• 'Branding' is undouble considered an important element in success of a media product. To start with the
music video, For our video a synopsis was written along with a proper storyboard and list of scenes.
Audience survey took place, which helped to decide what genre to choose and who’ll be the target
audience and what should be the concept of the album/songs
• The story was reviewed couple of times, took a lot of time to decide location and the mise-se-scene and it
took place in order to make the video look more realistic.
• Different camera angles and shots have been used which were pre planned. My video is in reverse,
which was easily identifiable because of the editing done. Various shots were taken on different days and
dispose off a lot of them to create one good product.
• After completing all our shooting, it took a long time to edit the video from first rough cut to the final cut on
adobe Premiere CS6 and Adobe After Effects to create one continuous piece by joining several shots
together.

10. • Choice of color for digipak and website is extremely important when it comes to creating a sense of
branding because it needs to be attractive and to distinguish to the audience. Brown, Blue and Green
has been. The reason behind this is because it will not only stand out the most but it also has a deeper
meaning to it. The Brown color symbolizes, dullness, past but support, where as green symbolizes,
freshness, hence a fresh start for the band, new path and the blue symbolizes confidence and hope.
• For the font too childish or too fancy styles were not opted because it is aimed to target a wide audience
and to make the work for professional but creative, hence despite of being simple font, the way it has
been presented is a eye candy.
• Images and logo’s have a big part in consistent branding because they are vital to the audience to
create a visual sense of branding. For the project a lot of pictures were used to create a visual pleasure
for our audience and little text in order to engage more with them. Record label logo was used almost
every where to give a constant reminder to the audience and to create a sense of branding.
• In my production work I made a digi-pak for my music album, however I think that it has really created a
sense of branding as from the cover you could judge the genre and it attracts the audience. The
digipak, gives an idea to the audience about the genre of the album.
• For the layout of the website conventional music artist website was followed because it automatically
denotes what's the website is about. Images, Links to the members social networking site accounts,
quotations to friendship, behind the scenes, the music video, teaser, merchandising (T-shirts, posters,
postcards etc..), interviews, collaborations, tour dates, the album, digipak, mp3 version. Everything is
available on the band’s site, free of cost or for purchase with special discounts.

11. How do your products engage with the audience and
how would they be distributed on real media
products
Audience
(MUSIC VIDEO)
• Pop music is usually enjoyed by the youth, starting from age 12- 25 approximately, therefore as my
genre is pop, so my targeted audience is the youth of all around the world.
• As far as the music video is concerned, it would capture the eye of the audience for several reasons.
Firstly, because of the lyrics, the lyrics are about friendship and how it is important in one’s life
despite of whatever has been changed and about the strong is the bond.
• The music video basically is to make the audience smile. And push them to the memory lane.
• Bright lighting and creativity, makes the video stand out more and also appeals to youth(the target
audience), as it appears vibrant and lively, something young people are attracted to. It also makes it
more upbeat, so it fits the beat.
• The costumes for actors in music video are fashionable . This makes them relatable and liked by
their youthful target audience, as fashion is important to them.

12. (DIGIPAK)
• The cover of the digipak has a hidden meaning, the disintegration effect, which would make the
audience curious to what is the album about and want listen to it. Moreover, teenagers are attracted to
things different than usual.
• The TAG line “THE AVERAGE GUYS NEXT DOOR”, will play an important role in engaging audience
too, as they tag lines creates curiosity amongst the audience to what the artist are trying to convey,
and in this case how they are average like other teenagers.
• The list of the songs mentioned on the back of the digipak are about friendship, youth, school and
since, the school is about to end and seniors will be graduated, so this album is best for gifting
purposes as this would revive all the memories when ever it’ll be played hence, because of the
seasonal purchase, targeted audience will be attracted more.
• In regards to the target audience, I would say that this album cover and photo in particular has been
used to attract the younger, female section of the target audience, who are most likely the main buyers
of the album and songs.
(WEBSITE)
• Website is also an important element which will attract the audience, firstly the website has all the
necessary information about the band members. Their photographs, their history, tour dates.
• Audience can buy the CD from the website along with the merchandise items
• Other than that, all the behind the scene, the story, idea, giveaway, all the other necessary items are
available on the site along with the video.

13. Marketing
• For the marketing and distribution, the band “DUO”, will be signed to “WARNER
MUSIC GROUP”, Warner Music Group is a subsidiary group of the parent company
“Time Warner”
• Being signed to a big record label, will be great for the band for following reasons:
 Warner has their own website to promote their artists as well as the subsidiary labels of
Warner.
 Time Warner, the parent company, owns American TV channels such as CNN and formerly
owned part of MTV in which their artists could be interviewed and broadcast one, also, Warner
Music Group owns NME which has both a TV channel and a Magazine on which their artists
can be interviewed on or in.
 They have an account YouTube to promote the songs of their record label, they can also
partner up with other youtubers, to promote them, this will get more audience to buy their album
an increase an following, since an average person watches 5-0 youtube videos daily or even
more and approximately, 2million videos are being watched. Likewise the teamed up with
VEVO too.
 Warner organizes a lot of gigs and performances due to the growing popularity of them. Also
the support acts for bands often tend to be on the same label as the main act to promote their
smaller artists as well as their larger artists.
 Bands are also advertised in films, for example Muse, Paramore and Linkin Park all appeared
on the “Twilight” soundtrack, this movie was produced by Warner Bros. This has promoted
these bands to a great extent along with the promotion of the film saga.
 On the Wanermusicgroup.com website, there is a revolving menu of artists on this label which
visitors can scroll through thus promoting other artists on their label.
 Along with that on the band’s website, merchandising items will be available too.

14. Distribution
• In HMV, CDs (Albums) from the Warner Music Group are generally priced £5-8. New
albums begin around £8-9 but lower to around £5 when the music has been distributed more.
• In Tesco, Albums from Warner Music Group are similarly priced and in their CD charts, Warner
artists such as Muse, Michael Buble, Plan B, Jason Derulo all feature in their charts. And
recently, they signed “Against the current” a new band.
• The Warner Music Group website does not offer music downloads, however a lot of their music
is available on iTunes to buy. This record label is very cautious about people obtaining their
music for free so use commercial sites such as iTunes and Amazon to sell their tracks.
• The improvements in media technology (mainly via the internet) has affected Warner music
group in both positive and negative ways. iTunes and Amazon, on which people may purchase
music from this label, have benefitted the label in their marketing, distribution and exchange.
• And the Band’s Website, audience can easily buy the MP3 version in different formats or place
order for the album there and the album could be delivered at the purchare’s door step.

15. How did you integrated technologies, software,
hardware and online in this project
MUSIC VIDEO
• I have used Canon DSLR 700D for shooting, used the its kit lens and tripod .The settings were;
movie recording size: 1280x720(frames 50), picture size: neutral, image quality: RAW and
alterations for ISO for different scenes.
• I’ve used Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 for editing, I’ve used different effects like Fast color
correction, Reverse effect, since my video is in reverse, used speeding effects, crop and
garbage tool and more. Used transactions for audio especially to sync the lyrics easily and
enhance the sound along with video transaction at the start and end of the video.
• Other than that I’ve used Adobe After Effects CS6 too for special effects, especially for the Freeze
Time effects which is to be seen in my film, its an effects where clones of the actor are scene and
as he moves and goes into its clones the close vanishes and ive also used CC Scatterize effect
which is used to disintegrate the character, this effect is used in he end when the band members
are burst into pieces.
• I found and download my soundtrack from YouTube.
• I’ve also used other handbrake to reduce the size of my video, without lowering the quality.
• Internet also played a major part in my project. Due to the avaliablity of internet I was able to do all
the related research and evaluate relevant information. I was able to get all the information about
Pop music and its conventions, by looking at the YouTube videos I had a roughly idea how to do
this, survey was easily conducted, hence my targeted audience was figured out and much more.

16. DIGIPAK and WEBSITE
• I have used Canon DSLR 60D and 50mm lens for the photoshoot
for my digipak and website .The settings were various as some
were shot indoors while some were shot outdoors.
• For editing, I have used Adobe Photoshop CC for the front and
back for my digipak. I’ve used different tools such as liquidfy for
the disintegrate effects as seen on the front of the cover. For the
back, I used the blur tool to blur the picture , so that emphasis could
go on the other information available.
• Editing each picture individually is very time consuming, there fore
I used PhotoScape's Batch editor to edit all my photographs at a
same time, I used contrast and color correction effect to enhance
the quality and visual of the pictures.
• As far as internet is concerned, it help me to know the conventions
of POP music digipak, how to make a website and upload contents
on it.
• And lastly, it was very easy for me to upload all my contents on
my blog ( Music Video, Creative Critical Reflection, Evidence,
Digipak and link my website to my blog).
• I used vimeo to upload my video and all the other contents on my
tumblr blog.