EVALUATION QUESTION 1:

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

For my A2 Media coursework I had to produce a music video, complete with a digipak and advert promoting the chosen artist in a form of a poster. Through my research and production of these products I have discovered that each of these media texts has a specific set of codes and conventions, which helped provide constraints in which I worked.

When I first began my A2 coursework, I began by looking for inspiration for my music video and ancillary products by looking at existing and popular examples. The first bit of research I done was looking at the various types of genre within music videos. From this I extended my research by looking at different types of music videos and noting that the three main categories which music videos fall into include, narrative, concept and performance and the audience expectations of all three. I then went on to research the 100 Greatest Music videos, along with the chart favourites and my own favourite music videos EVER! Additionally, I looked at the History of the music video giving me more understanding of the concept of what a music video actually is. From this I went on to deciding how and where I would shoot my music video, this included deciding on what artist I would chose and I began my research on Ellie Goulding, her music, inspiration and her music videos, I also looked at codes and conventions of the genre which I would incorporate into my music video, this also included looking at secondary research (Young and Rubicam) into who my target audience would be. Throughout all this research I had to decide on the conventions which I would either develop or challenge in my music video.

Another part of my coursework which proved to be helpful in the research and planning stage of my music video was looking and the different genres of music videos and I looked a series of YouTube videos from varying artists as well as looking at other student’s work.

Music Video Theories: Goodwin’s theory works on 8 main principles: 1. Links between lyrics and visuals2. Links between music and visuals, (complementary,

contradictory or amplification)3. Genre characteristics4. Intertextual references5. Notion of looking (pnjectification of women)6. Voyeurism (direct gaze, other people looking at the artist,

insight into the artists life, screens and mirrors) 7. Demands of the Record Label 9representation of the artist)8. Performance based, Concept based or narrative based music

videos.

Conventions of a Pop Music Video: - Artists are dressed in fashionable, stylish and

mainstream clothing- The lyrics are normally based around love or

relationships- The song is usually set between 3-5 minutes long with

a set structure and consistent beat- Camera shots are usually fast paced- Pop videos show sudden change in scene- Pop videos also show many different camera angles

Examples from my music video… Links between lyrics and visuals

“and lovers hold on……”

Voyeurism and the notion of looking

Shows sudden change in scene

Shows different camera angles

I very much developed the conventions of the genre as I felt it was important that I targeted the audience of the genre and fans of the genre have certain expectations and I felt that it was important to deliver these expectations in order for my video to be successful. Pop is very much about promoting the artist therefore there is a lot of focus on my artist performing the song as well as featuring in the narrative. However it couldn’t be purely narrative based as I felt that it was important that the audience saw a link between the visuals and lyrics.

The artist which I chose was Ellie Goulding and decided on her song called ‘Figure 8’. Before I started I did some background research on her as an artist and looked at her music videos for a number of her songs including Figure 8. This research was useful as Ellie Goulding is just a pop artist and can be described as a pop/indie artist, this research helped me discover the genre codes and conventions of the genre as they were hard to define due to it being a hybrid genre. For instance, her music videos vary from high budget to more simplistic, and her videos are usually based in an outdoor setting and focus a lot on performance of the song.

Once I had completed my filming and was moving towards the post production stages of my coursework it was time to start thinking about my Digipak and Advert! Fortunately I had begun preparation for this whilst filming and managed to get some images whilst fiming which came to be useful when designing my ancillary products and creating a continuity between my products.

Features of a Digipak and Advert! Digipak- The artist on the front cover- The album name- A track list- Institution information- Multiple panels and images- A message to fans and or note of thanks- Barcode

Advert- Album title- Artist name- Date of release - An image either of the CD or the artist- Information of available outlets

To gain inspiration for my Digipak and Advert I looked at many different examples of famous artists within the genre as well as Ellie Goulding’s. From this I really liked the lighting effects used on Goulding’s cover and experimented with different lighting and decided on a warm lighting effect which gave emphasis to my artist and produced an inviting glow to the cover. The Digipak was much easier after looking at examples and having done lots of research into it and after sketching through various layouts I tried various ways of achieving my final design.The Advert was much easier as I used the image feature on the back panel of my Digipak as it left room down the side of the poster for reviews and created a link between the two products.

To conclude, in creating my final products I feel like they all fully develop the general codes and conventions whilst aiming to relate to the genre and look like a real media texts. I included frequent reference to the codes and conventions of the genre as previously mentioned and my ancillary products also include the features they ought to in order to fulfil the criteria.