Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1

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

Digipak

Magazine advert

I used the same image from the front of my digipak for the magazine advert to keep consistency across my products. I kept the colour scheme the same and used the same font and image. This follows conventions as most pop albums use the same image, colour scheme and font on both the album and the advertising.

I used the same image as used on the digipak as this makes the products work better together and makes it more noticeable and helps create an artist brand. I think this makes it very professional and realistic as most existing products also use this idea to make the album more recognisable to the audience.

I also kept the same style as used on the digipak as it creates consistency between products to make them more recognisable. I think this work well as it follows conventions of other similar products and also helps advertise the artist better as the image and style is the same across both products.

On the other hand it does follow conventions as it is simplistic in colour and design. It is also similar to most pop album covers with little text on the cover and a simple picture.

I took inspiration from Ed Sheeran’s album covers as they are simple and don’t follow conventions as they don’t use images of the artist and instead use words, letters or artwork as the cover. I decided to use an image of the artist’s guitar as my cover image as I wanted to do something similar to Ed Sheeran’s albums and I thought it would be a good focus for the album artwork. I also used a similar font to one used on Ed's albums as I liked the style and think it would fit well in the digipak. I liked how simple the colour scheme was on Ed Sheeran's albums so I chose a similar theme, only using black, white and orange. I think this worked well as it is dramatic and bold. Too many colours would make it confusing and I think this makes my digipak stand out.

I feel my digipak doesn’t follow conventions of pop music albums as most have a picture of the artist on the cover whereas I used an image of the artists’ guitar for the album cover. I used the guitar as a theme and used pictures throughout.

Album covers usually follow the convention of using the artist on the cover as it promotes the artist and makes it easy to know who the album is by. I chose not to follow this convention as I believe there are other ways of making the album noticeable.

There are a number of well known pop album covers that do not have the artist on the front. Artists such as Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith who use consistency through different albums to build an mage of themselves. Ed Sheeran uses the green background and black lettering across albums and Sam Smith uses the coloured paint strokes as a background for his albums. I chose the guitar as an image as it can be used on following albums to build an image of the artist. The colour scheme and the effect on the images can be replicated easily with other images to create new album covers. This follows the same ideas as the Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith albums as they are easy to continue as an image and create more versions. Most pop album digipaks do not follow this convention instead use pictures of the artist or band in different settings and locations. I chose to make the guitar the main focus of the digipak instead of the artist.

Overall my media products follow conventions as there are existing media products which use similar ideas. My digipak and advert link as they use the same cover image, this is used a lot in existing media products as it creates a strong artist brand and helps people identify the product and artist. The digipak follows conventions as it uses simple text, colours and layout to create a striking cover image and overall digipak. It includes elements in existing products such as bar codes, legal information, artist and album name, song titles and information about the writing and production of the tracks. The advert also follows conventions as it uses elements such as artist and album name and release information. It also uses the same image as on the cover of the digipak which follows conventions. My music video follows conventions as it uses narrative and performance ascpects throughout which are often used in pop music videos. My music video links to the song which, although not always, is often used in existing products. Some music videos are not linked at all to the song however many are, using a narrative or style to show this.

Music video

I wanted to use a natural outdoor location for my music video as most videos are set in a studio or in an urban area. I felt that using a rural area worked well for my video as i was able to use a variety of different locations rather than filming the whole thing in a studio. I think this makes the music video more eye catching and keeps the audience interested. Most music videos from my chosen genre are filmed in a studio or an urban location so chose a rural location to make my video stand out from others. This does not follow conventions as most pop music videos are filmed in one location or follow the artist through different locations. Although my video uses a narrative there is no clear journey or timeline within the video.

I used a similar design to existing adverts as made it simple, with a basic colour scheme and only the most important information. This included the name of the artist and the album and also informing the audience the album is available to buy. This makes the advert very simple and eye-catching. If there was much more text it would become cluttered. This follows conventions as existing products often use a simple design, basic colour scheme and include little text.

Although my media products follow conventions, in some aspects they do not. My digipak uses an image of the artists guitar as the cover image instead of an image of the artist himself. I also used the same image on the magazine advert. I think this works well to build an image for my artist, using the guitar to make his albums stand out from others. This would be a recurring idea, to use the image of the guitar instead of an image of the artist. This is similar to Sam Smith's album covers which use brushtrokes in different colours to create interesting cover images. Ed Sheeran's recent albums use a similar idea, repeatedly using a green background and bold, black lettering to make his albums stand out. These examples are instantly recognisable as these artists work. I want to recreate this is the media products i created so i used bold text and contrasting colours to create a bold image that can be used again to build an image for the artist.

I took inspiration from Ed Sheeran videos as they are interesting and abstract, however they still link to the narrative of the songs. I chose a similar idea and used a mix of narrative and performance for my video. I used shots of the artist singing and shots of him with the love interest to fit with the lyrics of the song. I think this worked well with the song I chose as the narrative linked the video to the song. My music video is not as abstract as Ed Sheerans videos but they acted as inspiration for my idea. This idea follows conventions as many music videos use a narrative video to link to the song. There are also lots of music videos that have a love interest similar to my music video. Although the location does not follow conventions the content of the video does follow conventions as most pop songs are either performance or narrative based and my video uses aspects of both. It also includes a love interest which is common in pop music as it often links to the lyrics of the song.

1973- James Blunt

This shows the artist performing whilst waking down a street. I liked the way the video was edited to show the present and past, i used a similar idea in my video, using black and white and colour shots to show the present and the 'memory'

Troublemaker- Olly Murs

This video is similar to 1973 as it shows the artist on a journey throughout the video, performing throughout.

Wings- Little Mix

This video is filmed in a studio which i did not want to do. Most videos aresimilar to this, filmed in a studio or in an urban environment. This is why i wanted to film in a rural area to make my video stand out from existing products.