Evaluation- Question 1

1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

The genre of our music video 'Fallen' can be interpreted as quite unique, this is because the main overriding style is dubstep due to the heavy bass tune and beats in the melody, however, the use of violins in the background of the melody as well as the soulful sound of the artist's voice and the lyrics themselves which are about love and heartbreak- not usual lyrics for dubstep tunes- make the song seem more like a slow love song; it even can be described as of a slightly pop/contemporary genre. Due to the many genres the song portrays, it in itself challenges the forms and conventions of normal media products, the video we created goes alongside this as many aspects of our video challenge as well as develop the usual conventions of dubstep videos, such as the mixture of slow motion and fast motion scenes in the video, as well as the dancers which are not usually seen in dubstep music videos. We also used the conventions of a few current music videos as inspiration for our own, to make it look as authentic as possible.

Lykke Li: 'Get Some'
This video was the main inspiration for our music video; we took many aspects from it and used in our own, such as:
-the black and white colour scheme used throughout, this conveys the emotion of the song
-the mirrored effect to create distorted patterns on screen which in our case expresses the artist's confusion at what she is feeling
-the flickering film effect which adds a sense of mystery to the video
-the mise en scene of writing/scribbling on paper with candles around it, this was an interesting scene in the Lykke Li video which we thought expressed her anger effectively, so we decided to replicate it
-close up shots of the artist's face while lip singing
-fast cuts and fast motion shots which added urgency to the video to match the song
here is a few examples of shots from Lykke Li's video that have directly influenced our own shots:

Gnarls Barkley: 'Crazy'
One aspect of this video we used as inspiration was the silhouette lip-singing parts; we re-created this using lights shined on the artist's face to create shadows on the wall of her silhouette, during editing we also changed the contrast and brightness to make it seem more cartoon-like; similar to Barkley's video. His video is also, of course, mostly in black and white which we also used in our own video. However, although the song 'Crazy' has a happier, more pop-like genre than ours, which is soulful dubstep, we made the silhouette effect match our genre by using just the simple shadow of the artist rather than the cartoon effects used in Barkley's video, which I think expresses the raw emotion of the song.

Ed Sheeran: 'A Team'

This video influenced ours in the use of black and white to portray emotions of the artist/style of song, also, the use of slow motion to express the feelings of loss, sadness and pain. Also, this style of song is the closest to our genre of the three influences; the slow rhythm and beats matches the melancholy mixture of violin strings and deep bass drums used in the melody of our song.

I think my Digipak and advert match up with the style we chose for our video; I decided to stick to the black and white colour scheme, as well as the classic, old fashioned looking photos; particularly the front cover, which compliment the simple shots used in the video. My digipak however, can be seen as a little bit unconventional as i used pictures of the artist on each side (front, back and inside cover) whereas (from the research I've done) a picture would usually only be shown on the front and inside cover, not on the back aswell, but I thought it was important to promote the artist by using as many different photographs as possible.

My advert I tried to keep as simple as possible as I didn't want to detract attention from the artist; in order to promote the artist as much as possible, since it is her debut album. I also didn't include tour dates on the advert as is usually conventional for established artists, as i thought she would not yet have a tour, since she is a new artist. Instead I made up quotes from music review magazines in order to generate interest in the new artist.

As inspiration for my Digipak goes, i decided to look at controversial bands and solo artists to see how they were projecting their brand; this one is a good example of the kind of thing i used as inspiration because it is simple and classic; only one picture (whereas i used 2, they were both simple) I particularly liked the style of writing used on the front cover and the black banner around the writing to make it stand out on the page, which i decided to replicate by using similar writing on my front cover and creating a transparent white square shape to go behind the writing on the back cover so that the writing is seen more clearly.

This picture is very similar to the one that I chose for the front cover of my digipak, with a closeup of the artist's face and the eyes looking away from camera. I used this as inspiration as I liked the effect of the artist not looking into the camera; an ironic statement as the name of the album is 'In My Eyes'. I thought this effectively expressed her emotions from the songs.

For my advert I used a simple, medium shot picture of the artist, with writing around her, similar to the style of this Rhianna advert; similarly, white writing is put on a darker/black background in order for it to stand out and be easy to read while flipping through a magazine etc.

I decided to use the typical conventions of dubstep/rock/emo music through the use of black and white colour scheme, style of writing and simple design, but i challenged some usual conventions used, such as the use of very little, if any pictures of the artist, I decided to use quite a few pictures as my main goal was to promote the new artist on the music scene.

- include videoclip of me discussing question