Question 2 of my A2 media coursework

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

2. Music Video
We wanted our music video to follow ‘pop’
music video conventions but not to be too
similar to a lot of generic videos of this
genre. A lively, bright themed video was
definitely our priority. If we’d have
compared our video to Selena Gomez’ Kill
‘em with Kindness, even though it is
certainly a pop video, it would be
described as dull and boring and that is not
how we wanted our video to be perceived.
You could say that we challenged the pop
music video convention by making ours
colour with a quick cutting rate as opposed
to a fairly bland video with a slow cutting
rate. Our video definitely took features
from other music genres but is reiterated
that it’s normal by Jacque Derrida’s theory.
‘a text cannot belong to no genre, it cannot
be without… a genre. Every text
participates in one or several genres, there
is no genreless texts.’ Emphasising the fact
that each music video is different but does
certainly contain some conventions of one
kind or another.
An identifiable convention of the pop
music video genre is the ‘star image’.
Andrew Goodwin’s theory states that the
act should feature dominantly in the video
to keep the audience connected and this is
extremely vital in this genre of music video.
The person that features in our video is
female Goodwin states that a key part to
gaining the audience’s attention is a
constant eye contact with the camera,
known as being voyeuristic. I feel this is
shown in our video and consequently goes
along with the conventions. A feature that
goes hand in hand with eye contact, is
miming the lyrics directly to the camera
and we took advantage of this in our music
video. Although this doesn’t happen in
every video, I think that it is an important
feature, especially in pop videos and it
represents interaction with the audience
which is also an important convention.

3. Music Video
In comparison to real music videos, ours
contains a clear difference in the locations we
used. Obviously one of the factors for this
was our budget but I felt that using local
locations was a helpful thing. It aided us to
give the kind of tint on the video that we
wanted. Although it would’ve been ideal to
use improved locations, I don’t think it
affected our ability to film a proper pop
music video.
Theorist Andy Goodwin feels that
‘iconography’ is a major factor in success. By
using a large number of close-ups it
theoretically leads to exposure for the artist
as they become more recognisable.
As our song was by a single artist it was easy
to insert multiple close ups into our video
especially with it being a common theme in
the pop genre. We took advantage of the
studio part of our music video, when the
lighting was perfect so that we could
exposure our artist as well as possible.
As our song was by Ariana Grande we
decided it would be best if we modelled
our actress in a similar style of clothes to
what Ariana Grande wears in her music
videos. We gave her a very casual look,
but one that made her look like a
popstar in order to fit in with the
conventions. In my opinion the simple
style was effective in the video
throughout.

4. Album Advert
Many magazine adverts feature the artist as the
main focus and we have done this in our advert by
placing them in the centre of focus in the middle of
the page. When studying a range of other magazine
adverts, we found that the simpler the advert, the
more effective it was. As a result we took this to
the extreme by making it as simple as possible but
still including all the features that were needed to
promote the artist and their new album. We
decided to use high key lighting, to show that it has
a positive vibe and one related to pop music, to try
and reach our target audience. Although some of
the other adverts we studies featured a fair
amount of text, we believed that ours was effective
enough (as seen on the right). Our advert featured
the artist and title of the album at the top, which
hopefully in itself was a selling point, a strategy
and convention that a lot of well-known artists and
bands use. By using the same photo and font as
featured on the digipak, we hoped the audience
would be able to recognise more easily the artist
and album and therefore hopefully selling more
products.

5. Album Advert
A key feature that other magazines use is by
listing the ‘hits’ that have already been released
by the artist, and so this could be a selling point
to customers if they’ve heard of or like the
songs that have been named. ‘Featuring hits’ is
a common feature on many pop artist
advertisements and we’ve exemplified this in
ours.
The release date is key as it gives the consumer
something to look forward to and by including
the artists’ social media along the bottom to
promote the artist, it gives an incentive to get
involved which helps publicise the artist to an
even greater extent. Many artists in the modern
day use social media to promote their material
and it is a good way of getting your name out
there because of the sheer amount people that
use social media. Facebook, Instagram,
Snapchat and Twitter have millions of users and
artists take advantage of this to gain publicity.
Again the mise-en-scene in the form of costume
is emphasised by using the same outfit
throughout all of our ancillary texts for a
complete look.

6. Digipak
For our front cover we used a common strategy
used by pop artists, which is a simplistic look that
features just the artist in order to promote them
solely. By using the same look throughout all of
my media products, it helps the consumer to
recognise the brand. For example they may see
the advert but not the digipak and this may
persuade them to buy the album if they like the
songs they have released. We had to give the
digipak an Ariana Grande ‘look’ to it, so that loyal
fans would be ore likely to buy the products again,
but at the same time we needed to find the right
balance between new and old features.
For the back of our digipak, we included the CD
contents. This is because it is a common
convention on the back cover of a CD case. The
reason behind it is so that the audience is aware
of which songs feature on the album so they know
what they are buying. All in all, our back cover
followed conventions very closely.

7. Digipak
The DVD aspect of the Digipak breaks a convention by
having a sleeve for the actual DVD as opposed to a
space for the disk. We did this to free up more room
for information about the DVD itself and to make this
panel look more attractive. We included a description
of the journey the audience will be taken on over the
duration of the movie, to enhance its appeal.
Our left, inside and back cover are all part of the same
landscape image. This is done to create a continuity,
which a lot of digipaks also do, but not perhaps with
the same theme that we have chosen (a sunset). This
thee is used to portray the kind of album it is, which is
hopefully a selling point to the consumer.
Digipaks normally display a range of photos from
different distances and angles and I feel we have
portrayed this nicely in our digipak. We used a side
profile close up, a medium shot and a long shot with
Ariana facing away from the camera. This is done to
create affect but also to show our capabilities with our
range of shots. Obviously by using the artists face, it is
clearly recognisable ad compatible with the advert as
well as the music video.
Our colour scheme and design were fairly conventional I feel, and I
think we definitely found the right balance of images to use on our
Digipak. Even though it seems a simplistic look, I believe that it is
effective, much like a lot of other digipaks.