Evaluation Question 1 Draft

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

Music Video  

The music video to ‘Alone No More’ by producer Philip George that is sang by Anton Powers inspired my narrative for my music video. The narrative in the video features a happy young couple enjoying their time on holiday in a hot country. The narrative fits with the genera of ‘Alone no More’ as it is in the House music genera and the majority of music videos for House songs share the location of a hot county. This is because House music is associated with dancing in clubs and beaches and the up-beat tempo represents the excitement of going on holiday to a warm foreign country. This relates to my choice of song for my music video, ‘Love In Ruins’ by producer Griffin sang by Sinead Harnett as this song is also apart of the House music genera. I liked the storyline of the couple on holiday so I incorporated it into my video for the up-beat parts of the song. This means my video conforms to the convention of having a ‘holiday’ location for the narrative because of the genera of the video. However, the song ‘Love In Ruins’ does have verses with a slow tempo so I wanted to incorporate some lip-synching with my generated artist. The identity of my artist challenges the convention of the majority of house music artists as they are mostly producers that get featuring artists to sing the lyrics of the song, however my artist is purely a singer whose songs are in the House music genre. This is successful as my artist stands out in a positive way and could be seen as ‘trendy’ and modern which every artist aspires to be. Because the verses in the song ‘Love In Ruins’ have a slow tempo compared to the fast up-beat tempo in the chorus, I wanted the location of the narrative and lip-synching to contrast against the ‘happy’ bright holiday location in the chorus. The song ‘Last Dance’ by Dua Lipa gave me the idea to have the contrasting location in a autumnal woodland area, I would have lip-synching in the woodland area and also incorporate it into my narrative so it fits in with the video. The woodland location in my video challenges the convention of having a House music song with a summer holiday location throughout the video. 

Digipack

Dua Lipa’s cover art for the single ‘New Love’ inspired the background cover for my digipack by having a single photo of the artist against a detailed background as the background for the cover. I liked it as it is simple but effective as the photo has lots of detail in it so It looks very visually pleasing. During more market research I found a lot of album covers for female artists follow this convention of having a photo of the female artist as the main feature of the cover. This is to add identity to the artist and in a more visually stimulating way rather than the artist photoshopped onto a blank background, because of this I followed this convention. Famous photographer Arnaud Pyyvka inspired my photo for my artist as I really like how he uses nature as a background in his photography which is similar to the cover photo for Dua Lipa’s single album cover art. H
e also uses muted filters on his photos which I think looks really effective with the detail in his photography so I wanted to use his photography style and editing for all the images of my digipack. This challenge the convention of most album covers and digipack design for female artists as they most likely always feature bright bold colours or pure black and white, so my digipack stands out against them. I challenged the convention of having the artist look towards the camera with direct mode of address on the cover as I had my artist look to the side. This is because it makes my artist intriguing and mysterious so it would attract the audience as she stands out against the covers with the artist look towards the camera on the cover. I followed the convention of having a barcode, legal print, record label and catalogue number. I didn’t develop or challenge this because they are essential parts of a digipack and by keeping them makes my digipack look more professional as a whole.

Magazine Advert

The magazine advert for ‘Rated R’ by Rihanna inspired my magazine advert as it has the image of the album cover as the main focus of the poster, I think this is successful as it is clear what it is advertising at first glance. This is a common convention of magazine adverts as when I did more research into other magazine adverts, the vast majority of them had the image of the album cover so I followed this convention. I also liked the black text box with white writing on the magazine advert for ‘Rated R’ as it makes the text extremely eye catching which is what I want for my magazine advert. However, I developed this as I also added white textboxes as well as the black text box. This is successful as it creates a contrast and makes the text stand out more. I followed the convention of Rule of Thirds and this is successful as my design looks very satisfying to the eye, the ‘Aela’ text is one third, the image of the Artist is another third and the date when the album is realised is another third. During more research into other existing magazine adverts, I found that a lot of them had positive reviews about the album on the advert. This is a successful convention as it promotes the album as the sources that reviewed the albums are creditable and reliable sources. I used these real-life sources for my magazine advert as it makes the magazine advert more realistic, professional and effective with marketing the album.