Evaluation 1

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

In researching for our media product I carried out research into conventions of music videos. It began with music videos in general, denoting the narrative, abstract and performance aspects. We soon realised that abstract suited more emotional pieces of music, whereas performance and narrative fit more heavier and energetic music. After choosing a song we then looked into music videos of a similar genre to obtain and review conventions that would create our video. The Blink-182 video for First Date featured the band performance of the song in the setting of a garage in an american home which was the inspiration for the setting to our music video. At the beginning of our video the name of the band and song appear, often used in contemporary music videos.  

One way that our media product follows/goes against the conventions of our chosen genre is through our album cover and sleeve. Most album covers of ska bands were mainly black and white, this colour scheme we thought although had iconography we decided didn't match the punk side of the genre or meet demands of contemporary audiences. We added a splash of colour to provide vibrance and energy, however the font and logo featured on our poster is black and white; for recognisability of the ska genre. By challenging this convention we were able to appeal to a wider audience and bring this genre into the modern day.
       The advert that we created followed typical conventions of contemporary adverts. We researched into album adverts of bands in with a similar genre that had debut releases, as well as other releases to gain a wider range of conventions so we had a more diverse approach to our advert. The poster features the album cover image and same text, a typical cross media campaign used by music media products. However on the poster we placed a logo for the band, not featured on the digipack. This was to attract an element of mystery as well as mimicking real artists by having a distinct logo for fans to instantly recognise with.
To challenge the forms of videos in the ska genre, we decided to use a wide range of varied camera angles and shots to match the pace of the song. In our research, we noticed that most the videos had mainly static camera shots which didn't match the songs pace at all; this being because popular ska music was around in the 1980's where technology made it difficult for rhythm editing.