EVALUATION - QUESTION 1 - FINAL.

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

Forms and conventions are the different techniques used in different ways to create meaning in media products such as videos. They take a number of forms; technical forms include camera useage, lighting, sounds, editing and genre and symbolic ones include how the video is shot, the way the actors are used and the general mise-en-scene.

My video both uses and challenges these conventions and forms as whilst I wanted people to recognise elements of them I also wanted to make something new which might make people think and challenge some of the elements as well. 

The lyrics we used were very much a biography of the main character, it involved discussing the activities which he engaged in throughout and also in chronological order of what he did. So, for instance it starts off with all his school activities and moves onto what he does in the night-time.

"Focal point of all his peers" 

"Lovely christian boy crunching bones on the soccer team". So obviously using the idea of describing the person in question  to our advantage. Then the lyrics turn darker and we can see the other side to Justin. 

"Justin's now in front of a mirror, he's taken off his skin to reveal a life within"

"Futures in a whiskey bottle what can you do? Cocaine has got him seeing double of me and you".

From this the audience can see this will be a video with a concept used successfully many times in music videos and show the spiral of Justin's demise, but instead of it being one long steady process, it repeats itself on a daily basis. Here are a few examples:

"Jesus of Suburbia" by Green Day features a young man watch his life slowly going down the toilet as he engages in drug and alcohol use, and vandalism. All the while his Mother's and his relationship is torn apart by his behavior. This different to my narrative in that he isn't a perfect young man when he wakes up every day 

"We Found Love" by Rhianna ft. Clavin Harris shows a couple of 20-somethings going about their life from the start of the relationship to the break-up, they start off madly in love but soon the drugs and alcohol binges take over them and their relationship bringing it all crashing down around them. The video features drugs heavily and is a major narrative point, similar to my video.

"Bounce" also by Calvin Harris ft. Kelis similarly features this character's day as it progresses, though slightly differently in that his day does not necessarily go worse but we do get a look into his private life and where he lives shich we can assume in maybe his parents house but we see him in and out within a few minutes which represents perhaps a less than strong relationship with his family.  You can read an earlier full textual analysis of the video I wrote here.

Sadly neither of these examples are of a similar genre to my video, with one being heavy rock and the other being electro-pop but a good example of how this narrative can span several genres. 

The accompanying music with the video you can see that the first few shots move along with the  beat, this is to set the main rhythm for throughout the video but as we go into the verses the bass line speeds up and therefore so do the pictures and therefore so does the video itself. The verse speed throughout the song is fairly fast-paced despite the lyrical speed being much slower. This means that when we see the contrast in the speed of the chorus we can use this as an example of the contrast in Justin's life between how he is in the daytime and the night time. Also the effects used on the lead singers voice give it a shaky feel which matches into the shaking text used on the choruses.

Genre is a difficult part  of my video to define, this is because i feel that my video touches over several different genres with different aspects of each coming through in the video. But, if I were to choose the most prevalent genres I would have to go with rock and indie. 

Rock, because the chorus visuals are loud and 'in your face'; there is an idea of no frills as the white stands out plainly from the black. Also as previously mentioned the vibrato in the effects of the voice match up with the 'shaking' lyrics. 

Indie, I would have to say is not because of how the video was made but actually the concept of the video and the fact that it (the idea of pictures telling a story in a music video)  is rarely done. 

The use of camerawork within the music video is limited by the fact that all of the images comprise either items added in post-production using final cut express or that the majority of my shots are in fact still taken from a camera. But within these stills the overall effect is raw and 'unpolished', again this is to create the effect of realism and to take away the ideas of 'fakeness' and acting. This allows the majority of viewers and fans (who I assume are not all actors) to relate to the people in the video and using the camera angles as a POV (point of view) perspective in order to make them feel as if they are there experiencing life with us. 

The concept of intertextuality wasn't really thought over as a large part of my video. I decided to try and be as original as possible. But as with anything the idea that no-one else has done it before or that it is completely original is usually very rare. So when I came to the end of my video I found that my story is similar to two other stories. Despite the different years in which they occurred and the different sub-texts they are very similar. The first is the story of Jekyll and Hyde, the story of a normal gentle scientist respected in society transforming into this unrecognisable murderous beast in the nighttime. 

The second is much more relateable to music lovers and maybe people that haven't read the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and this is the video concept for Chase and Status's 'Let You Go'.   During the night-time turns into someone who does what he spends his days chastising people for. This includes alcoholism, drugs, sleeping with married women and prostitutes. 

Their video shows the life of a Jeremy Kyle-esque presenter who during the day attempts to 'fix' people's lives or judges them...

for doing drugs...

for cheating...

and alcoholism.

This shot shows him at his lowest point of the night, when he is at his worst.

And here he is, in the exact same position and therefore representing him feeling the same way he did last night,on the next morning ready to do it all over again.


















One thing to remember about both of these stories is that while Mr Hyde was a disgraceful being that committed atrocities he in fact had no choice to be what he was as it was out of his control. Whereas 'Jeremy Kyle' from Chase and Status is completely autonomous in his action. He chooses to behave the way he does. This links into my video as I feel my main character is in  fact I believe in the middle of these two, while my character does have the choice to be who he wants to be it is described in the song that he lives in a trailer with his alcoholic, addict father while his mother is away selling herself in Vegas so it is difficult to justify completely blaming Justin's actions upon him alone while not also incorporating his environment. 

My digipak was firstly based around the idea of our video taking place in America. I decided this not only because it tied in but also because I had recently been on a trip to New York and therefore would be able to create a piece of completely original work not using pictures that anybody else had taken. The layout of my digipak is a subtle homage to the American flag in that there is a separation between where the stars and stripes would be. The entire image itself was created on Photoshop - the pictures which are shown on the front cover represent a typical day in the life of my character. This is because at the top of the page the pictures are small and hard to get any detail from but as it progresses down the page the pictures start to become larger and therefor clearer and start to include daytime shots rather than just nighttime. My main image is made up of the sunset and consequently the silhouette of a boy around the age of Justin who is supposedly the main character (the audience may not realise who the main character is at this point). With this image using photoshop I adjusted the contrast of certain colours in this image (in this particular case, the sun) to emphasise the colour and give it an explosion-like quality emphasising how Justin is a 'ticking time bomb'. 

I have created a band logo which features prominently throughout the digipak and the magazine ad. It contains the two most occurring colours in the digipack and is also what I based my magazine ad. around.  By using all the same colours throughout I have created a strong brand identity, something which distributors and merchandisers can appreciate and that fans can recognise and relate to. I decided as it was a 'debut' that I would create a logo for the song itself therefore as the song is called Layers I chose a font and simply made five  different copies and placed them over each other and changed each of the layers' colours to both the American flag, red, white and blue, and the bands' shade of yellow and black.

I then repeated the band and song logo on the spine of the digipak. I used this approach as I had seen it done on previous signed band's CD's and thought I would take that influence and use it in my own creation. The reverse of the digipak is the same image as the front but the wording is replaced with band members, songs,  web addresses etc. All of these are still compliant with the band's logo colour. 

The inside of the digipak is simply a picture of both of the artists. At first I just chose the pictures which are in use at the moment as models for where the actual pictures would and for what the actual pictures would look like. But I have decided that over the past week I have grown fond of them as they represent the artists well as they were taken for the purpose of education (College photos) and therefore were to be used in real-life scenarios plainly adding realism. Either side of those pictures are obviously the two band colours, red and black. 

This was also created on photoshop and the whole idea of it was based around the band colours and the two pictures in the digipak. After studying many various signed band advertisements I discovered that most used a mix of starred ratings and simple quotes from articles and reviews. So I decided to incorporate this idea. I had to clearly emphasise the idea that it was a debut and did that through the quote from the 'magazine article'. One of the other important things to think about when coming up with an artificial quote is the source of the quote and whether it is in-keeping with the genre of music. For instance 'Kerrang' is a mostly rock-based magazine and would not do a front-cover and/or heavily feature Britney Spears. I decided to go with three average magazines that would cover most of the music genres which were 'Q' , Mojo, and NME. This highlights my music quite well and captures the tone. 

The poster also features all of the 'legal' details such as copyright notices and band web addresses that the digipak also features. Lastly I included an itunes logo as an advert of where to purchase the song. I also changed the font colour and the logo colour of Apple to co-incide with my band's logo colours. 

In relation to the video I wish I had had the foresight to perhaps save more time for shooting in case the first shoot didn't go as well as planned (which was in fact the case) so overall I was less happy with my music video than I could have been. Also due to some unforseen circumstances within my team but I cannot solely lay the blame here. 

In relation to my digipak and magazine advert I couldn't have been happier, as all the elements came together well. The idea of band logo colours protruding through all areas and the speed at which it was completed and for the quality of which I achieved was great.