evaluation - question one

EVALUATION - Q1

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

The main influences in the process of making my music video and advert was defiantly Coldplay, as well as other British male artists and bands such as James Blunt, Take That, Stereophonics and The Verve, who make music similar to my brand, Keith Tyler. The genre of music is the main link between all these artists; contemporary pop/rock. My two main influences and where I gained the most inspiration is James Blunt's Goodbye My Lover and The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony.
James Blunt

The narrative of this music video is what influenced my video to add a girl in the story. I didn't make it a typical cheesy 'love story' where the boy and girl run into each other and instantly fall in love, instead I slightly challenged the conventions of the genre of video and made two separate story lines, allowing them both to meet in a more classy way, using the slow motion effect to add a sense of intimacy. Also, by giving the female a main storyline challenges the conventions of the genre as women usually play a less significant role, and are usually seen as the 'lover' or the 'girlfriend' on the side.

The Verve

This video was highly influential when planning my video and advert mainly because of the outfit and style (costume). The conventional all black leather jacket, popular with contemporary pop rock artists, basic black top and bottoms. Also, the walking scene and camerawork, which was all shot with a hand held camera, like in this video. 

Screenshots

Here are screen shot images; one from The Verve's video and the other from my video. Both shots are taking with a handheld camera filming someone whilst they walk down a London busy road. Richard Ashcroft (leader of The Verve) on Hoxton road, me on Oxford Street. 

Digipak
After researching existing contemporary pop/rock genre digipaks and adverts, I had a clear image of how I wanted the end products to look. One of the main features I learnt about this genre was that images of the brand generally were not part of the front of the digipak, nor were they on the advert. Instead, were graphical shapes, instruments etc. I decided that I would use it in my work, but realised that unlike Take That and Coldplay who are already big names, Keith Tyler (my brand) was an upcoming artist who wasn't famous or well known. For this reason, I decided not to go with graphics on the front cover, and used a nice, clear mid/close up of Keith with a guitar by his face to add a touch of pop/rock. 

Robbie Williams front cover

My front cover

It took me a while to find an example of an artist of this genre with no artwork or graphics, but Robbie Williams has numerous mid/close ups of himself as CD front cover image.  

Advert

For my advert, I wanted to challenge the conventional image and 'rule of thirds' for composition. I decided to incorporate the guitar that I used throughout the digipak, as the big main image and placed it on the right-hand side of the advert. However, I did also include the front cover image of my digipak with 'OUT NOW' below as a direct link to both my ancillary products and so that the audience can be aware of who is being advertised (Keith Tyler) to promote and sell the new artist. Below is an example of James Blunt's Chasing Time advert, where he is pictured in a greyscale effect with a guitar, similarly to my advert.

My advert

James Blunt's advert

Apart from this, I included all the necessary conventional features on both the digipak and the advert, such as keeping the house style font/text consistent, using a maximum of three colours, using clear in focus unstretched images and adding logos, barcode, copyright, title and the artist's name.