Question 1: In what way does
your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
For our A2 coursework we
created a music promo, a CD digipak and a magazine advert using a song from an
unsigned band and used our knowledge on music promos to create each of these tasks.
We made sure that we did lots of research on the band including the genre of
the band which was acoustic folk when we were creating our promo, digipak and
advert. This is because when we wanted to create our promo, digipak and advert
as we wanted to portray both the band and genre correctly when discussing our
ideas and themes.
Each of the three
elements has different purposes to each other. For example:
A digipak is a patented style
of CD, DVD or BD packaging. Digipaks are often limited additions are more of a
collector’s item for those who really want something special. They are usually
made of cardboard with 4, 6 or 8 panels which usually include picture of the
band or artist as well as other components like lyric sheets, posters and the
bands/artists tour dates and places. Digipaks are usually used to market the
band or artist and their music to a wide range audience by using this special
addition album. Digipaks need to have an aesthetic value that appeals to the
audience or else they won’t be successful. The picture below is of the typical
layout you would see for a digipak.
This is only a four panel digipak plan. We
created a 6 panel one but as you can see on the plan of the four panel one that
it has to be very accurate.
You can see this example of a digipak is being
used to advertise and represent the artist in a common way which is using a
picture of the artist on the cover.
Promos are made to
promote the song or artist through using a visual demonstration of a particular
song. It is used in every single genre for solo artists and bands as well. Some
examples of promo's are:
Promos are used on different
music programs and sometimes as little adverts on the TV but only short clips
of them. Mainly they are used on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and Twitter which is
only the online uses. On music channels they are used on MTV, Vevo and other
ones too. This is because these are the types of media which have the largest
audience so it is the best way to promote an artist by creating a video that
will entice people to buy the artists song/album.
When it came to choosing our song I went to http://www.bestofbritishunsigned.com/ to find a band. I found the band called ‘Sound of the Sirens’ and
proposed them to the group and we all liked their song ‘The night before’ and
instantly came up with ideas to do for the music promo. We emailed the band and
they agreed for us to use their song.
This is their song from
their website:
The genre of our chosen
band is folk. We started to look at bands that were folk and found a few like
Passenger, Birdy, The Pierces and Gabrielle Aplin, which we looked at their
promos. We found that they looked fairly similar so it gave us an idea of what the
folk music conventions are so we could apply it to our promo such as lighting,
shots and props.
These shots are from Beyoncé’s music promo
‘single ladies’.
These are the types of
shots that are seen in all music videos of all types of genres. In some genres
they are used more often than others, so when we researched our folk genre we
looked at videos that were the same genre and looked at the types of shots used
most in the videos and used the information in our own video.
This is a long shot from our music promo. Long shots are used in all
videos no matter what the genre to set the scene for the video but also to show
location. This is because it helps determine the genre of video as if it is on
stage it will probably be a rock promo as they are normally associated with
each other were as a pop promo would have a more elaborate location.
This is a close up shot
from our promo. This shot is also seen in all videos as it is a typical shot to
show something important in either the performance or narrative. This type of
shot doesn't always determine the genre of video.
This is an extreme long
shot from our promo. It is usually orientated with locational shots or crowd
shots if you were to include them in your video. It is usually seen in folk
music videos when there is a type of performance on stage as it shows the
location, audience and artist/s.
Different genres of music promos use shot which
are associated with that genre. For example in an acoustic video there would be
a lot a long wide shots so that you can see the whole of the band or artist but
also if they are playing an instrument that it is included in the promo. You
would also expect slow paced editing with some close ups of the singing or the
instrument being played. Whereas in a rock video you see more quick paced
editing with lots of close ups. You can see this difference in every type of
genre.
Music promos are expected to show a lot of
energy through editing and mise-en-scene depending on the genre. The shots have
to keep in time with the structure of the song, to make sure that the narrative
or performance works well with the song/music. Straight cuts are usually used
to show the pace of the music video as it is how fast the clips are shown. This
also depends on genre as if it is fast paced it is more likely a pop or rock
music video whereas if it is slower than it is more likely to be acoustic or
folk. Close up shots are seen more than others to try to show the main point of
focus on the performer or band. It give the audience a sense of being closer to
the performer or band so it makes them feel included in the video so it appeals
to them more. The mise-en-scenes in most music promos can vary depending on the
type of genre that they are made from, they vary in the locations and the props
used to create different effects.
Some conventions of a pop/dance video are:
Some conventions of a
pop/country video are:
This video by Coldplay.
It is a video which breaks some of the usual conventions seen in music promos.
This is due to the entire video being in reverse. It is unconventional as they
have taken away from the idea that the artist is easily lip syncing the words
so giving it a sense of the artist being challenge. It creates a more
interesting and thought provoking video, as the main concept is amplified from
a single message in the song. It is a great video to look at in terms of an
unconventional Britpop, alternative rock band.
Our influences were all
mixed together when we were doing our music promo. For example:
This song is also similar to our chosen one as
it is also folk. You can see this from the use of instruments which you would
normally see in folk music videos but also the performance of the artist as
well as the song. All of the concepts are very important to make a successful
folk music video and this video has it all. The video is very catchy and has a
good beat, like our song, which is important as from talking to people that is
what people expect from a folk music video. The key conventions in this video
are camerawork, editing, mise-en-scene, narrative and performance. This is
because each element put together creates a structure of this particular video.
For instance the camerawork is an important key in the video as the shots
determine the location which helps to show the genre of the video but also the
theme of it as if there was a shot of a couple then you know it is either going
to be a song about a relationship or a break up so you would associate it with
either folk or pop. Mise-en-scene helps to show the important factors like
actors, props and lighting. This helps to determine the video as if it was dark
lighting then you would think it was a rock video or a scream video as they are
closely associated with each other. Editing is important as it sets the pace of
the video, usually the shots are matched to the pace so if it is a fast pace
then it could be a rock video and if it is slow then it could be a folk or pop
video. Narrative and performance are important as they both are used to tell
the story that the lyrics are trying to say as well as to show off the artist
or band in a way that will appeal to an audience.
All of this helped my group with ideas for our music video as it gave us
an idea of what we needed to achieve to make a successful video and to make
sure the song and the band is shown in the right way so that it can show the
qualities of them. We also took
inspiration from a band called ‘The Pierces’. This band is similar to our
chosen one but also there video ‘Glorious’ gave us the most inspiration which
we took one board. So some of the shots in our video match some in their video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8uc7c0HZuc&list=PL7F557EC223D11B5D
We kept quite a conventional
view on the showing of our performers and the performance part of the promo. As
seen in many folk music promos like Passenger’s song ‘Let Her Go’, we showed
the performers playing the guitars, as the track is guitar based so it would
have looked weird if the performers were just stood there but it also showed
their connection with the music. We had equal amounts of performance and
narrative in our video as we wanted to show that while the main performer is
singing she is thinking about why she wrote that song and then it goes into the
narrative to show what the song is about. We did this as it helped to show some
of the emotions and story behind the track. This is conventional for the folk
genre as in promos there is normally a narrative and performance conveying
emotion through the performance which is then shown by the narrative.
We did this as it was more interesting as well as clever
as the quick paced editing made the flashes of the shots look better than one
long shot. This is conventional with the folk genre as in folk promos the
editing pace always matches the speed of the song being sung so if it is being
sung quickly the pace of the editing speeds up and vice versa.
Because folk songs are usually
about relationships I came up with the idea for the narrative that there is a
couple fighting because of jealousy and when the female character walks out of
the room she goes to a totally different place. I called it the Narnia effect.
I took inspiration from the film Narnia aspect of there being two worlds, one
happy and one not so happy, so I thought that in the video we could show this
through using effects and film as well as pictures to show the two different
worlds. When I pitched my idea to the group they all liked it and we started to
interlink performance into the narrative and created our shot list and
storyboard still keeping the folk genre in mind. (The pictures below are of
part of the storyboard).
We decided as a group to use disjuncture in our
music promo. Disjuncture is the idea of basically completely ignoring the
song’s meaning or concept completely and instead, create a whole new set of
meanings or images that can be put to the song, a perfect example of this would
be ‘Can’t stop’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We decided to use this but only
in our performance as it would make it more appealing to our target audience
which is the teenage to young adults as this is the type of age that would
listen to this type of genre due to ‘Passenger’. But our promo is more
amplification which is conventional for a folk promo as most promos that I had
looked at set their narrative to match their lyrics, which is amplification.
When we were choosing the location for our music
promo narrative we looked at other folk music promos for inspiration. In
Gabrielle Aplin’s song ‘Please don’t say you love me’ it is her and another
actor driving through the country side. The folk genre is associated with the
country side so we thought to use something like a field or the woods because
it went with our theme of the two worlds because the female actor is now free
of an unhappy relationship. We started to look at different locations and came
up with a few but we chose to use Shillingthorpe Park. When we got the location
we knew it was a perfect location as it fitted our genre and our theme for our
promo.
When we were picking our costumes we thought
about using folk associated clothes in the narrative but in the performance we
wanted to use the disjuncture theme so we thought of using costumes you would
more see in a pop promo rather than a folk promo though they still had a little
folk in them still.
The costumes that we
chose are like ones you would see in folk music videos. Here are some examples:
This is an analysis of shots from our promo.
This is an analysis of Gabrielle Aplin’s promo
‘Panic cord’.
After analysing both my promo
and Gabrielle Aplin’s promo I found that they have similar themes as well as
similar shots. They both fit the folk genre due to the use of conventions that
you would typically see in folk promos. For example in both the promos there is
a theme of relationships showing both the good and bad. They have similar shots
in terms of using a lot of mid-shots and close ups to show details or important
aspects of the narrative. The performance in both of the promos are simple with
the use of guitars to match the track but also so the artists appeal to the
audience.
When I was designing the digipak
I looked at other digipaks for inspiration and found Gabrielle Aplin’s digipak
for her ‘Ghosts’ album as she is a similar genre to our band.
This is the conventional layout
as digipaks usually include 4 to 8 panels. When I looked at other folk genre
digipaks I found that they usually have 6 rather than more or less. The content
is important in a digipak as it has to have a theme that runs throughout the
whole digipak. All of the panels go well together and keeps with one theme
rather than having random pictures put together in a random order. There are
simple colours used for the text and the background on some parts. The black
and white theme gives the impression of age or memories; it is simple and gives
the album a sleek and defined look. The panels that include pictures of her
have hidden her face which is breaking the usual conventions because she is
hidden. It gives the album a mysterious feeling but also it is an intriguing
tactic to get the audience interested. But I also think that her face is hidden
because she wants her audience to just focus on her music rather than her looks
which is what happens a lot in the music industry. This digipak helped us when
we were designing ours.
This is our final digipak. It is six panels and five of the six are our
own pictures which I took myself and edited using Pixlr online. When we were
deciding which pictures to use we made sure that they all were similar. We also
decided to use the logo of the actual band as we thought that we should
incorporate them in it in some way.
Another thing that we
could exhibit our video on is npr music channel online (http://www.npr.org/music/?sc=gaw&gclid=CP-G8fjXubsCFaXMtAoddjoARw#). It is a new online music channel which you can
choose the genre of music you would want to listen to and folk music is one of
the included genres. It is effective as it is a more specific site which you
can chose the type of music you want to listen to rather than it already been
chosen for you by a more general music channel. 
