In what ways does your media project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media projects
- 3. When researching, we looked at multiple artists being Adele, Sam Smith and Bruno Mars, we looked at these artists as their genre is the same as ours being indie-pop. From these artists we looked at the common codes and conventions that there videos contained. We noticed that the most common shot type was a mid-shot as we tallied the types of shots and how many times they were used. We replicated this in our own music video as it relates to the conventions of our genre, this can be seen with screenshot 4. We did this for the majority of shots as it encapsulates the emotions our artist is going through and portrays them to the audience. We did however go against this convention as we used shot types that were not present in our research such as an aerial shot which can be seen in screenshot 5.
- 4. Secondly, from our research, we learned that songs of this genre usually contain a love story. This is seen with Sam Smiths “I Know I’m Not The Only One”, because of this, we contained a love story element which is the driving force behind our artists sadness. This can be seen in screenshot 3 which goes with the conventions of our genre. Furthermore, from our research we learned that most music videos of this genre have a unique introduction before the song starts. We noticed this from George Ezra’s song "Blame It On Me" which has a man asking the artist a question before he begins to sing. We incorporated a similar style into our video and developed it as the video opens with a black screen rather than opening straight away with the performance which can be seen with screenshot 1, after this, the audience can see the artist sitting in a dark room and then the lights turning on just before the singing begins. We did this as it shows how no one is listening to the artist and how it emphasises his loneliness at this time.
- 5. One way in which our music video challenges the codes and conventions of real media projects can be seen in our film as we do not have any scene that is out of the blue and outlandish. Most music videos of this genre has the artist in a surreal setting which can be seen with Bruno Mars song "When I Was Your Man" . In this video, the artist is seen singing within a vacant warehouse scattered with paint cans. Further on in the video he has a microphone on a bridge and is singing in public. These are both surreal shots as they do not make any logical sense and contrast against the rest of the video. We decided not to have this in our video as we did not feel it implemented well into the song. Instead we decided to use more visual representations with our shots such as the artist seeking redemption in the church (screenshot 4) as we felt this fit better with the theme of our song whereas the audience watching the song may have of expected a scene that was unique in comparison to the rest of the video.
- 6. Our digipak and website follow the conventions of ones in this genre in many ways. The cover of the digipak (screenshot 6) has the artists face on it, something that we learned from our artist research such as Adele’s covers. We developed this as we had white space on the cover as not all covers have the artists face on it, which can be seen with Ed Sheeran’s Plus album, who is in the same genre as this song. The digipak has images of instruments on the panels, something that is common in this genre. There are credits contained in the digipak to people who contributed to the album, we did this as it was common in digipaks of our genre. We also contained all of the information contained on the back of digipaks to make it look authentic. We challenged the conventions as we had the artists face on the back cover rather than a plain black panel, something that we noticed was common with albums in this genre. Our website contains many of the conventions of artist websites. Firstly we have a splash screen before people enter the site (screenshot 8) promoting the album, something we ascertained from research on artists such as Adele and Sam Smith. We have a merchandise page (screenshot 9), something that most artists in this genre have to promote themselves with a logo on them to distinguish them. There is a forum page which we learned was common in artist websites which allowed fans to communicate with each other. We had a lyrics page containing the lyrics of the songs that are on our album, we did this as it was present on Ed Sheeran's page. We also had information on tickets for an upcoming concert, which was present in all the websites we researched. We contained a small biography about our artist so consumers were able to learn more about our artist. We were also able to contain a big issue magazine (screenshot 7) in our website which we made in order to promote the artist, we learned how and why to do this from music magazines that promote up coming artists.
- 7. One way we challenged the conventions of the digipak is that we did not include a removable booklet. This was common in certain digipaks and included different information such as special thanks to family or the record company, lyrics to the songs or the names of the songs. We opted not to include this as the design of our digipak was intended to be simple in order to focus on the artist. However, we did develop this ideology and contain a credits section on an extra panel of the digipak. We did this as it fit more with the aesthetics of our digipak. One way in which we went against the conventions of the website is that we did not have a photos tab. We noticed that on certain artists websites such as Ed Sheeran’s site contain a section dedicated to photos of the artist amongst his fans. We opted not to do this as our artist has not been fully established meaning he may not of been recognised by a large quantity of people. We decided to include a forums page instead. This includes a chat room for his fans to communicate to each other with about the artist. We decided to include this as we wanted to develop on the way fans talk to each other.