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

My media product has both challenged and followed conventions of media products of the rap genre. As is common in rap music videos there is a mix of narrative and studio time where the artist is performing solely, at first I intended to have just a narrative video. However, I believed it best to follow the conventions of the genre and to have both studio time and narrative as I felt it important that the audience see who the artist is, which helps them to build up a rapport with them. I also believed it was important to have a narrative as this gives the audience a story to follow which helps to keep them interested and to increase the impact of the lyrics.

My video – Studio & narrative shots

Chase & Status Ft. Plan B – PiecesStudio & narrative shots

Eminem – When I’m Gone

Studio & narrative shots

There are various shot types in my video which again is conventional of music videos, I wanted to make sure that the audience could see gestures and body movements made by the actor as it is rife amongst artists of this genre that they gesticulate frequently and I wanted to make sure this was the case in my video. There are also close up shots of the artist and this is not necessarily conventional of the genre. However, I felt it helped to depict the serious, depressing mood of the video as the whole point of the video is to make it have as big an impact the audience as possible.

The lighting was purposely dark which helped to link in with the aforementioned sad, depressive mood, there is a lot of shadow on the artists face which helps to create a bold, masculine image which is conventional of artists in the rap genre as their reputation is all about being seen by others as ‘alpha males’.

Close up Medium shot Side on medium shot

The rap genre is traditionally a genre of music for the young, working class male and as such the artist must dress in a certain way if he wishes to connect with this group. It was thus imperative that the artists clothing in my video must be conventional, otherwise it would not be successful in appealing to my specific target audience. To appeal to this group I had the artist dress very casually, as can be seen in the video he is wearing a hooded top, tracksuit bottoms and trainers and I feel I succeeded in portraying him to be a young, working class male.

My VideoThe Streets – Dry Your Eyes

Professional artist dressed in a casual

polo shirt, jumper, jeans & trainersMy artist dressed in a casual hooded top & tracksuit bottoms

As regards the setting and actors in the music video, I wanted to keep it quite simple as I felt this best fitted in with my target audience, over complicating things would make it less appealing to them so there were only 3 actors in the video and only 2 locations, a house and studio. The studio which is conventional of rap music videos helped to focus the attention on the artist, although the artist appears in the narrative in a minor role, the studio time helps to bring him to the forefront of the video and ensures that the attention is on him, further linking in with the ‘alpha male’ image portrayed by rap artists.

Tinchy Stryder – Game Over

My VideoEminem – Cleanin’ Out My Closet

Studio time here shown used in my video & two professional videos of the same genre

Drugs, alcohol and women are commonly mentioned and seen in videos of the rap genre however, my representation of them is completely different, I have challenged the conventions by not objectifying women but rather portraying my character to be sad about a relationship break up. Furthermore, I have shown my character to be turning to alcohol and drugs as a means of escaping his unhappy situation rather than through recreational use or by looking ‘hard’ as is the norm in rap videos; drugs and alcohol abuse is more common amongst the working class and in this sense my video portrays these problems amongst this class.

Skepta - Oynama Sikidim

Sikidim – Professional

video glorifying alcohol

and women.My Video – Shots involving

women & alcohol

Roll Deep – Green Light – Professional video of the genre shown objectifying women

My CD covers and website mostly follow the conventions for other artist’s ones of this genre as I feel if I made these vastly different to the norm it would reduce the appeal it has to my target audience. By following the conventions I feel I have created quite a professional looking website and CD covers however, not everything on these are conventional. I have edited all of the photos used on the CD covers and website and this is something which my target audience will be able to distinguish my artists material by, this helps to boost my artists own, unique brand identity and to further raise the chances of his material getting bought.

My C

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websit

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Professor Green – album front cover

N-Dubz website

Overall I feel I have both challenged and conformed to the conventions of real media products and this has worked in my favour. Where it is necessary to follow the conventions I have and where it hasn’t been necessary I have challenged them which increases the uniqueness and originality of my products, which in turn increases the chances of my products selling.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

All 3 of my media products have synergy and come together to form a cohesive media digipak. The representation of my artist was key in achieving synergy, in the video there is a negative and depressing feeling which is fuelled by the dark lighting and resulting shadow on the artists face - creating a shady image, this was then carried over into the CD covers and website with there being an overriding dark colour scheme.

The colour scheme used on the CD covers and website are the same, with there

mostly being only black, red and gold helping my audience to link the two together, furthermore the dark, bold colours link in with the masculine image portrayed by artists of the rap genre. This was backed up by my audience feedback which states the colour scheme, drug references and clothing were consistent throughout.

CD front, back & inside right covers Website

The representation of drugs in the video is aimed to show the consequences of drug use and the problems that arise because of them, this is carried over into the CD covers as one of the covers shows a table full of drugs paraphernalia, this helps the audience to draw links between the video and CD.

Inside left CD Cover – table full of drugs & drug paraphernalia

A shot from the music video – the actor is seen taking drugs

The pictures I used for my website and CD covers came from images taken from the studio time that appears in the video, this is to make sure there is obvious synergy between all 3 of these media products.

The artist is seen in the video in a hooded top and the pictures that appear on my website and CD covers clearly show him wearing the same hooded top.

CD Cover

Video

Website

Furthermore, all of the pictures used are edited and this is the same across both the CD covers and the website, helping to further show the synergy. Moreover, there is a picture of the CD cover on the website with the idea that the song can be bought through the website, also there is a link to the website on the back cover of the CD, this makes sure that the audience is aware of this artists related media products.

Edited photos

A link to the website on the back CD cover & an option to buy the album on the website

Finally another thing that was consistent was the artists logo, it can be seen on both the CD covers and website and this helps to further boost his brand identity and uniqueness, it is an instantly recognisable logo and helps the audience to link the media products together.

Front CD Cover

Website

Back CD Cover

Outside CD Cover

From the audience feedback I received it is clear that the synergy between the 3 media products is obvious and has been successful, this will help the artist to boost his brand identity and in turn will boost his chances of selling this material. However, as states there are certainly areas that I can develop further which will additionally increase the overall quality and appeal of my products.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

As already mentioned the audience feedback I received on the synergy between my three media products was very good.

Feedback on the three products separately was both positive and negative...

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CD As my target audience are young working class adults I thought it would be a good idea to

make my CD covers quite simplistic however, it seems that they came across as too simple. There is a consistent colour scheme throughout which was seen as a good thing and the colours used were very bold, masculine colours which links in with the rap genre of music. As regards the photos used the editing was viewed to be a good thing and helped to make them stand out although the range of photos used was criticised, it was said that some were boring.

I feel that the CD covers were the weakest part of my three media products, some aspects were good such as the editing of the photos and the colour scheme used however, if I were to do it again I would have a better standard of photos as the lack of a wide selection of photos made it a bit boring, I would achieve this through having a more varied collection of shot types and more locations. I would also have a more interesting design, I would put more detail onto the covers by adding more effects and designs in Photoshop such as swirls as this will help my covers to stand out more which will undoubtedly increase marketability and sales, it would draw more attention to the covers and help to catch people’s eye more.

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Website Out of all 3 of my media products I felt the website was the best and this is reflected

in my audience feedback, it was seen to be professional looking and it was said that there was a good amount of content on it, with the links to social networking sites and options to sign up to a newsletter being viewed to help create this professional image.

However, I feel that it could still be better, if I were to redo the website I would embed my music video into it to further increase the synergy between all three of my media products, this would help to further promote my artist’s material to his target audience but to also make the website of a better quality. Furthermore, there is very little writing on the website and I feel I could better describe the events and top news advertised on the website, this would make the website more useful to my target audience, by giving them more information I would increase the chances of my artist selling.

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Video The video was the most important media product of the three and overall I got good feedback for

it. The decision to stick with the conventional mix of narrative and studio worked well with people saying the mix was good and it was easy to follow the story. However, the switching between the two was sometimes an issue with some feedback stating there was too much cutting back and forth between the two which impeded the flow of the video. The lighting and clothing were seen to be other good features of the video with the lighting helping to create the dark mood which I aimed to portray to the audience and the casual clothing successfully appealed to my target audience. Furthermore, some of the shots were said to look unprofessional due to the setting and the length of them.

If I were to go back to the editing of the video I would focus on either the narrative or studio time

more than the other to overcome the constant switching between the two, this would give my video more continuity although there would still be a mixture. Moreover, I would make changes to the setting to remove some of the household objects that can be seen in the shots and cut down on the length of some shots to make my video seem that bit more professional. Furthermore to increase the professionalism of my video I would have a wider variety of shots as the ones used are slightly repetitive which in turn make the video a bit boring, increasing the selection of shots will help to capture my audiences attention more and undoubtedly raise the final quality of the video. Additionally, I would add more effects into the video to further create an impression of disorientation and confusion which would represent my character’s mindset as he continues to binge drink and take drugs.

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Upon receiving my audience feedback it became clear that

there are many things that I can improve which would help to further increase my three product’s quality. All in all I feel I created quite good products which would definitely help my artist to sell his material. The most important factor to consider is the synergy of the digipak and I believe, and my target audience believed that there was clear evidence of this which was a major reason for the positive feedback I received.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and

evaluation stages?

Throughout the pre-production, production and post-production I have used many different media technologies which have all helped to develop the quality of my three media products.

Pre-Production In the pre-production I researched my artist ‘The Streets’ official website and his fan sites

specifically Facebook and MySpace. From both of these websites I was able to see what race, sex, age and social class his fans were which defined my target audience and who I would therefore have to cater my three media products to.

The Streets MySpace pageThe Streets Facebook fan page

My target audience = young, working class adults – predominantly males

Construction Video Filming the video – For this I used a tripod and video camera, these were obvious necessities

which allowed me to capture the material for my music video. Editing the video – For this I used Adobe Final Cut Pro – from this I was able to log and

capture my rushes onto the computer, I was then able to edit them by cutting their length and by adding effects such as the fades and distortions used in my video and to construct my full music video. The capabilities of the software meant it was invaluable for developing the quality of my product and ultimately in creating a professional looking video, the effects greatly helped to improve the quality of my video and if it was not possible to use this software I would of undoubtedly created a much more basic, less effective video.

This is me in the editing suite where I used Adobe Final Cut Pro on an Apple Mac, I saved my finished video onto an external hard drive, I could watch my video on the TV next to the computer to see what it looked like.

CD & Website For the construction of my CD and website I used Adobe Photoshop CS4, this proved

extremely useful and easy to use. I was able to cut out certain bits from photos and to edit them. I had a constant theme throughout all the photos I used where I edited them using the edits ‘cutout’ and ‘poster edges’. This helped to give my CD covers and website continuity and made them more professional looking and more appealing to my target audience. Without this software the quality of my photos would have been much poorer and the overall quality of my CD covers would have greatly suffered as a result.

The original photo compared with the ‘cutout’ edit used on all of my photos.

Another piece of software used for the development of my website was Adobe DreamWeaver CS4, this allowed me to put active links onto my website so that it actually works and will take the user into different pages.

This software helped to develop the authenticity of my website, although I had designed the homepage it was only an image, DreamWeaver allowed my to put live links onto the image and turn it into a proper website which obviously helped to further develop my product and further increase the professionalism of it.

I used the hotspot tool to draw boxes around the parts of my website I wished to have as links which I then chose to go to a blank page when clicked on, which had a link returning you back to the homepage once clicked on

Post-Production Uploading my video – Obviously my video would have been useless if made and then not

uploaded, to make sure that it is able to be viewed by my target audience I uploaded it to YouTube, this allowed me to gather feedback on the video and to promote my artists material.

Gathering more feedback – To gather even more feedback I sent everyone of my target audience my completed CD covers, website and a link to my video on Facebook, they then messaged me back and told me their views on my three completed media products.

The internet was vital in me gathering feedback for my three products and was made very easy through the biggest social networking site Facebook and the biggest video uploading website Youtube. These have helped to develop my products as without them I would not have been able to collate feedback as easily, which obviously would help me to further improve my products and to make them even more appealing to my target audience.

All of these media technologies have contributed in different ways to the development of my finished media products. Each was invaluable in improving the quality of these products and without them the standard would have been much lower. It also made it easier to broadcast and gain feedback which would help to further improve them if there were a need to do so. The most important of these media technologies was definitely the internet, it is obviously vital to every business and this was no different for me, without it the quality of my products would most definitely of suffered, I would not have been able to research my artist and genre or collect feedback anywhere near as easily as I did, therefore I feel it was of the greatest benefit to me out of all of the different technologies used.