Q1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For this task we had make the promotional material for an album release. We had to promote a music video for a song of our choice as well as a digipak and magazine advert; the music video was to be done for a single. The digipak is used to display the CD and information on the band - this is often a special edition of the single. They are usually make of cardboard with 4,6 or 8 panels which usually include pictures of the band or artist as well as other components like lyric sheets, posters and the bands tour dates and places. The magazine advert is used to promote the artist in magazines of the genre so that people who like that genre can know about the release of the promo. Here is the Arctic Monkey’s digipak for their album Favourite Worst Nightmare, and is showing special information and pics of the band. This is done for digipaks as it’s a collector’s item and includes more info than a normal album.

A music promo is a video that is used for promotional purposes for the band. They are sent out to music video stations and the press so they can get views on YouTube/music video station s and sales for the digipak etc.  If a video is fun or different to watch then it will be watched many times (repeatability) on the TV/internet therefore getting more attention. A promo is basically the main part of the promo package (adverts, album cover etc.) and is used to get attention from press and record labels as well as being a visual representation of the song so people know what the song means or what the artist is trying to convey. Music promos can be viewed on many places such as YouTube, MTV and 4music (music TV channels). Social media can also be used as a platform as the video can be posted on their Facebook page as well as a link on Twitter pages. This also brings in more views from other audiences giving it more attention.  Although throughout the years people tend to view them on YouTube more than on the television. This is due to the increase in technology/computers which has also changed the consumption and exhibition of music promo. Music promos are consumed through app stores now (Windows store, App store, Amazon apps) and are also exhibited through pre-orders etc. Also iTunes has made it easy to download songs and also music videos on your phone/iPod/iPad. This makes the video seen by more as its on portable devices so can be show to many.

As our video is a hybrid of genres we had to take into account both genres in our video and follow/challenge these conventions of both.

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As there is many genres in music this can change the style of music video, for example pop promos have a OTT setting and fast editing, while country has checked shirts and slow editing & with more focus and performance. For our band they were Indie/Alternative so we looked into the elements of this genre. Whereas in pop/hip-hop the costumes, setting, location and narrative are very grand, in Indie/Alternative these elements are very simple and plain. The costumes are natural and very realistic, the same with make-up. The locations are again very real and the performance is more focused on then narrative. One example of an Indie/Alternative music video is Arctic Monkeys ‘R U Mine?’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQH8ZTgna3Q)

Although not all bands of this genre stick to these conventions and they sometimes can be broken or changed which is unconventional. One example of band/song which doesn't stick to these elements is The Maccabees ‘Precious Time’ as it includes stop-motion and is OTT. Stop-motion is not conventional for the genre and breaks our genre conventions. We decided to include this in ours as it’s different and breaks conventions.

In our video we are going to take inspirations from Vance Joy as they literally interpret it. We will use this in ours as we will take the word heartbreak and literally show it e.g. hearts breaking etc.  As this video is like our genre we will use this convention in ours to make it conventional.

In the Bjork 'Human Behaviour' video she uses very arty scenes and objects. The video is also very weird and unique. This is disjuncture and is what we tried to include in ours as we had some arty scenes. This will inspire us as we will do an arty video that is visually appealing and also a little bit weird so people watch it a lot.

Two theorists who apply to our promo in terms of genre are Knight and Allen whose theories speak about how genre can affect the way we think about a song and what we get out of it. For example Allen said that ‘To make any sense of any text audiences require ‘cultural capital’ i.e. they bring their knowledge and experience of a text in order to understand it’. The knowledge we will bring is from other Indie/Alternative promos and uses them for ours and their themes.  This means we are going to make our own meanings of the song/ genre.

With this video/song this theory links as when watching it we add our own meaning to the song and we take our own interpretation. For some it can mean that the song is about a bad friendship or a relationship. While other might think it’s about the start of a new relationship. Also as the genre is Indie/Alternative the common themes are heartbreak.

Also Knight's theory says 'Genre may offer various emotional pleasures, such as empathy and escapism. We enjoy identifying with the characters and imaging ourselves living out their experiences'. This means we fit ourselves into the song/video and empathise to them & what they feel (e.g. loss of friend).

With this video/song this theory links as when watching it you see the meaning in it and take it into your own e.g. the heart painting is an expression of the girls feelings towards someone.
 

We took influence from many digipak covers and magazine adverts for our own. For our magazine advert we took inspiration from The Manic Street Preachers and Elbow. We took the layout from TMSP’s advert as it was simplistic but worked and showed all key details. Elbow’s was painted and was a drawing so we thought this would look good for ours and fits with the video as the theme was painting. The conventional magazine advert for our genre is quite simplistic and includes the key details e.g. band name, name of single and a rating from a magazine. For the digipak we looked at Arcade Fire’s front cover as they painted theirs as well and are our genre. We also looked at the Arctic Monkeys digipak which includes the lyrics, info on the band and credits. This is conventional so we followed this so ours is of our genre. We wanted to keep a theme within our ancillaries as it will keep a certain look to it all.
 

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