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

I chose to create a music video with the addition of a poster and a CD digipack. I initially wanted to construct a website but I found that this would be too much of challenge as I would have to learn very difficult skills in a short space of time to complete the course on time. I created a video for my band; Back to Basics' song "Good".  A poster to promote CD's release was constructed as a CD digipack  for the single release of the song.

Music Video 

Before I started constructing the product I considered what audience I wanted to hit. I chose the indie market as this was the style of song that I chose. I chose to attract my audience by using a very conventional video. Indie music video's typically feature all members of the band as actor's or performers; as a benchmark, the band Oasis feature in everyone of the music video that they produced in either of these roles. My band members fill the role of the performers in this video because this is the most common form indie video's take.

I, as the constructor of this product want to create a performance music video that was quite experimental in it's construct; like Blue Monday by the band New Order. I deconstructed this video during my research and evaluation but took no inspiration from it as my mind had been changed. My vision was changed when I did a survey on my blog which told me the audience wanted a narrative piece. A narrative featured in the product just like a performance did. In the indie genre there are a lot of these type of videos.

Indie music video's tend to be fast paced to match the pace of the music. I feel that I have matched this convention because my song is of the fast nature. A mixed range of shots is quite common in a music video; it is done to show diversity and maintain interest in the video. I have used two main types of shots; close ups and wide shot. To many people it is conventional for video's of my genre to be black and white; I chose to subvert this convention because I feel that it would of hindered the quality of the video. It another convention that the band is often dressed in casual clothing; so it is rare that formal dress codes are a present, I have stuck to this convention so that my target audience to relate to the video; as they would dress very similar.

My video appeals to the audience because I have tried to make the characters in the video look like members of the audience I have tried to do this by the way that they look, dress and they behave. The audience was, mainly for, middle class teens who have an interest in all things independent but still enjoy the pleasures of the major industries. I feel that this audience has been met due to both band members been clothed well, looking clean and being wealthy enough to afford instruments to be in a band.

 CD Digipack

Having constructed a convention music video I chose to create a rather unconventional CD digipack; unconventional within the genre. It is conventional in the indie genre to have one main image on the CD sleeve but this was not the case because I chose to make my sleeve text based. No single image is present of the front of the album. Notable example which follow the single image convention are;

 

In a move that I also deem controversial I have allowed the bands song name take prescient over the band

name. This is not often done in either the CD single or album market because it is often considered that the artist is more important than the song but in my eyes it is the song you are promoting via a CD single release and not the band. This is my reasoning for doing this. I have used the limited colour palette convention because I feel that if I did not follow this it would look messy and visually un-appealing.

I have continued the text based inside the sleeve. This conventional notion; continuing the theme of the front into the inside. I have included the lyrics to the song in question inside the sleeve so that people can learn them and because it is conventional. I have chosen to make some sections of my digipack more conventional than others so that the sleeve doesn't look completely alien to my target audience. It is considered common to have a behind the scenes image in sleeves like mine so that's why I have included an image of my drum kit and guitar to make the audience feel like they are looking into behind the scenes.

 
The back of my CD digi-pak is very unconventional. I have featured all of the songs that feature on my CD EP but as far as conventions go that's about it. I have included recording credits on the back; these are normally reserved for the inner/sleeve notes of a release. I have included limited details about the record companies because one of my inspirational texts did do this.I have chosen to use synergy in my product; on my CD sleeve I have advertised the album that the song is on; this used to be common practise on CD/Record sleeves and now it is not so common so I have decided to bring it back to my design because I feel that it is an effective way of cross platform advertising. A barcode has not been placed on my digipak for the reason that it is not a requirement for every design to have and also I feel ruins the whole look and feel of the product.

I feel that the audience for my product will be attracted to it because of it's design work. I have made the colour scheme a very accessible but vague style; in the sense that could attract my audience as well as others because these colours could be applied to any product. The style of the product is unique and throughout history innovative designs/ unusual design have often triumphed; it is an innovative design because as similar design does not exist in the music world. The innovation also comes from the inclusion of art in the sleeve. The piece is inspired by the work of Robert Indiana who was a 60's pop artist and people may buy it to see this piece of work.

Poster

 This poster is quite a conventional poster. It continues the theme of the single cover onto the poster. This is conventional for every album and poster combo.Below you can see two recent examples;

 Promotion posters often contain the release date of the album/single that the band is promoting. My poster has one main image present on it. It is this that is the main focus for the poster; throughout my research into posters of nature I have found that this is a very conventional thing to do. I have on my poster unconventional features too; the biggest piece of text on my poster is the name of the song and not the artist. It is often considered that the artist is more important than the song but when it is the song you are selling and not the artist this fact should be turned on it's head. I have not included a record company logo for a very similar reason as my digipack; it is not about who produces it, its the song itself that's important. Locations of where you can purchase this CD release have not been placed on this poster due to the fact there is the assumption that the target audience will understand where to get it from. In my initial poster designs, I did include the conventional reviews of the song but found that they ruined the feel and design work of the overall poster.

Above is a montage of all four of my early poster designs.

The final poster will attract audiences to it through it's use of retro photography; recently people who consider themselves "Indie" have enjoyed using an application called "Instagram" that allows you to apply a filter to your photo's to make them look older than they are. They will see the imagery and relate to it as they know how it is produced. They will be attracted to it because of the generously bright colours present; it is often noted the people are drawn visually to thing that are brightly coloured. It is also often the inquizzitive nature of my audience to check things out that they see on the street or on a poster. 

The Real World 

I have uploaded two photo's of my pieces in the real world context to my Flickr account; http://www.flickr.com/photos/95237150@N05/sets/72157633355771360/