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

Music Video

Firstly I feel it important to put links of all the music videos that I am going to be talking about in this evaluation.

Here is the link for the music video that we made, the video is for a unsigned band called "The Riot Tapes" the song is called "Open Eyed Dreams" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zULywxeQn0

Here is a link for the band "Green Day" and their music video for their song "When September ends" This is the first example of a real media product that I shall be comparing to the music video that I made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU9JoFKlaZ0

Finally here is a link to another music video that I feel is similar to our one in terms of the genre of the song and the aspects that make the music video, like the storyline characters and pace of editing. The band I have picked for this song is called paramour and song is called 'The Only Exception" Which is then second example of a real media product that I shall be comparing to the music video that I made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7J_IWUhls

In the media that myself and Chris created I feel that there are similarities with existing media texts. However, of course, there are also slight differences that can be drawn between the texts.

To start with there are too music videos from music of a similar genre which are very similar to that of our music video. They are similar in a number of ways including Mise En Scene, narrative and other aspects such as the genre of the music among other aspects as well.

The two music videos of the same genre which I feel are similar to our music videos would be the videos for the songs called: When September ends by Green Day; the only exception by Paramore.

Similarities between our music video and the music video for ‘When September Ends’

Starting with the music video for when September ends. When I watched this music video the first thing that seemed to be very similar to our music video was the fact that it is a narrative based music video with minimal performance in it, this is very similar to ours, Furthermore similar aspects of the story line and narrative of this music video were also very similar to our music Video. To start with the plot involved one female character

and one male character just like ours, the two character are close and in both videos the male character goes away for various reasons leaving the female character alone and isolated, in our video the male character disappears completely leaving the female character alone and upset, in the music video for the band Green Day the male character leaves to go to war and the female character feels the same feeling of isolation and sadness that the female character in our music video feels and portrays. Another area that I can draw a comparison with between our music video and that of Green Day is the Mise En Scene, in particular the clothing used, I believe that the clothing used in both videos has been used to show the youth of the characters and apparent carefree attitude they have at the beginning of both media texts. The clothing is very similar as both media texts show the characters wearing cloths aimed at younger generations, in our music video our female character is wearing casual clothing in terms of a very youthful while our male character is wearing a hoodie, which particularly in England is seen as a youthful thing to wear, as many youths in British youth Culture wear hoodies. Also some of the camera shots are similar in our music video as in Green days. Also there is a similarity between the music videos in terms of Mise En Scene, and for me locations of some of the shots are very similar and by this I mean there has been a mixture of inside to outside shots used to, we did this to show the contrast between the safety of being inside when you are with someone however the contrast how lonely it can be and almost feel enclosing when you are on your own.

Differences between our music video and the music video for ‘When September Ends’

There are however some difference to our music videos, the most notable one being that although both videos have strong elements and seemed to based around narrative there is a certain amount of performance in the Green Day video as you see the band performing the song in little snippets, this seems to be the biggest difference between our music video that of a existing singed band of a similar genre. There is also the difference in that of the clothing but I feel that is just because of the seasons on show in either video in our they are wearing warmer cloths such as coats and multiple layers because it is winter and in Green Days video since it is summer they are wearing much lighter clothing and very few layers to symbolise this, i can see this has the only difference when it comes to costumes between the two media texts. However there are a few other differences which can be noted. For example there is what I see as, a major difference in the storyline. In our music video the male character is meant to be portrayed in a mysterious way so the audience is not meant to completely understand as to whether he is real and has just left our female character, or if he never actually existed in the first place and was imagine by our female character to try and combat her loneliness, while the character in Green Days

music video is much more likely to be representing a real character. If this were the case that these two music videos, although sharing a very similar narrative, have one major difference in the narrative as the whole concept hinges upon whether the male character exists or not. As if the male characters do not exist that leaves rather major connotations for the female characters in both music videos, so in my view the narratives are almost identical but the major difference is the existence of the male characters in the music videos. One last key differences I can see between the two music videos is that there are examples of digetic sound in ‘When September ends’ however there is no digetic sounds in our music video.; They used digetic sound with no music at one part to try and develop the story by letting you actually hear what the characters have to say

To draw the a close to the similarities between our music video and that of Green Days i would like to think and i believe that our media predict is very similar to theirs in many ways however as noted there are also difference but having differences in music videos is what makes them unique. I do feel though, that since our music videos are very similar in many aspects that our media music video does indeed develop some already existing conventions of this particular music genre when it comes to music videos, especially in terms of the storyline of the problems with male to female relationships which is a normal thing to portray in music videos of this genre.

Similarities between our music video and ‘The Only exception’

The similarities that I cans see between our music video and the music video for the song ‘The Only Exception’ by the band Paramore are in many ways the same as the similarities shared with When September Ends. I believe that there are similarities with both of the storylines and main characters; I also think there is a bit of a similarity in terms of the pace of the editing in both my music video product and . Also like Green Days music video for ‘When September Ends’ and my music video for then Riot tapes there is still the feeling of confusion, separation and the searching for the right companionship from another person.

When I said that the story lines were similar I meant this by that in our music video the character lose each other and to a extent, but a lesser extant than in both our music video for the Riot Tapes and the music video. The basis of the story shows the difficulties with male and female relationships, and how it can result in heartbreak or at the very least isolation and feelings of confusion. Yes again the clothing is casual in both our music videos in paramours music video they are wearing causal youth clothing like hoodies and jeans and this is the same in our music video. Both of these music videos show the female character searching for a partner in different ways, this goes with that both videos also

have to important characters in our music video we have one female and one male character.

Other aspects are also similar between the two media texts, for example, is how the narrative is represented to the audience, by this i mean the main focus for both our music video and the music video for Paramore’s song is the female character, the main characters are both integral parts but the important part for them is that they are not the focus. However having said that there is a slight difference in that the female character in our music video is looking for someone that she wants/needs, this leads to confusion in our main character as well as feeling of loneliness and to a certain extent desperation, while in the Paramore music video the female character is much more in control as she leaves the male character for a bit to try and find out if she is really meant for him and that is when she experience her feelings of loneliness and confusion.

Differences between our music video and that of the existing media text of ‘The Only Exception

As mentioned briefly in the above paragraph there is a difference in the fact that the female character in Paramores music video advances the plot line through her actions which makes her very in control of the situation, and in ours our female characters action are more of a result as to what has happened to her and she is not so much in control of the situation. Again there is a slight performance from he band in this music video, like green days, so it differs there to our but the majority of this music video for Paramore: ‘The Only Exception’ is still a narrative based story line primarily in my opinion. Another difference is that there is a happier theme somewhat throughout the paramore video compared to our and there is a resolution to the story line as the female character in their music video gets back together with their male character while in our the video it ends with Joe, our male character, fading away in the frame and this means that the audience is not meant to mean what happens to our female character, but we hope that the audience will just come to their own conclusion about what they think happens to her, very much leaving our music video itself without a strong feeling that the story is resolved for the time being, which in the Paramore video you felt hat it is all tied up, with a happy ending.

Concluding

In conclusion I feel that our video differs more to the paramore video then to the green day video. However I still feel that there are very distinct similarities that are carried out within all three music videos, which for me show that to an extent our music video has portrayed and developed a few conventions which seem to be common in music videos of a similar song genre to that of the ‘Riot Tapes: Open Eyed Dreams’. Furthermore I even think that our music video has challenged a few established convention and in particular there is one that I think that it challenged outright, and that is that our music video is 100

% narrative. Although the other music videos I have included in this have a strong narrative base in their music video, there is still a tinge of performance at some point in either video. For me this seems to be a house hold convention for music videos of this genre of music and for me it seems that our music video somewhat unique in that respect, i am not saying that ours in the only 100 % narrative based video, nor am i saying that it is a good idea for a music video to stand at 100 % narrative without even a tiny bit of singing from any of the characters, I just believe that this shows our video to challenge that convention which is evident in nearly all existing media texts of music from this sort of genre (Rock/ alternative).

Comparison of my Digipak with a existing product

The Digipak that I made was very simplistic in design and I would put this down to my lack of knowledge when it comes to using Photoshop I did struggle with creating it and i feel may have had trouble at getting it across to the right audience and demographic so i fell I may have slightly missed the look I was going for. However I did find another album cover that was similar to album digipack cover that i found, still as this album cover will show, as it is from a slightly different genre of music.

Here is my digipak for ‘The Riot Tapes, and on the right is the other album cover that i am going to be comparing mine to.

It is important to note the first key difference that I have designed a whole digipack and it is split into four scares, focusing only on the bottom half in this comparison as the album cover that it is being compared to is a example of just a front cover. It was one of the only album covers that i could gind that had a similar front cover and by that i mean with a almot plain front coer with just the name of the artist and the name of the album.

There are only a few similarities really that I can see between my digipak cover and the cover for David Gergen’s album cover. The most notable is that they are both rather simplistic designs and the key element of the cover is the font on he front. Furthermore a picture is also key part of both covers, however the picture for my digipak is actually on the back and it is of a open eye is actually on the back cover, however apart from those things there is not much going on either cover although i have a slight texture on mine, which may not be visible because of the small picture in this document, that is the only thing that is really going on apart from the font and picture at the back, making mine a fairly boring piece, this was not a deliberate effect but i feel it was done to m lack of experience on Photoshop, especially early on, that has managed to make this rather unconvincing digipak. With that said i still feel that there are parts of my digipak that go with the music genre it is target at, by this i mean it is different in the fact that it deos not actually have a picture of the band or any piece of outrageous artwork which are the norms, but is not the whole poi of alternative music, that it is meant to be that different from the normal and will stand out from everything else from being different.

Therefore i feel that my digipak stands out from the rest of the digipaks around it because of its different designs, so it has challenged conventions of real media texts, which has the adverse effect of making it stand develop and stand in with some the conventions of media texts from alternative music with being different. So this for me leaves it being in the rather odd situation of being so different it fits in, both slightly challenging conventions of real media texts for album covers while standing in and developing already though up conventions like being different from the crowd around you.

Comparison of my magazine advertisement with that of an existing advertisement

The magazine advertisement that I made is pictured on

the left, while the picture on the right is the existing text that i am comparing it to, it is advertising the band called Stone Sour with their album ‘Audio Secrecy’.

I feel that for this task my Photoshop ability improved and I hope that my media text on the left shows this, I feel it is an improvement from the digipak I made.

First I can see similarities in a few key areas between my media text and that of the existing media text. For starters both of the magazine advertisements show the release date for the media product which is one of the most important parts of a magazine advertisement, because if the audience do not know what date the album is released how will they know when to get it, do they just guess that it has already been released? However on my advertisement I have simply put the release date as I thought just number had more impact and stood out more, while on the existing media text the release date is in words apart from ont he end where the day is a number.

Since it is of a similar genre i am please that the two colour schemes are somewhat similar, this is the black and white being most prominent in both pieces of work, i felt that these colours were symbolic of the more alternative genre of music, this was done through research so this existing media text further develops my idea of this, backs up and justifies my rather darker choices in colours. The layout is also in a similar sort of est up, because in both texts the band name on each magazine advertisement is at the top on, while the release date is towards to bottom of the advertisement, and these two have sandwiched the name of the album or single that is being released.

However there are also some key differences. One of these being that, there is a picture of the band that the advert is representing on my magazine advertisement, while on the existing media text representing Stone Sours work there is album artwork on the front. This possibly shows that my work challenges existing media texts of band from a similar genre as I have decided not to link the magazine add too much to my digipak, this is so it won’t get boring i feel it important to keep things different so people can tell the difference between the magazine add and the actually digipak at the very first glance, and with their being a picture of the band on the add i feel this is a good way of introducing the band.

Furthermore on my magazine add there is writing attempting to promote the Riot Tapes, this also challenges the existing media text there is no such writing, however this may just be a result that the band on the existing media text are a household name and did not need to be introduced unlike the Riot Tapes, who are a new band without a major record label yet.

In conclusion although my media text does develop and portray existing conventions of magazine advertisement I like to also think that like my digipak cover that it challenges to regular convention in a good way. As said though, it does fill the most important

criteria of the magazine advert as it states the three important things: the band’s name, the name of the released single or album and finally the release date of the product. Therefore overall my media text on the whole supports and develops existing media conventions of what magazine a advertisement is, shown y some of the similarities between my advert for ‘The Riot Tapes’ and the existing text for ‘Stone Sour’.