Evaluation…

How do my products use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Front cover CD Cover Inside Cover

Rear Cover Poster

Conventionally, My research suggested that most if not all of the front covers (for example) had a photo of the artist on the front. This is

obviously because it better advertises the person rather than making the audience read the cover to distinguish its content they can look at

a person and instantly associate someone with something i.e. Eminem with rap music. However, my front cover (Bottom right) doesn’t

follow this.

It consists of the artists name, the name of the album and the design of the cover. I chose

this for a number of reasons. Firstly, its contemporary, simplistic look is better than filling

it with patterns an d more colour because then I feel this would not be aimed at my

target audience. So I used research to distinguish that conventionally, the designs for this

genre is either VERY simple or VERY complicated, and with simple, dominating colour

schemes. Also, when I tried to add a photo on this product and others it didn’t blend

with the scheme and layout which would completely ruin the product. So I have only

used a photo of my artist on my poster (Left) as this will be (in the real world) in a

different display compared to that of the CD. However it does run similar conventions

because it has a large, bold title which is often the case with many real world products so

can therefore be seen to run with both unconventional and conventional methods of

design.

Again, my CD cover follows the unconventional method of ‘No photo’. Often the design of the front cover is on the

CD. Bruno Mars “Doo wops and Hooligans” (Far left) is an example. I have however at least kept it similar by using

the same font colour and style. But I wanted a different design to the appearance of my CD cover. So I have used

the albums songs around the outside of the CD as a border and then added modernistic feel by putting lines

running either side. I think it looks quite good considering its changes from the other products

As with my front and rear covers. The inside cover looks to replicate a similar design but differ slightly from them so

they aren't the same. Again, this idea has come from research from one of Eminem's albums. Although he has

photo/animated photos on his album they all look like they are from the same album product so this is what I have

achieved here. I simply removed the artists title and enlarged the album cover. Making it bold, still simple and

effective.

Lastly, my rear cover completes the package by keeping the same layout. But I decided because I had more information on it compared to

that of the inside and front covers, that the songs list should take main attention when looked upon so I used a white font for drawing the

eye. Additionally, for the more real life effect, I have used images such as a barcode and small print legislation to complete the cover.

For my music videos analysis, I will challenge its conventions in terms of Andrew Goodwin's Music video theory. Goodwin Believed that all music videos should

follow six key steps in order to be successful and professional.

• There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals

illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.

• There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with them

illustrating, amplifying or contradicting each other.

• That genres are complex and diverse in terms of music video style and

iconography.

• That record companies will demand a lot of close-ups of the main

artist/vocalist.

• That there are likely to be inter-textual references to other forms of media

within the music video.

Andrew Goodwin's theory for music videos

There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with them illustrating, amplifying or contradicting each other.

The duration of my video is fast paced. The only time it ever noticeably slows down is when the room is very dark and you can only see around 2/3 of my actors face.

This means that there is also a lot of cutting to scenes every few seconds. (Mostly to match lyrics and not change of music pace). However as mentioned, whenever the music

changes, I have made it noticeable that the way I shot my footage changed to correspond with it. So, when the music returns to its fast pace the light levels return to normal and so

does the amount of cuts every few seconds.

There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.

My music videos visuals correspond with the lyrics at certain points. This is because it doesn’t necessarily have a storyline. So when the lyrics get to a certain point where my actors can act out

something that is described during the song, they do so. For example, “come here little kiddies. On my lap” My actor offers a gesture to the camera to come and sit on his knee.

However, in the vast majority of the video, it is difficult to replicate the lyrics through visual action because it is fast paced and the words are too quickly spoken before my actors can show them as

actions in any way. An example of this in my video was that I hit a problem with the part of the song that goes “Black girls, white girls, skinny girls, fat girls, tall girls, small girls, I’m calling all girls”. It is

rapped too fast for my actor to speak properly so I instead decided to use still photos of him holding up the words. This is an unconventional method in music videos especially for my theme because the

point of rappers is that they are supposed to be able to talk quickly. So in order to overstep the problem I had to improvise by taking photos and then edit them onto my video in such a way that the

pictures appeared fast enough and changed to the next one in time before shortly going back onto the video. This therefore keeps the relationship of lyrics and visuals going and only in a few other

points on my video do we see him or other people not rap the words. This is also because it is more of a humorous thing when we see actions rather than words because a majority of this song in the

real video isn't taken seriously at all.