By Sam Francis

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

real life media products?

From the opening scene in our video we have instantly used a typical convention of music video from within our genre. As with many other indie/rock bands we have continually presented the band itself throughout our video. Along with this we have incorporated instruments into our performance which is another convention of our genre’s media products.

One of the ways in which we challenged the typical conventions of music videos for our genre was through the use of a studio setting for the majority of our video. Unlike typical music videos of our genre we went against deciding to ‘big ourselves up’ as a band by filming in front of an audience or on a large stage. We felt that this approach would add both individuality and character to the band, allowing the target audience to effectively to relate to the band.

Additionally we attempted to re-represent the typical conventions of music video’s from our genre through emphasizing a lot of focus onto the band’s front man. We achieved this through introducing several shots consisting of only the front man as well as close-ups and dynamic shots. In doing so we successfully created a star persona which we felt the audience would easily identify, which in turn is typical for our genre.

Along with using several close-ups of the front man, we also used close-ups of other band members. Through doing so we used existing conventions of music videos from our genre as the individual members of the band are almost given their own kind of star persona yet not one which overshadows the front man.

We also attempted to represent the mood of our music track through the presentation of our music video. An example of this development of the typical conventions of music videos from our genre would be in the final 20 seconds of the video in which the video and music track fade out in sync. Along with this we introduced the blue light to reflect the almost melancholy mood of the track.

In this image of our album cover we have used the typical conventions of our genre through using the whole band on the front cover. In doing so we are re-enforcing the structure of the band’s star persona.

Through using this image on our album we have challenged the typical conventions of our genre simply by using shots from our music video shooting on the album cover. We felt that doing so would conveniently interlink all three of our products, adding to the band’s identity.

Throughout our products we have re-used the same band logo as we felt that this would again add to the identity of our band. Along with this it is also typical of bands for our genre to have a recurring band logo which is instantly recognizable to the consumer. We were therefore influenced by this and decided to implement this concept into our products to achieve the same effect of instant recognition.

A seemingly small but in fact extremely influential aspect of a bands products of our genre (or any genre) is the record label under which the act performs. As is essential for any act performing under a record label the label’s logo must be displayed on any of the act’s products. As a result we felt it necessary to implement this in both our magazine advert and album through clearly displaying our record label on both our magazine advert and our album.

Finally, we used typical conventions of our genre through the clothing of our performers. We felt that accurately representing our genre through the clothing we wore would help to engage the audience and allow them to relate to our band more effectively.