In what ways does my media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of real

media products?

I feel my media products both use and challenge forms andconventions of existing products in a number of ways. My musicvideo, digipak and album poster all have aspects which follow certainconventions of existing ones which were successful, but they alsoexpress their own conventions.

The music video is made entirely with stop-motionphotography, which, even though having seen use of it, Idon’t feel is commonly seen in music videos very often. Thisin its own is convention that my video is breaking – thatmusic videos are shot with video footage. However, the shotsthat I have used in my video I have researched from, learnedfrom and related to the different conventional camera shotsand techniques used in a lot of music videos today. Forexample, shot-reverse-shots, wide-to-close-up shots, match-on-action etc. have all been

carefully thought about and considered just as much as theactual subject has. Being a photography student, I feel I havebeen slightly more creative with the framing on someshots, compared to what is commonly known and seen.However, recently I have seen a lot of varying uses of framingthroughout music videos, and alternative music videos arebecoming more widely known and seen, so in terms of today’sconventions I would say I have developed them in this aspect.

My print advert, the album poster, uses a lot of conventions normallyseen on successful posters. For example, I have included a releasedate, the band’s name, the album’s name, the record label etc. But apartfrom the basic things that should be seen, I have also included things likea QR code, icons for social media sites and a limited edition online offer.All of these things wouldn’t have been commonly seen on album posterssay a decade ago, so in traditional senses I have developed theconventions. However, in the rise in significance of the internet inmodern times, online social media and digital music download sites havebecome very widely used outlets, as opposed to the traditional hardcopies of albums. So in terms that are contemporary, my poster doesn’treally challenge or develop conventions, but really just follows them. Itwould be quite uncommon these days for an album poster not to provideconsumerswith online opportunities.

For my digipak, I would say that it mostly uses andpossibly develops the conventions of an album. Forexample, I have included on the back cover all of thethings you would see on the back cover of almost anyalbum – things like a barcode, the band’s websiteaddress, the record company’s name etc. On the otherhand, inclusion of the band’s website address againrelates to the fact that, maybe 10 years ago this wouldnot have been seen as conventional, but nowadays is anessential aspect to have.