Evaluation - Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions or real media products?

As a whole our media products use the conventions situated to them a lot, rarely challenging them. I believe this is because with an industry set strongly in its ways it would be hard to break in to the music industry with a video, digipak or website that challenged the fundamentals of it strongly.

Website:
Our website uses the conventions of an artists' website. This is because we closely analysed existing products to see what made hem strong and also to see what they all had in common. You can probably see this most clearly in the menu system. This is because the links we created are all simple and can be seen on the majority of music websites. This is because they link to the information users want to know and access to this information must be simple. If it was not simple to find this piece of information users are unlikely to return to a website as it will become an inconvenience to try and find the information all the time. With our simple menu system a user would be able to log on to the website and find all information they need. With access to a members area. This would involve developing the website to give the members more information. This would involve more links to more pages, however, that would be kept simple.

Another convention we used was the news updates. We fund that again the majority of music websites had an update section this would be used for people to have a quick glance to see what had been happening. If a user became a member these updates could be received via email. When looking at existing websites we looked at our chosen artists website to find they had an update section that went down the front of their home page. This was the main feature. We liked this idea as it was an easy feature to create and gave the user great ease of use to find small information quickly, which as i said earlier is a major thing of a website to keep users interested and happy to return the the site. To slightly change the idea of peoples use of an updates section we decided to put ours into a scroll box. We did this because it would show a good use of our HTML knowledge and would also help keep our website minimalistic. This was key as our website is a compact unit and we needed to fit a lot of information into a small space. A scroll box was the best way to do this. A problem we faced was making it clear the difference between each update post. This was highlighted through our feedback. this caused a rethink to make it clear which posts were new. We eventually came around this by having dates at the start of the post and also having a rule across the scroll box under each post. Therefore, although our updates were in a scroll box they stuck to the conventions of a website very closely.

A clear use of the conventions of a website was the links to external websites of the band. The most obvious ones being myspace, facebook and youtube. This is the biggest marketing tool an artist has on the internet. By using synergy people can always be linked to an artist whatever website they are on. With a target audience of 16 to 25 year olds this is a huge advantage. This is down to the majority of the time they use the internet they are using social networking websites. With the usage of social networking sites being this age range an artist can access them whenever and therefore a real buzz can be created about a band. With a huge part of social networking being about sharing news people can hear about an artist via advertising but the majority of it would be done by word of mouth by these users.The graph above shows that the average age of users for social networking sites is slightly older than out target audience. However, it is closer on the external websites we have linked too.

Overall I believe our website works well and uses the conventions very well. This is because it is a very simple website intertwining all 3 parts of our project which tries to keep the users attention by having news updates, videos and a members area.

Here are some screen shots of our website against the existing Delhpic website.

You can see the conventions we used as all elements of our website are on their website although in a different layout and design.

Using the conventions of music websites this should mean that our website is sticky. This means it entices users to keep using it and stay on the website for a while. I believe this is achieved with the easy news update section and the simple menu system at the top. A simple to use website with features that involve the user are how to create a successful website. I believe we have done this via our music video and simple layout. The sign up option will also lead to a members section giving members bonus material. Members that have signed would clearly like the band and enjoy using the website to gain this extra material.

Digipak:
For our digipak again we used the conventions to create our own. Although the conventions we used are not all necessarily from the Indie genre. This is because we used an image of the band for our front cover. This is not a typical digipak cover within the Indie scene as they tend to use simplistic images not related to the band. We managed to stick within in this theme by making our band image in a TV keeping the identities of our band hidden. This links in with our video as we try to keep the identity of our main character hidden until the end of the video. The TV used in the image is the biggest link with the indie music scene. This is because it is an old fashioned TV which may be considered vintage. This is exactly what appeals to indie followers as they buy retro clothes and have begun to start collecting vinyl records. The way we constructed the digipak using the interference on the TV screen and the animal masks creates a huge sense of confusion which we tried to create within our music video. This shows how we have intertwined each part of our project. With this sense of confusion created it shows how we managed to follow the conventions of a digipak as they do not tend to make sense or link with the band.

Video:

Here are 9 key shots to our music video. These shots show how we used the conventions to create a realistic video that could exist in the world of music videos.

Shot 1

The favourite shot of our audience was the strobe party used within the intro and later in the video. This party scene was created trying to copy the conventions of an electronica band. This is clear throughout the artificial, futuristic lighting. This made the party believable as the party was meant to replicate a live event or a large scale party. The lighting represented the music well with the help of our editing in the intro. This was done with quick cuts of the long shot of our main character. The mise en scene of the party was fairly modern with all our cast dressed in present day fashion. This fashion is typical of the indie genre having denim shirts, polo shirts both with buttons done up to the top.

Shot 2

A controversial shot in our video was of the little boy sitting in the cupboard watching two people have sex. This was he hardest part for the audience to understand. The meaning behind this was to show our young by and main character to be the same person with the min character being affected by an incident when younger. Another meaning behind the boy in the cupboard is of "coming out" which at the end of the video is revealed as being gay. I believe this shot challenges the conventions of music videos. This is because they tend to focus on heterosexual relationships with songs being written about boy meets girl story lines. Although society is becoming more accustomed to homosexuality it is still not a focus point in music videos or other types of media. I believe the shot is more controversial as it involves the young boy and raises the issue or nature vs. nurture and brings up the point that homosexuality is not a decision.

Shot 3

We used the conventions of music videos by matching the lyrics of the song with the action on screen. This can be seen by the representation of the lyric "Doubt" with our main character looking troubled throughout the video. We did not only pic up on the title of the song but other points in the video also. This can be seen in the Delhpic - Doubt lyric post. With the key lyrics highlighted we tried to represent these points and ideas.

Shot 4, 5, 6 & 7

Another point n our video that we challenge the conventions of a music video is in the above shots. This is because although relationships are often the main narrative of a video it is unusual to see sexually explicit shots. We however, showed this to create a bigger effect on the audience once they know the relationship is between two men. This is is strongly influenced by The Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" video which was banned from TV. The video also had a gender twist at the end and was extremely sexually explicit with a huge part of the narrative and footage being of explicit sex. Our music video uses our sexual shots as more suggestive but they carry the same effect and emphasise the shock of the twist at the end. This is due to the shots hiding the gender of the other person involved but still being convincing that it could be a normal relationship with a male and female.

Shot 8

My favourite shots of the video are of our main character in the shower. This is because it really shows the anger, doubt of the character. We used the conventions of music videos for these shots as we follow the lyrics of the song closely "I've hit the wall, all that's left for you is doubt." This shot shows the doubt on our characters face and the emotions he is feeling.

As you can see from the screenshot our character has acted well during this scene and made it believable that he regrets something and has stuff on his mind. The shower represents him trying to wash away his problems or possibly drown his sorrows.

Shot 9

A hugely controversial shot of our music video was the kiss at the end of the video. This is due to the homosexual relationship being revealed. The fact that there is no camera movement gives the audience a longer amount of time to absorb what has happened although the clip is not on the screen for very long. This makes the shot heavy and leave a last impression on the audiences mind. This is exactly what we wanted the shot to do. I believe we have pulled off this part of the video very well and accomplished the shock we wished the audience to feel.