Evaluation Question 1: In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When constructing my music video, digi-pack and album poster I had to do a lot of research and planning to ensure that my final products would fit in with the Pop Punk scene and that people who enjoy listening to this genre would hopefully like the music video and would want to purchase the album by hopefully being enticed by the album poster they may have seen. In this post, I am essentially going to explain how all three of my products either use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing products in the Pop Punk genre. I have decided to split it into two sections where I will talk about the codes and conventions in relation to my music video under one heading and then will mention the codes and conventions in relation to my ancillary texts under another heading.

As you already know, the song I decided to use for my music video is called 'Not Enough' by Avril Lavigne. When it came to deciding what genre this song actually was it was quite complicated as Avril Lavigne herself has been known to write songs for many different genres from Punk to Pop - however, after I did more research on this specific song, I did notice that the album that this song has been taken from is considered Pop Punk and this was beneficial for me as it was the genre I wanted to work with the most. Nonetheless, below you will be able to see the three different texts I have created in relation to this song as part of my A2 Media coursework.

Music Video 

Once I had my chosen song, I then needed to think about what could occur in the music video and I was able to begin creating ideas just by listening to the lyrics of the song and in a previous post called '3 Music Video Ideas' you are able to see the three initial ideas I had for this music video which I actually called 'Runaway', 'Flash Backs' and 'Ignorance'. In the end I decided to go with the 'Runaway' idea which presents the girl in the music video running away from the issues she is having with her boyfriend, but eventually she escapes from it all and I was able to get this idea just from the meaning of the lyrics which I will explain in more detail later on. When talking about the narrative I have decided to use, you will be able to see that it conforms to essentially two of Kate Domaille's narrative types which are; Orpheus and Romeo and Juliet - this is because in the music video, the singer has essentially lost control of her life as she no longer knows what to do in her relationship and is confused which also brings the idea of the 'love story' into the narrative - however, in the end she runs away from the love rather than running towards it. On top of this, it also conforms to Tim O' Sullivan's narrative theory which states that every media text will tell the audience a story and also Tzvetan Todorov's equilibrium model about how a narrative will have a 'Cause', an 'Effect' and in the end there is always a 'Resolution' which can be seen in my own music video. 

Continuing on with the concept of narrative, through the music video we are able to see that it has conformed to Sven Carlsson's 1999 theory about 'Televised Bard' in which the artist of the song appears in the narrative of the music video which is exactly what has occurred in my music video - this will be more entertaining and will entice the audience more as they will be able to see the artist performing herself, but will also be able to see and perhaps understand what the meaning of the song is as my artists would have shown this through the use of the narrative. The narrative for my music video also conforms to the theory of an unknown theorist which is known as the 'Restricted Narration'. This theory essentially states that the narrative of a media text is kept to a minimal, where parts of the text could be unclear to the audience, which keeps them in the dark - however, the audience is still able to understand the general meaning of the text. This theory links into my music video due to the fact that throughout the majority of my video, the audience has no idea where the girl is running to and what perhaps may confuse them more is when she sees her own silhouette which makes this text more unrealistic and more appealing to the audience due to the fact that they are able to see situations that cannot occur in real life and even though it may not make complete sense in relation to the narrative, the audience will still be able to understand the main concept of the narrative and will understand what happens at the end of it.

Here is what I believe to be my final music video - however, there could possibly be a few changes I make before actually submitting my coursework:

As I believe this to be my final music video edit, I decided to do a LIIAR Analysis which meant that I would essentially just be analyzing my own music video and looking at some of the features that have been used in more detail to understand how the music video may appeal to or entice a certain audience. Below is a slideshow which includes this LIIAR analysis I have created.

Influential Cinematography 

As soon as I knew what I wanted to create for my music video, I then watched a range of different Pop Punk and Punk music videos in general to help me gain some inspiration to help me create my music video. Below I have presented the majority of the music videos I used for inspiration for my music video and below that, I have created a presentation to express how I have used each of these videos as inspiration. All of these music videos influenced me in relation to cinematography as I knew what I wanted to create, but I just didn't know how I wanted to present it on camera and when watching some of these music videos you will easily be able to see the shots that have influenced me. So all of these videos I have presented have influenced me in the way that they have enabled me to see what type of conventional shots or angles are used in a Pop Punk music video.

Here are some of the music videos that influenced me when creating my own music video:

Sum 41 - With Me 

Green Day - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

Buckcherry - Sorry

Paramore - The Only Exception 

Green Day - Stray Heart

Here is the presentation to explain how these music videos have influenced me in relation to cinematography:

In the presentation I have presented above, you are able to see that there are a range of different features that have influenced me in creating my music video and have enabled me to come out with the outcome I now have. Although I have used a lot of typical conventional features of the Pop Punk genre, I have also gone against some of these conventional features as typically in a Pop Punk music video there isn't always a happy ending - however, since my music video itself was quite dark, I wanted to break and challenge this convention and decide that I would like there to be a happy ending so the audience would be happy for the singer and perhaps would be curious as to know if this song was written about a real life situation and if she actually did decide to leave a relationship and be happy - meaning, my singer would hopefully appeal to an array of people and will gain a larger mass audience as they will want to know more about her real life situations. In a way, this conforms to Richard Dyer's theory that audiences want media products that offer them Utopian solutions to their problems - this links in with my music video because of the use of the happy ending I have included in the video. The narrative of the music video is quite realistic - meaning, audiences will easily be able to relate to what is occurring in it. Not only does the narrative of my music video state that it is okay to leave a relationship if you are uncertain on what to do, but it also illustrates that you should be happy with being on your own which in a sense, helps the audience with their issues if they are going through the same issue as the artist in my music video. So overall, the music video could help with the audiences problems if they are having the same issues that someone they may look up to is having. 

In the images below you are able to see the ending shots of my music video and in these the singer stops running, turns around to look back, smiles and then runs into the open. The metaphor of this scene is to present that when my singer is in the woods, she is enclosed by everything around her and is essentially trapped by her boyfriend, but when she gets to this ending scene, she turns around to ensure that she wants to leave the relationship she is trapped in and then runs into the distance which again is a metaphor to express that she is free as is running into the open and getting away from the relationship where she wasn't getting enough. The idea of this metaphor could link into Ferdinand de Saussure's 1974 theory about signs and signifiers in which the sign is the 'Denotation' (the physical thing) and the signifier is the 'Connotation' (the meaning behind it). This links in with the metaphor I have created throughout the music video because the sign is essentially the woods and all of the trees placed in it, but the signifier is that the woods itself represents the idea of the boyfriend that the artist is running from and she is trapped inside of it, just like she is trapped and confused about what she should do in relation to her relationship with her boyfriend. This makes the music video more interesting for the audience as they are able to find significant meanings behind everything that has been placed in the music video, but also since various individuals will interpret features in different ways, it means that the audience will be able to interpret the whole music video itself in any way they want to. On top of that, when the audience see the singer running away, the lens begins to blur and this feature has been used as it presents that the audience no longer know what is going to happen to the singer from now on, but they do know that she has decided to leave her relationship and is now satisfied. Here are the screen shots from the ending of my music video:

The shots presented above were the only real unconventional feature of a Pop Punk music video in relation to my narrative as all the rest of it is actually quite conventional of this genre and will hopefully entice a larger audience to have an interest in this music video and my artist in general. Moreover, I did get quite a lot of inspiration from music videos of the Pop Punk genre, but I also got some inspiration from different texts. I have previously gone into some detail in relation to various texts that inspired me when creating my music video, but I have just decided to briefly go over them again. My main inspiration was in relation to the woods/forest and the first text that inspired me was from a film called 'Bridge To Terabithia' - this is mainly filmed in a woods/forest and is essentially about how the woods comes to life which is really creative, interesting and takes the audience away from reality as it enables them to know that the woods is a completely new world that people can go to when they want to get away from reality. Similarly, the music video for the song 'Out Of The Woods' by 'Taylor Swift' also influenced me due to the fact that in this video, the woods again comes alive and is essentially similar to my music video in the scene that the video is about a relationship that is no longer functioning properly. Although both of these texts have nothing to do with the Pop Punk genre, they were extremely helpful in enabling me to think of how I could create my music video and what features could be included, but this just shows that this type of idea for my music video could have been used anywhere and in any text which could attract any audience, so hopefully this means that my artist will gain a large mass audience who enjoy the meaning of the music video rather than just the individuals who like Pop Punk music.

Editing 

Editing was perhaps the most important part of this whole music video process as this is what enabled me to create the dark and dull effects which would allow the audience to understand that the meaning of my music video is actually quite sad, but also there is a deeper meaning as to what the audience is seeing because if the audience think about the video in a lot of detail, then they will understand that the woods actually represents the boyfriend and the singer is trapped in it, like she is trapped and confused as what to do with her relationship. So I needed this dark lighting to reinforce this meaning, but also because of the fact that darkly lit music videos are generally conventional of the Pop Punk genre. As well as the change of colour, there were also a range of other editing features I used in my music video to make it more appealing to my target audience, but also to ensure that it conformed to the Pop Punk genre.

Below I have created a video to talk about the different editing features I have used in my music video which may or may not conform or challenge the conventions of a Pop Punk music video. Here is the video:

In the video I have presented above I mentioned a range of different editing features that I included in my music video whether they conformed to the Pop Punk genre or not, so I have decided to present some music videos below from the Pop Punk/Punk genre and in these you can see some of the conventional features that I previously mentioned in the video being used like; rough effects and slow motion, but also at the same time you are able to understand how some of the features like fade edits I have used in my own music video have not been used in general Pop Punk/Punk music videos which highlights that I have challenged the forms and conventions of the Pop Punk genre.

Here are some of the Pop Punk/Punk music videos which use some of the conventional features I have mentioned:

Panic! At The Disco - LA Devotee

Switchfoot - Awakening 

Yellowcard - Only One

As well as all of the conventional features that I have mentioned above, there is also a relationship between the music and visuals (which conforms to Andrew Goodwin's theory) and this essentially means that parts of my music video will go to the beat of the song which makes the video more interesting for the audience as they are able to see visuals match with the song which can often also make the video more memorable. I have used this feature when you are able to see my actor falling on the floor as the audience are able to see my actor fall from different angles and every time a different angle appears, it changes in time with the beat of the song which could make the fall a lot more dramatic and serious due to the fact that it actually goes with the beat of the song. In relation to Pop Punk music videos in general, this is not really a conventional feature - however, I wanted to break these conventions and decided to make some of the shots go in time with the visuals as it would make it more intriguing for the audience, but again also makes it more memorable.

Below are three screenshots to present the shots in my music video which change to the beat of the song:

As I have mentioned quite a few different theorists throughout this post in relation to my music video - there is another theorists I would like to mention called 'Rick Altman'. In 1999 he came up with the 'set of pleasures' theory in which he stated that there are three different types of pleasure that can come from a genre - Emotional, Visceral and Intellectual pleasure. The main pleasures that fits into the concept of my music video is both the Emotional and Intellectual pleasures and this is due to the fact that the Emotional pleasure is presented through the fact that the audience are able to understand what the artists is going through in relation to her relationship and that she is confused and doesn't know what to do about it, which is what makes it more interesting to watch as the audience will in a sense create a bond with the artist and will want her to get her own way to ensure she is happy. Moreover, my video links in with the idea of Intellectual pleasure due to the fact that throughout the video, the audience essentially has no idea how the music video is going to end and what will happen to the artist which links with this specific pleasure as the audience will technically be trying to figure out a puzzle and find out where the artist is going and how everything is going to end for her. Even though the audience knows what happens to the artist by the end of the music video, it is still entertaining for them to watch the rest of the video as it keeps them guessing and will want them to watch until the end of the video to see what happens. 

Overall, you are able to see that there are a range of conventional features of a Pop Punk music video that I have conformed to - however, there are also some conventions which I have challenged and I believe that this is a good thing in relation to my music video because the audience will obviously be able to see that this music video is part of the Pop Punk genre due to the fact that the majority of features that have been used in it conform to the Pop Punk genre and use its type of conventions, but by seeing features that conventionally are not used in these type of music videos makes it more interesting for the audience as they may see things they have never seen before in this type of genre and it might make them enjoy this genre of music more or even just my artist in general which will be beneficial as it will mean she will gain a larger mass audience and can become more widely known.

Ancillary Texts

When it came to creating both my ancillary texts, I did have quite a strict idea on what I wanted it to look like and you are able to see this in one of the previous posts I have created where I decided to design a hand drawn digi-pack and poster to present what I initially wanted both of these texts to look like - however, I knew my final product would most likely have a few differences. My initial idea was to have my images to be taken in the same forest which I had filmed my music video and I wanted to do this as I knew it would create continuity across all of my texts. When I was creating a plan for this, I did think that it generally isn't conventional for an album to just relate to one of the music videos that has been taken from the album as usually this will occur when there is a single for a specific song and the album itself that the song appears on will usually be different - however, I wanted to challenge this convention to ensure that I created continuity across these texts, but also due to the fact that I believe the images in the woods would have a darker meaning and could relate to a lot of the other songs that appear on the album as well. 

Here is my final digi-pack and album poster which again I may change slightly before I submit all of my A2 Media coursework:

Before talking about the conventions involved in my ancillary texts, I again decided to do a LIIAR analysis in relation to my ancillary texts just like I did when I was talking about my music video. I decided to do this analysis as I wanted to see how my work has been presented and how other people would perhaps understand the texts. Again I decided to create this analysis on a slideshow which can be found below: 

To talk about my ancillary texts in more detail in relation to typical conventions that would be used in a Pop Punk genre, I decided to create a presentation where I have included annotated versions of my digi-pack and poster, but also I have annotated some existing digi-packs and posters. Here is the presentation I have created:

I previously mentioned that it isn't a conventional feature for the album by a specific artist to have continuity with one of their music videos from the same album because this could often mean that some audiences would only remember the artist for that one song, but most artists would rather be known for their whole album rather than just one song on it. This is the reason I said when a song is made into a single, the packaging for that specific single will then use the same features that have been used in the music video for that same song as it creates continuity across the two texts and will ensure that when the audience see one of the texts they will think of the other. Below I have decided to demonstrate what I mean when I say it isn't conventional to use features on an album that have been used in a music video. Here is the example I have decided to use:

             

In the example I have presented above I decided to select a single by the Alternative Rock band 'Angels and Airwaves' which is called 'Anxiety'. Above I have presented the music video and front cover for the single 'Anxiety', but I have also presented the front cover of the album that this single appears on which is called 'Love Part Two'. After watching this music video you are able to see that the cover of the single looks extremely similar to the music video and this is mainly due to the fact that one of the shots that are used in the music video has been used as the front cover which creates continuity between the two texts, but at the same time when you look at the general album cover for 'Love Part 2' you are able to see that there isn't really much similarity except from the artists logo - however, in the music video you do see some of the band members wearing tops which have the man sitting on the moon which has been presented on the front cover of the main album - this again helps create continuity between the two texts, but there is obviously more of a similarity between the single front cover and the music video, than the album cover and the music video. So this is one of the ways I have challenged the conventions of my digi-pack as I have used a range of similar features that have been used in my music video rather than just using some to create continuity - nonetheless, the audience are able to know that all of the texts relate to each other which is a beneficial thing.

Overall, you are again able to see that the majority of features that appear on my digi-pack and album poster are conventional features of the Pop Punk genre and this is beneficial as it ensures that I should hopefully appeal to the audience that these texts have intentionally been aimed at. Although the majority of the features I have used in my texts were conventional features, there were occasionally the odd features that were not conventional of the genre and I think the use of these was a good thing due to the fact that it makes the texts themselves more unique and different compared to existing texts which will make it more memorable and will make audiences want to purchase the album because of how it may be presented in a different way. All in all, I enjoyed the process of creating my ancillary texts and I believe that it will appeal to quite a large audience - meaning my artist will gain a large mass audience.