Task One - In What Ways Do Your Media Products Use, Develop or Challenge Foms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

In our pop video we began by researching and analyzing the major conventions used to create a pop video. We looked at many pop video from the grunge genre , for example : Sound Garden, Alice in Chains and Nirvana. We look at other videos from the Punk genre from bands like ‘The Sex Pistols’. In our pop video we aimed to imitate the pop video to give plaisir ,we did this by having a performance element and a narrative in our pop

video. We also subverted the common conventions give jouissance to our music video. We did this by adding a documentary shot style to our narrative as the band toured around the country in their tour bus this added something new to the video.

These major conventions come from the theorist Keith negus and they are;

· The explicit and unashamed promotion of the artist’s “image” (aesthetic/generic/ideological) as a specific product with a brand identity, ready for mass consumption

· The featuring of the artist

(almost without exception)

· A wide and extensive use of shot types, camera angles and movement

· Repetition of reoccuring thematic elements and generically specific iconography (one key element often being dominant and providing the skeletal structure for the promo)

· A possible narrative structure

· A possible performance element

· The flexibility to disregard Realism!

· Shots cut tightly to the beat of the track

· Use of special effects (lighting, annimation, CGIs, in-camera effects)

· A carefully constructed Mise en Scene appropriate to the content and tone of the track

· High impact instantly! (Don’t forget that competition for airplay on the main music channel outlets is intense)

In our pop video we were trying to convey the message of the actual song . The song is about the joys and wanders of taking heroin , enjoying life. Its all about making the most of life through sex , drugs and rock’n’roll. The famous quote of live fast die young applies to the band. The brand we were trying to convey for our band was that they were happy go lucky guys about town . They are rebellious , urban , happy and carefree We spiked their hair up and messed it up to show the fact they are like this.

In the still to the left it shows the band having the after party with their groupies. We used Negus’s conventions to show the chaos of the party. We used various close-ups of the guys and girls and we had the camera on a shoulder walking around this party so it could get in close and make it a more intimate shot. We also used fast cutting to illustrate this idea of the band living a fast and furiously paced lifestyle.

In this still we showed the band on the tour bus traveling between their gigs. Again we used Negus rule and shot it in a documentary style to give the effect of a traveling camera recording all the bands movements. A wobbly camera was used to furthermore highlight this intention. This camera position also added a sense of realism , seediness and edginess to this scene .

In this still we showed the band performing in what is supposed to be the back of an old abandoned factory. We used conventions from Negus , including Close ups , Wide shots , long shots all of which to show the band performing. We had flashing light that ranged from Red, Blue ,Green to purple this connoted the idea of the world is never stopping and just constantly keeps changing.

For our digipack we used the rule of thirds to make the cover visually pleasing to the eye and would make everything look uncluttered. We used black , white and blue to keep simplicity in our design . The font was bold and we made it big and heavy to make it really stand out on the CD cover, we made the text Blue which really contrasted well with the black background. This all meant that we would be more likely to be able to sell the CD more successfully.