Evaluation 1

Group Task: Deanna Hammond-Blackburn 9164 (Using Conventions)
                      Emma Hall 9162 (Developing Conventions)
                      Alex Major 9190 (Challenging Conventions)

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In the planning stages of our music video we did a post on Breaking Popular Conventions. One convention that was mentioned was about the star image/brand. We said that; 

"According to our target audience feedback, there was a mixed feeling about how important attractiveness was, whilst our similar product research showed that there was a severe lack of voyeurism in this genre, as the focus in pushed more onto the music than the stars. We were therefore careful not to over-produce our artist, keeping his appearance quite natural..."

We achieved this in our video; there are very limited aspects of voyeurism, with most of this being seen in the performance shots and the occasional journey shot. For example the pan up of the artist's body can be seen as somewhat voyeuristic as the framing is set to focus on his body. However most of the video focuses more on the narrative and his journey rather than focusing on him looking attractive. 

Another convention that we developed was with the editing of the video; we used a lot of transitions effects and superimposing of pictures which is unusual for most music videos.

"The super-imposing and dissolve transitions used are also slightly unusual for music videos, which often cut quickly to the beat."

Although this is unusual, it worked well in our video as the tempo of the song is very slow, and the fades help with the progression of the narrative. The superimposition of images also helped to develop the narrative elements and helped the audience's understanding, which ended up being very effective. These elements also help to develop the brand, as it will become a recognisable style.