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

Our current project was based on the development and making of a music promo and two other additional related promotional materials, as a means of advertising the song and artist. We chose an unsigned, new artist, and chose one of his/her songs to base our project around. We had to choose one of the artist’s songs, which we used to create a music promo, and then based on this song and artist we, created a digipak and a magazine article, to advertise the artist and the new single.

The purpose of these three promotional materials: the music promo, digipak and magazine advertisement are to advertise and promote the new artist and his work to the target market. As well as giving the artist an amount of exposure that would otherwise not be achieved without these elements of promotional materials. They aim to create a buzz about the artist, giving the target market an idea of what he is about and what he music is about.

A music video promo will help to show people some of the personality of the performer, as some of their own thoughts and ideas will be included, it will help people to see who the performer is and create their own opinions of the song and artist. A music promo will also; for the record company that produced it, give them a chance to show any new artists to the public rather than just allowing them to be heard over the radio, it gives the audience a chance to put a name to a face.

These images, shows the idea of a using a digipak as a method of advertising the artist, the bold and eye catching images, help to draw attention to the object, before the viewer even knows who the artist is. This is the idea we are using throughout our project, in the production of a music promo, magazine advert and digipak.  

The purpose of a music promo is to give people something to picture when listening to the song, helping to create more of a story behind it, music promos for the album would again help to create a image of the artist and helps to promote the artist and the album as it will be seen by large numbers or people. 

A wide variety of shots are expected in a music promo, shots of instruments are shown to try to show/convince the viewer that the artist is skilled in his or her craft, as well as giving an idea of the genre being performed, giving a better idea of that particular artists style. As well as shots of instruments, music promo’s tend to use a range of close ups, long shots, establishing shots and mid shots to show either the performer or the narrative, there is no one style of shot that is often seen as any can be used to make an effective promo. 

Music promos are expected to show a lot of energy through editing and mise-en-scene. The shots have to keep in time with the structure of the song, to make sure that the narrative or performance works well with the song/music. A lot of shots and cut types are used depending on the genre however most are just straight cuts as these are simple to keep with the beat of the track. Normally the only sound heard would be the song, however in some more unconventional music promos, some of the sounds from the narrative can be heard to help set the scene, this tends to be just at the beginning of the promo, but can however sometimes be heard throughout. Close up shots are seen more than others to try to keep the main point of focus on the performer. A music promo gives the viewer a means of being close to the performer, which they may not get from going to see them live. The mise-en-scenes in most music promo’s can vary depending on the type of genre that they are made from, they vary in the locations and the props used to create different effects. 

Close Up

Mid Shot

Long Shot

The narrative of music promos varies a lot depending on the genre of the track, most tend to be a straight forward narrative to help show the ideas of the music, and the ideas and emotions the artist wanted to portray with that particular song, however some promos can focus completely on the performance and some can switch between both. The narrative of music promos tend to be based around a few different types of narrative: illustration, in which the narrative is take solely from the lyrics in the track, amplification, in which one key idea or theme is taken from the lyrics and then used to create the narrative and disjuncture, in which the narrative is completely separate from the lyrics, tending not to make much sense or connect to the song in any way.  Taking as an example we can see a video by Coldplay, this shows an amount of amplification as well as disjuncture. The narrative is clear, however due to the entire video being in reverse is has elements of disjuncture. 
The requirements of music promos vary a lot from genre to genre, and artist to artist, depending on the type of music and the ideas and emotions they are trying to put across will effect the type of promo produced, and so a number of different mise-en-scenes, shot types and editing techniques may be used and varied for each genre, to create the overall effect that the artist wants. 

This video helps to show how genre affects the style of a music promo, this acoustic music promo demonstrates this as you can see that the main point of focus is solely on the music and the artist, there’s a simple element and idea behind the video, keeping distractions to a minimum, letting the song be the main element. 

Some conventions of the pop music promo are:

http://prezi.com/_xvvsxucn3ch/copy-of-conventions-music-promo/

Some conventions of the acoustic genre for music promos are:
http://prezi.com/kpi5zf-8d-dz/conventions-acoustic-music-promo/ 

This video by Coldplay, breaks some of the usual conventions seen in music promos, due to the entire video being in reverse. It adds a very unconventional element, taking away from the idea that the artist is easily lip syncing the words, and giving the idea that the artist has been challenged. It also creates a more interesting and thought provoking video, as the main concept is amplified from a single message in the song, creating a confusing appearance for the viewer.



This video by Bob Dylan, also breaks all of the usual conventions seen in a pop promo, the setting is very simple and does not look expensive or idyllic, which is a large and obvious contrast from other videos from this genre. He has taken a simple idea, with the lyrics written on the cue cards, which also breaks away from the normal conventions and the artist himself is not performing the song.

This music promo by Rizzle Kicks influenced my own music promo, in the idea of using childhood memories, to give an amplification of the theme of the track, and actors of an older age to show these memories, helping to give and show a more relatable image to our target market, and creating a more emotional response in our viewer.

This video by Ed Sheeran, and the artist Ed Sheeran himself we used as quite a main point of influence for our promo. He himself is quite a well known acoustic artist, linking well to our genre. However as well as this, he in his own music promos doesn’t appear as often as other artists do, and you barely ever see him perform. We took this video as influence because the original artist of the song we used wasn’t available to perform and so we used someone else to perform the track; which is a technique seen in this promo by Ed Sheeran.

We kept quite a conventional view on the showing of our performer and performance. As seen in many acoustic music promos, we showed the artist playing a guitar, to show his talent and skill, and help to show his connection with the music. We did however adapt this conventional element slightly, in the way that we had less performance and more narrative in our promo, taking influence from Ed Sheeran’s music promos. Helping to show some of the emotions and story behind the track. 

We kept the editing slow, and a number of our clips were at a slower speed compared to their originals, we did this as a means of keeping in time and in harmony with our track, as well as a means of creating emotions. As the slower speeds helps to give time for the viewer to think about the memory they are seeing.

We used a variety of different shots ranging from extreme closes ups, to long shots and high to low angle, as a way of showing the different memories from different points of views. We also kept most of our promo in natural settings following the usual conventions of the acoustic genre.

We used a few different locations for our promo, both in a rural setting and a  home setting as a way of creating different memories and making them realistic and believable. For the acoustic genre, the location can vary depending on the type of song and the message that the artist wants to put across, it can be quite a rural location, but can also however be quite an urban one, or one that you cannot really place. This can be seen each of Ed Sheeran’s music promo, as he shows the use of the three different location options. 

Urban:

At times rural and at other times, set in a home environment- this is something we took influence from in the planning of our locations, the use of different locations, both outdoors and indoors:

A location that can’t be placed:

Promos within the acoustic genre, and artists within the acoustic genre, tend to focus more on the music rather than the look of the promo, unlike pop promos, which focus more on the appearance. As so to reinforce the genre we kept out costumes plain and simple so to not cause a distraction from the music.

Directors Cut:

We have used ideas seen in Andrew Goodwin’s theory as throughout the promo we feature a number of shots of our artist, which he states is something always required of the promo by the record labels. We also used ideas from Steve Archer’s theory in the keeping of a strong link between our performance and narrative.

Conventions of a magazine article and digipak:

http://prezi.com/rdypvxigx4h6/conventions-of-a-magazine-advert-and-digipak/