Final Music Video

Final Magazine Advert

Following feedback from my teacher about my magazine advert - I redid the entire thing. I kept the main concept of the idea about the flower with the words around it but changed lots more.
The main things she commented on were..

1. How it should be portrait not landscape
2. How it should have more conventions - such as the band name

She also commented on how I should ensure the writing isn't mad difficult to read by the colours chosen. She encouraged me to play around with font and text size. She did like the concept of it and that was why I carried on the colour theme and concept. I made sure all the photos in the magazine were ones I had taken so I used one I had taken in a photo shoot when I filmed the graveyard scene.

Final Website Link

This is the link for my website.

Q.4 Final

Q.3 Final

Q.2 Final

Q.1 Final

Evaluation Q.1
In some ways my media products followed conventions - in others they didn't. I had reasoning behind each convention I followed and challenged because it all linked up to form the basis of the message and feel I was trying to get across.

1. My music video was quite unconventional in the narrative in the sense I had lots of micro narratives and didn't have a specific main character. This was to emphasise the meaning of the video about how not everyone is okay and it wouldn't be fair to focus on one character over another. However, other smaller aspects like sound were quite conventional as I didn't have additional sound on top of the music e.g. diegetic sound. The video also broke conventions like the stereotypical representation of age as I didn't show teenagers as fun loving and carefree. 
2. On the other hand, my magazine advert was quite conventional. For example, it was quite eye catching (with the minimal but well chosen choice of colour) to make sure the audience paid attention to it. I also made the product very accessible by showing places that the album will be sold. 
3.  My website was actually really conventional bar some exceptions. For example, the music video was on the main page for the audience to immediately see. Also, there were other pages such as merchandise and a contact page for the audience to look at.

For each task I did some work on the conventions of the products. I did blog posts for website conventions and music video conventions. I did a Canva presentation about magazine advert conventions. I also did some research on representation and Goodwin's ideas.

From my research and analysis (shown above) I decided what ancillary texts to do and what I wanted to include in each one. For example, I liked the convention of having a clear title at the top of a website screen that remains there even if you click on different pages within the website. It also flagged up things I didn't want to include, such as lots of bright colours as it would clash with the tone of the video.

RED = Challenged
GREEN = Followed

• Video - Recurring close ups of a main artist throughout the video - I didn't feel the need to have the entire thing based around one person, I felt getting the stories of different people across was more important and it backs an ideal of everyone matters. Plus I don't think it works with a narrative as well as a concept or performance video. As the clip below shows, The beginning doesn't focus on one person, it shows everyone. Doing this also broke narrative conventions because I had a lot of micro narratives and there wasn't really a clear beginning, middle and end within these little narratives and within the whole video. Having normal sound and no dialogue throughout - I tried the idea of having some dialogue in but the audience feedback on it wasn't great and the meaning of the scene was clear without it. You can clearly see in the clip below that the teacher is having an argument with the student and trying to get him to co operate for the photo. I also kept with the genre by not having a happy video because I feel like a happy video wouldn't get the message across. I also had lipsyncing and a sort of stage performance within the video which fits in with performance music videos. I think this fits well with the genre especially as other music videos by My Chemical Romance mix narrative and performance. I used the convention of cutting to the beat an awful lot. I think this is just key in music videos because it makes the video flow nicely and makes the transitions a lot more natural and therefore more aesthetically pleasing.

• Magazine advert - Colourful - I didn't use lots of colour in my magazine article because I wanted to reinforce the black and red theme. So the only colour I used was red (other than black and white) which I feel made it more eye catching and interesting as someone looking at it would be drawn to the red rose as it is the only colour. I also wanted to stand out and be different. The connotations of red is that it is quite an emotionally intense colour and black symbolises negativity which really fits in with the feel I was trying to get across. These colour choices also match My Chemical Romance's other products which makes it really fit in with the rest of the genre. Simplicity - I made my magazine advert rather simple as I want the audience to be able to easily find the information they need without having to search for it and then get bored and uninterested. I followed the convention of making my product accessible but advertising where it could be bought on this poster. For example, my poster has reviews from HMV etc on it. Also, I advertised Spotify on it. Spotify is advertised on my website too which is great synergy. I chose to make Spotify a focus because it is what a lot of young people are using recently to listen to music rather than the old school buying the CD method.

• Website - Advertisements - I didn't put any advertisements in because I felt like it would detract from the design and theme of the website and will just distract people who are on the website. I did decide to have the title and logos big at the top of the page on every page though because I think it is important that the audience can see these, throughout the website and that they are the first thing someone sees. I also had the main video on the front page because it really gets the audience's attention and shows them exactly what the brand has to offer without bombarding them with a barrage of text to start with and it just fits well with the banner announcing the new album on the same page. I wanted to have my site simple but interesting. To make audiences want to explore it and know more but without them getting confused or overwhelmed with information. So, I had five main pages all with different things on, none of them with too much information and all of them offering something visual as well as words to read. For example, I did a merchandise page because my young audience would be the type who would buy into that and would want to show off their interests by wearing band tees etc.

• I broke a lot of representation conventions. For example, the age one about teenagers being carefree was completely thrown out the window and I also haven't shown any of the females in the video as sexualised objects. I did this because the whole video is about challenging people's first impressions and conceptions of others so surprising the audience and challenging their initial thoughts on the characters will make them think. 

• I followed some of Goodwin's ideas and broke others. I have stuck with Goodwin's idea of music and visuals being linked as there is cutting on the beat and lipsyncing. I did this because it gives the video a nice flow and looks good. There is also lots of intertextual references - mostly to other My Chemical Romance songs e.g. in the photowall scene. I did this because lots of fans of the band's other music will pick up on it so it adds another element to the video. I didn't stick to the close ups of the artist one though as explained above.