Evaluation question 1

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

Conventions used

The genres I have used in my music video are thriller/ horror genres. the triller/ horror genre One of the media conventions I have used to conform to my genres is the use of blood and red to connote danger. I use quick editing to build up tension in the storyline and I contrast this with some longer shots to drop the tension and build it back up again. I try to link the shots together by the use of colours. For example, I will have a shot of my brother with blood on his face next to a shot of the church's red patterned carpet. Another convention I use is that I set my media movie in an isolated area which is conventionally seen in horror movies to add to the scary atmosphere and draw attention to the main characters and what they are going through. Religious themes are also a big convention used in horror/ thriller movies which is something I use a lot of within my own media products. 

Development of original ideas inspired by other media products

My music video uses a lot of editing that is similar to other music videos, something that I worked on a lot is the use of cuts and shot changes where the music's beat changes. As well as, making sure my shots relate to the lyrics of the song. This is something seen in music videos a lot by not as much as I have shown in my music video. Most music videos include a narrative or atmospheric shots and sometimes the narrative is there but it doesn't go in time with the music. My music has a narrative relevant to the song, shots that go in time with the song and I tried to get as aesthetic shots as I could, especially with the cutaway shots of the church. 

My digipak front cover and magazine advertisement are inspired by Imagine Dragon's Smoke and mirrors album cover. I also use the hands reaching up as if to catch something, like the bird in the Imagine Dragons album cover, is replaced by the hand and the car in my album digipak front cover.

Challenged others

One way my ancillary products challenged other media products is that I used a serif font. This challenges other media conventions because it is very rare for media products like advertisements or digipaks to use this font. This is because it is often seen as old or font used in newspapers, however, in my media products I use a lot of religious themes throughout and nearly all bibles and religious texts use a serif font. I used this because it matched with my horror/thriller genre and it links to the heavy religious concept shown throughout all my media products.

In addition to this, with my ancillary products, I use a lot of colours. Most advertisements and digipacks that follow the thriller/ horror genres don't use as much colour, more often than not they use monochrome colours with the addition to an accent colour, a lot of the time red. Although my media products do include the colour red, I also use the coloured church window in the background with coloured text, seen in my digipak advertisement. That way my media products still conform to the thriller convention by the use of contrast between bright colours and the monochrome colours.

shot from Loco by Coal Chamber

The thriller/horror genre typed narrative is not often used in music videos unless the genre of music is really dark metal. The song I have chosen 'Take me to church' is alternative rock which is often seen as a softer version of rock and heavy metal, which are more likely to use horror genre. I haven't used extreme horror in my music video as it would give my target audience the wrong idea of the what genre the song was. However, the themes of blood and churches can often be seen in songs from the more hardcore rock genres. For example, the use of red to connote blood, death and pain can be seen by the use of red in the music video of Loco by Coal Chamber, where they use red string throughout the music video. Although I use red a lot throughout the music video I have toned down some of the darker themes in terms of visuals and acting, as I wanted my music video to appeal to a wider audience, however it is still heavily unusual to see the use of blood and built up thriller themes in a alternative rock music video which is something my music video has challanged.