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

Genre Conventions

Our poster has similar conventions of a promotional poster. We have a picture in the background that represents the artist background we have the name of the main track on the album which is Happy. Where our poster differs from Pharrell's is that we included extra details like whether it is out or not and where you can get it, as seen by the HMV logo at the bottom of the poster. We also have the website so that when potential fan sees the poster they can easily log on to his website and find out more information. We have kept our production simple and the themes current.

Pop artist are usually considered 'fashionable' or 'trendy' and they are usually seen wearing clothes that are mainstream. In our video we have taken some of this on board and made sure that our outfits are trendy and relatable to a mass majority whether young or old. Our main outfit was a dark blue suit with a wine shirt without a tie. We felt that if we had a tie it would be too formal which is not he type of vibe we were looking for. We wanted to make sure that when our audience watches our video they are uplifted by the feel good nature of the song.

One of a the main conventions of a pop video is for the artist to be conveyed as a happy person who is living lift to the fullest and content with life. I played our artist James Gomez and because of my nature this was very easy and it came natural to me. Portraying my own personality through the artist James Gomez it was easy for me as it was like having a alter ego but I did not have to act any different to how I act normally I was able to enjoy it. I have a very bubbly personality and I am the type person who does not stress, I am a very easy going person and that is exactly how we portrayed Mr Gomez.

Another convention that is typical of pop genre is that music videos are mostly about love and relationships. This is something that our video that does not adhere to. Our video has one theme and that is only to be Happy (pardon the pun) and to enjoy life. Which is not usually what pop videos are usually about; they are about love not necessarily sex but love, heart break and emotions.  We thought that if we picked a song that followed this convention it would put a damper on the mood and that's not the vibe we wanted to create. We wanted to create a feel good video for all ages.

Our video has proven successful in my opinion as we did our market research and we found out what the audience would be looking for in a pop music video we went away and we created a feel good video for all ages. We adhered to most conventions, we kept the video up beat and the clips match this vibe. We have used very lively locations as well some f which show wealth and some of which show everyday live and everyday living something that our audience can relate to. In terms of our ancillary text we also followed themes of existing themes as we thought that if we tried to subvert or change those themes it would be difficult to get the recognition that James Gomez needs as a upcoming artist.

Final Product

This our Final Product

 

Out-Takes and Bloop

Throughout our fiming there were times were we would film and then end up not using the clips for one reason. Maybe I (as James Gomez) would forget a lyric or sing the wrong one.  So there were many clips we were unable to use. 

This clip was not used because of the fact that even though it was shot from a high angle it just did not look right when we put it into Final Cut Pro we found that the angle was too high. 

This clip here was going pretty good until a car drove past and Bukky lost concentration so she forgot were she was meant to be going. We were meant to have a wave in and out effect of the pillars of which we were going to film but this one went wrong because the camera was in the wrong place.

This clip wasn't used because there were these stones in the background and what we were truing to do is see if I could jump from one stone to the other whilst lip-syncing but as you can see it was a lot harder than we thought.

Filming Day 1

This was my Video Blog for the first day of filming

Filming Day 2

 

This is my Video Blog of our second day filming.

Digi-Pack

This is our Album cover we made entitled "Happy" by James Gomez. The album cover featured Mr Gomez on a brick background. Out of all the backgrounds we could have chosen we used a bricks because we thought it would bring a subtle urban flare to the cover. It was also a subtle link back to his urban background. We made this a recurring theme during our digital pack. In our Biography for James Gomez we mentioned his upbringing and mentioned that he had made a few song; only one of which was released. "My town" has been included in his biography as his claim to fame before he released Happy. The album was endorsed and produced by School boy records so we had to put the school boy logo to show this.

 

 

The poster was our main focus as we though that this would also help promote our artist. As an artist posters are essential to market themselves. As an artist James Gomez would need an effective way to get themselves out there. They need that boost that cements themselves into the music industry.

 

 

We kept the lyric sheet plain because we felt that it wont keep the audiences attention. The sheets are just for the audience to follow the song so personally I felt it is even better that we kept simple.  In Heinz site I think that maybe it wasn't the best idea to have a brick background. Maybe we should have lowered the opacity to make the lyrics the centre of attention and make sure that it is easily read. The inlay is also quite simple but because as a group we wanted the audience to focus on the front cover so we kept it simple enough see it nd appreciate it and then go back and focus on the front cover.
 

Filming Locations

We have many locations in mind for our video which are demonstrated in the screen shots below;

Our first destination is a located relatively local; The Chatham Marine. we thought this would be a good location because it offers the chance for scenic shots of a beautiful marine background. What this means is that there is the opportunity to have a few establishing shots panning across the marine. It is a good location and luckily it is not really far. So the plan is  to get a few shots here that we can open the video with where we will have the main character open the music video.

1st Location

As a group we decide to use this location as it is unusual and we like how it looked through the camera. We felt like this was one of Chatham Dockside's highlights and just an over good aesthetically pleasing to the eye. So this was the place we used as one of the opening scenes in our video. Unlike last year when I worked on my own I felt that it was easy to choose better locations because I was working in a group, it was all easy because there were many people so I could get opinions from more than one person. This location was used as the establishing shot for the video as it is scenic and is contemporary not usually seen in the everyday video.

2nd Location

This was our second location in which we used, the reason being is that we thought that the view from the marina would be not only a suitable location but like the first location it would be aesthetically pleasing to the eye. We felt that the it would be a good location to have as a background because of the clear view as well as the clear water and the boats and yachts that were docked. We felt that would show the wealth of our artist to live in such a high maintenance area.