When developing and producing my music promotional package I believe I followed the conventions of existing music promo packs.
For my music video when planning I learnt that they usually feature the band/artist lip syncing to the song. Therefore when producing my music video I made sure that I had Holly miming to the words of the song. This made the music authentic and followed one of the conventions.
Sometimes music videos are completely abstract, that is nothing to do with the artist or lyrics within the song. I did not follow this convention when producing my music video as I used the performance and narrative style.
This is where music videos feature a loose narrative – a storyline, that links to the lyrics of the song. I did this in my video by having four different people going through tough times, for example an argument and feeling alone. They then left the pain and came to church where they were welcomed and looked after.
Therefore following the convention of a narrative video.
Also I included the performance style. Having the band perform on stage in front of a church congregation. Plus having Holly Smith lip synching to the song outside with just her guitar.
In having a slow song I made sure that the video was slow in the cuts and fades when I edited the video. My first version of the music video was very fast in movement and zooms plus the shot cut away too fast. This made the music video look wrong and didn’t follow the convention of slow movements and cuts to a slow song, and fast movements of the camera to a fast song.
Therefore I went away and produced a second version of my music video following this convention and making sure that the movement of the camera and the zooms were slow. Plus when editing I didn’t have loads of cuts every couple of seconds. Instead having shots shown for more than 5 seconds and including some slow fades.
Music videos rely heavily on post production effects. Therefore when editing the Only You Can Save music video I used different effects. First I stabilized the footage to make it less shaky. I mainly did this on the footage I filmed outside with Holly and her guitar.
I also changed the speed of some footage, for example all the storyline clips are in slow motion. In doing so the audience really focuses on what’s happening to the people and feel sorry for them.
I also added a few lens flares onto clips with the sun already in, making more of a glow on screen, in doing so the video looks a lot more better.
Plus I changed around the contrast, exposure and gamma of some of the footage just to make it visually look better and fit in with the style of the song.
I believe in following the conventions of a music video I was able to produce a music video which is authentic and professional making it believable and look like a music video.
Even though I followed the conventions I feel like I still wasn’t constrained in my creative ideas. Allowing me to express my own feeling and beliefs within a video.
Before developing my digipak I looked at other CDs to research and learn the conventions of a digipak. I learnt that most had a logo of the name of the band or artist. Therefore I decided to produce my own logo for the name of the artist – Holly Smith. I did this in a font that fitted in with the style of the piece.
In doing so the cover of the digipak looked authentic and original and looked like something you’d find on the shelf of HMV. I believe the cover shows what the music is all about. Having a close up of the guitar with the artists hand. Also having some lyrics of the song shows that is a Christian album.
I also followed the conventions of a digipak for the back cover by including a number of record label logos, a barcode and copyright information. I did this because you find all this information on every backcover of a CD.
I then also included the track numbers along with the title of each song. I did because you also find this on every backcover.
I followed the conventions of a digipak to produce my own digipak which is done to a professional standard and looks authentic. Even though I followed the conventions I feel like I still wasn’t constrained in my creative ideas and i feel that the conventions helped as they were a great template to start with and work around, to show off my creative flare.
Before developing my magazine advert I researched the conventions of a magazine advert for a CD. I did this by looking in a selection of Christian magazines. I learnt that the magazine advert should look similar to the digipak and the music video so people can link them all together. I also learnt that it needs to include an image of the artist and most defiantly an image of the front cover of the Digipak.
In doing this the viewer can link the digipak and the magazine advert together and it shows what we are trying to sell.
Also to make the magazine advert look real and authentic I included the record label logos I put on my digipak.
Another thing I included that I have learnt from other magazine adverts is that I should include tour dates of the artist and bands upcoming tour. Therefore I added this in following this convention.
I followed the conventions of a magazine advert to produce my own advert which is done to a professional standard and looks authentic. Even though I followed the conventions I feel like I still wasn’t constrained in my creative ideas and i feel that the conventions helped as they were a great template to start with and work around, to show off my creative flare.
Overall I have followed the conventions of each product in my promotional package how I feel it didn’t restrain me on what I could do. In researching them I learnt quite a lot about music videos, digipaks and magazine adverts.
