Evaluation Question 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For our music video we wanted to follow current media conventions for music videos. We decided on doing Banquet by the band Bloc Party which are an alternative rock band. We therefore decided to do a performance video as this is typical for rock genres.

To make it follow traditional rock music video conventions we used close ups, extreme close ups,  full band shots, panning and fast cuts between shots. We also used lipsyncing which is a very important part of performance videos.

Originally, when beginning the research and planning section of our coursework, we weren't sure of what music genre and video catagory we were going to use. After researching different genres as a group, we dicided to go for alternative rock. We researched the video styles, album styles and clothing styles that alternative rock bands would use/wear. We looked at bands such as: Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian, Bloc Party, Oasis, Kaiser Chiefs, The Raconteurs, Little Comets and The Killers. After a long time of choosing artists we eventually decided that we were going to do the song Banquet by Bloc Party. We also decided that we were going to do a performance video.

We also looked into the way that Bloc Party and other similar bands dress and styled our performers into the way they dress. We also marked stage positions for the performers to stand so we could make Lo! look like a real band.

We then looked into music videos by Bloc Party, mainly the 'Banquet' video as this included some performance and lipsyncing. I looked closely at the Bloc Party album, 'A Weekend in the City' as I wanted to use a similar effect in my digipak. I used this for inspiration as I used a blurred image of the drummer behind where the CD would go.

I also did a lot of research into Andy Warhol's 'Campell's Soup' and the album cover he made with The Velvet Underground. I liked the pop-art idea and wanted to try and re-create that. I also looked into the Oasis boxset album 'Definitely, Maybe' as this was a collection of Oasis tracks but they came in a boxset made like a cigarette case. This was typical of Oasis as this is the image that Oasis has put out through the years and people associate them with cigarettes and alcohol. I therefore used a tin of spam as the front and back of my digipak. This is because Spam is a worldwide known brand and is grooved into society and is a generic brand. Whereas Lo! are not well known and generic so I used the Spam to make the Digipak ironic.