Evaluation Q1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our products were based on The Doors - People Are Strange, so we had looked at the bands background including singles, albums, magazine articles and also the film 'The Doors'. From looking at the film 'The Doors' we had identified the use of colour filters throughout the film, which we decided would fit perfectly into our music video. We decided to use this as it links with the drug references in many of The Doors songs in the past and also in this one. It also fitted in perfectly with our narrative, as the main protagonist has been imagining the other protagonists throughout the video, which we have signified at the end. We looked at the existing video for People Are Strange by The Doors and saw the codes and conventions in that video did not follow previous videos from The Doors. We saw that there was a lack of colour filtering and that it had limited performance throughout, mainly focusing on the lead singer. We wanted to use the ideas of strangers from this video in our production, but we also wanted to incorporate the colour filtering which it missed. We used many ideas from the music video The Kill by 30 Seconds To Mars, which is based in a hotel with only the band occupying the hotel. Although we used other protagonists than the band members, we incorporated the hotel idea, with it looking as though it is empty by the lack of a receptionist.



Rather than having a performance aspect which The Kill uses, we decided to go against this convention and have protagonists at the hotel singing lyrics of the song, which adds to the title of the song we have chosen. To add to the strange music video we tried to create, we had members of staff at the hotel and also guests singing the lyrics, rather than the same people over and over again. We had not seen lyrics which members of the cast not in the band had sung in music videos we had watched, as it was not conventual, but we felt that it this was a key element of our video so after audience feedback which told us to include more of that, we decided to re-shoot this and film more of the lip syncing. From the videos we had watched there had been a lot of effects used in this genre, so we decided after our audience feedback to include some ghosting effect which enhanced our idea of keeping this music video mystifying. We also added in a continual use of a chess game which linked to the idea of the main protagonist and what was happening to him, which we want the audience to understand at the end. We ended with the king being knocked over, which was just after the main protagonist in our video had been cornered by each member of the cast.

For our Digipak, we had decided to link it to the band name, which is The Doors. We planned on using double doors as the front image of our digipak, but after looking at 'when your strange' CD cover, we realised that having two doors as the front cover was not conventional so we decided to use a picture of the cast standing in front of the hotel, which takes up the majority of the picture. After looking at other digipaks we saw that it was conventional to keep a continual theme throughout so we have used a picture of a room inside the hotel, which is the spiral staircase with the chandelier at the top of the image.  This links to how when you open up our digipak, which we have the idea as 'the door', you then enter part of the building which is also linked to our music video. On the back of our digipak we have decided to use the image of the back way out of the hotel, which is a clear contrast to the front but from audience feedback people preferred this image as it kept to the conventional theme throughout rather than have an image with no relevant meaning. We decided to make our digipak a greatest hits album, as the doors have been around for over 40 years, even without their lead singer, because this would be a greater appeal than having a rereleased single. The only information on the front cover will be 'The Doors' Greatest Hits and a sticker saying 'includes people are strange music video. On the inside covers of our digipak after audience feedback from other digipak designers and peers, we have decided to keep it bare as we felt that due to the spiral layout of the room we have on it, any information would not suit it and therefor not look as appealing as it would if it was kept bare. On the back of our digipak we have included the tracks on the digipak, how all of the songs have been written by the band, the doors website, our production company email address and the record label website. We have also included copyright information, a barcode and the record label logo. On the spine of our digipak we have The Doors - Greatest Hits, a production number and the record label logo again.

For our magazine cover we have decided to use the photograph of the cast which was going to be on our digipak, before audience feedback. We have decided to use this as it links to a previous Doors CD cover of Strange Days, which has the cast of a music video who are all very unique and in different clothing. We have edited this photo so that it is signified as weird, like the rest of our music video and which the band is also linked to. We have done this by distorting and adding different textures onto the photo, as well as experimenting on the colour filtering, which we have done in our music video and which happened in the film The Doors. We have also used a faded image in the background image, which was not conventional as we had not seen it been done by any of the magazine adverts we had looked at. We have done this by reducing the image's opacity and layering it into the background. The information we have included on our magazine advert is that we are advertising a digipak to be released on 27th of May, and that it includes a greatest hits album with a bonus music video of people are strange.