Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1 by Harry_Tibbles

FINAL Question 1. In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Evaluation: Question 1

Evaluation Question 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Evaluation Question 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?


My Directors Commentary:

DRAFT ANSWER: Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Music Video


During the research and planning stages of making the video we all had lots of ideas that we wanted to put into the video and they came from all sorts of inspiration. We gained our inspiration from various forms of media such as adverts, other music videos, television programs and much more. It is inevitable that any ideas will be entirely your own because we are influenced by media on a day to day basis. Together, we compiled a list of all the inspiration we took from media we have experienced and worked out who came up with what ideas. These are explained in detail below...

Locations:
Barn- The idea to have the band performance in a barn came from Jess. She had seen the video for Something Good Can Work by Two Door Cinema Club, a band in the same genre as ours, and liked the performance. It was in what look liked an abandoned space, yet well looked after made slightly more interesting by the coloured rectangle in the background. When thinking about how we could do this ourselves she thought of a barn at her dad's house that wasn't in use upstairs but was very clean and through the lens it wouldn't look like your average barn. By having such a blank area to perform in gives the eye less to focus on so they are instantly drawn to watching the band perform which can only be a good thing.

Pool- The decision on using a pool as one of the location was from Harry as he owned one. He did not get the idea from anything he had scene before which boosted his enthusiasm to use the pool even more. By thinking that no one else will be using a pool from our class, and it never been done before in a popular indie music video, Harry thought that it would help our music video to stand out from the rest.

Caravan- The caravan idea was contributed by Harry and myself (Meg). After Harry mentioned having a caravan we could use, I instantly wanted to use it in our video. Indie bands are typically known for not making high budget music videos and not using fancy locations, so by filming the band in a caravan I thought it could help to emphasise the bands type of character. After establishing we would use the caravan in the video, Harry then went to remember a Royale Family Christmas Special where they went away in a caravan. In this episode they looked typically British along with the caravan, and as the band are a typical indie British, band we thought we this would help with their style.

Boat-  The idea to have the band in the boat came from me (Meg). Despite my inspiration not coming from a guitar bands music video but in fact a pop video I still feel it was a good contribution to the video. Already knowing that Harry owned a boat in his back garden, whilst watching One Direction's video for What Makes You Beautiful and the sense of fun that was being portrayed on a beach, I thought that maybe we could use the boat. Although it wouldn;t be on a beach and instead in a garden, we would still be able to create the same energetic atmosphere that happens in One Direction's video.

Other Ideas:
Carlisle sign- This idea was also influenced by a pop video but this time Harry was inspired. After watching the video to Cher Lloyd's song Swagger Jagger, he really wanted to include lyrics on the screen so there would be a match between what was being sung and what was on the screen. We didn't want it to be exactly the same with it being bright and animated as it's not something our target audience look for in a video, and we didn't want to have an actual sign to carlisle because a) it was too far away and b) it could be too illustrative if we did that. Instead Harry wrote the place on a piece of cardboard.

Ending- The ending idea came from Jess. After watching the video to A-Punk by Vampire Weekend, she was hugely inspired to use a very similar ending in ours. At the end of their video, the band do a quick spin and then run out of the shot in different directions. We had our band do the same, but instead of spinning they put their instruments down, except from Lewis as someone had to keep playing, and had them walk of to the left hand side of the screen. Once the music had stopped Lewis then walked off to the right. I liked this idea and thought it made a great ending to the video.

Georgias appearance, Alice Glass- We were all assigned band members who we were to style and Jess was given Georgia- being the only female of the group it made things harder for Jess because she didn't want her to stand out too much as she could risk being mistaken for the lead singer. Eventually she was inspired by Crystal Castles singer Alice Glass. With Georgia having a similar hair style to her already, Jess could picture what would suit her easier from looking at images of Alice. She took inspiration from her clothing and had Georgia wear lots of dark coloured clothing, including: black leather jacket, black shorts and black tights.

Bike scene- There were two different types of inspiration that were behind the bike scene. The first one came from Jess and Harry for the stop motion involved. After watching music videos by Coldplay and The Wombats they saw stop motion being used very effectively with drawing and wanted to incorporate that into our video. Despite not having time to do it in our draft, we made sure we had time to do it for our final video. Even though I did take a while drawing the chalk on the floor, I think the end result was very good. In addition to this, when looking at the camera angles in this scene, Harry took inspiration from The Vaccine's video to Norgaard. In the video you can see the model riding around on the bike and it changing from high to low angles, and close ups to mid shots which I believe we have done too in our video.

Hawaiian styling- After looking and similar bands in our genre, Joe mentioned Friendly Fires, a band who we are all fond of, and said how he liked to song Hawaiian Air by them. I (Meg) then made a connection between the song and the styling of lead singer Ed McFarlane. His infamous quirky dress sense and Hawaiian styled shirt inspired me to try and get the band dressed like this for a few shots in the video. When working with this idea, as a group we all thought that the Hawaiian shirts combined with hula dancing went perfect with the digetic sound where the shots would be.

Random objects and costumes- After watching The Maccabees video for First Love, Jess liked the idea of having random objects used in the video- many of them not having any relevance to the song or lyrics. By doing this it helped to reinforce the idea of a video classed under disjuncture. This was then followed by Joe telling about the vast amount of costumes he had at home, all which added to the random objects and ideas used in the video.

Skateboard- None of us have an interest in skateboarding, but after we selected our band members, Harry pointed out how all the males skated and really wanted to use the idea in our video because of how fast paced it is, and thought it could match the song. By using skateboarding as well, it could appeal to more people not just your typical 'indie style' person.

Monkey and banana chase- After finding out we were to use a monkey and banana costume I (Meg) came up with the idea of having the person in the monkey costume chasing the person in the banana costumer, and it worked out nicely that it was the lead singer chasing the female of the group. After thinking more about this idea I really wanted to make it a very short, brief comedy sketch and thought a Benny Hill style chase would be a brilliant idea. I could picture them in my head running around with the famous Benny Hill tune as the digetic sound. To then see this in the final video I was very pleased because I think this was my best contribution to our music video.

Chorus- The idea to have to band members swap position but have the lead singer stay in the same place gave from Jess. She took inspiration from the Innocent Smoothies advert where it used stop motion and had the product remain for most of the advert in the centre of the shot, with other objects moving around it. This is similar to Steve staying in the middle singing "One night in October" and Georgia, Will and Lewis swapping positions in the background. I think this was a great idea on Jess' behalf because the chorus is what makes the song so we needed something distinctive that could be used throughout the video to repeat.

Coffin- The coffin idea was a collective one between myself (Meg), Jess and Harry. We thought about connotations of the band's name 'The Skeleton Boys' and gothic culture was one that clearly stood out. After already using the coffin in the daylight, we thought we could use it during the night time. We thought that a combination of darkness, coffin and skeletons would represent gothic culture well.

Music Video Theories


Andrew Goodwin- Part of the 'Dancing in the distraction factory' theory says that 'The creation of character for stars provides a point of identification  for  the audience/spectator which is especially important  when  lyrics  often  lack  depth'.  I believe we have definitely lived up to this theory because I think we have definitely shown off the lead singer, Steve’s character through close ups of him laughing and wearing fun clothing. The focus of the band having fun takes away the fact that their isn't much to the lyrics and makes it more interesting.

Digipak


Album:
Image- For my main image I took inspiration from and i-D magazine cover with model Behati Prinsloo. She is on the front with half a painted skeleton face. I saw this image in my Media Studies classroom and instantly thought I could work with this idea and carry it over to my poster with ease. It's quite an original idea and connotes to the name of the band nicely.

Link between album and poster- I have observed throughout this course that a vast amount of artists in our selected genre ensure that their album looks very similar to their poster so consumers can instantly recognise who the poster was advertising. I was then inspired to use this convention.


Poster:
Reviews to include- To find out what terminology is used in music reviews and what music magazines give ratings and what don't, I went onto the NME website to look at some of their reviews to take inspiration from. I did in fact look at Little Comets album review but didn't copy it as it didn't give hugely positive comments or rating. I could then take what I had learnt and use it in my own poster. I used the rating and a brief comment which I have seen very often on posters.

Conventions of a poster- I looked at existing posters for bands albums to take inspiration from to see what is typical of an indie bands debut album poster. It was very helpful because I saw repeatedly things that should be included.

Digipak Theories


Laura Mulvey- Laura Mulvey is behind the theory of the male gaze. She came up with the theory in 1975. She says that in films, the audience have to look at the characters as if they were a heterosexual male. The deals with the concept of how an audience views the people that are presented. The male gaze is often used in everyday life. Theorists have noticed that sexualizing of the female body is used in adverts even when it has nothing to do with the product that is being advertised. Without doing it intentionally, I have used a female to promote my products on both a poster and an album.

Categorising facial expressions:
Once again, I did not figure that my female model would be looked at in any sort of way other than just someone on the cover of a bands album. However, consumers will look at the image and be presented with a facial expression and I believe it fits into two.
Marjorie Ferguson (1980s)- The Chocolate Box Half Smile when the lips are together, teeth are barely visible and the full face is to the camera.
Trevor Millum (1990s)- Practical which is when they are concentrating, engaged in business in hand, their mouth is closed, eyes are object direct and only a slight frown.

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

Music Video


It is impossible for a music video to have an entirely new concept as there will always be parts that have intentionally or unintentionally taken inspiration from other media, this could be another music video or films, TV programs, books, art ect. Below I have complied a list of inspiration we knowingly took from other media forms. 


Meg
- Boat 'One Direction'
The boat scene is one of my favourites in the in the music video, the reason why i like this is because of the disjuncture of it, everything about it conforms with previous expectations of boats in music videos and connotations with fun but we challenge the idea by not focusing on the fact of it being a boat and just a source of fun. The idea of the boat came from a boy group not in the genre of Indie/Alternative going by the name of One Direction and their Music video 'What Makes You Beautiful' the video is set on a beach and has a fun atmosphere about it, this is what initially made us think of using a boat (we knew this was a viable option from a previous conversation involving boats' 

- Monkey Chase 'Benny Hill'
The idea of the Monkey chase scene came from the famous Benny Hill sketch in which he chases women around the stage, this idea took a little wile to get to the final version. We knew we wanted to incorporate a chase scene that focused on Georgia who is the only female in the band (for a reason). Meg pipped up with previous knowledge of the said scene from Benny Hill the problem was was trying to find a clip for guidance to build from

- Hawaiian Shirts 'Ed Mcfarlane'
In the boat scene we wanted to emphasise the 'fun' idea i have already said, to do this we decided to use Hawaiian shirts as ill explain later we linked hawaiian with Friendly Fires and especially the lead singer who was know to wear the style of shirt at festivals over the summer to which Meg saw for herself at Reading festival. 

Jess
- The Barn 'TDCC - Something Good Can Work'
One of Jess' great inputs was for the idea for the performance part of the video, being a great music video watcher she had previously come across the simple video for the Two Door Cinema Club video. The video features the band playing in what could be described as an abandoned warehouse. When it came to our own music video we thought that instead of using the bright white of the TDCC video we would challenge the idea but conform to the 'home made' feel commonly seen in indie and alternative music videos. Jess came through with helping us on this one and suggested we could use the barn at her dads house. The lighting we used also made it feel allot warmer and more inform with the beat of the Little Comets song.

- Ending 'Vampire Weekend A-Punk'
Another video that Jess came along is the fun and interesting video for A-Punk by vampire weekend, it wasn't till the very end did she take inspiration; at the end of the video they all spin round then run out of shot. In our draft music video we had our band to take of their instruments and walk our simultaneously, although this was effective it wasn't until feedback did we realise that you couldn't have the band put down their instruments if the track was still playing. To overcome this in the final video we got Lewis to carry on playing whilst the others left (after their instruments had been finished with) and then for him to walk out after the track had finished, this in my opinion and the opinion of our peers worked to our advantage and is my favourite part of the video. We also know that this scene was effective because several other groups in our year decided to use and interpret our ending into their music video.

- Georgias Appearance 'Alice Glass'
Alice Glass is half of the Indie duo Crystals Casltes, Jess had the idea to model Georgia on her and her style, they already had similar hairstyles so all that was left was to match the clothes, Alice's style is understated with her wearing mainly black clothes in baggy and masculine cuts. When it came to filming we made a last minute decision to put Georgia in my hoodie to emphasise the masculine feel. We did still however wanted to show she was female so instead of putting her in black jeans to copy the style of the males in the group we opted for black shorts and tights. However for the barn performance the black chose of Alice Glass would of made Georgia stand out too much next to the rest of the band in colours shirts/t-shirts/jackets, to tackle this we asked Georgia to wear a tie dye t-shirt which always feels fun. 

- Random Objects 'The Maccabees - First Love'
During our research we came along to the video for First Love by the Maccabees, at first we thought nothing of it until we wanted to look to include 'more disjuncture' during one of our lengthy conversations Jess brought up the video again and the way they used random objects to great effect. Objects we then used were; mugs, leaves, balloons, inflatables etc. 

- Chorus 'Innocent Smoothies'
The best idea Jess came up with and the thing that pulled the whole video together was the idea for the chorus, as a group we knew we wanted to use stop motion in music video. Jess got the idea for the band to move around whilst the lead singer, Steve, sang from the innocent smoothies advert on the TV and the Coldplay - Strawberry Swing video which is entirely stop motion. We realised we couldn't have the whole music video in stop motion because we didn't have enough time to film it. Instead using it for the chorus meant it took a mere percentage of the time of a whole video but keeping the effect.

Harry
- Pool
Id like to think this was my greatest contribution to our music video, mainly because it was me who only had a swimming pool. The idea was basically thought up like that, i had a swimming pool and others did not so it might give us the edge on the other groups by adding diversification within the video. Myself and the group came the conclusion we would use the pool as one of the sources of fun in the music video and to keep in with the upbeat style of the song. 

- Carlisle "Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger'
Being the cool person i am i watch music videos by artist such as Cher Lloyd, as other media students wouldn't touch her music with a barge pole i still managed to take inspiration from it. During he song Swagger Jagger cartoon style writing comes up to make a direct relationship between the lyrics and video. I did know it was too mainstream for our audience to have flashing words appear i did like the idea. i also had an idea to go to a road sign show carlisle on but that was soon dashed as i realised how far the city was. To compensate this i came up with the idea of creating our own sign in the style of homeless man or hitchhiker.

- Bike 'The Vaccines (camera angles + different transports'
This is another 'random object' the arose from the First Love video but i wanted to give it more meaning than just a random object so i decided to include some action with the bike, one of the videos i found inspiration for this scene was from 'The Vaccines' video 'Norgaard', an addition is that the bike in the video looks a bit like the one i had at home. In the video the Model Amanda Norgaard rides the bike and the cameraman swaps between a mid shot of the bike to a shot of Amanda 'chasing' the cameraman. 

- Skateboard
I myself am not a skateboarder but it was when we were picking the people we wanted in our band and it just happened they all were accomplished skateboarders it got me thinking about their uses and if we could incorporate it in the video. I managed to get my idea in in a couple of places with Steve using it as a choice of transport at the start of the video and Georgia being on it going to and from in the camera wearing a colander. The skateboarding in addition came in use when we needed to film the moving shot of Steve walking in his footsteps. 

Joe
- Hawaiian Shirts 'Friendly Fires'
Ive said further up in my evaluation that we made a connection between Hawaiian and Friendly Fires, Joe remembered that the band had a song called Hawaiian Air and maybe this was a good place to start for inspiration. Unfortunately they focused more on the air side of the title in their music video with the video being shot on a plane which is when as ive also said was where Meg suggested to look at the lead singer.


- Monkey Scene 'Costumes (monkey + banana)'
The original idea for the costume scene was devised by me after seeing two animal masks in Jess' car but the problem was was that there was only two and for it to be effective we needed 4. As a group we tried to source 2 more but no use and it became apparent we had to change our idea or scrap it completely. Scrapping it was something we all agreed on was something we didn't want to do; cue Joe, he stepped in offering the use of full banana and monkey costume and i matched him with a doctors and a tiger costume. 

Group
Meg and Harry
- Caravan 'Royal Family'
Another thing i had at my house was a caravan and it never became apparent to use it until Meg thought of it. I did think that it might look a bit tacky as my caravan is not the newest but then i remembered a christmas episode of The Royal Family where they went to stay in a caravan for the weekend, this served two purposes it helped with the 'style' of the caravan and the britishness of our band. 

Meg, Jess and Harry
- Coffin 'Gothic culture and the link with the name The Skeleton Boys'
One of the weirdest items in our music video has to be the coffin, this arose from the gothic culture Jess' is interested in and the name of the band The SKELETON Boys. 

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Through Beats

Take into account the structure of the song - When editing i tried to make sure they every cut was on a beat and where possible every gesture as in the Hawaiian hand was to a beat.

Ignore Common Narrative

The music video should advertise the band and have repeatability so that the audience does not lose interest easily - we have used repeatability in two was, the first is the chorus where we have used the same clip 4 or 5 times and only using 4 or 5 locations and flicking between them. As for advertising the band we have only used them in the music video so its impossible to get mixed up with who are extras and who are the band

Star Image

In our video we have made a good job with making Steve the 'star' even though the band do sing in parts of the song when they do they only mumble the words whereas Steve pronounces them (finally). Also Steve is placed slightly forward to emphasise the importance of him.

A Relationship Between The Lyrics And The Visuals

There is an obvious part in the music video where we make a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, this is as ive already explained is the scene with the carlisle sign. We didn't use it too much though because the basis of the music video is disjuncture. 

Digiak

Unlike a music video its possible to come up with new ideas for a digipak but in my case i decided to stick closely to the styles of The Vaccines and Vampire Weekend. 

From The Vaccines digipak i copied the front cover almost exactly, down to the placement of text and images to the colour pallette used. I decided to do this not though laziness but because it was a tried and tested method. One thing i didn't try to emulate was the image, the image The Vaccines used was of a child hugging presumedly her mother, this is where Vampire Weekend come in. The cover of their digipak for Contra features a 20 something year old woman but what i liked about it was the vintage style and with the help of photoshop i managed to re-create the vintage style whilst using a DSLR camera. 

Poster

My poster was an extension of my digipak as i used the same image, same fount and same colours as the digipak. Like my digipak is based my design on the poster for the album What Did You Expect From The Vaccines and this create a sense of branding as well as conform with already used designs. 

DRAFT Evaluation Question 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Our Video:

All music videos that are created in today's society must have taken some inspiration from somewhere, and depending on the genre of the music, the inspiration comes from different places. The video we have created fits into the indie/alternative genre and so this genre mainly, or conventionally, features disjuncture - like I analysed in Foals - Cassius and Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know.

The locations we used were: Jess Pardoe's barn, Harry Tibbles' House (e.g. pool, boat, coffin, trampoline, caravan, hill etc.) and the forest at Upper Bruntingthorpe.

The inspiration for the barn was from Two Door Cinema Club:

Athough the barn that we have chosen looks little like this video, they both have similar aspects. For example, the band are playing in a fairly large plain area with just their instruments and themselves. We did not, however, use their idea of changing the background colour as we wished to keep the simplicity of the barn and match the colours of the band's clothing with the up-beat tempo of the music. This part of the music video uses conventions of real media products in the indie genre and develops them a little by having our own take on this particular scene.

The pool idea did not have any particular influence, we just thought that the tempo and the crashing of the cymbals suited the song, and used the theory from Andrew Goodwin that the music video should have 'through beats' and fit the structure of the song. The style of music also suited the band members having fun and showing they have a careless side by jumping in the pool fully clothed.

The idea of the boat was influenced, for me, by the idea of the band jumping in the pool. I thought that a contrast between the wet, indoor jumping around and having fun with the calm, outdoor sipping cocoa at night time would add a bit more depth to the video and in some respects abides the binary opposition theory. 

The coffin location was not one we can say we took influence from any music video, although it could be argued that we partly took influence from Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance":

This gothic culture is easy to take inspiration from. From Lady Gaga to Gothic literature - all elements of the gothic portray similar things. The main influence was discussing ideas that could link to the name of the band: "The Skeleton Boys" and thought, more as a joke at first, why don't we use a coffin? After Harry had replied he had one, we had no other choice than to use it as it challenges conventions by having a happy, singing band either side of what should be a gloomy coffin. We placed the lead singer, Steve, in the coffin, as this followed conventions of mainly focusing on the lead singer.

The idea of jumping on the trampoline at dusk with Autumn leaves was using elements of illustration within our music video as it is called "One Night In October". This use of illustration uses the forms and conventions of real media music videos as they usually have elements of either illustration, amplification or disjuncture (or a mixture). Our video is mainly disjuncture with elements of performance - as we found this common within the indie/alternative genre. For example:

Therefore abiding and using conventions of real media products in the indie/alternative genre.

The caravan location was inspired by a particular scene from the TV comedy "The Royle Family".

But not only locations were influenced by other existing media products - a lot of our ideas came from completely random areas of the media, such as TV adverts, books, radio, magazines and the internet. For example, 

The stop motion that we have used with the bicycle, along with the moving band members in the barn setting was inspired from Innocent smoothie's advert:

but stop motion is also commonly used in music videos, such as The Wombats - Joy Division:

The Wombats fit into the indie/alternative genre we were aiming our media product at, so by using it in our video, we are using forms and conventions of other real media products that are similar to ours.

The use of chalk with our bicycle stop motion was partly inspired by Coldplay's Strawberry Swings video:

as this uses chalk with stop motion throughout the whole video.

The "Carlisle" sign idea was inspired by Cher Lloyd's video:

as it uses signage which links directly to the lyrics, which is exactly what we have done. We developed this convention a little more by making the band members actually hold the sign as opposed to using a post-production enhancement as we believe the retro look of it fits more definitely into the genre we are aiming to fit into with our video.

We then went on to thinking about what the word disjuncture actually means and how the indie genre uses this. After deciding that we needed something completely irrelevant to the lyrics, and random, we found costumes in our houses and used the idea of a Benny Hill chase scene to create a monkey chasing after the banana comedy sketch. This quick paced sketch suits the happy, almost comic tone of the music and uses the common conventions of music videos that the lead singer must be the main focus of the video and so by being the chaser, we have done this.

The ending was largely influence by Vampire Weekend' A-Punk:

as all band members leave the screen before the video ends. We have used this convention but developed it further by having the band members put their instruments down on screen and then leaving as they finish playing. I think that this finishes off our music video very well and makes the audience know that the video has reached a definite end.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory: 

Through Beats

Take into account the structure of the song. (We have achieved this by using our "One Night In October" stop motion scene repeatedly at the chorus, which is commonly used in music videos).

Ignore Common Narrative

The music video should advertise the band and have repeatability so that the audience does not lose interest easily. (We have done this by using the disjuncture in the video. This makes the video both memorable and enjoyable - acting as a perfect advertisement for the band)

Star Image

Our video tries to focus around Steve (the lead vocalist) as much as reasonably possible with the ideas we have used. However, in videos such as Foals - Cassius, the whole band are seen together for most of the video but the lead singer is placed slightly forward of the rest - so we did this with our video in scenes such as the barn where Steve is clearly at the front of the band.

A Relationship Between The Lyrics And The Visuals

Our video recognises the lyrics at some parts of the video like when we use the "carlisle" sign and when we use the trampoline scene with the autumnal leaves representing "one night in October". But mainly our video uses the typical convention of disjuncture in the indie genre.

My DigiPac:

Click Image To Enlarge

The digipac I have created uses many forms and conventions of the indie genre, despite looking quite simplistic and minimalistic.

Firstly, the front cover (the middle frame at the bottom) uses the feature of no title or band name. This is not because I am lazy, as I have tried and tested titles and sub titles all over the cover but when I looked at my audience's feedback, they liked the simple picture itself. I have taken inspiration from album covers in the indie genre, and used conventions of album covers such as:

 

As you can see, two of the six albums have no titles or sub titles at all - they merely use artwork as an eye catching tool and use that to draw in their audience. The pictures do not have any relevance to their songs or artists in most cases. Artwork or completely random images are now conventional of the indie genre and so by using artwork with no titles, I am following real forms and conventions of other real media products from the same genre.

The antlers are purposely off centre as this, again follows the conventions of the Active Child album cover and the Red hot Chili Peppers' album cover.

The credits frame (the bottom right panel) was made purposefully simplistic as I took the idea from The Libertine's credit page of their digipac:

and so I gave my credits page a very similar layout so that it followed the forms and conventions of most digipacs.

The back cover of the digipac (the bottom right panel) is heavily influenced by Vampire Weekend's album 'Contra' as I used their layout and then wrote my track list over the top of theirs so that it fitted perfectly and I used their form and used a real media convention as they fit into the indie genre I am aiming for:

The inside three panels (the top three panels) uses one, long continuous image that I edited from these images of Steve (the lead singer) running and jumping in a car park:

But I edited the levels on the edited photo so that the picture seemed more retro and dated and so fitted in with the digipac better. This was inspired by Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare's digipac as on the inside it uses on continuous image of a house in the background:

I then used the convention of many other media products of keeping the image inside the digipac running onto the CD itself so that the image is not broken by the CD, this convention was inspired by The Avalanches 'Since I Left You' digipac.

The white writing of "thank you" s on the wall behind Steve running and jumping is conventional of most digipacs as most bands like to thank their producers and their fans for example the Libertines:

So I used the space on the wall only to add to the artistic feature of writing thank yous and I used the Libertines' layout so that I was using forms and conventions of real media products in the indie genre.

My digipac also incorporates: a catalog code; a spine with the bands name on; the record label; a barcode and the copyrights of the band as these are features you see on most digipacs for legal reasons and so that bands are able to sell their albums efficiently.

My digipac may be thought as flawed as it shows no link whatsoever to the music video other than Steve being on one of the images - however, I feel as though many other artists, such as Vampire Weekend, The Libertines, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Two Door Cinema Club show no link between their digipacs and their music videos, so I do not think I have broken any conventions in not having a link between these products.

My Poster:

My poster is linked directly with my digipac as it uses the eye-catching image that can be seen on the front cover of my digipac. This is a common convention that I have took inspiration from many bands. For example, Two Door Cinema Club:

  

I then used only the words "The Skeleton Boys" in a faded grey writing as I thought this was enough information for the audience, as The XX do a similar thing with their poster of just an X:

powerful images and minimal writing is a form used in the indie genre, so I used this in my poster.

My main inspiration for this poster was from Vampire Weekend as it uses only an image and the name of the band: