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

To make my final products look professional I had to follow certain forms and conventions of exsisting products, in particular those of the hip-hop genre. I achieved this through things such as mise-en-scene, which for my music video was to feature the artist in his day to day settings such as in his house as this was what I found was the trend between most UK hip-hop videos, such as Dirty Dike's I analysed earlier. I also built on the conventions of mise-en-scene by featuring smaller objects such as alcohol bottles within the shots which don't stand out but help to build upon the day to day setting within his home. I also selected that the clothing be typical of the hip-hop genre making sure the actor was always wearing a flat peak cap and baggy hoodie.

For some of my products I decided to feature the artist smoking, which I felt was a way of developing the convention of having the artist in his day to day setting as most UK hip-hop artists have at least one scene in their videos where they are smoking. I decided to develop this further and feature it across both my digipak and final video as smoking is something that they will do regularly and on a daily basis so felt it fitted well.

 One way in which I challenged conventions was to not have a picture of the artist himself on the front cover of my digipak. Throughout pretty much every hip-hop CD the artist is on the front cover, where as I felt by challenging this it made the finished product seem far more unique and therefore more appealing to the audience. In addition to this I felt that having an image of a microphone on the floor links in with how Dr. Syntax is just a man with a microphone, there's no band or instrumentalists, so he is as alone with his music as the microphone is on the floor.

For my magazine advert I followed conventions such as having one dominant image across it all which imediately draws the eye in and then having text and smaller images around the outside to provide the viewer with extra information. I am happy with how I have used conventions with my products as I have used them enough to allow my products to be recognisable to what they are, but have also challenged them enough for my products to be origianl and unique. This I believe is perfect for the audience as products need to be recognisable, but also unique so to stand out and make them want to buy it.