Evaluation Question 2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Album Digipack- Thin Blue Line

FRONT ALBUM COVER

ALBUM BOOKLET

TRACK LIST

 ALBUM INLAY

Music Campaign Website

Here is the link to our band, Thin Blue Line's website. We have tried to adhere to various conventions as well as subvert some cliches to keep the band's image interesting.

http://straud-96.wix.com/memories

Band's Name

We have decided on a band name for our group, after pooling some ideas for band names, we decided that we wanted something rebellious, to exemplify the punk attitudes and ideologies of the group. After researching some slang words for police men I found Thin Blue Line. We instantly liked this name, and got to work on creating a logo. We felt that the name suggested crossing the line, while also connoting the police, all suggests a sense of rebellion.

Request For Photo Shoot

In order to give our website a level of personality, we need to have photos available for depth in the star image we are trying to create. We need Sam to pose for some photos, and we are planning a shoot today in Cranleigh, using an alleyway and a yellow line, which we would turn blue to represent the band's name 'Thin Blue Line'.
Here is a confirmation email sent to Sam:

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

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

To solidify the presentation and star image of our band, we developed and produced several pieces of media, starting with a completed music video, as well as a band website and a CD digipack. While creating each of these examples, we experimented with the use of media convention and stereotype.

Our Music Video:

While filming our music video, we wanted to incorporate various punk/garage rock conventions into the filming and style of the video. For example, we aimed to stay within convention by making our video 3 minutes long, comparing our video with classic punk bands such as 'The Damned', we can see that shorted songs are far more popular in the punk genre, therefore, our video immediately matches this genre criteria.

While filming our performance element, we were convinced that we wanted to adhere to the punk conventions of a rough, messy image. With various shaky camera shots of  our band members performing. Taking inspirations from conventions set by classic punk bands such as The Sex Pistols.
I have created two GIF files to demonstrate examples of each of the close ups of our band members compared to the members of The Sex Pistols.

As you can see, there are very particular similarities between our band and The Sex Pistols, such as the dress sense, the interesting set, and the sens of enjoyment and unity that both bands are having while within the performance element of the video.





However, within our video, we decided to subvert convention by incorporating a narrative into our video, looking at The Sex Pistols video for 'God Save The Queen', they only have a performance element present in the video, we thought that we would subvert the stereotypical video and give our band a narrative concerning how they became a band, while demonstrating their inspirations. We felt that the use of the record store narrative gave the video a more interesting selling point to an audience.

Our Digipak and Website

 Once again, comparing the rest of our music promo package with existing bands from the Punk genre we examined the Punk band 'Slaves' and the contexts within their star image, and compared them to 'Thin Blue Line'. We examined the website for 'Slaves' and looked at the conventions that a modern day Punk band adhere to. We noticed a predominately black back ground, with dashes of bright colours. With their latest music video playing within entry of the website. We also chose to add our music video into our website, and programmed it to play within entry to the page. We thought that using this feature was striking, as an audience member would be instantly greeted by the band's music.


However, I also chose to include a second video on the music page of the website, names 'Filming of Memories' which contained a time lapse of the filming process of the video. I felt that this added an extra, exclusive feature to the website, offering the audience a chance to witness some special content, showing them performing in a professional environment. It also gave the website a special feature that I did not see in the websites that I researched. I felt that this added a Unique Selling Point to the band, and presented them as considerate towards their audience, and not afraid to share their work, whether it be polished or not.

Now, examining the digipak element of the music promotional package, I am comparing the two Punk bands 'Thin Blue Line' and 'The Damned'. As you can see, with our band, we have focused on the lead singer and his star image of the band, which subvert common punk conventions of having the entire band in the focus of the album cover, apparent in 'The Damned's' album cover, convention of punk albums is to either include the entire band together, to signify the unity of the band, however, we decided to have Sam using a hand gesture commonly associated with the punk/rock genre to demonstrate the passion and the focus of the actual style of music throughout the album. With various critics stating that 'Punk is dead' we wanted to employ our band as one of those who are keeping the sub-culture alive. 

Also, when comparing our track list to that of 'The Sex Pistols', one of the most renowned Punk bands, there are various similarities between the names of our tracks and theirs. Furthermore, as you can see from the pictures on the back of the albums, we have both included typical British scenery as our pictures. While the Sex Pistols have included the use of Beefeater guards, a typical sight in London, we have included a typical rural setting on our album, again to encapsulate British life and environment, adhering to the convention of national pride that is prevalent throughout British punk music.  If you also compare the tracks of the two albums, there are obvious similarities in chosen conventions with both of the band, for example, the track 'Pretty Vacant' by the Sex Pistols is similar to 'Pretty Dreadful', although this was also a reference to the TV show 'Penny Dreadful' which gave the band some more context for fans to search up.
Also, with 'Thin Blue Line' the convention of rebellion is adhered with the track 'Gumshoe Fuzz' and 'Babylon Bears' which are slang names for the Police, which solidifies the punk image, deep into the band's ideologies.