Typical R&B products

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

Typical R&B Video Conventions:

Women are used to add appeal to the music video, and in the majority of music videos women are used as voyeurs. In these music videos women are usually wearing limited clothing and have provoking dance routines, which have sexual connotations. The visuals of the video tend to match the lyrics being sung, more upbeat songs are more likely to have more movement, whereas slow songs, also known as ‘slow jams’ tend to have softer movements.

R&B music videos for female artists or groups cover large a range of emotions that may carry a certain meaning. They also tend to have more of a narrative perspective, more likely to be a story that links in with the lyrics, which is what me and my group decided to do.

Please listen to the Director's Commentary below.

Poster

 The Digipak i created for my R&B artist 'Emerald Jones'

developed, challenged and used the same conventions as 

R&B artist 'Rihanna'.

Challenged

On the album cover 'Lost in Translation', Emerald wears 

soft pink lipstick, which reflects the fact that she's a free spirited

character, which would appeal to her target audience, mature females. 

In contrast to this Rihanna wears bright red lipstick, which

has sexual connotions because red is such a bold colour. This would also 

appeal to her male audience on the release of her album.

Used

For Rihanna's 'Loud' Digipak she has used a central image of her on the front of the album.

This image represents her brand, as the pose she is in has been used for her previous album covers.

She has also mainly used the color red, which creates an exciting visual for her audience as

the color stands out, and is easily recognised by her audience. She has used the same signature font for her album title as her name in the top right hand corner. I followed but developed the conventions to then create my Digipak.

Similar to this, for my artist 'Emerald Jones' Digipak, i have also used a central image of Emerald Jones on the front of my album cover, as i wanted my artist to be the most obvious point of attention when my audience were looking at it.

Intertextuality within Digipak's

During the research stages of the planning for my Digipak Poster, I used a few female artists that were similar to Emerald Jones' genre of music, such as Toni Braxton and Beyonce to initially help develop the ideas I had in creating poster and Digipak products. I wanted to find examples of artist's who had created a brand for themselves and a signature look when it came to promoting their albums.

The DigiPak album cover that Beyonce used to advertise for her album '4' consists of a background in which she's posing in her signature pose (arms behind her head). Above is an example of one of her previous album covers, and the latest one she has released, which shows that she has built a signature pose over time. In the background, she comes across as bold and independent which would appeal towards her female fans as she's portrayed as a role model figure, but there is also sex appeal in the photo which would appeal to her male fans also. The purple dress she is wearing contrasts against the pale background, suggesting royalty or someone majestic, allowing Beyonce to be the main focus on the cover of the album. There is also 'Beyonce'   written in bold at the top of the cover, which is important as it's promoting the artist's brand name.