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

products?

Music Video

The music video I created uses most conventions of a typical dance-pop video. It has both performance and narrative aspects within it which is common among the dance-pop genre. I wanted to include both because after listening to the song, I felt that it told a story with a moral behind it. Using a storyboard, my group and I followed the lyrics of the song and created a story that we could show throughout the video. We came up with the idea to have three girls seeing the same boy, but they eventually find out what he is up to and get revenge. The song is about a girl getting cheated on and expressing that she is now over it by saying I ‘really don’t care’. I feel that we slightly developed the typical conventions in the performance part of the video because we used the artist playing an instrument with another band member. Most of the videos from this genre show the artists lip-syncing, but not actually playing the instruments. As the instruments were clear when you listened to the song, especially the guitar, I felt it was important that we included the playing of the instruments in the video to make it seem more realistic and authentic. In the end, the close-up shots of both the guitar and keyboard that we included, proved to be quite effective and fitted the style of the music video.

The wide variety of camera angles and shots that we used follow the conventions of a typical dance-pop music video. As songs from this genre are usually very upbeat, the editing style needs to be fast-paced with quick cuts from one clip to another to fit the beat. I think that we demonstrated this quite well within our video especially towards the end of the video, although the start of the video could use more clips so that it could cut between shots quicker. Some of the most common shots in dance-pop music videos are close-ups and throughout our video we have included them frequently on the artist, narrative characters and instruments.

I think that the music video challenged the conventions slightly when it came to the use of colour. When I researched the typical conventions of the dance-pop genre, one of the main conventions was bright colours. Throughout the music video, the use of bright colours is lacking and darker colours are more frequently present. When planning the costume that the main artist was going to wear, we went for a more pop/punk image to suit the style of the real artist (Demi Lovato). This meant that the main artist ended up wearing black, white and red and the others who featured in the video wore the same colours so they all matched.

Another way in which the music video challenges the conventions is through the portrayal of the main artist. If the artist is female, the music video usually focuses solely on her and the way she looks. This links to Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze Theory, where

she explains that women are used as objects to look at in films, music videos or TV shows. Most female artists are branded on the way they look and will be seen as attractive by both men and women. Men are attracted to her and women envy her. An example of this is in Miley Cyrus’ ‘Party in the USA’ music video. Miley is the center of attention throughout the whole video and is shown in a crop top, very short denim shorts and high heels. This costume has been created for the purpose of showing as much skin as possible and looking appealing to all types of audiences. For our music video, we wanted to challenge that convention. As the target audience is young females, we wanted to create a more positive influence by showing three girls showing they don’t need a man and come together as friends in a time of need, or as it is otherwise known as ‘girl power’. Throughout the video, all three of the girls were not show in any inappropriate clothing or in any vulgar scenes that could be a bad influence of the audience.

Digipak

The front cover of the digipak both uses and challenges typical conventions. All digipak front covers show the title of the song and name of the artist so that the audience can clearly see what it is called and who it is by. If the main artist is a female, the typical convention is for the front cover to be a close-up of her or just the artist on her own so she is the sole focus. I challenged this convention because I put a photo of all three girls involved in the video on the front. Although, I did make sure that the main artist was in the middle of the shot because it is her that is singing the song. This again links to the Male Gaze Theory because most female artists’ digipaks are of the female looking airbrushed and as appealing as she can be in order to sell more copies.

On the back cover of the digipak, I included the social media logos, barcode, legal information, record label logo and names of the songs on the CD. This follows the typical conventions because most back covers include this information and some of it, for example the legal information, must be included.

For my digipak, I used a 6-panel template which is not a typical convention. Most digipaks are 2-panel with a booklet inside or 4-panel. I chose this because I wanted the inside to be different to the usual digipaks and as it is for a younger audience it gives them more photos to look at. If I could do my digipak again, I would include a booklet with the lyrics to the songs, a message from the artist and behind the scenes photos because it makes it more interesting for the audience, rather than just photos to look at. Most digipak’s at least include the lyrics to the songs on the CD so I think that my digipak negatively challenges this convention and I am disappointed that I did not include this.

Digipak Advert

My digipak advert very closely followed the conventions of one from that genre. I researched three digipak adverts in total and all three displayed the digipak front cover. Two out of the three made it the main focus by making it cover half (or more) of the page. In my opinion, that is the best type of advert because it shows the audience what to look for if they wanted to go and buy it. The third one that I analysed placed the digipak in small box and the background followed the same theme, but in a different picture. I felt that was interesting and unique, but the other two adverts were more effective and therefore that is the style of advert that I chose. In the advert I included the name of the record company, title of the song and a tag line about the single being ‘number one’. Both of these were present on the adverts that researched, but I further developed them with the inclusion of the social media logos and quotes from newspapers/magazines. I added the social media logos because social media has become such a huge part of young people’s lives, who happen to be the target audience for the song. By putting them on the advert it shows the audience where to find out more about the song/artist and the addition of the username shows them that the artist is part of these social networking sites on which they can interact with the fans. I also added the quotes from the newspapers/magazines to give the audience an idea of what the song is like and what a ‘professional’ thought of it. People are heavily influenced by the opinions of their favourite magazines or newspapers, so if the review if positive it can attract more people into buying it.

I did not put the price of the digipak on the advert which goes against the typical conventions. The price was not present on the adverts that I chose to analyse, but many of the adverts that I looked at displayed the price clearly on the front of the advert. I purposefully did this because I think that the price can put people off of the product. If they view the price to be too expensive, then they will not go and listen to it because they have already made their mind up that they don’t want to spend that much money. Whereas if the price is absent, they are more inclined to listen to it and then decide whether to buy it or not. They could listen to the product and realise that they like it so much that they want to buy it no matter what the price is. You don’t want people deciding not to buy the product without them listening to it first.