In what ways does my media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

Alicia Hatfield

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INOMn5JYZfU

Sets and designIn our music video we kept to the symbolic conventions of a typical music video of this genre. As a female pop/rap artist it is traditional to have lots of scenes with different styling, showing as many costumes and sets as possible. We also decided to focus on the style of Bela our artist and the sets, showing as much design as possible, including five different sets in the video.These elaborate sets helped establish Bela’s domain, showing her many sides, classy, elegant, edgy, sexy, seductive and cool. This tells the audience about who Bela is and connects her with her brand and music as it creates a whole cohesive package. We followed this convention as it is an effective way to make the video ascetically pleasing, allowing us to develop the video as the song goes on, adding different scenes which kept it interesting and exciting. This is more likely to entice the audience into watching the video again and sharing it with friends. By following these conventions it is easy for the audience to understand what type of genre and artist our text is. Creating five different sets helped us develop these conventions further, making a visually impressive and memorable video. This would defiantly help sell Bela’s single, album, concert tickets and merchandise as she now has a clear, vivid band image. As her image fits conveniently into her genre it could also help appeal to existing fans of similar artists as they can relate with her as well.

On the right are two examples of a similar style of set design in Rita Ora’s music video. It follows the same symbolic conventions to our video, changing scenes frequently, showing many extravagant set designs in various styles, also showing a diversity of Ora’s personality like we have done with Bela.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI6VfwBV8Gc

Camera We also followed the conventions of a pop video with our style of camera work. Using mostly close ups and extreme close ups allowed us to build recognition of Bela, showing the audience who she is and what her star image is. Following this symbolic convention also helped us emphasise the link between her song and lyrics with her as we focused on her lip synching in order for the audience to associate Bela with the song. This emphasises her talent as you see her rap the words very fast while moving and dancing interacting with the set.

This is alike Azelia Bank’s 212 video which consists of similar fast and difficult lyrics. This video has also followed the same close ups and extreme close ups of Bank’s lips lip synching the song, enforcing her talent and star image with the song and therefore emphasising her brand.

We also use the camera a number of times to dismember Bela’s body into sections, going against other music video’s typical conventions as we focus attraction away from the artist’s face and beauty. We have done this to emphasise her body and shown her in a sexual way, objectifying her to appeal to a male audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Jv9fNPjgk

Editing Our key focus when editing was making sure we synched the song to mimic the live lip synch as closely as possible to make it look professional and clean cut. We also focused on cutting to the beat to emphasise the upbeat rhythm and make the video flow with the song, this was also helped by matching the pace of the song to emphasise the tempo and emotions of Bela and the music. In order to do this we followed editing conventions for such a fast paced song, by keeping each clip very short, ranging from 0.5 seconds to maximum of 4 seconds. This resulted in the visual pace going very well with the busy song, which was very effective when trying to cram in five different scenes of creativity and Bela’s attitude as a lot was going on and the video remained very exciting throughout.

This fast editing technique is similar to Die Antwoord’s Fatty Boom Boom video where the editing pace is so fast it is difficult to keep up with everything going on, therefore the audience feels more inclinde to watch it again. This results in more views and the video being spread to other viewers, which is a very effective way of the video becoming a success as it is so memorable.

We also followed the technique of discontinuity editing to make our video more surreal and visually aesthetic. Using jump cuts between scenes created a high energy and since of frenetic movement, emphasising Bela’s fast dancing and singing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIXUgtNC4Kc

Lighting We used artificial lighting from the studio throughout all our scenes for our video. This is very common in music videos similar to ours as the light gives the artist a glow of perfection, giving the illusion they are flawless, beautiful and perfect, adding to their star quality and image. We used strong white lights to place around Bela while she was performing to make her skin look iridescent and immaculate, this way her audience look up to her as an idol for her beauty.

This is typical in all pop videos, such as Beyonce’s videos, eg her song Flawless where she sings of how flawless she is. The lighting and soft, flattering black and white colour confirms that she looks flawless and very desirable to men and inspirational to women.

We also used lighting in order to create stylistic features in our video, for example in the chaise lounge scene we scattered lights around the set not only for lighting but to the visual look of the scene. We found this an effective way to create a seductive, glamorous tone and atmosphere as the lights emphasised the red backdrop surrounding Bela.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc8hyBfoBZg

Costume, hair and makeupWe spent a lot of time planning and styling Bela’s costumes, hair and makeup as we followed the symbolic conventions of an artist’s image in this type of video. We took influence from different trends in fashion at the moment, however we also broke the typical pop conventions by adding more risqué, edgy outfits. For this outfit we were inspired by this YSL advert, showing high fashion and a seductive side to Bela.

We also used her styling to show who Bela is, giving the audience an insight into her life and fashion, as we believe from these symbolic conventions the audience can tell a lot about the artist from their image and will judge them based on this alone. Therefore we have stuck with a theme of glamour and sophistication mixed with some edge and punk; this was she appears desirable and glamorous, emphasising her star image.

This was a key aspect for us to follow as we had researched and found that Bela’s target audience were most interested in the fashion and beauty of the artist as this is what they want to look up to and be inspired by. Therefore we wanted Bela to set new trends and break boundaries, for example we applied a eye makeup mask onto her to add a quirky look to her sophisticated image.

PropsWe broke the typical convention of having instruments in the video like so many do, instead we decided to keep the focus on Bela singing as the song is all about the upbeat vocals and having a good time. Therefore we gave Bela a variety of props to interact with, filming scenes with just her and then scenes with her using the props. This way we could develop each scene in post production, when editing we would first introduce the scene with her and then later in the video we would introduce the prop in the scene, for example the fan she uses and the sceptre she dances with. We did this to keep the video interesting and show the audience there is more to come.

Beyoncé also uses a sceptre as a prop in her Miss Cater cover, we decided it was a good prop as it adds power and wealth to Bela’s image as it is associated with royalty. However we broke its original association as we used it in a more seductive powerful way, having Bela hold it while dancing to the song.

Here we have also included props in the scene that develop the image of the set even further. Bela was also able to interact with these props and enhance her performance.

Performance We broke the conventions of most music videos as we did not include a narrative in our video. Bela was the single performance throughout the whole video, her confidence and movement drove the story of the video and it played off and made the video very fun looking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF8BRvqGCNs

We did also later decide on including two men to feature in the chaise lounge scene as Bela’s butlers, we wanted to show her status as she empowered the men and they became her props, not even showing their faces and only being seen in wide shots so they were not given an identity or power that could detract away from Bela, always having the focus on her as the main artist. This is where we complied with the convention of Bela being the main focus in the video as you can clearly tell she is the star.

In almost all the takes Bela looks directly into the camera which gives a sense that she is communicating directly to her audience, allowing them to have a connection with her and sing along, interacting. A unique performance unlike her other ones where she is mainly dancing, is the one where she is in the bath. Much like Rihanna in her video Stay it shows a more elegant, tranquil side to her, however she still keeps it upbeat with her confident attitude and performs very well.

DigipakFor the digipak we followed the typical convention of having the photos in black and white. This is often the case as it is a very flattering, appealing style as it makes the artist look very perfect and flawless. When we changed the images to black and white Bela instantly looked more glamorous and elegant, however her diverse costumes still add an edge to her image and show the audience who she is. However we also broke this convention by keeping the colour of her shoes a burgundy colour, we felt this added a unique style to her images and shows the emphasis of the importance of her fashion. We also followed the conventions by having three close ups of Bela to show the audience that she is a solo artist and therefor keeping the attention all on her. We also included four different outfits to emphasise her focus on fashion and her image, establishing her star image.Including still images from the sets of her music video creates a cohesive overall brand between all the products as we used similar material throughout them all. We did this in order for Bela’s audience to clearly understand who she is and emphasise her star image. We also used the same font from her website on the digipak as the same title, this way there is a theme in her products and it will be easier for her audience to instantly recognise her products and brand. I also placed the title of her name very large in the middle so it will stand out on the shelves when being sold. We also looked at Rihanna’s digipak which applies the same conventions, having close ups of her in black and white, with a variety of fashionable looks and keeping the focus purely on her and her star image.

Website

Having a behind the scenes gallery of photos from the day of filming the music video (bottom right) allows the audience to have an insight into Bela’s private life. This attracts the audience as they have privileged access into Bela’s life which is highly cherished as it is a rare thing to publicise.

When designing and creating Bela’s website we researched into similar artist’s pages to see what the conventions of this type of artist’s website was. Iggy Azalea had a very attractive, interesting website, showing her audience a lot into her personal life and her professional work. We liked the idea of having a lot of photos and videos with little writing so it was visually pleasing and intriguing. We therefore added many galleries of photos of her, her video, and we also designed merchandise that her fans could buy, which was very typical of an artist like Bela to have. We also created a news page, keeping her fans up to date with what she's doing so they can read an insight into her life and really get to know her on a more personal level.