74. Evaluation1 - What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music video?

In our music video symphony my group and I looked at the conventions of the pop genre and how they are represented though, location, costume, props and actions. We followed the conventions but also challenged them in out own way to tailor them to our songs rhythm.

The conventions of a pop music video are happy, colourful, high key lighting, young people, narrative, performance, singing, friendship and dancing. In our music video in particular we used happy, colourful, high key lighting, young people and friendship.

A example of our music video being happy is in the close-ups of our characters faces- they are very smiley or  are laughing, showing that they are having a good time. We mostly used close-ups to show happiness as it highlights to the audience how the characters are feeling compared to a mid or long shot. See below are two examples of our characters smiling and being happy. These two shots are taken at different parts of the video. The bottom image is at the beginning of the video, where as the top image as near the end of the video. This shows that our characters through out the video are happy people having fun.

This is a image from a pop genre music video where the main singing is smiling and being happy. This is from Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass. This is also a close-up shot showing that is  commonly used is a pop music video.

This is a example of us using high key lighting and colourful shot in our music video. Colour is used a lot to show joy and happiness to the audience, this is because colour is appealing to the pop genre audience as it is eye catching and more appealing to watch. In these two shots there is graffiti walls behind us. The two images are different to each other, the top one is of a spray can which relates to youth as they are known for spray painting where as the other image below is of a artistic face which doesn't look spray painted on because of the fine cut lines.  

This is a image from a pop genre music video the colours the are used are very bright and vibrant.  This is from Katy Perry - Chained To The Rhythm. In this image the colour of the costumes and props are very colourful and bright showing that is commonly used is a pop music video.

Another key conventions we used were friendship and young people. Here is a example of our characters showing friendship as they are sitting on a garden swing together. At this point they are lip-syncing together, as friends do everything together. This also represents youth as both of the characters are young and on a night out. This is stereotypical for the youth to go and do this is a wide shot/two person shot the two friends. the reason fro this shot is to show the two of them together and there surrounding's.    

This is a image from a pop genre music video this shot shows the friendship they have for one another. This is from Marshmello & Anne-Marie - FRIENDS. This is a wide shot too, showing a group of friends together having fun at a party. In this shot  there is a group of them (5) compared too our two friends but this is still a example of friendship being used is a pop genre music video.  

In our music video other then following the conventions of the music video, we have also challenged them. We challenged them twice at the beginning and the end, one example of when we challenge the conventions is in this camera shot as we have used a special effects on this shot it make it look like one of the friends is recording another friend. This special effect is not conventionally used in the pop genre music video. We used this effect as we wanted it to look like the friends recorded parts of the music video themselves.   

This is the second time we challenged the conventions of pop music genre. We changed the filter of the shot to black and white. This is at the every end of the music video where the friends depart from each other, the black and white is there to highlight the change in mood of the music video. This also shows the video is coming to a end.  

In our magazine advertisement we went with the convention of a pop music genre and we also challenged them.

The ways in which we followed the conventions was with bright colours. This is very conventional of a pop music advertisement to have. We also made sure we had the artists name the biggest this way it will be the first thing the viewer would see. The overall composition of the image and font is very conventional for a pop advertisement. We also challenged the composition by putting the star rating in the middle of the page, this way it would stand out to the viewer. Another way we challenged the conventions with having out image half black and white. This links  very well with our digipak and the music video, as the digipak is half and half as well. The reason for this is because of the music videos ending when there is a gradient of colour to black and white. Having one image of the artist is conventional as you mainly have one instead of a group.       



With our digipak it was very similar to our magazine with how we followed and challenged the conventions. We followed them by having the bright vibrant colours in the inside of the digpak and by having the artists together on the front cover and there own individual images too. The front cover included there name, song and a logo facing. We also challenged them with the front cover being half black and colour and having the other half black and white which is not convectional for pop but relevant and links in with our storyline as a whole. We also did this on the CD as there is a gradient of grey going over the colourful picture of Eleanor and I. I really liked this effect as it related to the meaning of our narrative.

Different groups in society

In our music video we chose to focus on teenage girls, which come under the category of age and gender. In typical pop music videos females are show with not a lot of clothing and are showing there boobs, bums and bellies. This is to look appealing and sexualised to the male audience, as female directors we don't like the idea of sexualising our character's and would not go well with our storyline. Looking at the theory of Male Gaze by Laura Mulvey says that the camera is from males prospective and focuses on the female’s boobs, bums and bellies.    

When it came to directing how we want out characters to be we wanted them to be the stereotypical teen girl. After doing some research teens are mostly portrayed to be bad people that drink and do drunks. As ourselves we are not the stereotypical teen we wanted to carry out our own personality. In doing this we have challenged the stereotype, to be nice kind people that just want to have fun. I also think this is a really good image to have as our target audience will see the artiest and think it is cool to a good not a rebel.

Looking at stereotypes we think that there are unrealistic view of the world, as there are some people that full into these stereotypical categories most people don't. When it came to making the music video we wanted to show what the real stereotypical type should be, instead of what the media portrays it to be. For our music video we made the story line (narrative) the main attraction as we found it to be more important and had a big impact. The characters especially are seen to be load confident individuals that believe they can do anything and can go anywhere they want to.    

Though in the girl’s characters they do challenge a lot of what people think about young woman. We have also followed some key facts about teens. That is technological as it is a big fast growing new development that is becoming more assessable to young adults a teens. The way we choose to represent this is making it look like the girls are vbogging. Vbogging is the new way to blog in the modem day. To incorporate this in our music video we used a special effect of final cut pro, this was the camcorder effect. This displayed a frame of the video that make it look like of the girls was recording.

Within challenging and following the stereotype I believe we also developed them to tailor our music videos theme. We made them seem confident, happy and motivated. As the video goes on we see this grown within each of the characters, we liked this element of the video as it shows they are getting stronger. At first this was not on purpose, we was not totally confident in front to the camera especially when it came to being in public but the more filming we did the more confident we became, which is what we wanted our characters to be.