Ella Question 1: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In general, our products predominantly develop on current conventions for both the indie-pop genre and music videos in general. Occasionally our music video as well as our album and website challenge these conventions. I have further demonstrated this by using Goodwin's Theory as a starting point to explain our use of individual conventions, and using examples from our products and influential products as references. I have chosen to use Goodwin's theory because i found it a useful tool for analysing music videos earlier on in the year.

1. Genre

"Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics"

Our video is of the indie-pop genre, and we have tried to make this clear throughout by using genre conventions regarding representation of the artist, styling, performance and the concept of our music video itself. The indie genre has fewer conventions than most other genres, maybe because it has been formed for an audience looking for something that was not previously offered within other genres, and that developed after the industry identified these unsatisfied uses and gratifications. (for various uses and gratifications) However, our music video is a being a hybrid of indie and pop, and so it takes occasional conventions from the pop genre, although considerably less so than in videos made for UK Top 40. 

A. A strong convention of pop music videos is several costume and make-up changes. This is a convention that we have used as you can see below, and an example of this in Lily Allen's "hard out here" (bottom image). However, in the urban dancer scenes, the lead singer is not in a different costume, she is in fact in the same outfit but how she imagines herself to look in the hospital set-up (i.e. make-up perfect, hair combed etc.). 

B. Another convention that we have used is having young artists to appeal to the young target audience. This is also appropriate to the indie genre, the artist is not a group of singers (such as little mix below), but a band playing instruments. However, we have definitely challenged a convention of both genres, by having an all girl group playing instruments. This is uncommon in all music videos, usually the singer is female and the band male, or it is an all female vocal group. 

C. A convention of pop music videos are that they are performance based videos (such as Single Ladies below). Indie music videos are often either full performance, narrative or concept (such as Breezeblocks below). This is a convention that we have developed, by combining our performance with concept.   

The hospital and dance set-ups are the
concept half of the video.

The performance set ups make up the other half of the video,
these are the projection and the grunge set-ups. 

D. Most pop videos have bold bright colours throughout, and vibrant colourful sets (see Little Mix - Wings below). This is one of the ways in which our video is indie as opposed to; we have challenged this pop convention. Our video perhaps fits the indie genre even more here; there is a strong grunge feel to one performance set up, and the second has a projection of films and TV in the background, something which has not been done before and challenges convention. 

This picture shows 4 stills from our projection set up. The films projected are (clockwise from top left) Girl, Interrupted, Fight club, Fight club, Kill Bill. 

2. Links

" There is a relationship between lyrics, music and visuals."

We have definitely used this convention frequently within our music video. We have tried to be innovative and suprising with our usage; sometimes the relationship emphases a lyric whereas other times it is contradictory, even sarcastic. This is particularly appropriate for a concept music video, because it means that different members of the audience, watching to fulfil various needs, will pick up on different links and interpret the music video differently. 




(This is a recording of a power-point presentation using Camtasia. I chose to use these softwares
because neither Slide Share nor Prezi properly displayed GIF images.)

There are also links between the music and the action in our video. For example, in the bridge of the song the pace slows down, and it is in this bit that the lead singer sees the dancer the most, there are cross dissolves between the clips and the sequence there feels more dream like. This is juxtaposed by the choruses, in which the fast paced editing and strong actions reflect the nature of the music. 

3. Visual Hooks and Visual Style

"The demands of the record label include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist (visual hooks) and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style)."

N.B. These are our four different set-ups

From left to right: Projection, Hospital, Grunge, Dancer/Urban/Brick Lane

This is a convention that we definitely used a lot throughout our music video. There were many more close-ups of Arianna than there were of the other band, yet motifs such as glitter ran through-out. We also used beauty shots of Arianna in all 4 of the set ups. However, there was a difference between the connotations and the effect on the beauty shot in each. In the projection and grunge set-ups, the beauty shots were for traditional reasons; to present the artist and to show her individual style and emotions whilst singing in a way that is aesthetically pleasing. However, in the hospital scenes, the beauty shots used challenge convention. They are used to connote the opposite of beauty; to depict the main character as desperate, crazy and erratic, to demonstrate the pain and confinement she is experiencing, dependent on the individual interpretation of the viewer. Finally, in the urban dancer scenes, the lead singer is in the same costume as before. However, her make-up is perfect and she looks considerably more stylised. These beauty shots depict her how she imagines herself to look. 

These are examples of conventional beauty shots used throughout
our video in the performance set-ups

These shots are similar to conventional beauty shots, but the effect
is different

An motif example of a motif that runs throughout our products is the blank facial expressions. Whilst these occur less so in the video, this is strong iconography on the album cover, and this is mirrored on the website as well as in some promo-shots.

4. Voyeurism

"There is frequent reference to the notion of looking, and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body"

The is a convention that in some ways we have used, and in other ways we have challenged. 
The audience very much are taken into a new environment and concept during the 3 minutes of the song. They are invited in by the direct address of eye contact and singing by the lead singer. This leads the audience to either relate or feel opposed to her more, or to become offset by the atypicality of the situation, and thereafter either feel empathy or opposite emotions towards her. Her constant eye contact is then notably ended every time the dancer has appeared. She no longer has interest in communicating with the audience, but instead has become infatuated with the boy in the urban setting. Whilst it is never made clear who he is or even if he is real or not, he never returns the look to her, which makes him seem more imaginary and unattainable. 

Voyeuristic treatment of the male body was something we definitely wanted to avoid and challenge. The music industry itself is currently challenging this convention of the male gaze (Laura Mulvey). An example of a music video actively doing this is Lily Allen's hard out here. In this video she directly confronts the over-sexualisation of female artists in the music industry through the satirical concept of the video. Whilst we do not actively challenge this stereotype anywhere near as much, the female body has not at all been over-sexualised in the video. The lead singer is an active subject  and it is clear that she is in a struggle to control her freedom, and that she desperately wants to make her own decisions and do things on her terms. 

The notion of looking is a convention developed in the projection set-up, in which there is a screen within a screen but the audience see clips from pop culture that they already recognise, instead of the artist appearing multiple times in the screen like in many pop videos in which this convention is used. The projection reel is posted below in references. 

5. References

"There are often inter-textual references (to films, TV programmes, music videos etc.)"

The majority of the inter-textual references in our music video come from the projection that is in the background of one of the performance set-ups. The projection is used to give a selection of different connotations, mainly relating to the hospital. It is intended to raise questions for the audience: why she is there, should she be there?  Not everyone will pick up on every reference, which means that the audience will interpret the video in a wide variety of different ways. This is called polysemics (Stuart Hall's theory).  It is good for our music video because we do not have an intended interpretation, our video is a concept music video.

 

6. Performance, narrative and concept

"Videos are either performance based, narrative based, or concept-based."

Our video is concept-based, as demonstrated by the scenes of the hospital and the dancer. After having come up with this concept, we were told to look at the video for This Is Gospel by Panic! At The Disco. From this we took influence for the concept of our video. It gave us the idea to try and make the doctors very faceless and intimidating, the only clue of their identity being the glitter make-up which is the same as that on the band in the projection set-up. The projection set-up demonstrates that our video also has performance aspects to it. This is not unusual for music videos, so I believe that we have used this convention. 

Vernallis' Theory

Vernallis' theory can be used to explain the technical conventions used in our music video. 

• As Vernallis' theory suggests, our video does not use linear or continuity editing. However, there are some sequences in which the sequences are more structured to time, in order to explain the concept of the video more clearly for the audience
• Jump cuts have been used often in our video, to offset the viewer and to keep a fast pace.
• The pace of our editing is generally quick, however we developed this convention in the bridge in which the editing pace slows dramatically (as Goodwin's theory suggests the actions are reflecting the music)
• As is conventional, in our video there is a wide variety of different camera shots, the vast majority of which are moving. 
• The diegesis is revealed very slowly: the dancer only appears in the second verse, and even then the concept/slight narrative is left up to individual interpretation.

Further technical conventions

The lighting in our music video challenges the conventions of pop music videos in which the lighting is usually high key, soft white light (or coloured light for backgrounds). Our performance set-ups are lit very differently to this. Furthermore, the infinite white light in the hospital scene also challenges convention. Infinite lighting is not uncommon in pop videos, but it usually has much more playful connotations than our representation of a hospital, such as in Jessie J's Price Tag video. Having said this, we did take inspiration for our lighting for this set-up from Lady Gaga's Bad Romance Video, which is a pop video. Another big influence for lighting and mise-en scene though was Panic! at the Disco's video for This Is Gospel, who are a pop-punk artist. However, overall I believe that our lighting is more similar to that of indie or alternative videos. 

A gif of a clip from Panic! at the Disco's This is Gospel

A gif of a clip from Lady Gaga's Bad Romance

Something very unconventional throughout our campaign is how we never mention the lead singers name. We have done this in order to raise enigma and to make her seem more unpredictable and exciting for audiences.  

In conclusion, we have used, developed and challenged conventions so that our target audience will interpret our would interpret our video in a variety of different ways. This is very likely to happen because we have a large ranging target audience, who all consume music for different reasons, and for varied uses and gratifications. We want our audience to be left with questions, as we feel this creates enigma and a buzz around the artist. I think that this is suitable for our video as concept videos conventionally offer lots of different interpretations. This is augmented  by the fact that people interpret videos in different ways anyway, as Stuart Hall suggests, we cannot create a product will only one possible interpretation, we may only lead audiences to take that interpretation. 

Album cover

We took influence from this Strokes album. We liked the way in which is raised enigma and was an eye-catching image yet was ridiculously simple. 

However, this type of album cover could not work for two reasons. Firstly, it would not properly connote the genre of the band's music: pop albums conventionally feature the artist on the front whereas an image like this is purely alternative/indie. Secondly, it would not fit the brief as it would not fully establish the artist identity seeing as this is a debut album. 

(This GIF image shows the development in terms of conventions used
 in the album cover on the front and back)

On the whole, we stuck to the conventions of the album cover. There is eye-catching imagery on the front and back covers, and a motif runs throughout of water: this is synergy. The album name and artist name are on the front cover as well as on the spine, and the track listing, institutional text and bar and QR codes are on the back. The imagery is representative of the indie genre. There is a strong colour scheme of white, purple and red. 

There is also a theme running throughout of blank expressions. The inside fits to convention of the album revealing more to fans who buy the physical copy, by displaying the difference between the perfected band, and the stripped down band. 

Website

Early on in the project, I analysed some websites to get an idea as to what the conventions were, what works well and what does not. Below is an annotated screenshot of the strokes website. 

We have used similar conventions in our website. 

• Social media links
• Options to subscribe to newsletter
• Based on album
• Singles can be played
• Merchandise available, which can be added to cart and purchased
• Consistent colour scheme and fonts
• Banner and menu remain consistent across all pages

In summary, we have used conventions with our website, rather than challenging or developing them.