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

2. What are the generic conventions of Indie-Pop music videos?

3. When carrying out my music video analysis, I picked a selection of music videos to study, each of them for different reasons.
Each of the music videos shown, “Thinking of You” by Katy Perry, “Young and Beautiful” by Lana Del Rey, and “You’ll Be
Mine” by The Pierces; their genres are variations on Indie Pop, our song’s genre: “Is He Really Coming Home?” e.g. Pop
(“Thinking of You”), Indie Rock (“Young and Beautiful”) and Indie Pop (“You’ll Be Mine”). The similarity in genre means that
I can identify what the generic conventions are of Indie Pop and use the music videos as inspiration and deciding which
conventions I want to use, develop or challenge in my own promo.
Katy Perry’s “Thinking of You” was also chosen specifically because our music video plotline is very similar e.g. a couple
divided by war, with the female left at home “moving on” with another man. As a result the music video will be a great source of
inspiration when filming as well as planning.

4. Generic Conventions?
Caucasian, female artist
When researching existing Indie-pop
artists, we found that most are
Caucasian, there being a minority of
non-white artists within the genre. As a
result, Phoebe, a member of our group
and a Caucasian female, volunteered to
act as the artist and we styled her as
Cara Smith, choosing to use the
convention.

5. Generic Conventions?
Combination of narrative and performance-based video
The majority of Indie-pop music videos are performance-based, however,
quite a few are dually narrative-based, which is what we made our music
video. Our music video drew inspiration from Katy Perry’s “Thinking Of
You” in particular as the promos were both very similar in storyline and
soldier-coming-home idea. As a result we used the convention, “Is He Really
Coming Home?” being a strong mix of narrative and performance.
One example of the music video “Thinking of You” being narrative based is
the shot below:
The video cuts to a panning shot of the female character’s new lover while
the line “I guess second best is all I will know” is sung, referring to the fact
that she will have to settle for someone who won’t ever really replace her
past love.
Performance Shot; artist missing
and thinking of her lover, a soldier
gone to war
Narrative Shot; artist attempting to
move on with another man but he
doesn’t fill the place the soldier did
Narrative Shot; flashback to couple
hugging at the end of a date
Narrative Shot; soldier running
home

6. Generic Conventions?
Use of Effects
The use of visual effects and entrance and exits effects such as “Fade” was a generic convention of Indie-pop music videos. The Pierces’ “You’ll Be Mine” features
a colourwash effect throughout the course of the music video and Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” has a fuzzy, aged, darkening effect which adds to the vintage,
1920’s feel of the promo. We used this convention, adding a range of effects to different shot sequences throughout the music video to show the differing time
periods and separate shots, using effect like “Black and White”, “Strife” and “Teal Orange”.
Katy Perry’s “Thinking of You” used “Fade” to transition between a couple of shots, a convention we mimicked in quite a few transitions, such as the ending where
the shot of the soldier hesitating to knock on the door fades to black. However, we developed the convention by using other transitions, such as “Bloom” when the
shot sequence of the couple’s first meeting begins and ends.
In
Fade
Bloom
In
In

7. Generic Conventions?
Performance close-ups and extreme close-ups
A demand of the record companies and a generic convention of most music videos as well as Indie-pop music videos is the need for performance close-ups and
extreme close-ups. When carrying out my existing music videos analysis homework, I found this convention was followed through on every example we looked
at, Katy Perry’s “Thinking of You”, Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” and The Pierces’ “You’ll Be Mine”, and realised it was one we had to include. The
videos were filled with close-ups and extreme close-ups and they were often during performance shots of the artist singing.
Kirsty and Phoebe used the Friday of half term to film Phoebe (who played our artist) performing the song 3-4 times continuously, pure performance shots.
Kirsty filmed her from a range of angles and positions, which meant we had a nice selection of shots to intersperse between the narrative shots, and used most of
the close-ups and extreme close-up shots in order to use the generic convention.

8. Generic Conventions?
Neutral colour schemes
We used the generic convention of neutral colour schemes throughout our music video. A lot of the footage was shot in locations were there was natural light
and toned-down, subtle colours on the set e.g. outside in gardens or parks, and Phoebe’s bedroom is very vintage and indie, feature neutral colours and a large
window which let in the sunlight. We also added various filters to neutralise the colour scheme of the shots e.g. “Teal Orange” and “Strife”, although opposites,
both made the colour scheme more natural and subtle, adding a dated look, furthering the realism of the video and following through on the convention.

9. Generic Conventions?
Shots of nature and scenery
When doing my Existing music video analysis
homework, each of the music videos I looked at
except for Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” had
shots of nature and scenery interspersed throughout
the music video. Both Katy Perry’s “Thinking of
You” and The Pierces “You’ll Be Mine” had snippets
of nature themed footage and scenery, and although
that particular Lana Del Rey music video didn’t have
any in it, a range of her other songs and their music
videos heavily include nature and wildlife throughout.
In our music video, we knew from the beginning we
wanted to use nature filler shots interspersed between
footage of the narrative and performance shots and
finding out it was a generic convention of Indie-pop
music videos only cemented the decision. Some of
the shots were shot on camera during the various
shoots and other I filmed on my walk home, in
people’s gardens or just filming the sunset as I walked
up my hill.

10. Generic conventions of Indie-Pop digipack?

11. Digipack research, similar to my music video
analysis, was crucial in identifying what the generic
conventions of Indie-pop digipacks were. Finding
examples of digipacks was a struggle as they aren’t
a very popular way of packaging CDs, unlike
plastic albums and, so rather than search for any
random digipacks, I chose to research albums
which were made by Indie-pop artists we’d used in
the website research as well.
The continuation in genre meant that the
similarities I found were definitely Indie-Pop
generic conventions and I was comfortable that I
gathering inspiration from products similar to ours,
rather than random artist’s work which were a
world away from ours. I found a nice selection of
pieces, a couple of disc holders, a track list and a
range of front cover which I could use to influence
not only our front cover panel, but other panels
which were mainly images.

12. Generic Conventions?
Colourful, vibrant design
I challenged this convention when designing our
digipack. Although the various examples of Indie-pop
albums I looked at did have colourful, vibrant colour
schemes, our album is a little more subtle and classy,
understated rather than shouting for attention. I chose
to use very light, or dark pastel colours instead of
bright, vibrant shades, like in Katy Perry’s “Prism”
album or Gabrielle Aplin’s “The power of love”, and
the images used, such as the merged photos of the
Track list, Disc holder and Back cover panels are
more delicate and minute than bold and allencompassing.
I wanted to avoid the over-the-top bright designs
convention due to the fact that our artist’s
personality/vibe is more vintage and classy,
understated than bright and bold. Also, as “Water On
Glass” was her debut album I felt she needed to
promote her style more obviously, not follow what the
generic conventions of that genre are but present
herself as an individual, which would also make her
more memorable to potential fans being targeted.

13. Generic Conventions?
Album Cover: The Name of the artist and Title of the album are
large and in the centre of the cover
A fairly obvious generic convention of most albums, not just
those of the Indie-pop genre, is that the name of the artist and
title of the album are large, bold and in the middle of the cover.
This is probably due to the need to clarity and the producers
likely are eager to broadcast the artist and her music
clearly, attracting customers and general interest.
For our digipack, I did exactly this, using the convention by
having the title of the album sat at the top of the front
cover, with the artist’s name at the bottom. Both are written in
Zapfino font, and while in Photoshop, Sir advised me on making
the writing bolder using the various effects available on the
program. I added features like glow, outline, and shadow to the
words to make them really stand out against the image, rather
than painting them in same garish colour instead, and the
outcome was a really professional looking digipack.

14. Generic Conventions?
Images of the artist
Images of the artist are used throughout the
digipack, I made sure. When researching
digipacks, everyone of them included an image of
the artist on the front cover, and then photographs
of the artist in different poses and frames in
various other panels.
In our digipack, we used this convention by using
images of the artist on 6/6 of the panels. The
Gallery panel includes a range of images of the
artist in rehearsals or performing, the CD in the
disc holder is a merged image of the artist
performing and a Google Images picture of an
umbrella, and the rest of the panels all feature
blown-up images with a frame around them or
some kind of effect added to image e.g. the back
and front cover are both black and white.

15. Generic Conventions?
Plain, simple CD design e.g. Block colours and distinct repeated font writing artist name
When designing the digipack, I challenged
this convention by having a detailed,
delicate image printed onto the CD which
completes the picture on the disc holder
panel which inserted into the digipack. It is
the exact opposite of what the two artists I
looked at did for their CD’s, e.g. Nina
Nesbitt had a block red coloured
background on the disc and Eliza Doolittle's
was grey. Both had a stylised, statement
font writing the name of the artist in the
middle.
In contrast, our CD has a merged picture of
birds (found on Google.com/Images) and a
photograph of the artist playing the guitar. It
does have a stylised font, Zapfino, writing
the name of the artist on the CD but also
features the track list written in the middle
as well as Copyright statement at the
bottom of the CD.

16. Generic conventions of Indie-Pop websites?

17. Website research was carried out by Kirsty, who was also designing the website for our artist,
Cara May Smith. When choosing existing products to study for inspiration, Kirsty went
down a similar route to me, where she looked at artists who were of the same genre to ours.
Artists she looked at, based on similarity to our genre, were singers like Taylor Swift, Nina
Nesbitt and Eliza Doolittle, and the fact that they are all female soloist makes them more
appropriate to study as they hold further similarities to our artist who is also a female soloist.
Studying a male soloist or band might be harder to gather inspiration from as the target
audience would be different and the generic conventions harder to identify.

18. Generic Conventions?
Pages: “News”, “Music”, “Video”, “Gallery”, “Tours”, “Store”
Nina Nesbitt’s website
Eliza Doolittle’s website
Taylor Swift’s website
After carrying out the website research, Kirsty had to design various pages the fans could access on the site. The website
research outlined the conventional pages most artist websites have, such as “News”, “Music”, “Video”, “Gallery”, “Live”,
and “Store” as well as a Home page the visitor would be taken to when they first enter the website. Kirsty used and
developed these conventional pages by designing “Gallery”, “Music”, “Tour” and “Store” pages, however, the “Store” page
acts as a link to various ticket sellers whereas the “Gifts” page actually sells merchandise. Kirsty also added a “Fan Mail”
page which fans could use to contact the artist and a “Bio” page which gives information about the artist e.g. her
background and where her love of music comes from, in order to offer fans a feeling of closeness and paint the artist as
personable and relatable.
Kirsty chose to challenge the convention of having a page before you enter the site, one which advertises the tours or has a
blown-up image of the artist. Instead, she chose to have our artist’s website be direct, without any funky preview pages
visitors saw before entering e.g. once they typed in the address, they are led directly to the site.

19. Generic Conventions?
Simple colour scheme
A simple colour scheme, centred around one
main colour, we found to be a generic
convention of Indie-Pop websites. We looked
at various Indie-Pop artist websites and
noticed that each had a main colour that
stood-out on the page, with the information
written in a black or white font. The colour
scheme featured one main bright
colour, followed by black or white, making
the colour scheme simple. For example, Eliza
Doolittle’s website featured Sky Blue, Taylor
Swift’s was a Burgundy Red, and Nina
Nesbitt’s was Lilac Purple.
Kirsty used this convention in our
website, having the information written in
white and main colour of the scheme Baby
Pink. The use of the pink and white colour
scheme also enhances the ultra-feminine
aspect of Cara Smith’s personality.

20. Generic Conventions?
Square, grid layout of Gallery Page
Nina Nesbitt
Taylor Swift
Our website
When designing the Gallery page of Cara Smith’s website, Kirsty
chose to use the convention of having the photographs set out in a
grid layout, on a white background. This made them clearer, and look
neater, organised and stylish. The plain white background also drew
the visitor’s attention to the photographs as they look more colourful
and vibrant by contrast.
However, Kirsty developed the convention of having a Gallery page
with only one set of photos available on it. Taylor Swift’s and Nina
Nesbitt’s sites, both have selections of photographs under different
headings e.g. “Taylor’s Photo Tweets”, “Album/Single Covers” and
“Instagram”.

21. Photography?
Generic Conventions?
Photographs of rehearsals, performances and promotional images
While researching existing artists in our genre, their websites and albums, we found a
generic convention of the genre (though it spreads to most artists in the music industry),
was to have loads of pictures of the artist in rehearsals, performing and in posing for photos
advertise and available for public consumption.
As a result, before doing anything in terms of designing the digipack, shooting the music
video or setting-up the website, we arranged a photo-shoot so that our group would have a
large supply of photographs of our artist on hand for making promotional material with.
These were then uploaded onto the Gallery page of the website, and some used on the
panels of the digipack.
Posting images on Instagram was also a generic convention of artists in the music industry
in general, as well as Indie-Pop artists, which we found through our research as well as just
seeing who we follow on Instagram as 17-18 year olds (part of our target audience
demographic). Social networking is a really popular way of communicating with your fan
base and developing a close relationship with your target audience, one of the reasons why
it has really taken-off with celebrities. We set-up an Instagram account for our artist and
posted a variety of the photoshoot images as well as random photographs we took around
the place, really pushing for our artist to appear like a normal adolescent female, more
personal and relatable to her target audience. This is an example of using a generic
conventions of not just the Indie-pop genre but artists in general.