1. 1/12/2015 12:05:00 PM
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
Discuss how your music video follows conventions (give examples from
real media texts and discuss how these then influenced yours)
My chosen music genre was pop, I created a music video, digipak and
magazine advert for the song ‘Icona Pop – I Love It’. Doing research into
the genre initially enabled me to be able to understand pop conventions
which exist in real media texts. During the planning stages of my project I
was to decide whether to use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of these real media pop products.
Real media products from pre-existing well known pop icons is where a lot
of my inspiration came from as well as my desire to be creative and think
outside the box. Artists like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Rihanna are
regarded as female pop stars within the music industry so viewing their
music videos and magazine adverts along with their digipaks was
appropriate in order to understand common characteristics, themes and
styles when it came to branding my own product.
To begin with deciding what genre I wanted to create my promo package
for was the first thing I did. Deciding on the genre pop and then choosing
the Swedish duo Icona Pop whose sub-genre is techno. I began looking at
existing real media products to give me a better insight to the typical
conventions an audience would expect to see in this genre of music.
A convention I found that was common if not always seen in a pop music
video is star image and brand identity. This was conveyed through close
up shots of the artist, and the audience is quickly known to who the main
artists are within the video within the first few establishing shots. (SHOW
CLIPS FROM MUSIC VIDEOS) One of the songs which would be an
example of this is my 9 frame analysis task of Taylor Swifts ‘Love Story’.
The narrative of the music video centres around Taylor and her ‘Romeo’.
Its whole narrative and visuals are illustrative of the lyrics and show the
love story which unravels throughout the video as it progresses through
the night, following the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story. Another video which
supports Andrews Goodwin’s theory of star image, where the artist will
appear in their own work in order to establish and create a recognisable
2. role model, helping to increase artist popularity and sell themselves is
Lady Gaga with her music video ‘Paparazzi’ which I chose to analyse.
An artist which I have found which challenges this idea of using
themselves to advertise their music and help sell it is ‘Sia’. More often
than not she chooses not to feature within her videos and even when
performing live, faces away from her audience. She uses choreographed
dance scenes in an artistic manor to convey deeper messages which are
left up to the audience to decipher and make their own opinion off which
may be controversial leading to her latest video ‘Elastic Heart’. My
particular video challenges this alternative form of performance within the
video as both my artists are heavily involved in the narrative of my music
video and my concept is very literal and easier to understand from the
audiences point of view.
I developed the costumes of my artists throughout the progression of the
video. Within the first chorus/verses of the song, the costume was
bright/colourful and feminine. Typically pop artists have numerous
costume changes throughout their video as their location or set changes.
I followed this convention and had numerous different costumes
throughout. A bodycon coloured union jack style dress was wore on my
main artist in the powder paint scenes at the beginning and then to a
neon green bandeau within the second verse to reflect the mood of the
scene and the vulnerability of my artist.
My main inspiration for my narrative and the visual ideas were from the
real media texts ‘K$sha’s – Take It Off’ and ‘Warpaint – Stars’.
(VIDEO) This is were the powder paint idea came from,
When storyboarding my music video Carol Vernallis’s theory of the
features of a music video I found useful as this helped me create
appropriate camera movement and framing, she stated that the camera
will move in time with the music and as do the characters. By
creating a powder paint fight scene, this made sure that my shots were
going to be quick, keeping the pace within my video and cutting my
footage to the beat was needed in order to keep the narrative moving and
so that the footage fitted with how fast the music was moving. Therefore
3. With my video I attempted to develop similar conventions of what is
typically expected and seen throughout most pop videos within the music
industry and that is to establish star image.
Andrew Goodwins Music Video Theory
- Relation of visuals to a song
- Thought beats – Not all videos within the pop genre use thought beats
(the edit)
- Star image
- Narrative and performance
- Technical Aspects
In order to create successful ancillary texts, I researched into a number of
female pop icons in order to see the design of the images which they used
in order to advertise and brand themselves and their music. Popular
conventions which appeared across artists like: Katy Perry, Rihanna, Little
Mix, K$sha and Lady Gaga is they have a oversized image of themselves
on the front panel with the title of the album in much smaller writing. An
audience is drawn to their album from recognising the artist because of
their star image rather than their name/album title (INSERT IMAGES OF
ALBUM COVERS) this supports Jason Mittell as he says that industries
use genre to sell products to audiences, using familiar codes and
conventions that very often make references to their audience knowledge
of society and other texts. This refers back to and supports my research
into real media texts (music videos) within the pop genre, the music
videos I researched provided familiar expectations of how women are
more than not presented within the music industry.
I challenged the way female artists and women who feature in music
videos are represented in the pop world. Artists today are expressed in a
very sexual and seductive way due to their body language and
provocative outfits. For example in Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ at the
beginning of the video she is wrapped in ‘DO NOT CROSS’ yellow police
tape whilst in some very sexual poses (INSERT VIDEO CLIP FROM
VIDEO) which gives off this sense of voyeurism supporting Laura
Mulveys ‘Male Gaze’ theory were the audiences view is from a
heterosexual male and women are objectified almost to appeal to male
pleasure. The costume of my artists/actors are more covered up and
4. bright, although the second half of my video my artist is just wearing a
bandeau because of the vulnerability I am portraying rather than trying to
sexualise my artist, within the shots and expressing of emotion through
the tribal pattern painting.
