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

2. This first screenshot is taken from our final
music video. This is the first shot the audience
sees as the video begins. It shows the
convention of our narrative, it’s about a
couple who’s relationship collapses, this is
seen in a lot of today’s mainstream music
videos. In terms of our narrative we use this
particular downfall of relationship convention.
This next screenshot is taken from Katy Perry’s
‘Part of Me’ music video. This mainstream
music video demonstrates the convention as
we see on-screen Katy fight and break-up with
her boyfriend, identical to our first scene
shown above. The use of our convention is
backed up by popular videos such as this one
for example.

3. Here we see our use of a black and white filter
to show the emotional wreckage of the
characters. Our use of black and white
develops the general convention, black and
white isn’t commonly used in music videos
and when it is it’s commonly for different
effects. We wanted the black and white show
the heart-break of our characters.
Will.I.Am’s ‘Bang Bang’ shows the use of black
and white used for a different effect. The
screenshot on the right shows it’s used to
create a more dated, vintage, old-fashioned
feel to the video as it was created for the
1920’s-based film, The Great Gatsby. This
further shows we developed a filter as a
convention in our music video, I feel our use
of black and white works really well.

4. The bright use of colour filters in our video
challenges the typical conventions of music
videos. The way we have highlighted our artist
throughout the video with strips of colour is
definitely not conventional and something
which stands our video out from others. Our
use of these colour filters effectively separate
the artist and the characters- the performer
and the narrative.
From Kanye West’s video for ‘All of the Light’s
I’ve noticed a similar technique used. In the
screenshot I captured you can see a bright
colour filter used to highlight the artist. In this
video we also see black and white to begin
where the artist is not on screen. This is an
identical technique used between our video
and his. What separates ours and challenges
the convention is that ours is only stripped
across the artist and used throughout.

5. This next screenshot shows the kicking over of
the bin in our video, the moment its kicked is
the moment the beat of the chorus kicks in.
This is very conventional and the main part of
what a music video should consist of, editing
on the beat. It’s a really effective use of prop
and cut in our video which uses the
convention.
This is then further shown in the video for
Calvin Harris’ ‘Under Control’ with the fastbuild-up to the drop when the beat kicks in for
the chorus the visuals completely change to a
view of many youths ‘moshing’ and dancing in
an excitement. The convention and all-round
main factor a music video should have is
demonstrated in our music video.

6. Throughout our video not much of the camera
is focussed on the female, we wanted more
focus on the artist as this is quite conventional
to sell him more. The screenshot shows a part
of the video where we see the distressed
female pacing. Whilst we want the attention
on the artist we also want to show the
audience the female character so they can
relate and the narrative can be shown more
clearly.
In Scouting for Girls’ ‘This ain’t a Love Song’
this convention is similarly shown. The lead
singer is shown on-screen whilst the camera
also leads the audience’s attention to other
characters throughout the video of whom the
audience can relate to. This example shows
how the music video sells the artist by having
him on screen a lot.

7. Many music videos involve a performance side
in which the artist is seen to lip-sync, in many
cases, commonly if the artist is a band,
instruments are seen played in the video. This
screenshot from our video is a close-up of a
guitar being played, this is conventional for
the genre of song we chose as in many music
videos the band/artist’s instruments are
shown on screen which shows the band’s
dynamics and talent.
From looking at Daughtry’s video for ‘Crawling
Back to You’ I can clearly see the convention
of instruments being used in performance to
show a band’s talent and variety of talent. The
two shots are very similar in close up and mid
shot of the guitar to emphasise on the use of
the iconic rock instrument. This convention is
successful in representing the artist as a band
with instruments and not just a singer.

8. This screenshot from our video shows the
male characters conventionally basic costume.
We represented our character as a typical
teenager who has fallen out of love and it was
important to use the convention when it came
to costume to maintain the representation.
Here we see he’s wearing jeans and a plain
jumper, keeping it plain draws the focus away
from clothing and remains with the narrative
and video on a whole. Our costume for him
follows the convention nicely.
Showing the convention this next screenshot,
taken from teen-band One Direction’s ‘Live
while we’re young’, shows the similarity in
costume. Both males from each video are
wearing plain clothing with no brand label or
graphics to keep the focus on the music and
the video. This convention of teen male
costume is important in an effective music
video to keep focus on the song itself, its also
important in representation, representing the
characters or artist how we want them
represented.

9. The resolution of our music video uses the
convention and doesn’t challenge when it
comes to a love-story narrative. Our video
concludes with the male returning home to his
girlfriend who we’d witnessed have a fallingout at the beginning of our narrative.
Conventionally most love-story narratives,
whether it be in a film, TV programme or
music video, usually resolve in the reunion of
the couple. A fairy-tale ‘happy ending’.
Our ending is iconic and recognisable, although very typical and predictable it works in a way to
satisfy the audience making them emotionally happy with the couple’s resolving and satisfying
getting back together. This use of love break-up get back-together narrative is very conventional and
is noticed a lot in many media products.
The use of props in our video further showed
the narrative and destruction the break-up
caused for our lovers. The particular photo
album shown has images of the couple inside,
it shows their relationship and shows
conventional teen-love. The audience are able
to relate to our characters more as many
public members have photo albums and
images of their loved ones.

10. This is our digipak to link
with our music video. It
shows our artist’s name as a
band and an album name
with a track listing which we
created. There are many
conventions we used to
make our digipak successful.
The first main convention
which is important in
maintaining a theme.
Throughout our music
video, digipak and magazine
ad we have the focus on the
artist and his guitar.
The guitar is what makes the three media products link so nicely, the greenery of grass and trees then
goes together with this in succeeding this effect. Vital conventions and necessities to our digipak
include the record label’s logo, copyright information and barcode. The panorama on the inside of the
digipak is quite unique and makes our digipak stand out. The panorama we captured for this is really
successfully with Jason spread across three panes, it develops the digipak convention into a wider,
different image. On our digipak we added a list of ‘Bonus Features’ this is very conventional of
digipaks as digipaks are commonly extended editions of the original CD and therefore come with
extras. Overall our digipak is successful in linking with the video in terms of use of artist and
instrument and natural scenery and it uses and challenges different digipak conventions to result in a
unique digipak which is recognisable with theme.

11. With our magazine advert, as shown on the left,
we wanted it to conventionally match the digipak
visually whilst also being different and attracting
attention. As seen we used the same image in
portrait version for our magazine ad as we did for
the digipak front cover, this occurs commonly in
the music video as the audience are able to
recognise the digipak album easily once seeing it
advertised in their newspaper or magazine for
example. Our magazine advert holds the vital
conventions of record label logo, where the
digipak is available to buy, the release date, brief
reviews, website name and artist + album name.
The use of ‘iTunes’ and ‘hmv’ to show where its
available to buy is important as the audience are
able to then go and buy it more easily. Reviews
are just as important, we included two 5 star
ratings from magazines in which we believe would
hold reviews of this genred music, this makes the
music on the digipak look more attractive as it’s
rated highly. The magazine ad we created I believe
is successful as it displays the theme throughout
the products and shows relation with the digipak
clearly to advertise correctly the product we’d
want to sell.

12. To conclude our music video shows clear conventions throughout, whether it be around
the characters and the narrative or the artist and the performance. We have clearly made
it easy for the audience to be able to relate to our video through these conventions.
Our digipak and magazine advert both work well together successfully in theme with
conventions to sell the artist we represented. The magazine advert links well with the
digipak to advertise it how it should be, effectively.
Overall our media products use, challenge and develop conventions to make them work in
representing the genre of our music, the representation of our characters and the
representation of our artist.