media

1. Forms and Conventions
A media form is the overall format of a media product , for example a music
video or digipak. The type of medium used is generally determined by what type
of media form the product falls under, for example a music video is made in
video or film. A convention on the other hand is an established way of doing
something acting as a set of guidelines in which the people making the product
can stick to. Conventions are split into two categories; technical conventions and
symbolic conventions. Technical conventions include how the video is typically
filmed, lit and edited and symbolic conventions include typical costumes, colour,
performance, sets and props. Conventions make the media product easier to
understand for an audience, making it clear what type of text they are consuming
and enabling them to place a song and artist within a musical genre. All
conventions are different in each genre but the most common ones fall under
these categories; Camera, Editing and Lighting.

2. Synthpop Conventions
Performance Element
A typical synthpop music video convention would be to heavily feature the artist along with
simple stylistic elements which fit with the track. A performance element therefore would be
essential. In terms of our music video we chose to use the convention of featuring our artist
within the video, this included a strong performance element. This relates to Dyer’s theory
that stars must be both absent and present so the audience appear to have a moment with
her but then she disspears leaving them wanting more and will then hopefully buy more
products.
In Tove Lo’s video for ‘not on drugs’ she is heavily featured within the video so that the
audience identify her with her music, this helps the audience to focus on her and her singing
and not deviate their concentration elsewhere. For our video we chose to feature Zel heavily
so the audience could attempt to connect with her on some level. We chose to do this as
essentially we wanted the audience to buy into the star image from a commercial aspect and
not direct their full concentration to the music. This was essential for the audience to fully
appreciate the artists beauty and bring them close to her.

3. Camera
Close Up on Chorus Line
A close up on the chorus line is a typical synthpop music video convention and can
be seen In Charlie XCX’s video ‘Break the rules’ where it is used when the main
chorus line is heard. This close up helps the audience to remember the most
important line within the song by reinforcing what they hear with the image of the
artists lips and facial expressions when saying the line. The chorus line generally has
some link to the title of the song and this helps the audience to remember the
name of the song and helps somewhat to sell it further. Within this image all focus
is on her as she is in the foreground and all the lines are pointing in her direction.
The use of makeup again draws to her gaze, essentially giving the audience a look
into her soul. In terms of our music video we have used this convention to
showcase the artists singing ability. The extreme close up is synchronous with the
hardest part of the song and therefore draws attention again to the artists singing
ability. The close ups also help to build recognition of the artist and helps to
emphasis the link between the artist and lyrics of the song. We have also used
makeup to draw attention to Zels eyes.

4. Editing
Fast motion
Expressive editing is a typical convention within our genre and fast motion falls under this
category. As is the case with many un-official music videos in our genre instead of using an
artist to represent the song they use simple images and enable them to move in time with the
pace of the track. An example of this would be William Orbit ‘Barbers Adagio For Strings’
video. In this video we see a simple image where the background moves in pace with the
track, for example the clouds speed up as the track does. This helps to emphasise the track
taking the main focus off the artist and lets the audience enjoy the music. This helps to build
up a distorted reality effect which is typical of this genre when the music is normally listened
to late at night and some may argue could go some way to be similar to that of a drug trip.
We used this editing technique in our video when the lyrics stopped and the instrumental
started. We used our footage of a light up hula hoop speeding up the movement as the track
got faster and then slowing it down when the track did the same. We thought that this added
to our distorted reality feel with bright colours moving at different speeds very quickly. We did
this as their were no attempt to represent a realistic world within our video, added to this was
the fact that music videos are made in shallow sets and so we wanted to convey movement.

5. Editing
Overlaid shots – Expressive editing
Another convention typical in our genre for editing is the use of overlaid shots. This
links heavily with the use of fast-motion as it also adds to the distorted reality feel
and gets the audience to identify with the music in a larger sense so that what they
are hearing gives the same effect as what they are seeing. This falls under the
category of expressive editing, which is editing to create meaning rather than be
naturalistic and following a narrative. Ellie Goulding uses this in her video ‘Goodness
Gracious’ to give off a fun and vibrant atmosphere, this is achieved by the colourful
backgrounds giving us the impression that she has a lot of fun by making everything
very interesting and subverting the normal stereotypes of how the location should
actually look.
We achieved this in our video through the use of overlaid shots which again pulls on
that sense of distorted reality and things not being how you expect them to be. This
expressive editing also visually fitted with the style of the music and slow original
pace. In our video we used shots of our dancer and Zel and then overlaid footage of
ribbons being swung in the air in UV lighting. This helped to give the video meaning

6. Lighting
Lit from the back
A convention that is not only typical within music videos but also a variety of media
products is lighting the cast from the back. Lighting a person from the back helps the
features on the face and skin to appear flawless and is often used to give the artist a
glow of perfection. This type of lighting all makes the hair look shiny and well kept as it
creates a strong glow around the outline of the head.Examples for this
can be seen in early photography and is also a common convention
in modern music videos. Beyonce uses this type of lighting in her
video ‘Drunk in Love’ to give her skin a perfect porcelain finish. We
can also see the soft glow around her hair making it appear perfect.
We used the exact same convention in our music video to make
our artist look as perfect as possible. The lighting from the back
doesn't fully show her whole face which makes her skin look soft
and her features perfect. This relates to Dyers theory that stars are
extraordinary people.

7. Symbolic Conventions
Colours
Using colours within music videos is a convention across all genres as colours help to
symbolise different things. Within our video we used blues pinks and purples, usually
against a dark background to truly highlight the contrast between the two. Colours
reflect the mood of the song and therefore we used these colours to represent a feel
good track. We also used them to reflect an artificial environment which again helped
to communicate our distorted reality theme as the colours were not typical of the
setting. Instead of trying to replicate a real life environment we used colours to make
the sets much more interesting and it was this changing of environments which helped
our video to flow and match the track to what was happening on screen. This serialism
was the main focus of our track and is a very typical of videos within the genre.
Tove Lo uses this similarly in her video ‘Not on drugs’ she
uses bright colours to replicate the upbeat mood of the
track and also as a reference to the title to some extent as
she mimics what someone would be seeing on a drugs trip.

8. DigiPak
Typical conventions for digipaks in our genre include:
•The designs were very graphic including lots of straight edged shapes
•In some of them an image of the artist was on the front
•The artist and album name is always displayed on the front clearly
•Images if they are used are strange and edited
•The overall look is very synthesised which fits well with the style of the music
We used these conventions within our digipak, focusing our attention onto creating a
specific colour scheme and then using changing the opacity to give it a slightly
distorted feel. Charlie XCX uses a similar colour scheme within her digipak and also
features herself on the front which is something we chose to do aswell. Featuring the
artist helps to sell the artists style image further and identifies them with their music.
We chose an attractive image of the artist, just as Charlie XCX does as it helps to build
recognition of the artist. We did this with our front cover in a more understated way
by overlaying the shots and this helps to draw attention to Zel’s features that can be
seen. Using the artists on the front helps to construct the star image of the artist and
in our case we wanted to represent Zel as Grungy and cool.

9. Website
From researching into artists similar to ours we found some key conventions which we
also decided to use in relation to our website:
• All of the websites contain similar bold colours, but typically have the fonts written
in black/white/grey. This ensures the users can read the font properly but these do no
deviate away from the colourful backgrounds which truly represent the feeling of the
music. We made sure we used this convention by using a brightly coloured pink and
purple background with white fonts that could always be seen. We also used a slim
and angular font which looked both feminine and modern.
•The websites also always contain professionally taken images of the artist as well as
pictures of the newest albums and singles – this enables fans to connect to the artists
on a more personal level and makes sure that the artist can be recognised without the
music. We did this by placing an image of Zel on every page of the website placed
within a triangle.

10. Website
Other conventions include:
•Typically there is a navigation bar at the top of the website containing key pages;
music, photos, videos and a place to purchase merchandise. Making the website easy
to navigate means that users do not loose interest in it quickly as they can find exactly
what they need without too much effort. We used this convention by placing a toolbar
at the top of each page.
• The backgrounds are usually colourful and contain interesting patterns as this is
linked to the type of music the artists produce. We used a boldly coloured background
with similar colours to our digipak to make sure that both products were cohesive. The
colours were also linked to the video which meant that when the video was placed on
the page all of the colours looked good against one another.
•We also made the layout of the website very conventional. We decided to use strips
of content which is typical of most genres websites and this also fitted with the
angular font that we used making the website look regimented and cohesive.