The document discusses how a student media project uses and develops conventions of real music videos. It analyzes stills from their video alongside examples from commercial videos. The student incorporates elements like neon lighting, fish eye lenses, costumes, close-ups, dancers and thematic scenes to develop their artist's image and draw in their target audience. They conform to typical music video length to make their video more recognizable and promoteable.

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

2. Still 1:Here is a still from our indoor set shoot where we have
our lead singer with her two backup dancers.
We really liked the idea of incorporating neon elements
within our video as we think it adds a special touch and
looks visually interesting.
The still below is from Grimes video ‘Go’ and is very
similar to our theme. During the course of this project,
this music video has been used quite a lot as inspiration.
One of the conventions we used was ‘artistic
camerawork’ in the sense that we used a slight fish eye
lens camera as we thought it would give our music video
something special.
The reason why we did this was because we wanted to
draw the audience in as well as making it more
atmospheric for our viewers which I think we achieved as
I believe its one of our strongest elements.
I feel that it also helps shape the star image as it makes
our artist look very vibrant and highlights her qualities. It
shows her ‘edginess’ making her recognisable to the
audience making her more of a popular star.
The

3. Still 2:
Here is our London Bus set and shows Effy our lead
singer performing.
The outfit was inspired by Cheryl cole’s ‘Fight for
this Love’ as the outfit is quite symbolic in the sense
that it enhances our singers dominance and
highlights her status.
One of the conventions we used which is similar to
a lot of music videos is with the use of props and
costumes in order to enhance the artist and show
their star image.
The red jacket is most defiantly eye catching and
makes Effy stand out from the dancers and extras
which helps to increase her recognisability and
create a better understanding for the audience.
The costumes our very important as it helps build
our artists qualities such as individuality and helps
to identify her target audience, which in this case
would be teenage girls.
Using costumes that our target audience would
appreciate was key as it means our artist will
become more liked and known.

4. Still 3:
Here is our Pyramid scene where we have many
extra females all in similar outfits.
The theme for this scene was to show how our
music video was very focused on highlighting
female power.
This still is from Beyonce’s ‘Girls Run the World’
and even though a lot more professional, still has
elements that we incorporated.
Having all these extras really helped highlight the
form element as it helps to showcase the artist as
well as create a strong visual for the artist, using
the performance element as a key aspect.
The use of performance/narrative also shows the
audience our type of artist. The synthetic
ideologies of creativity most defiantly shine
through which in some cases can be positive as it
means audiences can explore a new world and
immerse into an artist’s one which some fans love.

5. Still 4:
These stills help to identify the element of convention,
in this case a close-up.
In nearly all performance music videos there will always
be at least one close up of the artist. This is because
it’s a simple way to help an audience gain greater
understanding of the star as well as trying to reach
their viewers.
We used many close-ups in our video as we get it was
very much appropriate and suited our song. It is a
great tool to use especially if the artist happens to be
good looking as it can also reach new target audiences!
The close-ups can help attract our target audiences of
young teenage females and males as girls will want to
look like her and males will want to be with her. This is
a common tactic used in the music industry and it helps
an artist become identifiable and more liked.
The qualities of beauty can be an artists USP and in our
case it is a key element.

6. Still 5:
Here is another image of Grimes ‘Go’ video as
shown below and it really highlights the use of
thematic material (form elements).
I especially like this scene with the dancers as I
feel the lighting really helped add a greater
atmosphere which is often used for other music
videos.
The use of the dancers silhouettes with the
backlight and smoke really help to create quite a
cool and edgy scene which helps to draw the
audience in.
Thematic elements work very well in
performance/narrative videos as for the audience,
they are submerged into a dramatic and unknown
world which in most cases is very interesting and
enjoyable. For our audience the thematic scenes
help to break up the narrative scenes and they
get to watch a moment of clarity and audiences
stay focused on watching.

7. Still 6:
As you can see here our music video is average length,
conforming to the usual form of a music video.
Most music videos tend to be between 2:30-4:00 minutes
however sometimes there are very long narrative videos which
can last for close to 10minutes.
The use of using an average length song does help to make it
more identifiable for audience members which should make it
more popular to do its ‘normal-ness’.
Usually a music video is the length of song however in some
cases it is made longer with other aspects.
We wanted to create a normal length music video as we felt our
audience would feel more comfortable and be able to recognise
it more easily as focus tends to end after 3 minutes. When
promoting our music video, song and star it will be easier to get
our 3 minute song listened to by people as up and coming
artists are barley giving a chance anyway. For radio promotion
we will be able to use our song as it is making it more helpful
for us when we do promote it. As Billy Joel said in his lyrics, "It
was a beautiful song/But it ran too long/If you're gonna have a
hit/You gotta make it fit/So they cut it down to 3:05.”
Highlighting that audiences and music industries don’t like
change and abnormality.
If we were to of made a 8 minute music video I think we would
have made a poor- quality product as the creative choices we
used most likely would of changed as it would of not been right
for a longer track.