This document discusses music video conventions and theories related to analyzing a student's media product. It provides information on common music video conventions like genre, casting, choreography. It also explains relevant theories around representation, the male gaze, intertextuality, and how music videos are used to construct artist personas. The student's music video takes a narrative approach, references Cinderella but subverts expectations, and pays homage to another artist while challenging stereotypes related to ethnicity and gender.

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

2. WHAT ARE CONVENTIONS
Conventions are real media products that the audience are expecting
to see. Conventions are commonly used and differ according to the
form and genre, creating different meanings of texts. The audience
play a significant role on the different interpretations of these
conventions in texts and can therefore creating their own meaning
through their understanding of the text. All of this relates to the
theorist Stuart Hall of having a preferred meaning
of the text.

3. WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT WHAT THE CONVENTIONS WERE OF REAL MUSIC
VIDEOS? AND WHAT MUSIC VIDEO CONVENTIONS HAVE YOU INCLUDED/ NOT
INCLUDED AND WHY?
Conventions of a
Music Video:
Casting
Clear genre
I chose to do a R&B genre
Lip synching
Choreography-Ballroom
Dance routine
Costume and makeup
Clear star persona
Brand
Edit to the beat

4. ❖OBJECTIFICATION- women being made to feel like an object.
❖EMPOWERMENT- making a woman feel dominant in the music video as she is usually or
often objectified and sexualized.
❖STAR PERSONA- an icon that represents something in the media-their media personality.
❖INTERTEXTUALITY-referencing/linking other media texts.
❖PASTICHE-homage-positive intertextuality.
❖PARODY- mocking, negative.
❖VOYERISM- feeling of being watched.
❖COMMODITY- concept of stars as marketing tools.

5. GOODWIN’S THEORY
His theory points out that in every music video there is either
PERFORMANCE (focusing on a band or dance routine etc),
NARRATIVE (a storyline, usually to do with the lyrics), CONCEPT
(opposite or completely random). In our music video we chose to
take a narrative approach to our music video as we thought we could
interpret the title of the song ‘Earned It’ as being something more
sinister or with a different meaning- for example cheating or fated
love not being so fated.

6. Mulvey’s Theory
The Male Gaze- I used subjective camera work, with many close ups
to portray the female in the perspective of the male gaze.

7. Richard Dyer’s Star Persona
He says that music videos are essentially a form of advertisement
and can be used to construct and support an image for an artist. For
example, Hip Hop artists are associated with wealth and power, Rock
bands are authentic, and band associated with instruments-very raw.
Our chosen genre was R&B which is associated with love,
relationships and heartbreaks. We then chose the theme of
unfaithfulness.

8. Intertextuality
Intertextuality is referencing or referring to other media texts in your
products. This enhances audience pleasure and changes the audience’s
perception because of the intertextual references- also expanding
audience range. For example, J-Lo- ‘I’m Glad’ intertextualises
‘Flashdance’ the final scene. This opens the audience to people who
loved wathing the film. The message is that anything in possible and
to dream big.

9. Homage-Ed Sheeran
In our music video we intertextualised the Cinderella narrative but
created it with a twist. Instead of having the ‘princess’ fall in love with
the prince at the ball we made her fall in love with an ordinary guy
who she then runs off with at the end and lives happily with. We also
reinterpreted the ballroom dancing scene which we intertextualised
from Cinderella but also paid homage to Ed Sheeran’s thinking out
loud music video by choreographing a dance routing- recreating the
one in his.

10. Representation
As part of my narrative based music video I intertextualosed the story
of Cinderella. I have however, added a twist to the soryline wheereby,
the princess does not fall in love with the prince, she falls in love with
an ordinary guy. This subverts the stereotypical expectation of a
fairytale narrative as typically the princess is expected to fall in love
and marry the prince. In addition, I have subverted the stereotypical
ethinicity of a prince as typically the prince is of a white ethnicity,
differently the prince in my music video is black. However, the fact
that the white ordinary guy wins the princess is stereotypical. The
white princess conforms to stereotypical princess ethnicity, especially
in fairytales.

11. BRAND
❖Our theme was…..
❖We wanted to create a classy theme throughout, sticking with a very
simple and basic colour scheme whilst also making it remain
professional and formal.
❖To do this we also made our artist represent such with modesty
through his costume of wearing a shirt in the digipak front cover and
particularly stuck with a blackish background colour as black is
usually associated with black tie and class.

12. Digipak Conventions
❖FRONT: the front of a digipak tends to have an eye catching
image which have a relation with the songs or artist. The front
page also has the album name.
❖BACK: has the tracklist for the album, barcode, record label,
artist/album name, extra information
❖INSIDE: inside a Digipak you will find a plastic CD holder and
more information to do with the artist or album.
I have applied all these conventions to my own work to create a
successful digipak for my promotional package.