1. EVALUATIONTASK 1
In what ways does your media product use. Develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. What is a genre convention?
■ Genre conventions help to establish the genre of a product to the audience straight
away, without the need for further explanations.They are divided into: technical
(camera, sound and editing) and symbolic (mise-en-scene). Location, set, costume,
props, make-up – all of these are the tools by which filmmakers transmit genre
conventions to the audience both in films and music videos.
■ These conventions could be used, developed or challenged in order to create an
impact on the audience. For example, in our music video Cheri has a pretty make-up,
several fancy dresses, there is a dance element and overall color juxtaposition
between white and red – all of these are the hints to the audience that the music genre
is pop.
■ We have used and developed pop genre conventions, while creating a music campaign
for Cheri and her new album “I Got love”.The main reason for this is that Cheri is the
new artist and her first music campaign have to establish her and her star image
correctly, in order to appeal to the right target audience.
■ Before creating our own music campaign we did a research into similar artists to find
out these genre conventions and how they are used.These are some of the artists
we’ve looked at:Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa,ChristinaAguilera, Katy Perry,
Lady Gaga, SelenaGomez, Marina and the Diamonds, Rita Ora,Victoria Justice,
Rihanna.

3. Pop genre.
■ The main characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general
audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, and an emphasis on
craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities. In other words, pop – is a genre of
music, than can be international and popular all over the world, because of up-beating
pleasant sound and uncomplicated lyrics.
■

4. MUSICVIDEO.

5. “Anywhere”
Rita Ora
One of the pop genre conventions,
especially if the artist is a female – is
having lots of fancy costumes in a
music video. In other words, pop
artists regularly change their outfits
throughout the video, having around
1-2 costumes per element.
For example, in the video
“Anywhere” by Rita Ora she changes
her outfit 10 times.We’ve decided to
copy this genre convention in order
to appeal to our target audience. As
you can see on the screenshots I’ve
compared some of the costumes of
Rita Ora to the ones Cheri had in our
music video.

6. Dua Lipa
Another pop genre convention in music videos, featuring female
singers – is showing off the artist’s looks.This means that, the artist
has the most screen time, longer shot durations and is regularly
placed center frame.
For example, in the video “IDGAF” by Dua Lipa, even though she
and the crowd are dressed exactly in the same costumes, we
always know where the main artist is, even if she is not lipsyncing.
This happens because camera follows her throughout the music
video, helping the audience to focus on the artist and not to
distract their attention.
We’ve decided to use this pop genre convention in our music video
as well. We even went further and left our artist alone in the
elements 1 and 2, which made the audience to focus on her only.
This is important when creating a music video for the new artist,
because we need to get her image to stick in the minds of the
audience.
Moreover, Dua Lipa’s “IDGAF” has the color juxtaposition between
blue and red: half of the people in the music video are dressed in
blue and half in red, the artist herself wears both red and blue, as if
she was two different people.We also played on the color
juxtaposition, between red and white, involving both the artist’s
costume and the atmosphere around her.
“IDGAF”

7. Taylor Swift
“Wildest Dreams”
“Out of theWoods”
Another genre convention for the female pop – is
the presence of a ‘love scene’ in the music video. In
other words, it’s the intimate scene, where the artist
has a ‘moment of love’ with one other character,
such as kissing, touching, cuddling, e.t.c which is a
good way of attracting target audience of young
females.
We have used this
convention and
created a scene,
where Cheri is
cuddling with a boy
in the white sheets.
We’ve used close-
ups and fast pace
editing to transmit
the intimate and
gentle mood of the
scene.
Another quite popular genre convention is the use of
white color. A lot of female pop stars use different
shades of white in their costumes, make-up or set to
transmit certain messages to their audience.
For example, in the video ‘Out of theWoods’ byTaylor
Swift she has a scene, where she is lying in the white
snow after a long and dangerous way. In this case,
white connotes purity and safety, which the artist feels
after being in the dark, gloomy forest.
We’ve used a lot of
white in our music video,
it was juxtaposed to red
and connoted the
feelings of loneliness,
sadness and isolation.
Such strong emphasis
made the juxtaposition
with red even stronger,
which created a bigger
impact on the audience.

8. Mariana and the Diamonds
“How to be a heartbreaker”
As I’ve mentioned previously, ‘love scenes’ are quite
common in female pop videos. For example, in the
music video ‘How to be a heartbreaker’ by Mariana
and the Diamonds she has a lot of intimate scenes
with the male characters throughout. I chose it as a
separate example, because in this music video the
intimate scene is combined with the use of white
lighting, which is exactly what we have done in
“Chasing Highs”.
In our case we’ve put the artist and the male
character in white sheets to connote them being
together and isolated from the rest of the world.
So, if before the artist was in the sheets on her own
and the white lighting meant her own loneliness and
sadness, when we’ve added the male character the
meaning of white lighting has changed. Now, it
connotes their isolation from the outside world and
the purity of their feelings.

9. Victoria Justice
One of the common symbolic conventions for pop genre
is infinity roll, as a part of set in mise-en-scene. A lot of
music videos use it, because it’s a nice way of shooting
long-shots and mid-shots of the artist on the smooth
background, where the focus is drawn onto the artist’s
looks and costume.
We’ve decided to develop this genre convention and
based the whole music video on two infinity rolls: white
and red. First of all, it supported the set color
juxtaposition. Moreover, it allowed us to show off the
Cheri’s body and pretty face in order to attract the
secondary target audience of young males.
Another common convention, which we’ve found in pop
music videos is the way female artists support their
performance by hand gestures. For example, they move
their hands around, point or wave at the camera lens and
touch their hair, in other words, they interact with the
audience. As you can see on the bottom screenshots I’ve
comparedVictoria Justice’s gestures to Cheri’s ones and
they appear to be pretty similar.
“Gold”

10. Miley Cyrus
“Wrecking Ball”
One more technical convention in pop music
videos is the use of extreme close-ups and
high angles. In other words, such camera
work emphasizes the artist’s pretty looks,
which is important for the female pop star
because appeals to both primary target
audience of young females and the
secondary target audience of males.
For example, in the video “Wrecking Ball” by
Miley Cyrus there are a lot of close-ups and
high angles on her face, which places
emphasis on her beautiful eyes and red lips.
We’ve used this genre convention and filmed
Cheri in a way to create the same emphasis
and highlight her beauty. As you can see
from the screenshots, we’ve managed to do
it in the same way, so that Cheri’s star image
is maintained within the brackets of pop
genre.

11. Ariana Grande
“Break Free”
herVS us
One of the main ways how we have challenged the
conventions of female pop music videos - is the
absence of a story. For example, Ariana Grande’s
“Break Free” music video has a story inside about a
woman, who frees people on the Mars and fights the
main villain.This is quite common for music videos,
they all have some kind of a story, usually the love
one. Where our music video does not have any plot
line inside, just the artist in two elements and dancers
in one element.
The main reason for that was that Cheri is a new star
in the industry, so the main aim of our music
campaign was to make the audience remember her
and her image. One of the ways to do it, was to make
her the focus of the video, therefore, giving up all the
extra elements that would draw that focus away. In
that way, our music video is different, because of how
much attention we put on the main star, and how
simple is the rest of the video, including set and even
the dance.

12. DIGIPACK.

13. Rihanna
One of the common genre convention for pop
album covers is featuring the artist at the front
cover. For example, the Rihanna’s album
“LOUD” has her close-up high quality
photograph on the front cover. By using such
images the attention of the audience is drawn
onto the artist’s eyes and lips, which highlights
that the star is good-looking and attracts
beyond the target audience.
We’ve used and developed this convention and
made Cheri to look directly at the camera lens,
as if she is communicating with somebody
behind the camera. We thought this might
provoke customers to notice and take our
album from the shelf in the store.
“LOUD”

14. Christina Aguilera
Another genre convention of pop, especially the female one,
is bright color. In other words, many pop stars use red, pink
or yellow colors in their digipack in order to make their
album to stand out from many other covers.
For example, the album ‘Come on over, baby” by Christina
Aguilera is done in the red color, which connotes love,
passion and danger. We’ve decided to use this genre
convention and also play on the meanings of the color red.
Our album cover is made in a way that front and back covers
have white/grey backgrounds, but the inside left and the CD
are red.This links back to our idea of color juxtaposition
between white and red (innocence vs passion) from our
music video.
Moreover, the close-up of Christina Aguilera and her artist
and album names below is also a common genre convention,
which we successfully applied to our album cover.
“Come on over, baby”

15. WEBSITE.

16. Selena Gomez
As I’ve mentioned previously, pop star’s music
videos tend to highlight the artist’s good looks,
especially, if it’s a female.The same strategy works
for websites.That’s why, one of the pop genre
conventions is to use a beautiful high quality
picture of the artist as a background for the
homepage of the website.
For example, the website of Selena Gomez has her
photograph on the background alongside with the
latest album name. We’ve decided to use this genre
convention and also used large Cheri’s photograph
on the homepage. For us, it’s even more important
to promote Cheri’s face, because if she is a new
artist, she doesn’t yet have a fan base, so we need
to get her image stuck in the minds of the audience
and one of the best ways to do it – is to use her
picture on the website as mush as possible.
https://www.selenagomez.com/

17. Lady Gaga
While researching into similar products we found
the website of Lady Gaga, and I personally found
her background quite stunning.You cannot see it
on the screenshot, but on the actual website the
pictures on the homepage are moving. In other
words, these are gifs.
I wouldn’t call it a common pop genre convention,
it’s more of a creative way to promote your music,
which we’ve adopted for our website. Moving
image not only shows off the artist better, but also
supports the mood of that type of music – colorful
moving images attract attention of the audience
and engage them. Moreover, as we’ve created gifs
from the scenes of the music video, our website
became a direct link and promotion to our music
video.
https://www.ladygaga.com/