The document discusses conventions in female pop music videos and how the media product adheres to and develops conventions. It summarizes key conventions for music video elements like set design, camera work, performance, costumes, makeup, album artwork, CD design, and website design. Examples are provided from various popular artists to illustrate conventions. The media product aims to follow conventions to appeal to its target audience while also introducing new and unique elements.

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

2. What are the conventions?
• I have made a research into the similar products of female-pop genre, which
shows in which ways our products are different and in which they are similar to
real media products.
• All of these videos are different in the idea and content, however they all have
similar elements as they are sold in the same market, so even that they are
differentiated, they similar to each other.
• Conventions provide the audiences with the structure they are familiar for that
particular genre. There are two types of conventions: symbolic and technical.
Symbolic techniques are ways of showing meanings beyond that you can see
for. This particular genre is very popular, however there are many variations of
visuals that the viewer may expect. Technical techniques are ways of showing
how meaning is conveyed using technical equipment.
• In a pop music video a viewer expect to see mostly the artist himself and shots
that represent the lyrics of the song.

3. Artists used:
Katy Perry
Dua Lipa
Miley Cyrus
Taylor Swift
Britney Spears
Mariana Martinez
Ariana Grande
Christina Aguleria
Lady Gaga
Selena Gomez
Rihanna
Mariaha
Miranda Cosgrove
Camila Cabello
Fergie
fZara Larsson
fCarly Rae Jepsen
Kesha
Sia
Pink
Ellie Goulding
Jess Glynne
Jessie J
Demi Levato
Victoria Justice

4. Music Video

5. Set Design
• Here are 6 screenshots from different
pop videos. In every one of them the
artist showed on the plain white
background. This very simplistic and
minimalistic set focuses all attention of
the audience to the artist which is placed
in the middle of the shot. We used this
symbolic convention in our video as we
wanted to create the same effect.
Moreover, we decided to dress her in
white dress which made her face stand
out from the whole picture even more.

6. • For our second element we again used a
technique of using simple background. However
this time to make the picture more interesting we
used pinkish-red colour which is very girlish and
quite common among this genre. As we tried to
make a minimalistic video, we used just white and
red colour to maximise the effect of that technique.

7. • in Dua Lipa’s video clip there is an element where she is sitting on
chair in the empty room. The whole focus in that moment is again
on the artist. We used this in our music video too, however we
developed this concept even further and tried to show juxtaposition
between these two colours. Also, we made the colour choices so
that artist’s dresses are on contrasts with the chair. This way the
attention focuses on the artist herself, not the elements of the set.

8. • For the third element we used a light white
material to build the set. Very similar set we can
see in the Miley Cyrus’s music video ‘Adore
You’. This method create an effect of lightness
and dreamy atmosphere. We decided that the
audience that we target should like this set and
therefore decided to use it our music video.

9. Camera work
• As it was already mentioned, in
pop video artist showed almost in
every shot. Moreover, close ups
and even extreme close ups as on
the examples below are used very
frequently. We also have used this
technique as our research has
shown that this type of shot not
only shows the beauty of the artist,
but also create some sort of eye
contact between the viewer and
artist. Therefore, artist sims closer
to their audience and support
Dyer’s theory about creating a star
image through paradoxes. When
we were filming this shot we made
a focus on our artist’s eyes which
even increased that effect.

10. Performance
• One of the main objectives of the music video of that genre is to
show the beauty of the artist. That is why we used different
modelling shots which we than edited between the lip-syncing
elements. This also should attract male audience as it shows the
sexuality of our artist.

11. • At one moment in the video, we introduce a male character to
the element which I described as «dreamy» one. As our target
audience is girls 10-15 years old, we made a decision that
such scene will be liked as most of the girls of that age dreams
about love and relationships. Many artists of that genre are
showed in theirs video with their lover which creates romantic
and cute atmosphere which potentially attracts more audience.

12. • This scene is also very romantic which should create the same
effect that I have mentioned on the previous slide. However here
we also used light to show the connection between two people
and how their bond shines. It makes the scene very warm and
beautiful.

13. Costume
• Costumes and make up are very important parts
of the female pop-music video. We looked at many
clips of that genre, and it became evident that
artist usually changes her outfit almost in every
set. For example, here are the screenshots of the
Ariana Grande’s video ‘Break Free’. There were
three main elements and for which of them she
has changed her costume. The costume is also a
part of the set itself which helps to create an
atmosphere. Moreover, the appearance of the
artists in the music video hugely influence the star
image of the artist.
• For all of these reasons we chose three different
costumes for our artist to perform in each element.
For two opposite elements on the sofas we chosen
similar in style dresses which are elegant and sexy
at the sae time. For the third element in the sheets
we chosen white simple costume which reminds
warm summer days. We also paid a lot of attention
to the colours as we wanted all red shades in the
video to be very similar.

14. Make up
• We have chosen a red lipstick for our artist in the main element as it was always
used a symbol of femininity and sexuality in other real products and in life.
Moreover it perfectly matched with a colour theme that we created.

15. Album Artwork

16. Picture
• When we were choosing the picture for our album cover, we decided to follow conventions of these
genre, as we introduce a new artist therefore the genre and style of music should be clear on the album
itself in order to achieve target audience. Therefore we chose a cheering close-up picture of our artist
on the front of the cover which is widely used in female pop genre. The photo itself looks attractive and
have some sexual subtext as well as the other album covers which showed above. This according to
the purpose of that convention should attract wider audience and make people speak about the artist.

17. Back
• Our back cover turned out to be quite unique as we wanted to create something new which is relevant to our
target audience. That’s why we showed ‘backstage’ of the artist using smartphones which are widely used
among young generation. However, looking at the album covers of other artist we can see that it also tends
to be the artist but in a wider shot.

18. Font
• The font that we have chosen is quite unique and even looks a bit vintage, however the similar
ones were also used in the other digipaks of the artists of the same genre. This font is girlish
and looks like a handwritten one, however it is still readable which is the most important.

19. CD Design
We decided to keep our CD minimalistic as we used the same idea in the music video. We
followed our colour scheme and than just added details that are expected by the consumer.
Such style was already used by some artists, which examples you can see above. To make
our CD special we decided to have her kiss and autograph on it.

20. Website

21. Navigation Design
This is a very important part of the website as it helps to brows the website and stays the same in all pages. Therefore, we
paid a lot of attention to other artist’s websites in order to follow the conventions as we wanted the design to be familiar to
our target audience. It was very important to have artist’s name on that header as the main aim of the website is to promote
the artist. As we promoting a new artist, there is a limited amount of information about her and we decided not to overload
audience with it. That’s why we have made 4 pages. Also, it was important to have her social media links right at the top of
the website as now social media is a crucial part of communication between audience and the artist. Moreover, another aim
of the website is to promote artist’s social media.

22. Website Homepage
As the website is a marketing strategy to promote the artist and his
products, it is very common that on the homepage there will be information
and links to the latest release of the artist. We decided to follow that
convention as this strategy seems very successful. That’s why we have an
announcement of ‘I Got Love’ on the homepage at the very top.

23. Style
The style that we have chosen for our website is not new in this market, however we developed
the common idea of being pictures of the artist the main background. We made gifs of our artist
and repeated them on the background of our homepage. This made the website look very
unusual and interesting. Also, this made representation of our artist more visual.
The use of gifs in the websites is not new in that industry. Sia’s website main theme is gifs from
her latest releases. Lady Gaga’s website which looks very unique also have gifs in it design.