This document summarizes the conventions of recent popular music videos and R&B music videos. For popular music videos, it notes that there is often a story line relating to the song lyrics, brighter lighting, dance sequences matching the decade, and a clear narrative portrayed through characters and lyrics. It also discusses higher production values with dynamic camera movement, faster editing, and experimental/creative techniques. For R&B music videos specifically, it outlines settings like clubs and studios, lighting, revealing outfits, product placement, storylines about love interests, and portrayals of wealth and lifestyle. The document provides examples of how these conventions are employed in specific artists' music videos.

1. Evaluation – Question 1
By Tamara Gill

2. Conventions of recent, popular music videos
Story lines - there is often a story to the music video where the actions and characters
relate to the lyrics of the song.
Higher key lighting - more recent music videos are often brighter to look more modern.
Dance sequences - there are often extras dancing in the background the more recent the
video, the type of dancing also changes to fit the decade.
More narrative - there is a clear story portrayed through the lyrics and characters in the
video.
Intertexuality - the more recent music videos often reference another media product
within the video such as Twitter.
More dynamic camera movement - the camera will move more smoothly and will be of a
clearer resolution.
Editing is faster paced - the cuts in the video will be quicker to match the beat of the
music.
More experimental and creative - different techniques are tried out in more recent videos,
spoofs are created and movies are referenced.
A star persona is created - a music video will now reflect the persona of the star using the
mise en scene and actions taken by the artist in the video.
Product placement - an example of product placement is the Beats by Dre used in Robin
Thicke's video, they are regularly shown.
More fashion icons - the mise en scene promotes materialism such as in the genre of hiphop and pop.

3. Conventions of an R&B music video
Club settings and studio backgrounds often used.
Low key lighting in clubs, high key lighting in master shots.
Woman showed exposing skin wearing revealing outfits.
Male showing abs, exposing tattoos.
Male wearing sunglasses.
Male wearing bling, woman wearing a lot of makeup and extreme hair.
Artist shown in music video.
Male wearing a suit.
Greyscale effect on shots.
Dance sequence.
Product placement.
Follows a storyline.
Artist and love affair framed together, often kissing or touching/dancing.
Soft lighting to portray love and emotion.
Dynamic camera movement.
Fast paced editing.
Star persona created.

4. This is a low angle shot used to make the star look superior,
he is positioned in the centre of the frame as he is the main
focus.
Kanye West’s music video uses a similar shot, using the same colours
and effects. Our video uses a low angle shot but this video is at eye
level. It looks professional and follows the convention of highlighting
the artist on his own and having the artist present in the video. Kanye
West’s music video however, does not show the artist.
The sunglasses he is
wearing portrays the
lifestyle he leads, many
famous people wear
them and an example of
this is Chris Brown, a
well known R&B singer.
The greyscale effect on this shot creates a
glimmer/sparkle in the sunglasses, this conveys
the paparazzi the star faces due to his high
popularity. The suit he is wearing shows he is a
fashion icon and looked upon by many fans, it
is black and white which matches with the
colour scheme of the shot and the video. It
looks smart and is often associated with
rappers or modern R&B singers as it is
considered ‘cool’ to be wearing. He is wearing
it without a tie to show that although he is
looking smart and being a fashion icon, he
does not need to follow all the rules of a rap
star as he is highly successful and is edgy, this
is challenging the convention of wearing a tie
with a suit in music videos.

5. This screen shot portrays a club
scene, there is smoke around the
people to make it look realistic .
The smoke fades into the dancers
to put the most emphasis on the
artist, he is the main focus as he is
positioned in the centre of the
frame and is the lust of the
dancers. They dance around him
in a circle while he sings the lyrics.
This is conventional as most R&B
singers from the genre have their
music videos set in a club, with
the artist being lusted after by
girls.
This screen shot shows that our video follows the convention of showing the artist’s lifestyle and wealth. This
conveys that he spends most of his time’s in high-end clubs and is the centre of attention. It illustrates that he
enjoys being in clubs and likes the life that he lives. He is also wearing Beats by Dre headphones around his neck
which is an example of product placement, the target audience will see this and are very likely to buy them after.
Most modern music videos from any genre, mostly pop and R&B use product placement in their videos.
This is a screen shot from Drake’s music video ‘Find Your
Love’. The shot has an orange filter over it making it look
like a real club (this video has a high budget so would have
been filmed in a real club). In order for our video to look
like a real club we placed a purple filter over the filming to
make it look realistic and like a high budget video. The
background of this shot is blurry, we have achieved this
effect with the smoke machine.

6. This is a shot of the girl the artist loves in the
lyrics ‘You made me love you’. She is the
character that the song is based on which is
why there is shots of her on her own. This shot
is when she is dancing, looking into the camera
to address the audience and identify herself as
the item of desire. The same greyscale
background is used as is used with the artist in
his master shot, this is to keep it identifiable
that she is the girl being sang about. A
convention followed is the girl has long hair and
is wearing makeup, it can be challenged though
as women often wear red lipstick in music
videos but in this she is not.
It is conventional to use a girl as an item of lust in a music video, during this clip the girl keeps a serious face, this is
common for the portrayal of women in music videos. The girl is presented with long curled hair and wearing a
flowing short dress, an example of a girl used as objectification in a music video is in Jason Derulo’s video ‘The Other
Side’. The girl from this video is showing a lot of skin and is revealing, our video is unconventional in that way as the
Girl is not showing as much skin. This is challenging
the convention as it is a statement of bearing less
skin and still being identified as the object of desire,
women often show their stomach and cleavage but
the girl in this did not. We felt it would be
inappropriate to bear a lot of skin for our music
video. They also wear a lot of eyeshadow in music
videos making their eyes stand out but in this the girl
is wearing an average amount of make up.

7. This is a master shot of the artist face on, he is addressing the audience
directly while singing. His facial expression and positioning shows that he
is singing passionately. The black and white gives an authentic look to
the video as its not brightly coloured and stays in keeping with the
theme of the overall video.
The artists suit can be clearly seen in this
shot, this shows him looking ‘fresh’ like
most artists in the R&B genre. Suits are
conventional to wear in music videos by
the most popular artists such as Kanye
West and Drake, by wearing this it shows
that the artist is as popular and he is
within the R&B genre. Most music videos
from this genre have clips where the
artist is showing more skin, exposing
tattoos – we break this convention as our
star does not have tattoos and we had
him covered up for the whole of the
video. A convention broken in this is that
the artist is not showing abs or his upper
body, this is used in many R&B music
videos to attract more females to watch.

8. The head shots breaks the
convention of using full bodies in
silhouettes but follows the
convention of showing the artist and
love connection in different ways.
This clip clearly shows he is singing
about the girl, making a clear link
between lyrics and visuals. The
purple filter also breaks the
convention of using simplistic
colours in the background but makes
more links to the club scenes
featured in the video.
In this music video the silhouettes are full body shots, we used
head shots instead in less detail which is unconventional but was
easier create due to our low budget in filming.
This shot is a silhouette of the artist and
the girl. We made this original by using a
purple filter, silhouettes are conventional
in other music videos when they are in
black and white. The main focus is on the
artist as we have darkened his image, the
girl’s shadow is lighter to connote the
mystery in her reply to the song, it isn’t
known if his love is requited until the
end shot of them together. An example
of a silhouette shot like this used is in the
music video ‘Love, Sex and Magic’ by
Justin Timberlake.

9. This screen shot is from a memory clip, it comes across as the
artist remembering the girl in a more natural way, she is wearing
different clothes to show this and the lighting is brighter to make it
look like a memory. The lighting here is more natural, giving a
sense of reality. Her expression is neutral in the first memory clip
then she is smiling in the others, this shows he is in love with her
and remembers making her laugh.
A convention has been broken in this by having the
girl show minimal bare skin, only her shoulders can be
seen in this shot – this is similar to Beyonce’s R&B
music videos where she doesn’t show too much skin
to portray herself as more powerful. It may have
looked better in our video if the girl was showing
more skin as she is not the singer and is there to be
shown as an object of desire.
Slow R&B songs often use a storyline, this
memory clip shows a storyline where he is
remembering the girl he loves and
progresses until they are together at the
end. She is seen looking serious and then
laughing, as if he is seeing her through his
eyes, she is addressing him in these shots
and the shots of her dancing is addressing
the audience.

10. This shot of the star and the girl he loves dancing connects the visual and the lyrics, it identifies the audience with the
characters and progresses the storyline which is conventional to the genre. They are dancing in a studio setting with a
bright light between them, the light connotes the clear relationship they have while the darker parts outside of them
portrays the dim life they’d have if they weren’t together. The studio setting makes the video look more realistic as a
professional music video rather than a student production.
A convention broken in this video is that there is no kissing
and not much body contact between the artist and love
affliction, often in R&B videos, especially ones associated
with love have the characters together in a home setting or
club setting kissing or touching, we did not do this as we felt
it would be inappropriate to film as our student production.
We do however, have shots of them dancing together and we
feel the memory shots make up for this. An example of an
R&B video showing kissing and touching is Chris Brown’s
video for ‘Say Goodbye’.

11. Our music video follows the convention of having a storyline between the artist and a woman, this screen shot shows
the resolution at the end when they are together. Most music videos that feature a connection between artist and
woman will have shots of them together to clearly portray this. This shot shows the girl looking happy and
comfortable around him while the artist has a laid back expressions. They do not kiss in the video at all which breaks
the convention of kissing and touching within love R&B songs, this uses a bright light to soften the shot making it
clear they are in love and happy. The girl is wearing the same clothes as she is in the memory shots, this creates a
subtle link between them to show she is always how he remembers her. The artist progresses through the video from
being shown as a popular, successful star to this stripped back shot of being a normal man in love.
A convention we have challenged is having dance scenes in our video, R&B music videos often have choreographed
dance scenes to match the tone of the music, instead of using choreographed groups dancing we had shots of the girl
dancing subtle by moving her shoulders on her own. This still conveyed she was an object of desire but we did not
feature any groups dancing.

12. Conventions of a magazine advert and digipak
Magazine Advertisement
-
Review/rating
Release date
Retail price
Featuring songs
Download information
Name of band/artist
Image of artist/album
Tour dates
One page spread
Appropriate magazine to band
Representation of artist/genre.
Digipak
-
Image of artist
Lyrics of songs
Track list
Credits
Album artwork
Name of album
Name of artist
Bar code
Date of release
Reviews
Tour dates
Copyright information
Record companies
6 pages
Representation of artist/genre
Reference to other media e.g
Facebook, Twitter.

13. Magazine Advert
We use black, red and white as the colour scheme in our
advertisement. Black works well as it connotes mystery
which is a convention of the R&B genre, red connotes lust
which is also a convention followed through by most R&B
videos on the theme of finding women. The white diamond
stands out of the artist’s shirt and matches the artist’s name
and the colours on the album cover. This stands out and
would attract the target audience if seen in a magazine. The
artist’s pose is laid back to convey a ‘cool’ vibe and shows
his modesty towards the reviews by The Guardian and Zane
Lowe. We featured an iTunes logo which is often used on
modern music advertisements because it is a popular
downloading website. The album cover is shown on the
advert which is also conventionally used on magazine
adverts.
The retail price of the album is not on this magazine, this
makes it unconventional but we felt with the retail price
added it took away from the originality of the layout and
colours. Tour dates are not on it either but this may be due
to the artist not having any tours set. We used the first
quote ‘Smart, Slick and Sexy’ as the alliteration makes it
more appealing, it makes the album seem like the ‘in’
product to buy therefore the target audience will be more
likely to buy it, also due to the striking colour scheme,
target audiences of other genres may also be enticed to buy
it.

14. Digipak
Our digipak album cover is a photo of a wine glass smashed with wine spilt, this is to portray the wealthy lifestyle and
is conventional to show this representation. For example, Drake’s album cover shows him with a goblet drinking wine.
On the back cover we have used a glass being filled with wine to keep the theme and it features the track list,
barcode, record company and general information at the bottom. The CD cover features a wine splat behind it to
symbolise the R&B lifestyle to be rough at times – this could portray the drugs side of the industry. One page of the
digipak shows lyrics for his main song (the music video), this encourages people that buy the CD to learn the lyrics.
Another page of the digipak shows money and a glass filled with wine, this portrays his rich lifestyle, he can leave
money lying around due to the amount he has and drinks expensive wine. Most artists use this wealthy lifestyle to
brand themselves as successful to the target audience. It includes an image of the artist, in the same attire as the
magazine to show a clear link between them.
A convention challenged is that
there is no reviews in the digipak,
we have these on the magazine
advert instead, we haven’t made
any references to Twitter or
Facebook either as these are also
on the magazine advert. We
haven't’ added tour dates to the
digipak, this is a convention broken
– the reasoning behind this could
be that the artist hasn’t planned to
do a tour yet.