This document discusses how a media product for a pop music video and album packaging follows, develops, and challenges conventions of real pop music products. It follows conventions by presenting the video on YouTube, focusing on the artist's appearance, using common editing techniques, and emphasizing symmetry. The album packaging uses bright colors and focuses on the artist. Some conventions are developed, like using different makeup styles for variety and loosely linking locations to lyrics for aesthetics over meaning. Conventions are challenged by not tightly linking locations to lyrics and emphasizing aesthetics over meaning, though this is common in some real pop videos. Overall, the goal was to create a product that would be immediately recognizable as pop music to the

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

2. As my specification is to create a music video, along with matching digipak (Including an album cover, the back of this
cover, the inside, the CD and the spine of the full album) it was necessary for me to pursue research to understand what
is associated with the pop genre. Yet first, this video will be presented on the popular video sharing site YouTube, due to
it being of easy access and the popularity of the site.
The site YouTube is the main and most popular website for sharing video’s in the modern age. This is again due to its easy
access, but also due to its marketing scheme recommendation system. While watching a YouTube video, other videos
(Generally directed at the same audience) will be recommended at the side of this page, and this is the same for listening
habits of an individual also. This means that the video can be directly targeted at its chosen target audience, allowing it
to get seen by others, who eventually could send it to their friends (Through You tube’s video sending system) and even
through word of mouth.
Our work will be presented on separate blog platforms (Weebly) due to the aesthetic performing platform it uses
(Evident on my blog). We have chosen the genre of pop due to the static and trend following nature of its conventions.
The conventions are easy to follow, and due to the popular nature of the music and the videos, there were a lot of
examples to draw inspiration from. During my preliminary research I found that the conventions are very focused on the
artist themselves, for example, the artist usually wears mainstream clothing styles (Bright colours; clothes that follow the
modern trends. For example, for my video, we drew inspiration from the pop singer Ariana Grande who constantly wears
oversized jackets in her videos).

3. The artist is also usually portrayed to be happy, or at least content with the situation they’re in (Unless the song is slow
paced or has perhaps sad lyrics, such as Little Mix’s ‘secret love song’). The makeup has to be precise, unless the artist’s
star persona calls for them to break this norm (Such as Lady Gaga in her early career) and the hair has to match this also
- due to the persona the artist has created, everything has to match this. Not only is the physical appearance of the artist
important to the pop genre, but the technical aspects are also. While, arguably, the artist’s persona is the most
important aspect in this genre, the song and its aspects also hold some significance.
For example, the song is usually around three to five minutes and has to have a consistent beat; it follows a simple verse
chorus verse structure and usually the lyrics are surrounded around a relationship or a break-up. The editing of the video
also has to match the genre. For example, it must be cut on the beat and feature smooth editing between each scenes.
Camera angles are important - the artist must always be the main focus of the shot.
For our video, we followed a lot of these trends. . These can be seen in the technical, symbolic and genre aspects of our
video. For technical, the editing and camera angles or shots are very similar to that of a professional pop music video, for
example in the images below. Furthermore, we found Richard Dyer’s theory of star persona to be massively important
for our video, considering star persona is mostly targeted to the pop genre. Creating separate persona’s for each artist
was significant in our journey.
Ariana Grande’s ‘Dangerous Woman’ music video. A shot from our pop music video.

4. Here you can see that we followed a lot of technical patterns from pop videos, especially the editing (Following
a lip sync shot to a close up of the artist staring into the camera, as seen above). Another aspect we followed
comes in the form of genre. As I stated earlier, the conventions are quite static, with the clothing coming from
mainstream trends. This is the same for make-up and hair, and we chose to follow them so when a viewer sees
the video, they will know it originates from the pop genre. An example of clothing matches with professional
pop music videos:
Little Mix’s’ ‘Power’ music video. A shot from our pop music video.
Ariana Grande’s music video ‘Everyday’ a photograph from the set of our video

5. The make-up was also a very important aspect. Most, if not all pop stars wear
make-up, and a lot of it. For our video, we wanted to play with a natural look and
a more false look, as seen in the picture here. We found that having a different
mixture was significant as it allows each of the actors in the video to have their
own persona. Audiences will then attach themselves to the person they relate to
the most.
This difference is seen in many modern girl bands, as the different exchange of
looks allows the band to broaden their audience.
We also found that the location is important for the video, as this creates an aura
for the video – this usually has a link to the lyrics of the song. However, this is
totally up to the artist, as many popular music video locations have very loose
links to the lyrics of the song. We chose to follow this route, instead choosing
locations that would create the best aesthetic for the video and not the closest
link to the lyrics.
This is one of the things we challenged, as we thought was aesthetic was far more
important, as many audiences do not study the video in order to see the link. As
said before, while this is a challenge to the usual conventions (For example in the
‘Dangerous Woman’ music video shown above, Ariana Grande is singing about
being dangerous – sexually. This is depicted through the location and props as
she’s lounging on a bed in lingerie)
Hayley Kiyoko’s ‘Curious’ music video. a photograph from the set of our video.

6. I did find some examples that follow the same idea that we did. For example:
Dua Lipa’s ‘Be the One’ music video. A shot from our music video.
Here, the lyrics do not have any link to the location. Yet while this may be challenging the conventions, it’s
successful, as pop audiences to not find importance in the location, but rather in the artist’s clothing etc.
Through the editing process of both the music video and ancillary texts I was inspired by many modern pop
music artists. The band I most drew inspiration from however was little mix, and they were the band most like
the one I created. The members hold the most similarities to that of Eclipse, the band I created, including
make-up styles and just their general aesthetic, and seeing as they’re a successful band in the pop genre, it was
hard not to.
Oh, but when you're gone
When you're gone
When you're gone
Oh, baby, all the lights go out
- A snippet of lyrics from ‘Be the one’
Fed up of being the shoulder you cry on
I want to be the shoulder you lie on
every day, every night
- A snippet of lyrics from ‘If I get my
way’ the song chosen from our music
video.

7. With the technical aspects I found that the use of close up’s were very important, which is why the video is
riddled with them. Close up’s (Especially when the artist is staring into the lens) create a relationship with the
audience, which is certainly something that is necessary for pop music. I also found that the background of
shots were important, especially the symmetry of shots, so the video has a clean cut appearance. For example:
There’s an equal amount of gaps on either side of the shot.
The pictures that come with the video, digipak and poster I found were also very important, as many pop
artists release the photo-shoot pictures with the video. This is why I put emphasis on these shots, so the
audience get as much content as they can. I believe all of this led to a successful pop music creation, as while
we develop a few conventions, most of the work follows the general conventions of pop music – allowing
audiences to find the connection immediately.

8. Packaging (The digipak)
While the pop genre is quite static, in some instances there are many opportunities to present creativity
(While also adhering to the audience needs). The digipak is an opportunity for the artist to present their
own style, which is something we took inspiration from. For example, Little Mix’s album:
Through our preliminary research we found that many pop albums feature
bright colours (Especially pinks) and the main focus of the cover is on the artist.
Perhaps the colour scheme is to insight the ‘girly’ or girl dominated nature of
pop music, and the image based nature is because this genre is image centric.
Choosing not to detour from these conventions, we took inspiration from the
colour scheme an d the framing of the cover - seen in our front colour through
the polaroid layout and pink tinge over the entire image.
The album/tour advert
Also evident in the album/tour advert, we chose not to detour from the
usual conventions of this genre. We found that album adverts from this
genre tend to be quite colour and image heavy, which is why the main focus
is the artist.
Furthermore, promotion of the music is key, which is why we added the tour
ticket link and music apps the audience can use to listen to the music. We
took inspiration from Ariana Grande’s ‘Honeymoon tour’ promotion for this
– the advert being image centric.