The document analyzes the conventions used in a music video created by the author. It discusses how the narrative, characters, artist, and other elements employ conventions of mainstream music videos, while also challenging some conventions. The male character displays a range of emotions conventionally seen in male roles. Costumes are more realistic than trend-setting. Effects are used to represent emotions subtly rather than leaving interpretation to the audience. The overall product strives to balance conventions with original techniques and representation of relatable characters.

1. Q1: IN WHAT WAYS DOES THE
MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA
PRODUCTS
Jason Garside

2. Narrative
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In our product, we use the convention
of using a narrative to be shown as the
music video alongside with the artist
performing. This use of convention is
done in our video with the cuts of the
scenes for the narrative and splitting
them apart with various shot of the
artist performing.
In this shot, we see the two characters
arguing for the very first scene. This is
to set the mood and the problem of
the narrative straight away. This is a
convention for a mainstream music
video. It is used in music videos’ such
as ‘break up’ by ‘Mario’ . The shot
shows the male character being more
dominant in the argument where he is
making more action than the female
character which is commonly seen in
mainstream music videos.
The use of a relationship for a narrative
is also using a convention for a
mainstream music video as it appeals
for the audience who watches it.

3. Male character conventions
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Our male character is shown to be a teenager
who has just walked out of a relationship in a
angry manner. But his journey through a series
of emotions is what the music video portrays.
He is upset at the start but then he starts to
think of what has happened. This then turns
into regret and then the will to fix what has
happened.
This series of emotion from him is developing
from a convention for a male character in
mainstream music videos as many music videos
portray the male characters on screen as a
strong character with a strong attitude and
style. An example would be ‘Robin Thicke’ for
the song ‘Blurred Lines’ he is shown as a
confident person and one emotion and
attitude.
However, we have the other side of the male
characters’ range of personas with a character
that is loving for the female characters on
screen. An example would be the character for
‘Bad Day’ by ‘Daniel Powter’ where the male
character is shown to be a ‘real person’ who
shows care and courtesy for social
surroundings…

4. Male character conventions
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Our male character represents both
sides of the personas’ range as he
shows his angry side as a character
but also his loving side which
represents to the audience that he
is ‘only human’ and this
development of a convention
means the audience can relate to
him more as he acts just like what
any male audience may encounter
in their lives.
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For this shot, we have used a high
angle shot on the character to
represent his low emotion and
loneliness which connects with his
action of looking up into the sky, a
desperate way to seek for guidance
conventionally shown on music
videos and other media products.

5. Costume conventions for male
character
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The male character is shown to be wearing
casual jeans and jumper. This is typical
clothing that male teenagers would wear in
day to day lives. This use of clothing is used
to show that the character is comfortable
with his appearance no matter what he is
wearing when he is with his girlfriend. This
shows the relationship was strong before the
break-up.
This use of costume is challenging the
conventions for a character in a mainstream
music video. This is because characters in
other music videos are shown with the latest
fashion in order to set a trend for the
audience. Or on the other hand, they are
shown to be wearing ‘loud’ colours or
clothing that is not mainly worn for day to
day use. This includes sport jerseys’, extra
large chains around their necks or tank tops.
Our character is used for a representation of
teenage boys where the audience can relate
to and not a character that the audience can
aspire to. This is why we have chosen his
costume to relate to audience members

6. Female character conventions
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we have shown our female character as a
pretty but vulnerable character. Her screen
time is not as long as the male characters’
screen time. This is because the angle of the
music video is mainly the males side of the
break-up. This is challenging the convention
for a mainstream music video as a
mainstream music video normally show both
sides of the relationship with roughly equal
screen time.
She is shown to have upsetting emotions
throughout the music video that gives the
overall impression that she is upset in what
has happened between her and her
boyfriend and that she wants everything
back to how it was.
Her persona and the way she acts, uses the
convention for most female characters in a
music video. Women are shown with a
weaker emotion in comparison to a males
emotion which is directly shown with this
video. An example of this is the music video
for ‘Give Me Love’ by ‘Ed Sheeran’ where
the female character is shown at the start
with sad expressions and emotions and
wishing for a happy relationship which is
what our female character acts and needs
for her to be happy.

7. Costume conventions for
female character
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We have chosen our female character to
wear a costume that shows that she makes
an effort in what she is wearing when she is
meeting up with her boyfriend. The
costume she is wearing is also something a
typical teenager would wear .
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This is challenging the convention for
women’s costumes on mainstream music
video as they are typically shown with lack
of clothes or showing off parts of their body
that are known to please men. This
convention is not used at all for our media
product as we are representing the band to
its franchise to be clean for the music
industry which is reflected on the costume
we use for both characters. Examples of
this are ‘Britney Spears’ music video ‘Work’
where the women are wearing hardly any
clothing.
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In this shot, we have the female character
lying on the sofa with the eyes fixed on a
point on the other side of the room
showing that she is in deep thought and
worrying which is showed with her crossed
arm. This conventional pose goes with the
emotional conventions of a female
character who has just broken up with their
boyfriend. This high angle shows how
vulnerable she is when she is like this and
alone. This uses the convention of a women
who is in need of company or love.

8. Conventions in relation to
the artist
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For the shots of our artist, we have given him
interior and exterior locations where he
performs in the same location as where the
narrative is being taken place. This gives the
effect that the narrative and the narrative are
connect by his appearance that split the
narrative scenes.
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The use of the artist in the same scenes as the
characters, uses a convention for mainstream
music videos. An example of this is ‘Bad day’ by
Daniel Powter.
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This scene features the artist in a long shot of
him performing on his guitar. He is shown
slightly to the left of the centre of the screen.
This is another use of a convention.
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Showing the artist playing the instrument that
is heard on the soundtrack is also another
convention used in our product. Many other
music videos feature the artist showing their
talent on the musical instrument that they can
play.
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We have used a coloured filter that overlays the
scene that covers the artist in a particular
colour. This shows that the artist is bringing out
the colour to the music video where the
narrative is mainly black and white. It
symbolises that there is light in the world even
if it seems grey and sad at times. This effect is
challenging conventions for a music video as it
is rare to see a mono colour being shown on
screen like we have placed. However, it is put in
to bring colour and interest in the music video.

9. Solo conventions
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•The use of the house in the background also
connects the artist and the narrative together as
it’s the same house the female character lives in. a
good convention that is emphasised even in the
solo.
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For a rock group, the solo is where the
musicians can show off their talent even
more. This is what we are aiming for this shot
shown. We can see the artist is shown with a
canted angle tracking shot in a semi circle
motion where he plays throughout the solo in
front of a car with the headlights at full beam.
This shot is conventional as many bands uses
a backlight behind the members to bring light
into the shot and also highlighting the
members giving them a great lighting effect.
The brightness of the shot is used very well as
mostly the shots before this one appears is
black and white and so that emphasizes this
shot greatly when the negative transition is
also used between the narrative and the solo.
The movement is also conventionally used to
show all angles of when the musicians are
playing. Moving the camera from left to right
is conventional by letting the audience feel
welcome to watch and draws them in to see
what else will be in shot.
The artists’ costume is the same costume as
he uses throughout. This is casual clothing like
the male character. This shows that he is no
different to the male character which is what
we are trying to show. This is a strong
challenging convention as many artists wear
branded clothing or outspoken clothing that is
not normally shown in the ‘real world’ the
artist we are portraying is not used for trend
setting either but used for relation purposes
with the audience.

10. Effects
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This effect being shown is the same shot but the black and
white fades away when he realises what to do to fix his
sadness. The colour of the screen reflects on the characters
emotions so this shot is perfect for the change in emotion for
the male character. The use of effects to reflect on the
characters’ emotion challenges the conventions for characters’
emotion portrayal as many music video wants the audience to
work out what they are feeling and want them to guess what is
happening. Whereas, we are using symbolising for the emotion
that may not be a clear connection for the audience, but it is
there.
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The change of the colour in this scene works well as it changes
pretty quickly at the end of the cut which then combines with
the next shot of the solo where the negative beginning is
shown. Both use of the colour on film works well when they are
cut together as it fades the colour in and not a sudden change.
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The bottom shot on this slide shows the start of the solo which
features the overlay of the scene becoming brighter than any
other shot on the music video. We used a negative overlay to
go with the start of this cut which gives an original effect. This
effect is a development of a mainstream music video
convention as many videos features creative ways to add
colour and effect to a shot in a ‘real’ music video. The use of the
negative matches this convention but only for a limited time.
This is because we wanted to feature an introduction effect to
the solo shot but not an effect that lasts throughout the cut.
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Throughout the video, we have used a transparent layer that
shows the video with an iris effect around the screen. This is to
give the professional effect that many music videos use to
separate an amateur video and a professional one as the
surroundings are darkened which gives focus to what is being
shown in the centre of the screen.

11. Goodwins’ points
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Goodwins’ points are used as part of the
mainstream music videos’ conventions. We have
followed with his points throughout our media
product including the one featured on the right
with the lyrics: ‘can’t let you turn the page’ the
combined lyrics and the actions on screen fulfil
the lyric-visual relation point where the lyric that
is heard and what is shown on screen relate. This
is also featured for our two shots of the artist and
male character walking in the same scene but the
artist singing the lyrics: ‘I don’t wanna be left
behind’ as he walks behind the male character.
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We’ve also used the music visual relation point
from Goodwin in when we introduce the solo.
Where the music brings an upbeat to the
song, the video also upbeats with extra colour
and brightness and the unique camera angle.
This means we are using one of the conventions
for a mainstream music video.
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We have attempted to sell the artist with the
wide variety of shot angles and appearances
throughout the video. This includes many close
ups of the artists’ face which would help to sell
the artist which is another Goodwin point
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Using shots of the artist performing with the
guitar depicts the rock genre out of the song as
these fulfil parts of the rock genre conventions.
But also adding the narrative, we are also
fulfilling conventions that are used for slow songs
in the mainstream genres.
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However, we have not used any voyeurism or
intertextuality as we believed this is not suitable
for our target audience or the theme of the song.

12. Digipak conventions
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For our digipak we have used all images taken by our group. We have cleared each image with
unwanted objects such as goal posts and white lines on the field. This is to keep the image as
natural as possible to relate to the band as a clean and friendly band which sells the artist well
which is one of the conventions of a mainstream digipak as it is used to sell the artist as much
as possible which we have done with the multiple images of him in a similar surrounding.
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The use of the guitar is used as a symbol that relates to the artist and therefore sells him even
further as many audience members would recognise this guitar and relate it to the band
‘daughtry’. Maintaining to keep the audience remembering the artist and objects that are
related to him is a good way for more sales which makes this a good convention which we
used.
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Most mainstream digipaks feature around 12 tracks from the artist and bonus features which
relates to the making and inside material about the band which is what we have followed.

13. Digipak continued…
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For the back cover, we have used the guitar for
recognition for the band except the image is
blurred and darken in order for the text to stand
out. However, the guitar can still be seen but it is
subtle. This use of blurred images for the
background for the back of the digipak is used
for many mainstream digipak images. For
example, ‘ellie goulding’s ‘ album back cover for
‘bright lights’ gives an image of lights but it is
blurred so that the audience doesn’t know what
the focus is. (shown bottom right image)
This also shows that the image of one face of a
cover is carried on for the spine of the cover
which is what we have done for our interior of
our digipak.. We have used this convention of
following the image for the spine.
All the images used are related to each other
which is another convention for a digipak where
all of the faces of a digipak have the same theme.
We have used a natural theme of a field and the
sky and the viewing of the artist with his guitar.
This theme is used throughout the digipak.. An
example of this convention is used for the
digipak where the image of the mask and the
colours are used throughout the digipak.

14. Magazine advert conventions
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For our magazine ad, we have used the digipak’s album cover as
the advert. This is to ensure the audience would recognise the
album cover when it is available in store by the use of the image
on the magazine advert. This uses the convention for a
mainstream marketing campaign as shown in the examples
(shown left) as they use their digipak cover as the magazine
advert.
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We have shown directly where the audience can buy the digipak
by using the logos of retailers such as ‘hmv’ and ‘iTunes’ this is a
development of a convention for a magazine ad as they mainly tell
the audience that it is available on CD or as a download but it is
uncommon to find a retailers logo on a magazine advert. We think
this works well as it is a direct way for the audience to buy the
product.
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The text that they use for their magazine advert is used for their
digipak and album cover. This is a convention for most genres of
music in their adverts and products.
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We have featured reviews of the digipak at the bottom of the
advert from magazines that would be related to the genre of
music. We have used ‘Kerrang’ and ‘Q’ these two magazines are
related with the rock genre as their focus. This is challenging a
convention for a magazine advert as they are not common to be
found on magazine adverts as they are reviews from other
magazines. However, we believe that these magazines that gave a
review would be the magazines that the magazine advert would
feature in and therefore it is suitable. The good review would
make the audience believe that the digipak is worth buying and
therefore will be encouraged to buy it.
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The spacing of the text is also conventional as most of the
information is featured at the bottom of the magazine advert as it
gives the image the limelight of the centre of the magazine advert
as it is the eye catching part of the advert.