This document summarizes how the media producer's music video for artist Eva Ellis drew inspiration from and followed conventions of real music videos and pop music. It discusses how the video was inspired by Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory but challenged conventions by not portraying dominant males. It also drew from Goodwin's theory of "disjuncture" by having little connection between audio and visuals. The video followed Vernallis's theory of "experiencing music video" through its editing, camera movements, and cuts. Overall, the video followed conventions of the pop/indie-pop genre through its branding, locations, shots, synergy across formats, and artistic styles portrayed while also challenging some conventions.

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

2. We were inspired by
the following
theories…

3. Mulvey’s theory
What is Laura Mulvey’s theory?
Mulvey feels music videos show
women as being passive and
objective by their costume, props,
posture and the camera angles
which are used also emphasize
that males are dominant. This is
achieved by filming certain body
parts and using dismemberment.
The camera often tilts when
viewing the female.
How did we use this theory
in our own music video?
We decided to only use very
slight aspects of the male
gaze theory, because our
core target audience was
young females, and the male
gaze appeals to men (our
wider audience). The
following slide will show how
we adapted this theory.
Close up of the
artists lips is an
aspect of the male
gaze.
…

4. Inspiration from ‘Blurred Lines’
The bright red lipstick was
emphasized by close ups
and extreme close ups,
males will be particularly
interested in these shots .
This is another similarity
between ‘Blurred Lines’ and
‘Just Before Goodbye’. The
focus is clearly on certain
body parts (legs) which is an
example of dismemberment.
We used a panning shot to
draw attention to this.
‘Blurred Lines’ is a much more extreme reflection
of the male gaze. Our video does not portray a
dominant male character compared to a passive
female character, we chose to challenge this idea.

5. Goodwin’s theory
He believes there is three ways of structuring a music video:
• Illustration:
This is where the video tells the story of the lyrics.
• Amplification:
This is when the video introduces new meanings that do not contradict
with the lyrics but add layers of meaning.
• Disjuncture: ( we used this structure)
This is when there is little or no connection between the lyrics and the
video or where the video contradicts the lyrics. An example of this
would be in ‘Try With Me’ by Nicole Sherzinger which we were inspired
by. As you can see, both our video and Nicole Sherzinger’s lack
connection with audio and visual.
This video inspired
us to focus on the
appearance of
artist and location.

6. Goodwin also believes
that different genres will
use different features to
make themselves
memorable, the feature
depends on the genre.
Our genre was indie-pop
and we found that most
indie-pop artists use an
instrument in their
videos. I followed this
convention by using a
guitar in the music video
and advertisement.

7. Vernallis’s theory
"experiencing music video”
These are the main points of her observation which we
used:
•
Editing is purposely made obvious to focus viewers
attention on the video and create excitement
• Jump cuts are frequently used to emphasize the pace
of the song
• Cut backs to the base track are a frequent occurrence,
giving the video a sense of structure
• The camera moves in time with the music

8. Following Vernallis…
We had these different base tracks which
shows we followed this convention. We
also showed use of obvious editing by
having fast jump cuts and changing the
speed of cuts to suit the pace of the song,
for example the fast paced bridge was
reflected through fast cuts.

9. Conventions of pop/indie-pop
CONVENTIONS WE FOLLOWED:
Brand imaging – we used the same
font throughout the music video and
ancillary products, we also chose a
font that reflects the artist which is
common amongst pop songs.
Mise en Scene- A lot of indie-pop
videos focus on nature in their videos
and we have definitely done this with
our autumnal theme, and attractive
location- Richmond. Props are also
usually a focus and we did this with
the guitar, and also the hot chocolate
and diary in the café.
The font is girly
and feminine just
like the artist!

10. CONVENTIONS WE FOLLOWED:
Camera shots- long shots, close ups and mid
shots are often used to capture the artists
appearance. We followed this so the artist is
the main focus as you can see here.
Mid
Our three styles...
Artists appearance- Through research I have
noticed that most pop and indie-pop artists
like to show themselves with different styles in
their video. We have done this by having Eva
Ellis change her costume, hair and make up in
the different base tracks. This will attract a
wider audience and show off all the artists
styles. (We chose to start our video showing
the three different styles in quick jump cuts!)
close up
long

11. CONVENTIONS WE FOLLOWED:
Synergy- There is usually
synergy in the music video and
advertisement and digipak, we
did this by using the same
colour clothing, same lipstick
and the same guitar.
White clothing in
music video^
White clothing in
advertisement^
White clothing in
inside cd panel^
CONVENTIONS WE CHALLENGED:
Most videos of this genre do not include
the artist and song name in the actual
video, we chose to do this as we are trying
to promote a new artist and make her as
memorable as possible. It is also a way of
using synergy with the ancillary work as it is
the same font (Silent Reaction).
Lighting- the lighting tends to be quite strong
as it enhances the video and artist more,
however we chose to film in natural light and
then create more effect by adding a vintage
style filter on final cut pro. The filter was
inspired by ‘Florence and the Machine’.

12. Camera shot inspiration…
We were
inspired by
these base
tracks from
Taylor swifts
video for ‘Tim
McGraw’.
Nicole Sherzinger’s mise en
scene in ‘Try with me’ had
a lot of influence on our
video, especially this shot
where she lays on the
leaves, as does our artist.

13. Filter inspiration…
• Our filter was influenced by the music video for ‘Florence and
the machine- Rabbit Heart’. I loved the way in which the
orange and yellow tones were emphasised in their video as it
created a vintage theme. We used colour correction on final
cut pro to mix an orange/yellow tone. Our filter also brought
out the natural colours of the grass and leaves, which worked
great for our autumnal theme.

14. Make up and costume inspiration…
Nicole’s flowing white
dress made her stand out
amongst the nature and
we chose to do the same
in our video! We also
kept white clothing
throughout the ancillary
work (synergy).
The red lips from the
‘blurred lines’ video
inspired Eva’s look in
this base track and the
digipak. Eva went for
two different looks,one
being more natural.

15. I followed all these conventions on my cd cover…
TRACK LIST
BAR CODE
COPYRIGHT
INFO
ARTIST/ALBUM
NAME
R.C LOGO
RECORD
COMPANY LOGO
CATALOGUE
NUMBER
IMAGE OF THE ARTIST (
with eye contact which I
found is usually more
successful)
ARTIST/ALBUM
NAME

16. I followed all these conventions on inside panels…
SYNERGY (the same
clothing as outside panel)
KEEPING THE THEME CONSISTENT
WITHOUT OUTSIDE PANELS (I have
kept the setting consistent)
INCLUDING TEXT (I wrote the artist and album name,
and also a thankyou message which is not essential)

17. I followed all these conventions in my advertisement…
RECORD
COMPANY
LOGO
PICTURE OF THE
ALBUM AND
RELEASE DATE
CONTACT AND
DOWNLOAD
DETAILS
Rihanna’s album ‘Loud’ was an
inspiration, I liked the positioning of the
artists photograph and the emphasis on
red colouring, I chose to highlight yellow
red and green tones.
I also chose to add in a few more
aspects as it is Eva Ellis’s debut album
and important to create as much
awareness as possible; I added a four
star rating, record label logo, artist
website address and a comment.

18. Overall ancillary inspiration…
Taylor Swift is a similar artist to Eva Ellis, and this
album cover of hers in particular was an
inspiration for my ancillary work. I initially
planned to do a shoot in an internal
photography room, but this external location
helped me realise how effective the use of
nature is. Also, the artists wavy hairstyle and
pastel coloured/white clothing reminded me a
lot of Eva Ellis and I chose to maintain her
similar style from the music video in my CD
cover and advertisement. Taylor Swifts album
cover is similar to her music video for ‘Tim
McGraw’ and I could immediately relate the
two. This is a good way of making an artist
memorable. Taylor’s direct eye contact also
grabbed my attention which I made sure I
included. The font is also similar to the font I
chose to use: