Evaluation Part 1By Olivia Laherty

In what ways does your

media product use, develop

or challenge forms and

conventions of real media

products?

Conventions This music video shows all the key representations of the Pop

culture. The overall acting and mise-en-scene enables her target

audience to relate to her attitudes and the overall song.

Throughout this A2 level task I feel music videos like this have really

helped me to grasp the basic and developed conventions of real Pop

music videos. I learnt that in order to be successful, target audience

attraction is key, and relating to them throughout is crucial. When

developing this idea further, the introduction of primary and secondary

audiences allowed me to understand how to target a wide range of

audiences whilst maintaining the mature attitude for my older audience,

however still keeping to the traditional ‘Pop’ culture whilst doing this. .

Music videos like this allowed me to conform to these conventions and in

term create a successful music video.

Using Taylor Swifts music video ‘22’, the conventions of the Pop

genre became clear. Throughout her music video she has used

a wide range of props for example the heart made out of roses,

and many outfit changes and scenery's as shown which tell an

overall story that portray the characteristics of her younger

audience that is targeted. This performance and narrative based

music video is representative of the lives of many teenagers in

modern day, this is all shown through the use of camera shots

and angles that are continuously changing to show Taylor swift

with a broad group of friends in different locations. These

conventions are later developed through the use of the screen

shots cutting to the fast tempo beat of the music. Taylor swift

also uses theorists to develop her work, for example through

Andrew Goodwins theory whereby her lyrics correspond with her

visuals. These conventions of her music video are all

representative of her teenage audience, as she shows herself

with a group of teenage friends, and as her lyrics states ‘make

fun of our ex’s’ which is the main focus point of many teenagers

from this age group of 12-17 year olds.

The various uses of shots use help to tell the overall story. For

example, using long shots create a sense of atmosphere

throughout the music video and also helps to set the scene. This

in Taylor Swifts music video is used to portray a sense of

freedom and happiness amongst herself and her friends.

When creating our music video, a lot of the conventions that are

included in this Pop video needed to be included in mine. For

example the use of close ups and long shots were very helpful to

us as they allowed us to create a sense of emotion that needed to

be prominent throughout our video.

Continued..

However, when comparing this to a different style and genre of music, my use of research into the

various conventions of music videos broadened. Using Ciara ‘Like a boy’ as an example, I was

able to establish the differences of the conventions from different genres. Ciara’s music video

targets the ‘RnB’ genre whilst still including aspects from a the Pop culture. There are many ways

by which she targeted her audience yet again revolving around the mise-en-scene, however with

added importance on the lyrics of her music video.

To start, all of her music video is shot in black and white which automatically targets an older

audience as it adds a level of sophistication and seriousness to the overall music video. Also,

the screen shots show a range of different camera shots, much like Taylor Swifts music video,

however they are more intimate and are featured with the artist in an older range of clothing.

This image corresponds with the overall feel of the music video as she is linking to the Pop

culture through the means of her lyrics.

Ciara's music video tells a story of romance following a break up.

This relates to the Pop genre as she has used the same storyline

following the lyrics of her music video, despite the fact that it’s a

performance based music video. From this representation she

dresses herself up as a boy in order to relate to the lyrics ‘like a

boy’. This attracts her older audience as she creates a rapport with

them by telling a story of most teenage experiences. The way she

has presented herself also relates to Laura Mulveys theory as she

portrays herself through the means of the ‘male gaze theory’, and

then following this presents herself as a pretty feminine character.

These representations work towards creating a successful music

video through the means of dress and dance. These conventions of

the screen shots and props link closely to Taylor Swifts music video

however at an older audience.

Throughout our music video, I have used my research to develop the conventions used. I have used

some of the conventions from Taylor Swifts music video for example the lighting, and clothing, however

in order to target our older audience we needed to add some conventions from Ciara’s music video as

our primary audience focuses around the older teenage audience. We have presented our artist much

the same as Taylor Swift whilst using some aspects of Ciara’s music video such as the facial expressions

throughout close-ups. This clear link between the two music videos allowed us to successfully target our

audience through the means of basic and developed conventions. This also challenges the traditional

iconography of Pop genre music videos as we are incorporating two genres and two target audiences.

What’s inclu

ded a

nd w

hy?

Throughout this process I learnt the importance of conventions in

music video and how much of an impact they have over the overall

representation of the music video. The use of close-ups allow the

audience to feel the emotions of the music video whilst a long-shot

sets the scene and adds towards establishing the music video

itself. These conventions have been used throughout the creation

of our music video and have all stemmed from the research taken

place over the period of work.

Even though in the music videos shown, the use of props have

been prominent, throughout our music video we have chosen to

stay away from too many props. This is because we felt that in

order to attract our audience; using the lyrics of the music video we

had to express our artists feelings through the means of facial

expressions and clothing. Where Ciara’s music video is shot in

black and white, we have taken this seriousness and added it into

the performance of our music video. Throughout these moments

our artist is shot wearing black and white to heighten her overall

feelings and upset courageous emotions of going over past

memories. However, using Taylor Swifts music video, we

incorporated her clothing into the memories of our music videos as

it features our artist in a happy, bright and colourful mood due to

the fact that her memories are were she was happiest.

Using these conventions to portray our artists overall emotions I

feel have really helped to set the storyline we was aiming to

achieve. Our artist tells a story through the means of facial

expressions and close-ups whilst her clothing and the location of

the central London scenery; due to the fact that there is a vast

range of tourist attractions and activities, all allow our target

audience to understand what she’s feelings and what she has gone

through.

Digipak Conventions

This real media Digipak products follow the norm of conventions from the Pop

genre of music advertisements, all of which have been developed based around

the artist’s target audiences. However the different conventions used allow their

target audience to be attracted to the CD itself. In Rihanna’s Digipak, the use of

close-ups have been used to show her facial expressions which are of

considerable seriousness. Even though her Digipak is simplistic, the colours used

attract the audience as it allows her to stand out. Her red hair and red lipstick

signifies strong feelings of love, strength and passion. This Digipak does not

challenge the traditional Pop/RnB advertisements as the bright colours stand out

to the audience, and her backgrounds are iconic of the female audience as it

shows roses, yet again showing signs of love and happiness and overall

femininity. Using these conventions in a Digipak advertisement broadcasts a

message of her lyrics throughout her album. This CD advertisement targets an

older teenage audience, which is what, as a group we have developed in the

creation of our CD Digipak.

Ellie Gouldings Digipak allows people to connect with two types of

music just from the visuals. Her Digipak creates a sense of the Pop

culture whilst incorporating a sense of country music in this. The

settings and clothing of the artist portray these conventions which

allows two types of audiences to connect both of which from an older

teenage age. Her Digipak is set outside, and also shows the artist in

a recording studio. This allows an automatic connection between her

target audience and herself as we can see the process of her music

take place. Even though her Digipak has simplistic conventions, it is

still representative of her target audience. This Digipak challenges the

normal conventions of a Pop Digipak as she has incorporated two

types of music and different settings to what can be considered the

norm.

From looking at these Digipaks I leant the importance of targeting your audience purely through visuals. The visuals need to express the lyrics and feelings of the

artist throughout the music video given. From this, our ideas developed towards what types of imagery we would be using and what type of message we would

like to broadcast to our target audiences. These Digipaks really helped us to grasp being able to target a feminine audience, which we then developed and

challenged the normal conventions of these CD Digipaks.

What we used, challenged and

developed…

This is is a picture of the front cover of our final Digipak. Based on

our research into different front covers, as a group, we were able to

create a front cover both conventional and appealing to our target

audience.

Our use in lighting and colours are the most prominent aspect of this

front cover. Using Rihanna's Digipak ‘LOUD’ as an example, as an

artist she was able to denote what her album was conveying whilst

connoting the powerful aspects of being a female artist. From this,

we understood the importance of targeting an audience through the

use of colour. The colours included stand out because the lighting is

bright, and strong. This is completely conventional of our target

audience and our sub-culture of the ‘Pop culture’. Whilst these

conventions target our main audience, the writing used on the front

is something by which we developed in order to establish a hidden

meaning behind our Digipak.

The writing on our Digipak front cover, has aspects of sophistication and femininity, however is also considerably powerful in the way in which

it is presented. We decided to have our artists name in italics, surrounded by black with pink in the middle. The slight black around the sides

of the writing shows our artists anger towards her situation fading, and the happiness coming through (through the use of pink), all of which is

shown in our music video. However, contrasting with this, the writing of the actual song presented in the music video is of a bigger font and

also in italics, but however much darker and in a bold font. This shows basic aspects of our music video. The fact that the name of our music

video is of a bigger font allows the audience to see clearly that her feminine ways and sophistication are of bigger prominence, even though

throughout our music video she is still showing herself gradually progressing in strength. The storyline of our music video corresponds very

closely with this Digipak front cover whilst completely appealing to our target audiences.

We decided to develop our music video to be different in comparison to past music videos from the Pop genre, However, this was only

because as a group we felt that portraying our artist as strong, whilst still showing feelings would not be easily represented through a simple

image of our artist. Portraying our artist as strong was highlighted through the means of her make-up, hair and clothing as they all stand out

very clearly making our artist the main focal point of the front page. The colours used are also hugely conventional of our target audience

whilst also representing the personal aspects of our artists emotions.

Advert Conventions

These Digipak adverts are suitable for many different types of audiences.

However, the conventions vary purely around this. All of the adverts given

express the artists in a very serious light which can either be used to

portray the lyrics, or themselves as an individual. The original conventions

surrounding these Digipak advertisements all include the artist, and the

name of the album they are promoting. These conventions are then

developed by including a review of the single/album from a newspaper or

magazines perspective. This will heighten the fan base for the artist as a

good review will promote the artist. Then, adding to this further, including a

direct website address allows the audience to connect with the artist on a

personal level and interact with the music they are selling. However, the

overall selling of the advertisement revolves around the imagery of the

advertisement itself. For example, an advertisement needs to be simplistic

enough for the audience to have the artist as a main focal point, but also

has to be interesting enough to attract the varies audience members to

want to listen or purchase the music they are trying to promote.

All of the advertisements shown are simplistic but seem to have a

hidden message behind the connotations of the artist themselves.

For example, Lana Del Rey’s advertisement has high levels of

triviality amongst it, which suggests that there is further emotion to

be shown in her performances and lyrics. Throughout the creation of

our advertisement, we have developed this image further, however

challenging it slightly due to the fact that our artist may not be

positioned looking directly at the camera. This creates a sense of

loneliness about our artist .

What we used, developed and

challenged…

This is our finalised print advertisement. We decided that on reflection

of our previous print advertisement it was too dark and therefore was

not fully representative of our target audience. Due to this we made

various changes to our print advertisement which I believe has made it

look more professional.

We based our print advertisement around previous research into other

print advertisements whereby an artist has included the CD front cover

on their advertisement and targeted their audience through the use of

writing. The writing techniques allow the name of our song ‘mistake’ to

stand out a lot more due to the fact that it is in a different colour. We

also ensured that there were quotes from Pop magazine ‘Top Of The

Pops’ to attarct our audience on a wider level. We also included our

artists twitter name and facebook. This allows there to be a certain

level of communication between the audience and the artist which will

appease our audience.

The colours that have been used I believe are bright enough to attract

our audience and stand out as something which is a different style to

the ones that have been annotated.

I believe the overall advertisement is fully representative of our target

audience due to the fact that we have added the CD on the

advertisement which allows there to be a correlation between our the

rest of our digiapak and the print advertisement. This therefore allowed

our work to look professional all of which heightened our creativity.

Continued…

Here is another clear example of how we have related to our artist, and used some of the conventions. The writing in our print

advertisement corresponds very closely with Demi Lovato’s from the colour of the writing, to the changing fonts throughout the writing.

However, this is also an aspect in which we developed. Where Demi Lovato’s writing moves from bold to regular fonts, we changed ours

to bold to italic. From this I believe this development added a range of writing styles whilst targeting our female audience and identifying

what our music video was trying to represent. However, even though the fonts were still used, we had to change our digipak as we found

that it was too dark and therefore not fully corresponding with our CD front cover. Therefore we kept the CD and the advertisement the

same, which allowed our work to look more professional and more representative of our target audience.

As shown, the colours are also the same in our print advertisements, however we have kept the correlation of the writing throughout the

CD front cover and print advertisement in order for there to be a link between the two even though the colours may differ.

In comparison to Demi Lovatos back page, it is clear that

similar conventions have been used. We chose to make

clear comparisons between the two due to the fact that

we have based our music video around Demi Lovato as

an artist, and therefore have the same target audience.

As shown, the mise-en-scene between the two women is

similar, both portraying power and independence. The

gold chain in our image shows this whereas Demi

Lovatos outfit is strong enough allowing the artist to be

portrayed in a strong light without the need of a statement

necklace. The make-up also has clear similarities of

heavy eyes and pink lips. These conventions

automatically target our audience and allow a clear link

between the two back pages to be prominent.

We have chosen to show our artist in a medium shot

which matches Demi Lovato’s back page, as she too is

shown through the means of a medium shot. We believed

that a medium shot allowed our audience to relate to our

artist a lot more as the emotions of her face are still

present whilst her clothing has been highlighted too. We

have also added effect on the lyrics shown on the left-

hand side to make the writing have a feminine touch.

As shown here, we have also made clear similarities

between the lyrics on the left-hand side. The lyrics

are both in a simplistic colour and font. The names of

the lyrics also have clear similarities. Our lyrics have

very powerful names which correspond closely with

the feelings throughout our music video. This makes

enables a clear relationship between the album and

the music video.

Using Andrew Goodwin's Theory1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.

2. There is a relationship between the lyrics and visuals.

3. There is a relationship between the music and the visuals.

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the

artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking.

6. There are often intertextual references.

Throughout the production of our music video and ancillary task we made frequent referencing to Andrew Goodwins theory. One of the

most prominent of the 6 is that our visuals correspond very closely with the lyrics. This created an automatic relationship between

between all of our tasks and caused our visuals to represent a professional artistic level. Throughout our music video we have also

included a range of shots, with intertextual references at some points. Our overall music video strongly convey genre characteristics

and I believe was created at a successful level.

Attra

ctin

g o

ur a

ud

ience

We attracted our audience in various ways, all of which originated from our target

audience research. To start, we underwent basic research by looking through and

analysing the general conventions of Pop music videos and their advertisements.

This broadened our knowledge towards the Pop genre and our target audience

which in turn allowed a successful creative product to be inevitable.

After this, we decided we needed to get an insight into our target audiences

thoughts and feelings towards the ideas of our music video and our Digipak

production. This proved very helpful especially in terms of interviewing our

secondary audience who surprisingly gave a similar approach to our music video

as our primary audience. Without this knowledge, targeting our audience would

have been based upon general idealist ideologies. From this we found that our

target audience prefers music videos of a narrative nature, in order to tell a story

which heightens the emotions of the storyline, As shown in our music video, our

artist is hugely conventional of our target audience alongside the narrative. Our

clothing and make-up were all something strongly considered throughout this

process in order to allow maximum attraction of our target audience.

In terms of our Digipak, we had to ensure that maximum attraction of our audience

was still strong, This meant that our music video had to strongly correspond with

our ancillary task. Yet again, audience research and further research into Digipak

productions of Pop artists was hugely helpful. However, we had to adapt our

imagery from moving to still. This meant that we had to portray the feelings of the

music video to our target audience which would attract our audience further as

they would develop a rapport with our artist as the storylines often occur in real

life, revolving our main primary audience – females from the ages of 14-21.

These screen shots taken from our music video clearly show the effects in which we

were trying to create. In the first picture we added the use of wording amongst a

memory to show what their relationship used to be like. We also continued this by

including a zoom in of pictures of the couple before they broke up. Following this our

artist was positioned in a clearly isolated position staring directly into the camera as

she sings the chorus. This not only highlights her isolation at this time, but shows

her strength as the eye level shot shows her upcoming power.

Adapting conventionsIn order to make our three products stand out against the hugely competitive market of the Pop culture, we had to adapt our conventions to give

a different feel. This involved the slight changes made in our music video. Our music video goes against the general conventions of most music

videos which have been stated by theorists. For example, theorist Todorov expresses his ideas of the basic conventions of a music video by

stating they involve a equilibrium – disequilibrium – equilibrium. This however, has been adapted in our music video due to the fact that we

challenge this statement and begin our music video with a disequilibrium. Even though to most members of our audience, this would appear a

small change, we have gone against the general conventions of traditional Pop music videos which in turn makes our music video stand out.

As shown below, our ancillary task has been continuously adapted in order to target a widespread audience. I have included the changes

made to our front page in order to make it more appealing to our audience, which was achieved through the process of adapting

conventions. We significantly changed the lighting and the positioning of our artist, however kept the overall imagery the same. In

comparison to our back page, the adapted the conventions to show a darker side to our artist and the album itself. Whilst our print

advertisement was hugely adapted in order to portray the huge sense of power and strength insinuated with our artist.

Concluding…

Throughout the process of creating our ancillary task and music video, we conformed to most of the traditional conventions of the Pop genre,

however the changes we did make developed and challenge suited our products. We chose to revolve our music video around the normal

conventions of this genre. Creating a narrative music video, with a young female artist hugely conformed to the traditional conventions and

targeted our audience. However, the slight changes we did make, e.g. starting our music video with a disequilibrium attracted our audience

because it moved away from the norm, and made our narrative a lot more interesting.

In terms of our ancillary task, we understood that they had to strongly correspond with our music

video. Therefore we had to transmit our audiences feeling through the use of imagery. We focused

around the deeper meanings and created a much more serious image as our artist is not looking

at the camera. This adds levels of emotion to her face as she is not smiling either. This challenges

some forms of print advertisements as they normally are shot showing their artist in an eye-level

shot to show power, however we felt that our artists make-up showed her emotions fully.

Overall, I believe our finalised products are hugely

conventional of the Pop genre, and the changes in

which were made were fully representative of our

older primary audience following the Pop culture.

This allowed us to create media products in which

revolved around the traditional, and challenged the

smaller aspects. Our overall media products were

both creative and professional, yet again appealing

to our target audience.