- Many conventions used in pop music videos are based around the artist. Most actors/actress' used in the video are very good looking to intice the audience, they also typically include miming, lip syncing which is used to narrate the plot or story going on within the video. They do this in many ways which include dancing, acting, singing and also the use of different shots such as long,medium and close ups to keep the audience interested and wanting to watch the video again to catch anything they may have missed watching it first time around. Pop videos also use a variety of shots to sell the artist, for example, close up's are to sell the artist's face however, the long shots are more used to sell the style and uniqueness of the main artist. Furthermore, the use of establishing shots such as pans, crane shos and the use of dollys give good effects as the audience can understand where and what is happening within the video and also keeps the story flowing from one shot to another. The story also links in with the meaning of the song and lyrics and most of the shots are edited to the beat or rhythm of the music.
There are many ways in which our media product uses these conventions of real media products. For example most of the conventions used relied mostly on the genre of the song. An example of this is the story line, which is very typical of pop genre music videos e.g boy meets girl. Our video is heavily focused on our main artist, who we chose as a very pretty and photogenic girl. We found when analysing music videos that as much as they tried to sell the song, the video was more focused on the artist promoting her looks and dances. This is shown in our video, so much so that our main artist is the only girl featured in the whole video. We focused in on this fact and used extreme close ups of her eyes and lips in the first verse of our song to show the anxiousness in her face and also used close ups when miming 'we love them' as part of the song. Videos are used to visualise the song's meaning (how much she loves boys) and this is clear in our video when 12 different boys are used throughout and she is the only girl. We also followed conventions by having a good looking love interest. This is very like real media products as the extras used in the video are always targeted at the audience and in our case, because we are the age our target audience are, we knew the type/style of boy and girl we were looking for. The other form of real media products used is the lip syncing. This is used throughout most music videos, whatever genre it is. This is again, to promote the artist to show she can sing and therefore relate to our target audience. This is closely linked to the 'Just Dance' video by Lady Gaga, as she does a lot of lip syncing as well as posing and dancing, which is just what we wanted in our video. We made this happen by having our main artist mime the first chorus of the song to let the audience know that she is not just the main feature in the video but also the singer. We also used extreme close up of the miming when she says 'Boys like you love me forever' this is so the words go directly to the audience, make them feel involved in the video and also make them remember that point in the video to remind them whenever they heard the song.There are also many obvious lyric references throughout the video for example, when the chorus sings 'boys in bars' there are shots of drinks appearing, same to be said for 'love it when you call me legs' our main artist is seen doing the splits. We didn't however, use miming throughout the whole song as we thought the audience would get bored of watching her sing the entire song. This is where the conventions of the storyline and narrative came in. From the beginging of the video it is very clear what has/is going to happen. The girl has woken up in bed with a boy and is seen trying to quickly get dressed and leave without waking him up. The second verse, the girl is seen getting into another boy's car and walking into her house. This could be very suprising to the viewers and give a different opinion on what they thought she was like at first. Towards the end of the song, she is seen on her laptop and getting ready for a possible night out, however, for the last chorus and end, the girl is seen with the boy she initally woke up with and although many other boys were featured in the video, he is the only one she wants to be with. Throughout the video, the audience understand what is happeneing and is not just a 'dance' genre music video where there is only dance and no story line. Furthermore, our video follows conventions of editing in the way that a lot of our editing it to the beat, a clear example of this is when the artist is lying in bed and on the word 'pop' her eyes open sharply as if to say 'what have I just done?'. It is also clear when she is posing and trying on outfits, each outfit changes on the beat as well as the poses. When trying on the outfits we decided we wanted out artist to have a stylish yet unique dress sense and this is shown throughout the video. For example, the first dress she is seen wearing is a party dress that most girls would be willing to wear, this is accompanied by some sexy heels and a clutch bag. All girls could relate to this as they would more than likely have a pair of shoes similar or even a similar dress. For the second verse she is seen on her laptop wearing a leotard which is very 'in' for this time, it is quite a new fashion statement and we wanted to do this as girls could take fashion tips from our artist. In the last verse and chorus, our artist is seen wearing a bodycon skirt with a crop top and waistcoat. Although this is a bit daring for anyone just to wear out, our audience can relate to this as most would have a skirt or waistcoat similar. This fits in with many pop music conventions because artist's such as Lady Gaga wear some extreme outfits yet her target audience pick out some of the fashion items and start a new trend.
Moreover, to follow conventions of editing and camera shots we used many different camera angles. This is apparent when at 0.58 our artist is seen just coming out of the house and leaning against the door and within the next 2 seconds there are 4 different shots of her lifting herself and start walking. There is a close up of her face, then a medium one from across the road, then another close up of her legs and finally a long shot of her walking. Furthermore, these shots are also evident when at 1.19 the girl is seen getting into another boys car. This simple movement of opening a door and stepping in, we used 7 different angles. Just a few for example, there is a close up of her hand reaching and opening the door, a point of view shot from the boys view, a medium shot from the opposite window looking in, another medium shot of her point of view then a long, pan shot of them driving off. This variety of shots keeps the audience interested and also lets the views know what is going on. For example, a crane shot at the begining of the video, lets the audience be aware of where the video is taking place. This is also used towards the end of the video when a pan shot sees the boy buy a drink and the camera follows him taking it over to her.
However, our plot is the only form that challenges real media products. For example, our main artist wakes up in bed, next to a naked boy, wearing his shirt. To some people, this could be classed as 'raunchy' or 'rude' however, this is style/story we wanted to create as it would attract our target audience and give the music video publicity, which would therefore sell the album. However, some of the younger audience may not relate to this as well as the older audience however this is a risk the production company would have to take. This could also link how we developed ideas from real media products such as many Lady Gaga's music video's as she is known to have unique and 'weird' style which is protrayed through her music and videos which gets her a lot of publicity. Moreover, the other convention that our video challenges is the fact it doesn't have any back up dancers or choreography. We chose not to have this as we wanted the focus to be kept on our main artist and although we do have some performance aspects, we kept to posing and close up miming to edit to the beat to make it short and snappy and to look like dance moves.
There are many ways in which our media product uses these conventions of real media products. For example most of the conventions used relied mostly on the genre of the song. An example of this is the story line, which is very typical of pop genre music videos e.g boy meets girl. Our video is heavily focused on our main artist, who we chose as a very pretty and photogenic girl. We found when analysing music videos that as much as they tried to sell the song, the video was more focused on the artist promoting her looks and dances. This is shown in our video, so much so that our main artist is the only girl featured in the whole video. We focused in on this fact and used extreme close ups of her eyes and lips in the first verse of our song to show the anxiousness in her face and also used close ups when miming 'we love them' as part of the song. Videos are used to visualise the song's meaning (how much she loves boys) and this is clear in our video when 12 different boys are used throughout and she is the only girl. We also followed conventions by having a good looking love interest. This is very like real media products as the extras used in the video are always targeted at the audience and in our case, because we are the age our target audience are, we knew the type/style of boy and girl we were looking for. The other form of real media products used is the lip syncing. This is used throughout most music videos, whatever genre it is. This is again, to promote the artist to show she can sing and therefore relate to our target audience. This is closely linked to the 'Just Dance' video by Lady Gaga, as she does a lot of lip syncing as well as posing and dancing, which is just what we wanted in our video. We made this happen by having our main artist mime the first chorus of the song to let the audience know that she is not just the main feature in the video but also the singer. We also used extreme close up of the miming when she says 'Boys like you love me forever' this is so the words go directly to the audience, make them feel involved in the video and also make them remember that point in the video to remind them whenever they heard the song.There are also many obvious lyric references throughout the video for example, when the chorus sings 'boys in bars' there are shots of drinks appearing, same to be said for 'love it when you call me legs' our main artist is seen doing the splits. We didn't however, use miming throughout the whole song as we thought the audience would get bored of watching her sing the entire song. This is where the conventions of the storyline and narrative came in. From the beginging of the video it is very clear what has/is going to happen. The girl has woken up in bed with a boy and is seen trying to quickly get dressed and leave without waking him up. The second verse, the girl is seen getting into another boy's car and walking into her house. This could be very suprising to the viewers and give a different opinion on what they thought she was like at first. Towards the end of the song, she is seen on her laptop and getting ready for a possible night out, however, for the last chorus and end, the girl is seen with the boy she initally woke up with and although many other boys were featured in the video, he is the only one she wants to be with. Throughout the video, the audience understand what is happeneing and is not just a 'dance' genre music video where there is only dance and no story line. Furthermore, our video follows conventions of editing in the way that a lot of our editing it to the beat, a clear example of this is when the artist is lying in bed and on the word 'pop' her eyes open sharply as if to say 'what have I just done?'. It is also clear when she is posing and trying on outfits, each outfit changes on the beat as well as the poses. When trying on the outfits we decided we wanted out artist to have a stylish yet unique dress sense and this is shown throughout the video. For example, the first dress she is seen wearing is a party dress that most girls would be willing to wear, this is accompanied by some sexy heels and a clutch bag. All girls could relate to this as they would more than likely have a pair of shoes similar or even a similar dress. For the second verse she is seen on her laptop wearing a leotard which is very 'in' for this time, it is quite a new fashion statement and we wanted to do this as girls could take fashion tips from our artist. In the last verse and chorus, our artist is seen wearing a bodycon skirt with a crop top and waistcoat. Although this is a bit daring for anyone just to wear out, our audience can relate to this as most would have a skirt or waistcoat similar. This fits in with many pop music conventions because artist's such as Lady Gaga wear some extreme outfits yet her target audience pick out some of the fashion items and start a new trend.
Moreover, to follow conventions of editing and camera shots we used many different camera angles. This is apparent when at 0.58 our artist is seen just coming out of the house and leaning against the door and within the next 2 seconds there are 4 different shots of her lifting herself and start walking. There is a close up of her face, then a medium one from across the road, then another close up of her legs and finally a long shot of her walking. Furthermore, these shots are also evident when at 1.19 the girl is seen getting into another boys car. This simple movement of opening a door and stepping in, we used 7 different angles. Just a few for example, there is a close up of her hand reaching and opening the door, a point of view shot from the boys view, a medium shot from the opposite window looking in, another medium shot of her point of view then a long, pan shot of them driving off. This variety of shots keeps the audience interested and also lets the views know what is going on. For example, a crane shot at the begining of the video, lets the audience be aware of where the video is taking place. This is also used towards the end of the video when a pan shot sees the boy buy a drink and the camera follows him taking it over to her.
However, our plot is the only form that challenges real media products. For example, our main artist wakes up in bed, next to a naked boy, wearing his shirt. To some people, this could be classed as 'raunchy' or 'rude' however, this is style/story we wanted to create as it would attract our target audience and give the music video publicity, which would therefore sell the album. However, some of the younger audience may not relate to this as well as the older audience however this is a risk the production company would have to take. This could also link how we developed ideas from real media products such as many Lady Gaga's music video's as she is known to have unique and 'weird' style which is protrayed through her music and videos which gets her a lot of publicity. Moreover, the other convention that our video challenges is the fact it doesn't have any back up dancers or choreography. We chose not to have this as we wanted the focus to be kept on our main artist and although we do have some performance aspects, we kept to posing and close up miming to edit to the beat to make it short and snappy and to look like dance moves.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
- To combine with our main music video, we produced a CD cover(front, insert and back) as well as a magazine advert promoting the launch of the CD. This all came together with great effectiveness as we kept them same theme for all three products running the same. For example, we chose to keep the same font on both the CD cover and the magazine advert. This is so the target audience can relate one to another without getting confused. We also did this so that maybe that font could become the artists 'unique' font and could be recognized as their font. Also our choice of picture really made an effective combination with our CD cover. We wanted our CD cover to be very simple therefore for the very front of the cover we just had a close up of her face, no body or props, just her face. Again, this is to sell the artist not the song. Moreover, for our insert we have a medium shot of what she is wearing in the music video. This helps the audience realise that the two are connected together. Also we kept the back of the cover very simple just with a black background with the white contrasting writing. Again, this is in keeping with the simple theme and won't confuse our target audience. This is the case for our magazine advert as well. For example, we tried to keep the simple theme running with just a picture of the main artist, again, not trying to sell the song or album just the artist. We found this was the case with many pop artist albums and adverts. There was a very main focus on just the artist. We did however, add a small picture of the CD cover in the bottom right hand corner, just to let the audience know what to look out for when buying the album. We also linked our music video in with the advert by writing the song title at the bottom of the advert as well. We decided not to put the release date on as we though there would be too much text and wanted to keep the advert simple. All together, I think our combination of all three products work very effectively.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
- To get our target audience feedback we showed our video to them and asked them what their thoughts were and what they did and didn't like. We found that the good qualities most of our target audience mentioned was the quick editing. They liked the variety of shots and said that it really kept it interesting and was really in keeping with the song and story. They also liked the simple shots and the bit that kept cropping up was the dropping of the shirt seen in the first verse. They said it gave a really good effect and if they were to make a video wouldn't of thought to do that themselves. We also learned from the feedback that the audience liked the fact how much of the focus was on the main girl and in contrast how many different boys were involved. Furthermore, when we asked them to look at our album cover and magazine advert the most common compliment was the used of the simplistic theme. They liked the fact it didn't have too much information on and made it easy to read. They liked the use of the crown on top of the 'j' and said it was really creative. However, some of the boys said that the font was a bit too girly for them and would of liked to see a plainer font. With regards to the video, the favourite aspects seemed to be the choice of actors, the storyline and the quick editing. However, it was mentioned that they would of liked to see a dance routine within the posing, although this was only mentioned by 2 people out of 20 and therefore we will know what to improve on next time we make a music video. Overall we are very happy with our audience feedback and have learnt that the only other aspect our audience would like to see is a bit more dancing however we know this now for next time.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
- There are many ways in which I used media technologies in every aspect in creating my music video, CD cover and magazine advert. For example, to begin with, the most used media technology was the internet. The internet provided me with this blog that I used to record all of my research and planning on. However, I couldn't of done my research and planning without the use of YouTube where I got all the music videos from to analyise and get conventions and ideas from. However, sometimes it wasn't as easy to get the videos on to the blog as I had to search for embedded codes which had sometimes been removed. Apart from that though, the internet really helped me within my planning and research. Another way the internet helped my research was by the use of Google. When trying to find album cover it was really simple to find and save onto the Mac we were using. However, to put them onto my blog I had to upload them to a website called Photobucket, which then gave me the HTML code to copy into the post box which then converted into a picture on my blog. I also did the same for my storyboards as we used a scanner to transfer them onti the computer and therefore do the same, upload them to Photobucket and get the HTML code.Moreover, with regards to the construction of all 3 media products I used many media technologies to help me for example I used a video camera to capture all the footage to edit, I then used Adobe PremierPro to edit the footage to product a final video. Furthermore, to capture the still photos for the CD cover and magazine advert I used another media technologies in the form of a digital camera. Also, I used media technologies within the actual music video in the sense that there was a phone used, also a laptop and there is also a shot of Facebook which was used to relate to my target audience. All of this could not of been possible without the use of this blog to store all my information which is the greatest media technology used.
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