Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I believe that our three products: the music video, album and website all use, develop and challenge the existing forms and conventions of real-life media products in the music industry. We have ensured that, whilst we have largely followed forms and conventions of existing media products in the music industry in order to create a realistic and high-quality product ourselves, we have been open to challenging and developing certain aspects to achieve a more effective appeal to our target audience.

Music Video:

General Forms & Conventions:
I have detailed a number of typical forms and conventions of existing music videos which I found to be of importance:
(Please press the + and - icons to zoom in and out, and use the mouse to drag)


Frith's Theory:
It was also useful to incorporate a number of theories when planning the basis of our music video. For example, I felt using Frith's theory of music video was extremely helpful, as we were able to distinguish the overall form which our music video would take early on in the project:

Our video has taken a conventional form for the pop genre, in that its content features a combination of both a conceptual storyline and performance - . The narrative portion may take up a small part - or all - of the video, and is often conceptual; whilst the performance aspect includes the artist singing, either before an audience or in a setup removed from the crowd. They may also play an instrument, though dance moves and gestures are far more common in the pop genre.

In our particular product, we balanced and intercut between the two aspects, though one development which I feel we made was to amalgamate the two aspects, with performance spilling over into our constructed narrative of the Dolls House. This in itself could be seen as satisfying the audience's gratifications for entertainment and escapism (Blumler & Katz), through aesthetic pleasure from the setup, and through GiGi entering the constructed narrative which, until she enters, remains metaphorical and separate from any performance setup.

Goodwin and Vernallis' theories:
(Please press the arrow icon to access full screen, and use the arrows to navigate the slides)

I have created an Emaze presentation detailing two of the most important theorists to our music video - Andrew Goodwin and Carol Vernallis, and how we incorporated their theories:

Incorporating Performance & Conceptual Narrative:

The visual response to the music noted by Carol Vernallis ('The Kindest Cut - Functions and Meanings of Music Video Editing Theory'), and the relationship between the music and visuals which Andrew Goodwin describes ('Dancing in the Distraction Factory') was largely followed in our own music video. We decided to include content which Frith would categorise as "conceptual narrative" and "performance" in video, with a mixture of shots of GiGi singing, and the constructed Dolls House narrative:

Within performance-based music videos, there is very often a live performance or singing element to the video, in which the artist's actions, expressions and gestures will also often be exaggerated. Once of our reference points when planning our performance setup was Demi Lovato, and we took inspiration from how she incorporated dance moves and dramatic hand gestures - particularly in her video for 'Heart Attack':

We tried to incorporate similar exaggerated hand gestures & dance moves in our own video.

In our performance setup, we also aimed to highlight particular lines of the song to hone in on the overall message of the song which promotes feminism, independence and female empowerment. We did so by incorporating Goodwin's theory, and including a clear relationship between lyrics and visuals:

In terms of our conceptual narrative, we used conventions of other intertextual & Post-Modernist videos by drawing deliberate attention to the artificiality of our video (please see 'Post-Modernism & Intertextuality' below).

We have also incorporated and developed a number of other music video theories and have followed a number of typical pop genre conventions to not only create a plausible, professional media product, but also to appeal to as large an audience as possible (as it is the most popular UK music genre, accounting for 36% of all streams and sales in 2014). At the same time, we have tweaked what might be seen as a typical objectified role of a female artist in a pop music video, as we felt this would have far greater appeal to our target audience of young women.

-Genre Characteristics:

Andrew Goodwin states in "Dancing in the Distraction Factory" that music videos demonstrate genre characteristics, and we developed this through our use of hyper-reality in intermixing the conceptual Dolls House narrative with GiGi's performance and entrance into the constructed narrative. We also followed, developed or challenged a number of other typical pop genre conventions:

Use of Beauty/Hero Shots of our artist:
One of the conventions of all pop videos is to include beauty shots of the artist. These are also known as 'hero shots' or 'money shots', and are a requirement of the institutions and record labels associated with the artist, in order to clearly establish the artist's look and identity, and for the artist to build a relationship with their audience, which hopefully will result in encouraging the audience to buy the artist's products such as merchandise, music & tour tickets.

(Above) Some existing examples of beauty shots used by similar artists 
such as Meghan Trainor, Katy Perry and Demi Lovato.
(Below) Our own inclusions of beauty shots:

Use of Bright Colours & High Saturation:
Another convention of the pop genre which we demonstrated was our use of bright colours throughout the music video. We ensured that, through both high-key lighting during production, and enhanced saturation in post-production, that our video was as bright as possible, not just to be as eye-catching to the audience as possible, but also to encourage connotations of positivity. The clearest industry example of this is Meghan Trainor's videos, which we took inspiration from.

 Meghan Trainor's (above) use of high saturation & brightness, versus our own (below)

Representation of Our Artist:
One convention largely seen in pop videos which we challenged, however, was the arguably over-sexualised representation and objectification of women in music videos. We tweaked Laura Mulvey's 'Theory of the Male Gaze', which dictates that music videos are primarily shot from the point of view of a heterosexual male, thus shots of the female figure are commonplace in pop videos. We ensured that this was largely not the case in our video, and with the exception of some shots which perhaps accentuate GiGi's hips and legs, we made sure that we didn't overly sexualise her at all, as this is far more appealing to our primary audience of feminists & 15-24 year-old young women.

 

A good example which we used was Meghan Trainor's 'Dear Future Husband' (above left). Though it could be argued that some high-angle shots conform to the theory in showing off her figure, her clothing and gesture doesn't suggest any sort of objectification. In our own video (above right) there are similar shots which emphasise GiGi's legs and hips, however this is the closest our video comes to over-sexualising our artist, and the overall message is one of female empowerment and independence.


-Post-Modernism & Intertextuality:
Following on from the form, we can categorise our music video as a post-modernist, intertextual music video, through the number of references and individual setups which we included. During our original research into music videos we discovered that intertextuality can be inspired by a number of elements, including:
-films & television
-video games
-popular culture references
-eras or moments in history

Some videos are entirely intertextual. An example of this is 2Pac's 'California Love', which is largely based on 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome' and replicates chase scenes and the thunderdome fight scene:

The other example is Blur's video for their track 'The Universal', in which lead singer Damon Albarn's costume and makeup has been inspired by Alex DeLarge - the lead character in 'A Clockwork Orange'. The set has also been inspired by the 'Milk Bar' seen within the 1972 film:

We felt that it would be best to include a number of references to different periods in history which were of particular significance to women. These included a stereotypical housewife from the 1950s and a WWII Land Girls reference alongside other more literal setups which related to the lyrics, such as the puppet and Snow White. We achieved intertextuality through our extensive use of props throughout, and explicitly referenced other media products, such as the two posters to also add to our use of intertextual conventions.

A particularly helpful reference point when planning our use of intertextuality was P!nk, and her music videos for 'Raise Your Glass' and 'Stupid Girls', in which she both plays a number of roles (similar to our own video), and references the iconic feminist "We Can Do It" poster, which we also aimed to include in our music video:

We also aimed to create a video in which the artist plays a number of 'roles'. We also aimed to make a number of pro-female empowerment statements and use iconic feminist imagery such as the "We Can Do It Poster", which also features in 'Raise Your Glass'.

Another conventional aspect of intertextuality which we wanted to incorporate is the idea of parody. An example of this which we took inspiration from was Meghan Trainor's 'Dear Future Husband', in which she lampoons the idea of women's place being in the kitchen, with a pie in flames:

"I never learned to cook"

Likewise, we used our own video to mock the stereotypical domestic 1950s Housewife, with shots such as her with flour on her face being used to dispel the stereotypes of women belonging in a kitchen.

We also parodied the idea of a stereotypical 50s Housewife

Similarly, we included a shot inspired by Trainor's video for 'All About That Bass' in which she throws a Barbie doll aside. This mocks the concept of an unrealistic body image in Trainor's video, though our particular use of the shot is to highlight GiGi's defiance against being objectified or treated "like a toy".

 "No I won't be no stick figure, silicone Barbie doll"

-Editing:
Carol Vernallis states that music videos often feature disjuncture, and that it is extremely likely that the music video will break and/or disrupt typical continuity rules. Shots do not necessarily have to all tell a story, and the editing can be discontinuous, featuring jump cuts and breaks of the 30º and 180º rules.

An example of disjuncture in a real-life music video is Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off', in which rapid cuts and discontinuous editing are used to create a bewildering combination of dancing and performance, and to sustain the viewer's interest:

In our own video, we included a number of jump cuts, rapid cuts and extremes - such as cuts from long & extreme long shots to close-ups. This would direct the audience's attention to our product through the clear variation of shot types. At the same time, however, we did include continuity rules, such as match-on action and and shot-reaction shots - especially for the narrative - as this helped to clarify the events of the narrative.

Disjuncture in our final verse, and an example of an extreme cut from a wide to CU

Similarly, we thought it would be useful to use the skills which we developed in our AS Film Course to apply film theory to our narrative, in order to add plausibility.
Below I have detailed our use of Todorov's Narrative Theory in our conceptual narrative:

Website

In terms of the website, which was my main personal role during the post-production stage, we mainly followed conventions to achieve a product which we felt would appear plausible and which would easily be identified as the website of a female soloist from the pop genre.

I have outlined our website's main focuses, as well as detailing each aspect and convention which we followed, developed and challenged in the Prezi below.
(Please use the roller on the mouse to zoom in and out if need be & use the arrows to navigate through:)

(Please click to enlarge)
Some of my notes on the forms,
conventions and functions of
album covers/digipaks.

Digipak

For the digipak, we largely conformed to the typical conventions of other album covers, both in general and - especially - existing genre albums from the pop genre. We felt that had we not followed common layout conventions, our album may have looked unprofessional - thus included features such as the main focal image, record label & institutional information, and barcode.

I have created a slideshow to explore these conventions further:

There were also a number of inspirational albums which we followed, developed or challenged the conventions of. I have detailed some of these below (please click the image to enlarge):

Overall:

Looking back, I believe that our various media artefacts have largely followed conventions of existing products, to achieve genuine, professional-looking and plausible final products. However, we have also been prepared on several occasions to challenge the forms and conventions of existing products, in order to achieve a more effective reach and appeal to our target audience, or to add a unique element to our media products.