The document discusses how the media product uses and develops conventions of real pop music videos. It describes researching conventions like close-up shots, fast cuts, costumes, and mise-en-scene used in pop artists' music videos. For their music video, they incorporated conventions like close-up shots of the artist singing and a polka dot dress inspired by Lily Allen. They also challenged some conventions by using longer shots and filming in one location rather than multiple locations. The digipak and album ad were also influenced by real media examples but challenged conventions through their design and minimal information.

1. EVALUATION QUESTION 1:
IN WHAT WAYS DOES
YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE, DEVELOP OR
CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL
MEDIA PRODUCTS?

2. During the research and planning stages, myself and my media partner
Sammy identified the common pop conventions used in real media
products and then chose how we could incorporate these into our own
music video and into my individual ancillary tasks. The research and
planning was very useful as I found that the conventions used in pop genre
videos are very different to other genres such as R&B, electro, dance, indie
and many more. I was able to figure out and discover which elements
would work together in both our music video and my own ancillary tasks
to demonstrate our chosen genre for our artist. The research that I took
part in surfing the internet was very inspirational, I used original ideas
from real media products to help develop my own ideas and to make it my
individual work. From exploring other example texts of media products it
enabled me to challenge some conventions by adjusting current ideas to
develop and form new ones. Our music video is a mixture of both
illustrations and amplification as it brings in both elements of performance
and the actual signing on the track. This is an example of a common
convention that is used in today’s pop music videos.
INTRODUCTION:

3. ARTIST: MILLY EVANS
From looking at real artists in media products
through sources such as YouTube it enabled
me to think of ideas of who we could include
within our music video. We thought it was be
important to include beauty within our video
due to it being a big aspect of the genre pop
and after already choosing the song ‘Alfie’ by
Lily Allen, it allowed us to develop our choice
of artist from looking at how Lily Allen looks
and her style. An artists style is a very
important convention when trying to reflect a
desired image which is why we decided to use
a glamorous girl. However, we did challenge
this by adding in humour and making sure
that our artist does not take herself to
seriously to make it exciting in which our
target audience of young teens would
thoroughly enjoy it. Adding in this humour
and making our video fun is another
convention of the genre pop.

4. SHOTS:
In our final video we included a lot of close up shots
of our artist, not only just to show her singing clearly
but to reflect her outstanding facial expressions as
she illustrates the lyrics. After researching through
real media texts we found that it was very typical for
pop music videos to have a lot of fast moving shots
to keep the target audience interested. However we
did not have as many as originally planned although
this occurred we were not bothered with this as we
did originally want to keep our video simple with the
added sped up humour parts to make up for this.
This can demonstrate us challenging this convention
which involved using longer length in shots. As we
used a variety of amplification and illustration it
made it easier for us to use longer shots so that the
lip syncing wasn’t over complicated. As mentioned
we developed our video by adding in fun and quirky
shots as we like to call them ‘spoofs’ during the
middle course of the sound when the music starts to
sound like a fairground. This we felt added in humour
and to convey hat the artist is not taking herself too
seriously as well as the video.
Gimmicky and humour
shots we inserted.

5. COSTUME:
In order to show continuity through my media
products I researched the same artists for each
convention so that I could match up my genre
correctly. Choosing the right costumes for our artist
was a very important convention to think about as it
determines how they may be looked upon by the
audience as well as how seriously they may be taken as
an artist. We were inspired by Lily Allen’s retro fashion
style of clothing for our music video, we did this as we
thought it would match the narrative of the lyrics as
well as the props used such as a life sized puppet, giant
playing cards, bubbles and a retro old fashioned
camera. We can across some evidence that Lily Allen
has previously worn a polka dot dress which is a typical
trend of her genre so we thought it would suit our
artist well. I had the perfect dress at home in which we
put our artist into which was a navy blue and white
polka dot bodycon dress. As we wanted to maintain
the glamorous look not only through our individual
ancillary tasks but also our music video, we combined
this style of clothing with modern makeup to make our
artist stand out and be inspirational towards out target
audience.

6. MISE-EN-SCENE:
Mise-en-scene is known and arguably one of the most vital conventions of a music video
construction and can be demonstrated in a large amount of ways depending of what genre
the music is. Different themes and styles can be used in the category of ‘pop’ and they don’t
always have to follow specific guidelines as the connotations of the track are taken into
account. After researching real pop genre music videos I was mainly inspired by artists such as
Lily Allen, Eliza Doolittle, Jessie Ware and Eliza Doolittle.
During the beginning stages of our coursework myself and Sammy were drawn to Lily Allen’s
music video ‘Alfie’ due to the video incorporating a real life sized puppet and illustrating the
narrative of the track. From looking further into this music video in depth we decided to use
these exact conventions to make our own music video. Although we were following a direct
route of the pop music video conventions not only did we restrict our chance to develop or
challenge any of these conventions but we also limited ourselves to be creative and original.
However this negative impact when making our first video gave myself and Sammy both the
chance to be more aware and alert of different conventions within pop genre videos and to be
more inspired by other products the second time round when filming in a different location
with different shots, lighting and use of different camera angles.
As the location of filming music videos is a very important convention when portraying an
artist in a certain way me and Sammy decided to film within a white studio, this would then
therefore result in everything being stripped down plain and simple to just our artist and main
focus on her and the props used throughout the video. From researching we came up with
this idea from being inspired by Miley Cyrus’ ‘7 Things I Hate About You’ and Jessie J’s ‘Price
Tag’ who both belong within the pop genre of music. We thought this type of location would
work effectively with our song ‘Alfie’ by Lily Allen as our artist can still illustrates the lyrics by
using specific props as well as lip syncing the lyrics. In real media texts it is common for
several locations to be explored and tested however we challenged this as we only used one
location throughout the whole time of our music video. To overcome this we attempted using
a variety of different shots and interesting props to keep our audience interested even though
we only had one location throughout our video.

7. DIGIPAK:My digipak front cover was the main aspect of my ancillary texts which had a heavy influence from another
source which was images found in the magazine ‘Dazed and Confused’. As well as images of pop artists such as
Ellie Golding. Particularly of the example located in the bottom right hand corner as it has a double image effect
of a head shot. This is where two photos were taken then put on top of each other with the transparency of each
photo manipulated with. In this respect my digipak conforms to conventions of real media products as if reflects
conventions that have already been used within real media texts. Another example would be the James Blake
album also located to the right. From seeing these images, I really liked this effect with the image and believe it
can apply to nearly all different genres. I think that it was an effective way to grab the passing public’s attention
and be drawn to this digipak if it was to be seen on a shelf.
Even though I used this double face illusion throughout my digipak and album advert, I feel that I have
challenged the typical pop style, as by using a bright colourful palette the artist is perceived as exciting and
playful which the audience likes to be associated with. This was clear in my research, for example I found indie
and rock genres used darker grungy colour combinations whereas pop genres used bright combinations to reflect
the mood of the different genres. As a result of this I did challenge this, as you can see I used minimal bright
colours on both my digipak and album advert(located on the next slide) however I used bright red lipstick to daw
attention to her lips and to have that element of bright colour in there somewhere.
My final digipak

8. ALBUM ADVERT:
As for my album advert I feel that it uses the
conventions as it is comprehensively connected to
my digipak, through the theme of the illusion head
shot and the use of the same fonts. This is
something that you would expect to find in real
media texts as magazine adverts are inevitably
reflective of their album cover so that the
consumer can make the connection automatically
through visuals. Due to my advert not including
much information this could be classed as
challenging conventions as many pop magazine
adverts appear more crowded that I discovered
when researching, to get a lot of information on
show. Despite this I wanted my advert to engage
with the audience by using a simple and not
crowed layout with an eye capturing appealing
picture which I think works due to my artist being
glamorous.