In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

Evaluation question 1

We were inspired by the following

theories…

Mulvey’s theoryWhat 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.

…

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.

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 .

Goodwin’s theoryHe 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.

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.

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

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.

Conventions of pop/indie-pop

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.

CONVENTIONS WE FOLLOWED:

The font is girly and feminine just like the artist!

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.

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!)

Mid close up long

Our three styles...

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).

CONVENTIONS WE FOLLOWED:

CONVENTIONS WE CHALLENGED:

White clothing in music video^

White clothing in advertisement^

White clothing in inside cd panel^

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’.

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.

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.

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.

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.

IMAGE OF THE ARTIST ( with eye contact which I found is usually more successful)TRACK LIST

COPYRIGHT INFO

BAR CODEARTIST/ALBUM NAME

RECORD COMPANY LOGOARTIST/ALBUM

NAME

R.C LOGOCATALOGUE NUMBER

I followed all these conventions on my cd cover…

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)

I followed all these conventions in my advertisement…

PICTURE OF THE ALBUM AND RELEASE DATE

RECORD COMPANY LOGO

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.

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: