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

Our three media products, music video, website and album, all use, develop and challenge the forms and conventions of real media products. We have used forms and conventions to create realistic media products but have also developed and challenged some elements to achieve our creative vision. In regards to our music video I will analyse the genre conventions, Simon Frith's theory (and our use of it), intertexutality and identity. I will then analyse how we have used, developed and challenged in our website and album cover.

Music Video

Our music video follows the main the conventions of the pop music videos. We have challenged the stereotypical representation of women in music video with our key theme being female empowerment to appeal and attract our target audience demographics of teenagers (primary), younger girls (secondary) and older
women (tertiary).

Genre

Simon Frith's Theory

Our music video follows the conventions outlined in Simon Frith's Theory of  music videos by having a combination of performance and narrative. However, we have developed this convention by having a conceptual narrative interspersed with performance- we have created a realm of fantasy which satisfies the audience element of Blumler & Katz Uses & Gratification Theory of diversion.

Below is a table outlining the general forms and conventions of music videos:

Forms and Conventions of Music Videos

Performance

In the performance element of our music video we followed conventions of Carol Vernallis' The Kindest- Functions and meanings of Music Video Editing Theory through ideas of the video being a visual response to the music, and having a discontinuous structure. For example, our video began solely with performance (seen below) and then it was inter-cut throughout the different set-ups.

Performance at the start of our music video

Heart Attack- Demi Lovato

We took inspiration for GiGi's personality and performance from Demi Lovato- (an example of which can be seen on the right). 'Heart Attack' is an example of a performance music video and we used ideas from it such as showing strong artist identity and hand gestures.

Within performance we also focused on key lines to emphasise the overall message of our song and music video which was female empowerment. In the lyric below we used Goodwin's theory of a link between the lyrics and visuals by using a crown gesture to illustrate the lyric (in a very literal manner). For example:

"This Queen don't need a King!"

Emphasised lyrics in Performance

Another key convention that we used in performance were Beauty shots. These are present in most music videos and especially ones involving a solo artist such as the one below:

Hailee Steinfeld- Love Myself

It was important for us to use Beauty shots as it would help all three of our target audience demographics to clearly see GiGi's characteristics and her star identity so they can began to build a relationship with her as a 'star' and an artist.

Conceptual Narrative

This was an element of music video conventions that we developed by our video not being narrative or conceptual but by combining the two to create a realm of fantasy for our target audience (mainly primary and secondary) to escape into. A key existing music video that we used for inspiration was Dear Future Husband by Meghan Trainor which can be seen below:

From studying this example of a conceptual narrative we planned to include different set-ups, a performance set-up that was inter-cut throughout the video and the main conceptual narrative thread of the Doll's House. The mixture of performance and the Doll's House conceptual narrative can be seen below:

Doll's House and Performance

To ensure we had an interesting and engaging main conceptual narrative thread we incorporated elements of film theory such as Todorov's Narrative Theory through ideas of an equilibrium that is disrupted by GiGi which gets resolved into a new equilibrium.

Todorov's Narrative Theory and Our Doll's House Story-line

Another element of Vernallis' Theory that we used in the conceptual narrative was discontinuous editing as we did not have to follow the continuity rules of film editing. An example of our use of discontinuous editing is in our rapid inter-cutting section in the final chorus:

Example of our use of discontinuous editing

Intertextuality

WWII Intertextuality

1950's Intertextuality

A key convention of music videos that we used was intertextuality. We decided we wanted to make reference to different time periods such as World War Two Land Girls and a stereotypical 1950's Housewife-which would mostly appeal to our tertiary target audience. Within this we had direct reference to existing media texts in the form of posters and adverts. In doing so we used a convention of incorporating intertextuality but we developed it because in music videos the most common type of intertextual references are to film and tv whereas we have used actual posters and adverts.

We took inspiration for using intertextual references from music videos such as Stupid Girls and Raise Your Glass by P!nk:

Stupid Girls Intertextuality

Raise Your Glass Intertextuality

Both of these music videos promote the idea of strong women defying restrictions which helped us develop our main theme of female empowerment.

Identity/Representation

We followed the convention of creating a star identity illustrated in Richard Dyer's 'Star' Identity. Despite stars being a construct we wanted GiGi to represent shared cultural values, attitudes and promote a certain ideology- female empowerment. We wanted to make GiGi a role-model, especially for our primary and secondary target audiences and promote women being strong and independent. Voyeurism and female sexual objectification is prevalent in music videos and we have challenged this convention by not including it in our music video.


We predominantly followed conventions for our music video and used Dyer's 'star' identity, Frith's performance, narrative and concept and Vernallis' discontinuous editing; and the table below shows these and sums up the conventions we used, developed and challenged in our music video:

The forms and conventions that we used, developed and challenged

Website

Below is a prezi illustrating the forms and conventions of our artist website. Please feel free to use the full screen version and to double click on the images to enlarge them:

We predominantly followed the conventions when we created our artist website and the table below sums up when we used, developed or challenged forms and conventions:

The forms and conventions that we used, developed and challenged

Album

Below is a slideshow that illustrates the forms and conventions of album covers and how we used, developed and/or challenged, (please feel free to enlarge the screen):



We predominantly followed conventions for an album cover and the table below illustrates the forms and conventions that we used, developed and/or challenged:

The forms and conventions that we used, developed and challenged

Conclusion

In conclusion, our different media products use, develop and challenge forms and conventions. Overall, by mainly using/following conventions we have created products that look 'genuine' and 'real' but by subtly developing and challenging some conventions we have been able to make a creative and interesting group of media texts.