Conventions

Ned Sanders

What are conventions?

A convention is an established recurring theme or method used in a media product. For instance, a popular convention in action films is shaky-cam as it creates a violent, frantic atmosphere.

Conventions can be thought of as clues to what genre you are watching, for example, if a film has cowboys, horses and a soundtrack by Ennio Morricone, the chances are it’s a Western.

VIDEO

Close-upA Close up is used to create a strong focus on the artist and her personality. The audience sees the artist singing along with the song and associates her with the lyrics and the genre.

It also serves to focus on the artist’s beauty, hair and makeup – key interests of the target audience. You can also see her expression better (used by Katy Perry to show fear and by Maria to show Attitude).

Mid-shotMid-shots are used in music videos to show the whole body of the artist without losing too much personal connection. Like many pop videos, we used mid-shots to show the actors clothing and fashion (a big part of their star image) as well as their sex appeal.

Shots which include the actress’ clothing encourage the audience to think about and discuss amongst each other the fashion choices in the video. It also shows off body language (sass, sexiness, etc.)

Coloured Backgrounds

Coloured backgrounds are used effectively in many videos. We got the idea from the Irish Missguided advert – not technically a music video but still sharing the same image and target audience. Coloured backgrounds provide an aesthetically pleasing yet minimalistic backdrop for the artist. We used bright, cool, primary colours to match the bold, sassy start image.

Discontinuity Editing

Discontinuity editing is when a video without a narrative shows clips in non chronological order. Realistic videos use continuity editing to maintain realism so that all the clips look like they’re part of one seamless piece of action but with a pop video, we are not trying to present a realistic text. The discontinuity editing is cool and creates a non realistic, surreal world. We used discontinuity editing throughout, including this bubblegum clip, which showed Hannah blowing a bubble but broke up the shot into pieces.

SilhouettesWe used silhouettes to emphasize the movements of the actresses and to create a cool mystique to them. It also is symbolic of a club with dim back-lighting and dancing figures.

Little Mix’s move (left), Our video (right) both use silhouettes to show sass, attitude and sex appeal.

Lip SynchNearly all music videos featuring the artist use lip-sync. Lip sync is used to strengthen the association between the song and the artist. The audience sees the cool, sassy lyrics being sung by the artist and immediately make the connection. It was also important that we used lyrics to make it clear to the viewer that Maria was the artist and not part of a girlband.

It is essential to Maria’s star image, that the audience associate her with the confidence and attitude of her lyircs (‘you better give me what i came here for’, if you don't like the beat better get the **** out!’)

DIGIPAK and WEBSITE

Digipak

To research the digipak, we looked at other pop album covers, noticing that the artist was almost always featured on the front – this is because the digipak is trying to sell the artist as a brand and show that it is about them. The title of the album is usually in a smaller font than the artist’s name in order to draw attention to it. Like the other covers, we used a photo which drew attention to the beauty and style of our artist – a big part of the audience interest.

Website

The website uses a landing page – a popular convention in pop websites,Has the name of the artist at the top of the page throughout, and is designed to change the background between different images of maria on each page. This emphasises the focus on fashion and beauty – Maria is see wearing various outfits in her different photos. It also means that, like the logo, Maria is always present wherever you go on the page, intrinsically linking her with the product.