Task 1 - In what way do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Pop videos, like any form of media product in the world have certain conventions that immediately signify to the viewer that they are viewing a pop video. These conventions are; The explicit and unashamed promotion of the artist’s brand or “star image”, the heavy featuring of the artist (almost without exception), a wide and extensive use of shot types, camera angles and movement, repetition of reoccurring thematic elements and generically specific iconography (with one element sometimes forming the whole structure of the video), a possible narrative structure, a possible performance element, the flexibility to disregard Realism, shots cut tightly to the beat of the track, the use of special effects (including the use of computers), a carefully constructed Mise en Scene appropriate to the content and tone of the track and instant high impact.


Two of these conventions which are used by many pop videos either on their own or together are a performance element, featuring either the singer or the band or a narrative structure, following some kind of story. Within these two elements, another convention is the flexibility to disregard realism, for instance having the band playing their performance element on the wing of an aircraft. Other conventions include cutting the shots to the beat of the track, the use of special effects or CGI and an extensive amount of shot types, camera angles and camera movement.


On the front cover of our CD Digipak (above), the whole band is featured. The colour scheme of the picture used is black and white, which gives the whole scene a dark, brooding mood. The mood is how we want to portray our band – younger, brooding men with an air of mysteriousness about them. We have used the rules of x and y axis to position our lead singer the closest to the camera. X & Y is a film making rule that says if a person is on the left, they are good and if they are on the right, they are bad. This is a convention of album covers, as it shows the singer to be the “front man” and most important member of the band. The whole band are positioned as a group, aside from the bassist, who we positioned slightly to the right of the other members. This was because when someone is put to the right of the frame, they are represented as slightly “edgy” and dangerous. He is also showing an example of diagetic gaze – looking within the frame, which gives an air of mystery, while the rest of the band are looking directly at the camera – non-diagetic gazes. Usually on an album cover, the whole band will all have a diagetic or non diagetic gaze. In giving one member of the band a different gaze to the rest, we are breaking a convention. An example of all the members of a band displaying diagetic gazes can be seen on the cover of the Artic Monkey’s album “Humbug” (see below).





The back cover of our Digipack (see above) kept with the same colour scheme as the front cover and also featured all the band members. We used the same lettering on the back cover as we did on the front, to keep continuity. The lettering that we picked is bold, capitalised and brash, which is the image we would like our band to have – they are loud and uncompromising. We have also put all the names of the songs on the album in the top left corner, which, according to the rule of thirds is where we first start viewing a picture. This means that as soon as turning over the Digipack to view the back cover, they would see all the song titles, with the leading single, “Let’s Get Outta Here” – which we produced our pop video for – at the top of the list. One again, the singer is singled out from the rest of the band by him being propped up on the wall while the rest of the band are sprawled on the floor. This cements in people’s minds that the singer is the most important member of the band. However, this is breaking a convention of album covers featuring bands, as most musicians try to present themselves as equals, despite connotations to the contrary (e.g. The bassist is the quietest/most boring/least important band member). Other album covers that prominently feature the singer over other members of the band include Blondie’s “Autoamerican”.




The above shot is from the opening 19 seconds of our video. On the left hand side of the screen, taking up a significant portion of the frame is the face of our singer. This uses the rule of thirds. The rules dictates that the viewer looks from the left, one thid of the way down the scrren., over to the right. Our shot has the face of the singer on the first “hotspot” which is a key convention we are following. Being the first member of the band to be shown on screen also establishes him as the most important member of the band, and therefore the one the audience will observe most closely. The background of the video is set we constructed. This set is a grimy street scene, which fits in with the slightly dangerous image the band is trying to portray. This uses a convention of pop videos, where the set enhances or shows the audience what the group is like.



In this shot, we can see that the bassist has been placed on the right of the frame. This is because when people are put on the right of the frame they are seen as dangerous or edgy. This is the brand we are trying to create for our group, but especially the bass player. This frame also demonstrates the wide variety of shot types that we used during this filming of our pop video. We have the close up of the bassists face, the wide shot of the band and a mid shot of the drummer on the right hand side of the frame. During the course of our shoot, we shot at least 60 different shots for the entirety of the song, and used almost all of them in our pop video.



In the shot above, we can see both the fretboard of the guitar and bass. This creates an interesting shape for viewers to watch. Showing guitarists of bassists fretboards as they play there instruments is also a convention of pop video making that we stuck to. However, the main purpose of this shot was to lead the viewer’s eye. Your eye naturally follows up the fretboard, leading left to right until you reach the playing hand of the guitarist near the top. When you reach here, the video cuts to the singer standing in one of the crime scene photos, with his face exactly where your eye was a few milliseconds previously. This is a convention used in many pop videos, and is useful way of getting your audience to look at what you want them to look at, not whatever takes their fancy.



In the above shot, the singer is using direct address to talk directly to the audience. This gives him a sense of power as he is not trying to hide the fact his is delivering a serious hard-hitting message straight to a group of people. This shot also very nicely illustrates the split screen feature, which is a large part of video idea and a recurring thematic element, another convention of pop videos. This shot also nicely shows the performance element of our video, which featured all 4 members of the band playing their various instruments. This is a common convention of a pop video which we decided to use, due to the instrument-heavy sound of our chosen track.



This frame shows the narrative part of our storyline, which centered around our lead singer walking through crime scene photos by the famous photographer Weegee. This is a convention of pop videos that we kept to, in order to create a dynamic and interesting product. This frame also shows two other conventions of pop videos. It uses special effects, as we shot this whole sequence of narrative events on a blue screen, and then edited it together in post-production. Another convention shown by this shot is a disregard for realism, as there is no possible way that the singer of our band could have traveled back in time to the 1930s.