EVALUATION TASK 1

ConventionsA convention is something that is a stereotypical sign of

representation shown by camera work, editing, mise-en-scene and lighting

•Technological-a technological convention is for example the way that an artist would use technologies to create a representation for themselves. E.g. lighting on stage at a concert.•Symbolic-a symbolic convention is for example the way a artist portrays themselves using styling and colour conventions. E.g. The style of their clothes.

I am going to compare the conventions of our music video :

With Florence and the Machine’s music video for ‘Dog Days Are Over’ which falls into the same music genre as our artist :

Camera Work

We used similar conventions to this music video as we decided for the camera work that we wanted a lot of close ups so the focus was mainly on the artist. This makes the audience have more of a connection to the artist as you can familiarise her face with the audience. A difference however is that in Florence and the Machines music video, they used a white background and focus solely on focused close-ups without distractions to her face, we decided against this convention as we wanted our artist to have more of a mysterious appeal so that her audience feels slightly disconnected. We had Dyer’s Star Theory in mind when making this decision as we want the audience to feel a close connection through the close ups but feel slightly that she is not the same, and more of a star that is not easy to be like, so more of an aspiration.

Costume

In Florence and the Machine’s music video, the costume of the main artist linked well with the set as it was similarly coloured and worked well with the aesthetic. This is what we were going for with our costume, that is fitted well with the background to create an interesting aesthetic. This fits in with the conventions of the alternative genre as it is focused more on style and artistic taste. We wanted the dress of our artist to be flowy, which is similar to the dress of the other music video as it adds again to the interesting visual aspect and to o with the sounds of the music.

Editing

In Florence and the Machine’s music video, they used special effects, this added an extra element to their music video as it fitted more with the specific sounds of their song, of an explosive feel. We decided not to use special effects as we wanted to keep it realistic like the artist so that it showed the more honest personality of the artist and her music. I feel that when adding special effects to a music video it makes the mood of the whole thing that it is synthetic music, but our music we wanted more of a pure image. We decided on using cross fading transitions towards the end of the video to fit with the slow dreamy sound of our track.

Makeup

Both our music video and the real product used interesting makeup ideas. This convention is used in alternative music videos to show again the artistic style for the music. Both our music video and the real product focused the interesting makeup around the eyes. This is a frequently used convention in this genre as it makes the artist connect with the audience by them focusing on the eyes which draws the attention in. By drawing attention to the eyes it enhances the effect of the direct address to the audience.

Performance

For the performance element, we decided to go with the conventions of the genre of direct camera address to give a closeness between the artist and her audience. It creates an intimacy by connecting her gaze towards the line of the audience. We decided to use this element from the conventions of the indie music genre. It goes with Dyers star theory as it is creating a synthetic artist that is connecting directly to the audience and is recognising that they are there.

Set Design

The set design for the real prodct was kept basic but used extra characters into the set which added a sort of set by the position of chracters. We decided against this convention as we wanted to focus on only the artist. We were originally going to have anothera ctor for the male back up singing but we decided against it as this was our artist first music video we thought it waas more fitting to only focus on her to famililarse the audience with her