In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?Maria Litichevskaya

Use of PerformanceWe have chosen this form to introduce the artist to the audience. I believe that genre of the song suits the performer completely so it is curtail not to hide the identity to make a video fulfilled. Moreover, this helped us to create a marketable star image which we used for our website and digipak cover. According to Dyer, the star image is made up of a range of meanings, which are attractive to the target audience. Since we focus on stylistic elements, the star image allow us to attract the target audience which prioritize these kind of things.

Azealia Banks’ video “1991” is a good illustration to the above point. Her video clearly demonstrates the genre and attitude. The use of performance highlights her as a main stylistic feature and makes the video ‘cool’ – that what we were aiming for.

Use of Symbolic/Thematic

MaterialsChoosing the right symbolic materials is very important form, because they portray the meaning of the video. To embrace our concept of ‘control’ we chose to use black fabrics in order to make the audience feel like they are trapped. These materials contrast the star image, making the character look more powerful and dominantThe same concept was seen in Nicole Sherzinger’s song “whatever you like”. Instead of fabrics, she used a box that made an illusion of control over her. In both scenes, not only symbolic materials helped to convey the message but to adhere to the genre (hip-hop, which is naturally aggressive) and style of the video (using black colors and fabrics wrapped around the idea of aggressiveness and dominance clearer).

Artistic CameraworkProbably, the most important convention of a successful music video is a professional camerawork. We experimented with it and the shot of the left illustrates one of the bird point of view shots that goes down. This makes the camera to be able to draw the audience in, making them a part of a video. Moreover, it gives a clue about the concept of dominance and control. In fact, the camerawork reflects the fast pace and dynamic rhythms of the video by moving fact and making small cuts.I believe that in her song “G.U.Y”, Lady Gaga aims for control and power as well and lyrics tell us that – “I'm gonna wear the tie, want the power to leave you. I'm aimin' for full control of this love” The camerawork here makes the same movement as in our video to engage the audience. We can understand the target audience are women so this idea of “women are in charge” makes the video appeal to them in the same way as in our music video.

Importance of Artist CUThe importance such convention as artist’s close-up plays a huge role in marketing of a music video. First of all, the face makes the star image remarkable and recognizable, which helps to promote the artist and his\her work. Therefore, a distinct identity can be created. Secondly, when you use a close up, the artist appears closer to you which makes an illusion of proximate conversation between consumers and the performer. We had lots of closeups on purpose to make a marketable star image based on elements like youthfulness, creativity, beauty and originality.

Many performers do the same, e.g. Azealia Banks on the left, because her face is her calling card, so her music, appearance and style make a distinct star image.

Costumes and PropsIn our music video the major emphasis is made on costumes. Our aim was to make it visually appeal to the audience. We used designer clothes that very much contributed to the style of the video. If we take Beyonce as an example, we can see that she uses a great variety of costumes in her clips but the concept is the same throughout all of them – sexy, attractive, tender young women. Whereas, our concept is a complete opposite – powerful, dominant etc – the idea to use costumes to support the star image is the same.

Taking Negus’ work on synthetic and organic ideology of creativity, we can say that although Beyonce seems to have a organic approach (naturalistic), emphasizing her talent, she still makes an accent on costumes. Our artist clearly takes a synthetic approach by using a combinatorial approach to artists and material.

Conspicuous use of lighting

We used beams of light (top photo) and flashing bright lights (middle photo) to have an immediate public attention. These helped us to create a special atmosphere that were needed for a scene. The lighting is linked to a club and dancing movement which is adheres to the concept.

The bottom photo is a scene from LMFAO’s music video. They used bright light to have a party theme to make the video more dynamic.

This means the we used lighting in the same way that real music products do.