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

With an original product in the creative field of music videos (which can enormously diverse) we felt that there were no constraints or restrictions. However, when promoting a new artist with an unknown song in a saturated market of acoustic singers, we felt it was important to hook the viewers with the recognisable ingredients. Therefore, our aim was to match many conventions, knowing the industry want this new product to be memorable. The song itself is classic in its construction and meaning, as well as the traditional narrative to help ‘sell’ this product. Viewers also need, primarily to familiarise themselves with this new artist, as she will be the face that they search for when sourcing the song they buy. As a vocalist who is also the songwriter, establishing credibility is important, so we aimed to place her in her natural setting of a studio, with her acoustic guitar and minimal intrusion. From existing videos, it is clear that audiences invest in this unplugged and raw image of their favourite artist. So we met conventions by filming Esther up close, with guitar and performing her song. As a ‘credible’ artist we aimed to dismiss Mulvey’s Male Gaze sensationalism by bringing down her appearance to a conservative, black polo neck and minimal make-up. This highlights her youth and fresh faced-ness but also conveys the message that she takes her music seriously. We feel the intended audience would appreciate this as a sharp departure from products by artists like Miley, Beyoncé and other more packaged artists. With regards to the narrative that merges with the performance, we have listened to the lyrics and echoed the meaning in a silent, dialogue free narrative. We knew that with the fairytale theme behind our lyrics, our narrative would need to comply with the conventions of verisimilitude; this lead us to form a reality based on the idea of fairytale and the story they hold. Our test audiences immediately made the links between the story and the song, which gave an emotional depth to the piece. Our use of black and white/monochrome editing implies a sense of retrospective reflecting the past memories shown through the narrative which we were inspired by in The Script’s music video, ‘Six Degrees of Separation’. This subtle decision appears to be very effective and also highlights the vibrancy of the singer’s appearance when in full colour. We aimed to suit the contemporary lifestyle of our audience through our narratives development. The taking of ‘selfies’, the school backdrop, places the viewer in a teenage mind set which is very appropriate for the artist’s intended fan base. We felt that many music videos can feel very ‘fashionable’ which is always something that makes the video long-lasting, whereas we know our artist might take a while to ‘make a break’ so the video must work over a longer period of time.