Evaluation - Question 1

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

KATY PERRY - CALIFORNIA GIRLS

We were influenced by the girl nature of this video and how it looked fun and energetic. We felt that this video would be a good one to analyse and help create our very own music video as it portrays the artist as very girly, fun and sexy. 

The mise en scene of the video especially influenced us  as it was spectacular. The scene was decorated with giant sweets, chocolates and cakes. The mise en scene created a dream world which drew in a very young and female audience which was what we would have liked to achieve. 

The costumes used in Katy Perry's 'California Girls' was very creative using silky materials of pastelly, but mainly pink, colours. Also, there were parts where food had been moulded into the design on the dress such as ice creams and sweets which is what all teenage girlsl ove to eat. We used this idea to influence one of the costumes our Bella wore. We decorated a corset with sweets by sticking jelly beans and a variety of other colourfuk sweets on the top. We then finished the outfit with a pink tutu and pink cardigan. This was conventional as it followed Katy's costume in her video which was aimed for girls and feminine audience. We also got Bella to lie on the table which was surrounded by girly things - sweets, pink iPhone, makeup, iPod, lipgloss and pink cloths. This made everything seem very youthful and attract a younger audience as they can relate to using technologies such as iPhones and makeup. This was conventional to Katy lying on the pink clouds which were reminiscent of candy floss which is also another sweet and is something found at fun fairs and associated with children and youth.

The props we use in our video are reminiscent of the props used to decorate the scenery of Katy's video. These included large lollypops and bunches of flowers. This is similar to the giant candy canes and lollypops used in Katy's video. We thought that this showed our artist's sweet side and her innocence and sweetness as a new coming artist. This also linked to the candy cane theme which I have used throughout my digipak and advertisement.

The section, in our music video, where we filmed an extreme closeup of Bella's lips with hundreds and thousands stuck onto them is conventional to Jessie J's 'Like a dude' video. However, Jessie challenged the conventions of a normal pop genre video as she used a black lipstick to stick on the black spikes on to her lips which, as a result, created a very fierce and dark look. Whereas, we decided to stick with the bright and fun themes of pop videos by sticking hundreds and thousands on to her lips which created a more colouful and girly effect. We also was influenced by the camera work of this shot as it was an extreme close-up of her lips which we thought would make our video look creative as we are drawing in all attention to her unusual lips which emphasise the fact that our new artist is 'sweet' and 'hip'.

My digipak was influenced by these two digipaks.

KATY PERRY - I used the plain white background from this digipak and bright bold picture of the artist so that all attention is on them (as they are a new artist). Also the use of hot pinks and her pink dress really emphasise her girlyness and stand out on the whitebackground. The font used for her name is bubble writing which already shows youth and attracts a younger audience. However, I decided to use a itallic font called 'Zapfino' which challenged the conventions of youth as it looks more sophisticated yet still keeps the feminine manner of the artist.

BRITNEY SPEARS - This is Britney Spear's first album and I thought that it would be a good digipak to look at as she is a pop singer like my artist and it would be Bella's first album too. It is very similar to mine in the fact that the front cover is very simple and plain - it has a plain white background and mostly dedicated with a midshot image of the artist. I feel that this is not very conventional to most pop covers as it doesn't show off the glamourous lifestyles a popstar holds, however, I chose to challenge this as it puts all focus on the image of the pop star inorder for her to become familiar with the audience.

Like all digipaks mine contains a barcode, record company information, website, record label and track list on the back cover. 

I used ideas from both these posters to help create my own. The first poster shows the font being used from the actual digipak therefore I decided to incorporate my font used in the digipak on my poster too, so that there was a running theme throughout. I also, felt that the lip print in the first poster was very symbollic of her first song 'I kissed a girl' and would be to Bella's song 'I just wanna kiss you'. Therefore I used lip prints to decorate my poster, however, I decided to make it look more visually interesting but filling them out with a 'candy cane' print which refers to the actual name of Bella's album. I feel that these are conventional to the genre of music as it makes you use a lot of red and pink colours which are usually associated with girls who is the main audience of both popstars. The second poster has the logos and names of all it's sponsors and where you can purchase tickets for the event, therefore, I have included the stores in which you can purchase Bella's album at the bottom of my poster. THis holds conventions of real life advertisements as it is what would be seen on them so that the audience knows how to get hold of the album. 

KATE NASH - PUMPKIN SOUP

 Although, this is the actual video which goes with the song we have chosen we were very influenced by the fast edit cuts used at the beginning of the video. They quickly cut to another image on each bet. We used this idea by making quick cuts on different colour doors on each beat until our artist appeared. I feel that this went well with the music and therefore created a successful visual element to our video that made viewers want to continue watching it.

HERE ARE OUR FAST EDIT CUTS AT THE START

DIRECTORS COMMENTS

Another convention which we considered was many closeups of our artist Bella. This is to establish a relationship with the audience and so that they can familiarise themselves with her and therefore recognise her in the future. Also, the many closeups of Bella illustrate her 'star status' and that she is the main attraction of the music video/digi pak.

We also used Andrew Goodwin;s theory of Amplification, where we took the main themes of love and kisses and performed it in our music video. We did this by using pinks and red colours which are usually associated with love. We got members of the public to perform acts of love; i.e. kissing and blowing kisses to the camera. I feel that this showed the theme of love and got members of our audience involved which created a more enjoyable atmosphere.

Although I talk about my products following a theme of love, pink and sweets which attract a largely female audience, I feel that we could also attract a male audience due to the fact tat we really sexualised Bella. There were sexual connotations to her costume as it was quite revealing (cleavage and legs) and the way she behaved. This would attract a male audience as they would think that the artist is attractive and would want to see more of her work as she'd be on it.

These are a couple on-shoot photos of Bella. The poses and her sitting on the dog in that position has many sexual connotation and makes her appear more attractive to male viewers.