1. Q1: In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?
In this evaluation question I will explain how
I have managed to create three media
products that use, challenge and develop
the codes and conventions of my genre.

2. Me and my partner both understood that we needed to use the codes and conventions of real
life media products throughout our music video to enable our artist to be well established and
be deemed appropriate for our genre. By using conventions, we therefore aimed well at our
target audience and our products were then deemed acceptable, professional and suitable.
Not only did we want to use conventions, but develop and challenge them as well. By doing
this, our products and artist became unique and established, this also created a sense of
exclusiveness and produced and ‘brand new face’ to our genre, meaning the artists ‘look’ and
music would sell, creating popularity and making more money for the record label.
Our initial ideas were all influenced by real media products; such as videos from AlunaGeorge,
Jessie Ware and Katy B, and it was only through the post production of our video, and the
planning stages that these ideas dramatically changed. We found that some ideas and
influences were too complicated or unachievable, but more so that our own ideas had
developed on top of those of the real media products. Meaning we had lots more creativity
and a whole new level to build upon, using our own ideas and then conventional influence.

3. Our initial ideas were all influenced by real media products; such as videos from
AlunaGeorge, Jessie Ware and Katy B, and it was only through the post production
of our video, and the planning stages that these ideas dramatically changed. We
found that some ideas and influences were too complicated or unachievable, but
more so that our own ideas had developed on top of those of the real media
products. Meaning we had lots more creativity and a whole new level to build
upon, using our own ideas and then conventional influence.
We wanted to stay very true to the conventional aspects of our genre and the
conventional normalities shown in these videos, but also build upon these
conventions, and challenge them also. We did this by using our own ideas and
those of our target audience.
We used the conventions of our genre to the full extent, taking into consideration
more or less everything you could think of. Costume, lighting, location, camera
shots, speed, editing, the way the camera and actress moves, narrative and
performance based themes… And lots more!

5. We were very interested in creating an artist that was very new and fresh – something
unseen before, and this is why we took inspiration from lots of videos and existing artists
that did not fit into our genre or conventions. It was the overall ‘look’ that we wanted Ninah
to have that really was taken from various existing artists and media products. The mise en
scene of videos, her attitude and her clothing.
Jessie J and Neon Jungle were our main fashion inspirations.
Wild colours, bold prints and big jewellery were what we wanted. Along with bold eyeliner
and strong make up colours, such as red lips. All recognisable aspects of Jessie and Neon
Jungle. We especially liked the jackets that Neon Jungle and Jessie both wear in their videos
shown below, as the print was bold and had attitude – a perfect signifier for our star image
for Ninah. In many of our shots and in the pictures for the website and digipak, Ninah has
bold statement make up, especially on her eyes and lips.

6. We took a very strong influence from the
girl band Neon Jungle, whose music is very
much pop like, with hints of dance and the
edgy RnB feel from our genre. Primarily we
looked at the band for inspiration because
their video, ‘Trouble’ was avid with the kind
of influences we wanted in our own. The
very fast pace editing, quick cuts, band
member attitude and costume all were
bang on target! Although, as their music is
classed as ‘pop’ using their influence meant
we were in some ways challenging our own
conventions but in others developing them
instead. By building upon some of the ideas
used in their video we developed
inspiration and created a new ‘vibe’ within
our own, for example the use of the red
light in our video was initially inspired by
Neon Jungle. We wanted to create a darker
and much more ‘house’ look though, so
thought we would use the light for a more
dramatic and performance use – linking in
with going along with conventions.

7. After watching pop star Ariana Grande’s video for
Baby I, we fell in love with the graffiti scenes.
Conventionally, she is an artist that doesn’t at all fit
in with our genre, therefore using her mise en scene
as inspiration challenges codes and conventions with
strength, although by adapting this idea into our
own video we have developed codes and
conventions too. The graffiti in our video is more
‘street’ than that in Ariana’s, and is in a very urban
location – tying in well with our artist’s background
and the genre of the track overall. As Ariana dances
around, and plays heavily on Laura Mulvey’s theory
by using her body to attract the audience, we chose
to have our artist walk up and down the graffiti
ridden tunnel, she looks fierce and doesn’t at all
objectify her body, adhering strongly to the queer
theory, as she is going against the norm. Although
saying this, Ninah J looks straight into the camera
throughout, ‘flirting with the viewer’ as Mulvey
explained. Our artist walks through the tunnel, as
the camera tracks her movement; we took this idea
from main inspiration Katy B, as she walks around a
town, with the camera tracking her, in the video for
Louder.

9. In Jessie Ware’s video for Night Light, she is
shown with dark clothing and a white backdrop.
Allowing the audience to establish she is the
main attraction, but also giving her a sense of
empowerment, as she stands out – this is similar
to the scenes within my music video, in the
photography studio. We liked the slow and subtle
camera movement within this video, it added a
new layer onto the electro/house genre so along
with the popular mise en scene, as a white back
drop is often used in many music videos, and we
thought to use the slow camera movement like
featured in this video. We found that when
looking at videos within our genre for camera
movement it varied massively depending on the
artist. We liked the fact that the camera only
moved slightly, if at all in Jessie Ware’s
videos, because it was different to what is
normally seen these days, and decided to take
inspiration from this. Going against the Jessie
influence slightly, we wanted to take a stronger
approach however to the mise en scene and
editing within our video.

10. When it came to the mise en scene and editing we wanted something much more bold and
exciting. This is why we like the sharp and fast pace edits in AlunaGeorge videos. Not only do
quick jump cuts get used time and time again conventionally within our genre, but they work
really well with the harsh beats in our track – much like what we found in AlunaGeorge’s
music. Using a cut on every beat, adhering strongly to Andrew Goodwin’s theory. It mattered
a lot to us that although we may go against conventions slightly with certain aspects of our
video, that the camerawork and editing were more or less on point in relation our
genre/conventions – after all these are two very strong points of a music video, and create a
completely new ‘feel’ to a video, we wanted this feel to stick to conventions.
The best video to explore fast paced editing for AlunaGeorge is ‘You Know You Like It’. The
beats within the song are very strong much like our own, and on every single harsh beat
another cut will occur, whether it be a slight zoom cut or a completely different angle cut. We
did something very similar in our video, it worked really well with the different locations and
beat changes, but also looked great and kept the video interesting and fun. Cuts like this were
specifically used within the photography studio scenes, primarily because they were
aesthetically pleasing but also kept the viewer entertained. The shots used in these scenes
were mainly close ups and mid shots, adhering to the Male Gaze theory strongly.

11. With the mise en scene, although we took
aspects from other genres, breaking away from
our conventions, we found we wanted to stick
to certain aspects of our genre codes too. The
‘acting’ and overall stage presence of Aluna
from the band was what we wanted Ninah to
have – very strong and with a lot of attitude,
although with a slight element of sexiness. We
told our actress to almost ‘look down to’ the
camera and have the pouting and serious
expression that Katy B often does, to connote
this superior and ‘fierce’ look that many artists
within our genre have.
Again, this ‘fierce’ nature/look is reinforced
in the clothing of Ninah. Leather jackets,
Doc Martens, bold colours, statement
jewellery and bold make up. And also the
locations she is placed in i.e.: the run down
garages, graffiti ridden tunnel.

12. For our digipak we took a lot of inspiration from
various artists that challenge our conventions.
Our initial ideas were to go along with our
conventions slightly, taking the main inspiration
from Katy B – using bold colours and fonts but
then we moved away from this idea as
influences came about. We were struck by Demi
Lovato’s new album, how basic it was but how
effective it looked. We loved the stripped down
nature to it as well, and thought this worked
with the beautiful simplicity of our music video
too. There is a story behind our digipak, as we
found that many artists have written their
albums and wanted to express their feelings
within their work perhaps through their album
artwork, for example Katy B always uses a
similar setting to one of her music videos in her
album covers, and her videos obviously have
some meaning to her songs too. As Ninah J
sings about being hurt and confused, we
wanted her to be shown in a very vulnerable
way on her album artwork, so decided that the
Demi Lovato influence would be perfect, as
Ninah would then appear to be stripped down
and covering herself up, in shame perhaps.
The basic black and white colour scheme that
we used was another link to Jessie Ware, as
her digipak is very much similar to ours in
colour and layout – meaning we knew that
with the Demi influence, and going against
conventions, our digipak would still work as
there is something in the market (Jessie Ware’s
album) already there.

13. We also found that many artists have logos, such as pop band One Direction have a 1D
emblem. Many artists within our genre didn’t have this, and so we decided to be daring and
go against conventions and make one for Ninah, that would be displayed on our digipak and
website. We wanted to have at least one panel of our digipak displaying this proudly, and
chose the disk tray, as conventionally nothing much is really placed here but a ‘filler’.
Conventionally on the front panel of a digipak the content can vary, although looking at
albums from Jessie Ware and AlunaGeorge, the Black and White and very simple theme is
popular. And we knew that this was the look we wanted to achieve too. This made our
product not only look good against products within our genre, but also look well presented
and classy, with a fierce edge too.
The back panel was the most fun to create, using fonts, colours and creating song names for
Ninah J. The song names we came up with had to fit nicely with the conventions of genre,
so having edgy and cool sounding songs was a must. We also needed to include the legal
information that is featured on every single digipak to our own, including the record label
logo. We chose Island Records because of their history with house/dance artists.
All panels had to adhere to the same look, meaning have the same running colour schemes,
same fonts and similar layouts – we wanted everything clean cut and organised as ‘messy’
and ‘crowded’ looking digipaks are not conventional.

15. I established that most websites from many different genres were pretty basic and often
contained the same information – ‘need to know’. I looked mainly at the websites of Katy B
and Jessie Ware, as both of these were main inspirations for our overall products and both
had websites that provided enough information, but aesthetically looked pleasing too.
Each contained links to social media websites, a place the artist would individually promote
themselves. Both sites contained images of their latest updates via Instagram, social media
links, photo gallery's, a personal blog, a bio, video links and competitions. Although it is
popular for artists to have an online store where they sell merchindise this did not appeal to
us when creating our website, as we felt our target audience did not want this nor when we
did our research did many artists in our genre have them. A popular link on each site was the
contact buttons, enabling fans to get in touch with their favourite artist, of course we
incorporated one of these. Adverts for upcoming albums or singles were also posted onto
artists’ websites, so we created one of these for our digipak too.
We adhered strongly to the conventions of genre within our website, and also kept a strong
link between this and our digipak by keeping the same colour and font scheme. Like Jessie
Ware’s website, we wanted all the key information to be on the homepage and easily
accessible, so we added everything important and popular that came under ‘buttons’ on the
website to the front homepage anyway. We thought a bio would not only make our website
become more personal, but it would create a connection between audience and artist.
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram links were social media links we decided would be
beneficial to our target audience. Having researched what medias the target group uses, we
felt these social media technologies would be a good idea.

16. We also noticed on artist websites, there were
recent music video releases, including back
stage clips or competition videos, pictures of
live gigs, and ticket releases for new events
and concerts. We included all of these within
Ninah J’s website, including a personalised gig
guide.