Evaluation – question 1.

In order to look back and see what conventions I did

and did not follow, I must reconsider the conventions

from the pop genre. I used research from theorist

Andrew Goodwin, and used this to influence my pre-

production choices for my product.

This is my initial genre

research, and looking back at

my product I can see how this

influenced my final decisions,

having used many of the

conventions stated. These are

music video conventions.

Conducting this research also made me more aware of what is considered

before creating a music video, how this will appear to the target audience,

and how they will respond. Through all these being used in Rhianna ft.

Drake ‘What’s my name’ and this song having huge popularity, I know that

these conventions work for the pop genre, and conform to audiences

expectations.

This is my personal research into the pop genre, and this helped me

identify more obscure conventions, understanding the aims of the

genre. Again this helped me apply this to John Mayer’s work so I

could see what conventions were and weren’t present in his work.

I then looked at real media texts

from established pop artists. I

learnt how these conventions,

from my own research and

theorists research were applied

to products, and how they are

adapted to suit the artists styles

and needs. They all followed

conventions, just in different

manners. This helped me

understand how to conform to

conventions, but also diverge

away. And I learnt more about

why John Mayer’s production

style and how he applies these

conventions in his personal music

videos.

Reviewing John Mayer’s music videos, I have identified

what conventions he personally does and doesn’t use.

Conventions he uses Conventions he challenges

• Performance element – this is

something Goodwin identifies, and this is

present in all of John Mayer’s music

videos, present either with a guitar or

miming. This conforms to his acoustic

style of song.

• Emphasis on production – Many

music videos of him are in the studio, or

with him on stage in concert. This shows

his dedication and puts an emphasis on

the production of his products and the

technology involved.

• Close ups – He uses close ups, but not

all the time – and this partly conforms to

conventions, as Goodwin states ‘lots of

close-ups’

• Narrative – In most music videos, a

clear narrative is used – and this is an

important convention of the genre.

Mostly they are relationship orientated –

which conforms further to genre

expectations.

• Voyeuristic treatment of women –Due to the slow, steady beat to John

Mayer’s songs, they are more romantic than

wild. Therefore it would be inappropriate to

use women in such ways, therefore he

doesn’t conform to such convention.

• Close ups – His main shots are a mid to

long shot, whereas in a song ft. Katy Perry,

a close up shot is constantly used – this may

be because she is more conformist to pop

genre conventions.

• Mise-en-scene – There is a lack of

emphasis with mise-en-scene – very low key

and simple, John Mayer wearing casual

clothing in a relatable location. Naturalistic.

• Link between visuals, music and

lyrics - John Mayer focuses further on the

pragmatics of the lyrics, and focuses more

on a narrative/to portray a message rather

than creating links between the 3

conventional factors

I must evaluate what conventions I did and did not use, doing

this will then allow me to explain why I chose to do this.

Conventions I used Conventions I challenged

• A link between the visuals,

lyrics and music.

• Mise-en-scene

• Narrative

• Dancing

• Voyeuristic treatment of the

female body

• Reflecting existing trends

• Colouring

After creating this table, I have realised how much I have conformed to

John Mayer’s conventions, and further to pop genre conventions.

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A link between visuals, lyrics and music - During the pre-production phase of the project, whilst on my first shooting

script with the lyrics, I found my ideas were best fitted to create this visual link, this is partly because I was influenced by having

the lyrics in front of me, so I conformed to what they were saying, and it is also easier to create a narrative using this style. I knew

not to make the narrative too complicated, because to due not being advanced or confident enough to make it extremely effective.

Furthermore, a generic convention with my chosen genre is the link, therefore I am conforming. Whilst I conform to pop genre

conventions, I challenge John Mayer, who does not identify with the link. I challenged John Mayer because many of his videos simply

feature him miming to the music, which is not something I wanted to feature within my music video.

Mise-en-scene - My mise-en-scene used is simplistic and representative of the type of song and romance. Therefore it is suited

to the type of song, which conforms to genre stereotypes. The use of the field shows the rurality of the song, and romanticises the

themes of love within it. I put thought in consideration into the planning, knowing which section of countryside I wanted to use, and

what clothes I wanted my actors to wear, for example, I knew for the dancing section I wanted a black leotard and black skirt to be

worn. This is because this is a neutral outfit, a typical dancing uniform. This keeps these sections formal and smart - serious. By

wearing such outfit, it keeps the section non-sexual, because the outfit conforms to the style of dance and keeps the formality in

place. I chose to do this because I thought they were relevant towards the song and how it portrays the message, furthermore, I

enjoyed shooting the footage more because I enjoyed the location I was in.

Narrative - Another genre convention is the use of a narrative, I conform to this, using a narrative of romance. I chose to use this

style of narrative because the song is primarily about love ‘I’m a bad boy for breaking her heart’ and there is an emphasis on love

styled narratives within this genre - so automatically I thought about creating this styled narrative through being influenced by other

media texts.

Dancing - Whilst this comes under the headline ‘performance elements’ in my personal genre research I found that a separate

pop genre convention is the encouragement of dance, and being dance orientated. I conform to this, because I use a softer style of

dance that features within normal pop products - hiphop normally features - that is more suited to the song, I chose to conform to

this convention because it suits the soft style of song I’ve used, and provides variation for my audience, so the whole product isn’t

based around a narrative. This is positive as some narratives can become boring throughout the song, whereas this provides relief

from it for my audience. I also enjoyed helping to choreograph certain movements - being able to visualise them in my head, I knew

what I wanted. I enjoy dancing so understood how to make it look effective, it also enhanced skills as I had to learn how to make

these look effective through choosing a camera angle best for the move, and also edit these into my product. This gave me more

skills to present.

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Voyeuristic treatment of the female body - This is a convention I have not followed. This is

because it does not fit within the themes of my product - as it is a slow, soft song about the nature of love,

featuring no fast beats or explicit content, which are features that stereotypically accompany such

conventions. Such representations don’t fit to the songs or my ideas - it would also seen as degrading for a

female within this style of song, it simply does not conform to the conventions for its use.

Reflecting existing trends - My product does not reflect any existing trends - such as fashion. I

consciously chose not to do this because I feel my product doesn’t need to focus on such things, instead I chose

to focus more on the cinematography elements, and meanings this will create rather than conforming to world

trends.

Colouring - I think I challenge conventions of colour. In pop genre music videos, colours are always

representative of the style of song - for example, Rhianna’s ‘What’s my name’ Uses many vibrant colours,

which represent the light hearted nature of the song, whilst Sam Smiths ‘Stay’ uses low key lighting, which

shows the sadness of the song. Whilst for my own product I use black and white - which conforms to

conventions because they are dull colours, which conform to the song, and also to John Mayer’s style (many of

his videos such as ‘Waiting on the world to change’ are in black and white). However, I develop this to again

suit my product more because I use vey dull, rural - green- colours, which does not conform to genre

conventions, as they’re all similar. However, I think it suits my products style.

Also, the simple feature of miming does not feature in my music video. I challenge this convention because it is

a popular feature within music videos and within John Mayer’s personal conventions, however, I chose against

using this convention because I didn’t feel it fit in with my narrative, and it would be difficult to make it look

natural for my actors.

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Performance element – I challenged the performance element through using John Mayer’s

convention of playing the guitar, whilst I do this I challenged this convention by changing the way I

have showed it. I use many close ups, which does not conform to John Mayer’s use of it, as he is

normally featured using a long shot. This is so the audience can see him playing the guitar, whereas I

wanted to focus on the actual playing of the guitar. Therefore I have used this as a convention, but

developed it to suit my own product.

Close ups - I develop the use of close ups because I use them, yet not as often as a true part of the

convention would. Therefore it is a convention that I use, by using close up shots, however I challenge

it by using more. This is because I knew that other shots would look better in their place, and so I used

close ups occasionally to create a variation in shots.

Colouring - I think I challenge conventions of colour. In pop genre music videos, colours are always

representative of the style of song - for example, Rhianna’s ‘What’s my name’ Uses many vibrant

colours, which represent the light hearted nature of the song, whilst Sam Smiths ‘Stay’ uses low key

lighting, which shows the sadness of the song. Whilst for my own product I use black and white - which

conforms to conventions because they are dull colours, which conform to the song, and also to John

Mayer’s style (many of his videos such as ‘Waiting on the world to change’ are in black and white).

However, I develop this to again suit my product more because I use vey dull, rural - green- colours,

which does not conform to genre conventions, as they’re all similar. However, I think it suits my

products style.

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What are the conventions of digipaks and advertisements?

I have conducted smaller amounts of research into this aspect of the task in comparison to my genre research. I ensured I discovered everything that would need to be included, and things that would not. I further conducted artist ancillary product research, so I could see John Mayer’s conventions and compare them against genre conventions. Doing this allowed me to gather more ideas for my personal ancillary products, and seeing what conventions I did and did not like, I also looked at personal digipaks I owned to gather a real life perspective of their functioning, and whether I wanted to use a 6 or 4 panel wallet.

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To be able to identify what conventions I did and didn’t use, I must

again identify what the conventions of ancillary products are.

Conventions of digipaks Conventions of advertisements

• Main images - These are the main promoters of

the pack, and link to production, they must be eye

catching, relevant to the product, and contain critical

information such as name of the artist/album, song

names, music label, bar codes.

• Relevance to the genre – The product music

be representative of the genre so audiences will be

able to identify and label.

• Reviews - Reviews will make the product look

more in demand, and this may influence audiences

to buy the album who are fans of the magazine.

• Colour scheme – The colour scheme used

conventionally reflects the mood of the album and

artist.

• Information – Track list, artist, titles, basic

background information, acknowledgments.

• Images - They are always images of the artist on

the advertisement, this means the audience can make

connections to the artist. Again through being eye

catching it will help the audience remember it, and this

will create a good impression for the album. It is

normally a themed photo shoot

• Information – Advertisements always include

relevant information such as release date, title, name

of the artist, reviews, albums availability.

• Social Media – From the rise of social media in

the succession of media products, it is a convention

that social media forms will appear on the

advertisement. These include Twitter (hash tags),

Facebook pages, websites and more.

• Text – The text used is important, and needs to be

selected carefully, using adjectives such as

‘Outstanding’ and ‘Brilliant’ which make the product

look more appealing. Furthermore there are certain

phrases which conventionally are larger/smaller. Such

as the artists name is larger, along with the title and

‘new album’. Potentially an ‘includes’ list.

Again to further understand what personal conventions used, challenged and

developed in comparison to my artist, I need to review the conventions he

personally uses and challenges from his own ancillary products.

Conventions he uses Conventions he challenges

• Main images – As the images show, a single main image of John Mayer stands in the center of the front cover. This immediately allows the audience to identify him. This is a clear convention of his throughout all of his ancillary products.

• Colour scheme – All products are generally low key, and contain low key colours – greys, blacks – this reflects the style of Mayer’s music, it is generally slow, with a theme of love.

• Relevance to the genre – John Mayer has adopted a clear style for his products, resulting in this style becoming his ancillary identity.

• Social media – It is important to utilisethe uses that social media provides. Products contain website details and possibly some other mediums.

• Information – Mayer always uses the information needed only, therefore his products are uncluttered, and look more professional.

• Reviews – John Mayer rarely uses reviews

on a product, this may be because he more

active in forms of social media. Furthermore, in

his style John Mayer is minimalist, meaning it is

unlikely his advertisements will be cluttered with

extra unneeded information.

• Text - Through the lack of reviews and

simplistic style of his ancillary products, a lot of

the text is the same size, some parts are in bold

to make them appear more important and to be

remembered, yet he challenges this due to the

inconsistency of using this convention.

• Stickers - ‘includes the single…’ John Mayer

does not use this to again conform to

minimalism. Stickers such as this will make the

product look clumsy and cluttered.

• Still shots (use themed photoshoots)

• Stickers

Creating a table such as this helps me identify what conventions I did and did not follow.

Conventions I use Conventions I challenged

• Information

• Relevance to the genre

• Colour

• Text

Again, it stands out that I have conformed more to conventions than not.

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Information - I used this convention because it is key to a successful ancillary product, that audiences of

all ages can understand. Through using relevant information it means my audience are aware of everything

they need to know in order to access the product. This is a convention of all ancillary products regardless of

the style/genre, because they are key to the audience understanding, and enjoying the product.

Colour - I conform to the use of colour to represent the emotions/themes of the album. This is shown

through the use of a mainly black and white colour scheme for my digipak wallet and advertisement, and

subdued colouring for the booklet product - created through lowering the colouring on images behind the

lyrics. I did this to create a colour theme amongst my ancillary products, and to conform to conventions.

Text - I conform to the style of text mainly used for ancillary products in a huge way. This is because of

the variety of text fonts my products present, across all aspects. This is particularly evident on my

advertisement, where it is important for the audiences needs that certain sections of text stand out from

others to highlight their importance and to separate them. Doing this also makes the product more eye

catching, and varied in style, which in turn makes the product more likely to be noticed/remembered.

Relevance to the genre – My product is relevant to the pop genre because of the images I use – an

image of a happy young female - and the style of it. I further conform to John Mayer’s style by gathering

ideas from his own personal digi-pak and replicating this.

The format and framing of my digipak conforms to John Mayer, because I took inspiration from one of his own

products. Using an image at the side with writing on the other at a 90 degree angle. Conforming to John Mayer

and his style. However I go against John Mayer’s format/framing conventions for my advertisement product

because of the way my images are placed (there are multiple), and the amount of information that is on the

product - it goes against Mayer’s typical minimalistic style.

Still shots – I go against the conventions of using still shots in ancillary products, mainly because I have

used screenshots from my product, and this is not a typically used way for ancillaries. This is because for a

developed artist, a professional themed photo shoot which is representative of the whole albums theme

will be done. Therefore my digipak goes against the convention because I did not do this. By using still

shots it makes the album look more professional, and the image will be clearer, an issue with mine is that

the images on the front of my digipak are slightly blurred due to being screenshots from my final product.

Stickers - These include stickers on the front of the product stating what hits are on the album, and I

have not included this onto my product, because I have conformed to John Mayer’s minimalist style,

therefore felt that using such marketing method was unneeded. Also, the track names are on the back, and

the audience should be able to connect these to the succession of the song.

Images – I conform to the style of using images, through them being a continuous thing within my product,

however I develop this on the 4 panel case of my digipak. With generic conventions and also John Mayer’s

personal conventions, the norm is for the artist to use a personal image of themselves. Therefore I have

developed this convention by using an image, which follows conventions, yet I adapt this to my own products

style by using an image from my narrative. I did this to develop links amongst my products and increase

audiences knowledge about the narrative. Furthermore, I conform to use of using professional images of my

artist, however I’ve developed this because I do not use them as the main focus of selling the product. Instead

I mainly use them inside my booklet, and this was to make the product more relevant to the artist, conforming

to booklet formats, and also it wasn’t appropriate to try and link images from my product onto other songs - as

they’re personal to ‘free fallin’’ and if the album was realistically being produced, other videos would have

been produced for other songs on the album, hence the free fallin’ video would have been irrelevant to them.

Therefore I have developed this by using the convention but not using it to be the main promotor of the album.

Social media - I use this convention but develop it by using a limited amount. I have chosen select social

media forms to use, using only his website and twitter. This is because using too many social media forms can

make a product look cluttered and messy, and furthermore I am conforming towards John Mayer, although he

uses more medias to promote products. Hence I am developing his convention through adapting it to fit my

product.

Reviews – I have used the convention of reviews on my ancillary product, yet develop it because I only use

the marketing technique of reviews on one product – my advertisement. I chose to do this to make my product

less crowded, however I felt it is such a prominent convention that I had to use it to make the succession of my

product greater. It is also expected of an institution to provide reviews for a product, and for these to be

displayed. Also, by not going into great detail I have gone against conventions, as I have only used an adjective

to describe the magazines feelings, and so have adapted the convention to again suit my product.

Overall, across all of my products, I conformed to conventions more than not. This is because I feel by watching products, thus being influenced by them, it sways your production decisions to being more conformist towards genre conventions. By also conducting research on real media texts it helped me gather an understanding of what conventions I did and didn’t like personally, consequently liking more than I disliked, and editing these into my product.

Also, by the genre I had chosen, which is stereotypical, it is difficult not to be conformist with the styles and ideas that I had. Furthermore, by diverging too far away from conventions it would drive my target audience away. This is because they have expectations of a product from the pop genre, and expects products too conform to this.

So in conclusion, I feel as though my products they are conformist to the genre, and whilst I enjoyed developing conventions to put my own style onto them, conforming to conventions made my product more suited to my target audience, which is part of Goodwin’s theory of making the audience feel connected to the product, and feel as though they’re gaining something from it.