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

To answer this question we did a video response in which we talk about how our product applies to  Goodwin's theory and Vernallis' theory and how we've stuck to the conventions of music videos in general as well as pop boy band videos. We then go on to discuss how our two ancillary products, the website and album cover also follow conventions of the music industry.





We purposely followed all the typical conventions of a pop boy band in our music videoas we wanted it to seem as realistic and mainstream as possible and I think we’ve shown this really well.

Videos we have taken references from are JLS and The Wanted

JLS - Beat Again


JLS - One Shot

Typical conventions of a pop boy band are:

Fun upbeat light-hearted style

I think we created this atmosphere very well in our music video.  The song is very lively and we’ve got a very fast pace throughout the video, our shots never really last more than 2 seconds and we’ve got a lot of quick cuts to the music emphasising the fast up beat pace of the video.  The boys all look like they’re having a good time, laughing and playing around to the camera etc.  This is very similar to videos from JLS and the Wanted

Hardly any narrative – just performance

We’ve stuck to this convention completely as we have no narrative at all in our video, the only concept we have in our video is the boys getting ready at the start to go out on a Friday night but apart from that it is completely performance based.

Set dance routines

Again we’ve followed this convention as we have one dance routine we use throughout the video which we cut back to a lot and use it as our master shot of the band.  This is very similar to JLS’ video One Shot and Beat Again.

Colour scheme for costume

We used a grey/blue/black colour scheme for out costume in the video, in the studio we made it very stylish and fashionable eg. tight v-necks, lace up boots etc. and in the house we had them in suits in the rich location so this connotes the money theme of the song.  We also used the same colour scheme throughout our album cover and website which creates a really strong band indentity.

The ‘look’ – lots of close up and looking into the camera

This is probably the most important convention of a boy band so we were very conscious of making sure we had close ups and ‘the look’ when we were filming and throughout editing the music video.  Looking into the camera makes the audience feel very involved and entices them to watch more, it also attracts our core target audience of teenage girls as a lot of the appeal to them is about their look so they’ll want to see a lot of close ups.

Other conventions of music videos in general are:

The relationship between lyrics and visuals

We represented a lot of the lyrics in the music video visually, this is important as it emphasises the lyrics of the song and makes it really clear to the audience what the video is about.

"In the mirror"

"Just got paid" 

"Nodding your head"

The relationship between music and visuals

Throughout our music video we constantly cut to the beat of the music so we have a lot of quick sharp cuts as the music is very upbeat.  This emphasises the beat of the music and makes it flow very easily and makes it very easy for audiences to watch.  It also makes the editing really stand out and makes the video look very professional.