To have specific reoccurring themes, such as love, rejection or wealth. Another convention is to focus on the artist or specifically if the artist is a band, the camera will focus on the person who's seen as the leader of the band, this is conventionally the lead singer. They are focused on through a use of close ups in regards to camera work in a performance video. But they can also be highlighted if it's a narrative video by having the story built around them. An example is Telephone by Lady Gaga.
Our chosen genre was the rock genre, in order to make the best music video possible it was important to have a good understanding of generic conventions specific to our chosen genre. An example of one of these generic conventions is the costume is often jeans, T-shirt and some form of jacket which is either, denim, leather or a long coat.
Another convention is that videos are often entirely performance this is to show how much the artist performing and how they want people to focus on the music rather than a storyline of a narrative based video. However cross over videos are also popular in the genre. An example of an entirely performance based video is "Shoot to Thrill" by AC/DC, an example of a cross over video is "Gives You Hell" by All American Rejects. In terms of acting in a performance video the artist has open body language and a happy facial expression if they want to focus on and highlight how much they enjoy performing in the video. If however they want thier performance to reflect on the themes of the lyrics then the artist's body language is more tense and their facial expression is more serious or in some cases neutral in order to focus on the lyrics. Conventional pace of editing is usually medium to fast pace depending on the tempo of the song. Again "Shoot to Thrill" and "Gives You Hell" are good examples of conventional editing. The lighting in the two videos are also conventional as they use high key lighting to make the artists stand out and highlight how much they enjoy performing. We developed this convention as we use a mix of high and low key lighting, to highlight the performance but also highlight the themes of regret and drifting apart.
Our music video breaks the convention of having an entirely performance based video instead our video is a cross over. However I feel that we have developed the idea of a cross over video because the opening of our video is a narrative based scene that is outside of the track itself. This is then repeated at the end of the video as the final scene is also narrative based and not part of the song. An example of a music video having narrative outside the track is "Born To Be My Baby" by Bon Jovi.
A general convention of music videos is that often women are over sexualised or portrayed as the needy "damsel in distress". The rock genre follows this convention and an example of women being over sexualised in a video is "American Badass" by Kid Rock. We chose to break this convention and made the female character more dominant when compared to the male narrative protagonist. We did this by building the narrative storyline around her leaving him and how he wants more from here and at times seems he's struggling to let go. This is made apparent in the opening of the video when he asks the singer "Did I ever tell you about the girlfriend I had a few years ago". I feel in a way we not only broke the convention but reversed it as it's the male character who comes across as needy at times. An example of a music video that has the woman as the dominant character in a couple is "Tears Don't Fall" by Bullet For My Valentine. Having said that there is a difference between the video for "Tears Don't Fall" and our own because although the woman is the most dominant character by the end of the video, there is still a highly sexual element to her that isn't in our video.
One convention we did follow is the use of a guitar in the video, this a rock genre generic convention as guitars feature in nearly all rock videos in some way. I feel this is because the guitar is synonymous with the rock genre, and images of guitars have connotations of rock songs and concerts. Also guitars have provided some of the most memorable moments in rock videos and the songs themselves. For example the opening rifts to "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead and "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. In regards to memorable moments in videos, I feel one of the best is in the video for "November Rain" by Guns 'N' Roses, when Slash begins to play outside the church where one of the narrative based scenes is set. In terms of our locations, they are conventional as the performance scenes are set on a stage and the narrative locations show the isolation of the protagonist but also reflect the more upbeat lyrics, an example is when the singer and narrative protagonist play fight on the lyric "Young and restless".
When we began work on the ancillary tasks I felt it was important to have a good understanding of the conventions of digipaks and magazine adverts as well. An example of a digipak convention is that it has a basic colour scheme consisting of no more than three colours, conventionally this colour scheme includes any text on the digipak. A good example of a digipak following this convention is "Only By The Night" by Kings Of Leon. Another convention of a digipak is that the main image of the front cover is an image of the artist or a piece of original artwork that is significant to the artist (As seen on "Only By The Night). An example of the artist being the main image of the front cover is "Reckless" by Bryan Adams.
Another convention is brand identity, this applies to both ancillary tasks and what brand identity is, is a tag line, image or logo that gains instant recognition for the artist and helps set the mood for the audience. Which is why a convention of magazine adverts is to use the digipak's front cover as it's main image as well as having the same font and colour scheme. You can see that these conventions are followed when we compare the "Only By The Night" digipak with the magazine advert used to promote it.
Finally a convention that both digipaks and magazine adverts share is having the name of the artist bigger than the name of the album. I feel this is because that often an artist is more recognisable than an album or specific song. An example of this convention being followed on a digipak is "Dark Horse" by Nickelback.
Here is our digipak:
We followed the convention of having a photo of the artist as the main image of the front cover, so we could promote the artist as much as possible, this why their is an image of the artist one of the inside panel as well. Also because we made the digipak as a single rather than a whole album it meant we could promote the video as well. We did this by having a photo of the singer and the video's narrative protagonist as the main image for the back panel. The convention is also followed on the other inside panel because the main image is a photo collage of various stills from the video and other footage that wasn't used in the final cut. This links to the convention as it's an example of artwork significant to the artist. We also followed the convention of a three colour, colour scheme. In our case these colours were red, white and black.
A convention that we broke is that the titles of the artist and album are the same size, this because we want to promote both as much as possible.
One convention that's specific to magazine adverts is to have ratings from critics on the advert. This is used to help promote the album and artist because if people see that an independent source thinks highly of the product then they will be encouraged to buy the album. Another convention is to include the logo of specific retailers on the advert, such as HMV or itunes. This is to show people where to buy the album and it adds to the sense of an independent voice promoting the album. Having a specific song mentioned on the advert is also a convention because often people will know an album because of one song. An example of a magazine advert following these conventions is the advert for "Wake Me Up When September ends".
Here is our magazine advert:
Once again we broke the convention of having the name of the artist bigger than the name of the album, because we wanted to promote both as much as possible. A convention we followed was having the same main image as the digipak as well as the same colour scheme and font as the digipak. This was so we could add to the Brand Identity of our product and have as much chance of gaining instant recognition from the audience as possible. Another convention we followed was to include the web adresses for the artist's Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as his official website, www.bryanadams.com we did this to promote the artist as much as possible. We also followed the convention of including critics ratings to help with promotion, as well as mentioning a specific song. However both the digipak and magazine advert we made around releasing "Summer of 69" as a single rather than a whole album. Finally we followed the convention of having the logos of retailers and the artist's record label on the advert. This was so we could promote the album to a wide a market as possible.This was added to when we developed the convention by including a smart phone scanner on the advert as well. Another reason it was a good idea to include these logos is that because they don't fit the colour scheme they stand out against the white background, helping to grab the audience's attention.
