Our music video directly challenges the usual conventions of a pop music video in which you usually see a typical boy girl relationship where the girl is often seen as fighting for the male affections and being controlled by the male character.
Here is an example of the usual conventions where the leading female is trying to impress the male character by using their body and sexuality to do so, which supports Laura Mulveys theory of the Male Gaze.
We decided to directly challenge this by using a Ken doll to represent the male in a relationship, this was to empower our female character and illustrate how the convention can be challenged by the male character not being in control, and having to rely on the female character. We also showed Ken to try and win the females characters affections with flowers, which although is a convention and cliche our video challenges this as the female character is shown to make Ken look weak by knocking him over and refusing his affections. This illustrates how we challenged Mulvey's theory and instead of objectifying women, we have objectified men.
An aspect of our video that conforms to real media products is the representation of women, although our video challenges the typical stereotypes of women we also conform, For example when Ruby is annoyed with Ken she is presented as a strong woman but when she is shown to be in love she conforms to the stereotypical image of women, which we wanted to illustrate the idea of female empowerment and independence. For example a scene in which Ruby is shown to follow a housewife image/role where she is making Ken a meal, this is to illustrate the effect of the relationship on her life
Voyeurism
A convention we have followed is the use of voyeurism, this is a common feature of a music video as it is a way of introducing the artist. We chose to use a record player in order to fit in with the retro theme of our song and the quirkiness of the video. We also liked the bright colours as it fit with our pop genre.
When discussing what form of voyeurism we would use we looked at examples of other music videos, for example Rizzle Kicks feature their album on a table whilst Olly Murs uses a similar use to ours, using a record player to present the song.
Styling
Styling was a key factor in our music video, typically female artists are often dressed provocatively due to being aimed towards a male market particularly in the R&B genre with artists such as Rihanna and Ciara. We decided to challenge this usual styling for female artists and dress Ruby as a classy and cute with an urban edge. We contrasted her outfits with her surroundings, for example we put her in a teadress when in Brixton, rather than an edgy outfit. This was to represent her individuality as an artist.
Originally, we researched clothing ideas for Ruby on fashion blogs such as weheartit and asos look book in order to get inspiration and ideas. As well as this we looked into styles that artists of our genre wore as well as make up styles. We particularly took inspiration from Jessie J who inspired us to use bright lipstick in our video.
As audience is a key factor to our music video we made sure Ruby Reigns was an identifiable artist teenage girls could identify with, we did this by making Ruby an artist that was 'girl next door with an edge' this made her a good role model girls could aspire to be.
As the Male Gaze is a key factor to female artists in the music industry nowadays we wanted to challenge this by putting Ruby in clothes she could look pretty in, yet not too provocative, making her more appealing for girls rather than boys. We did this to present her as different to other artists in the industry. The only outfit we used that would be conforming to the Male Gaze was the tennis outfit, although this was used for comedy value to add to the humour of the scene and how serious she took it as a character.
Digipak
My digipak proved to both challenge and conform to conventions. For example digipaks often feature a large image of the artists face on the front cover, I challenged this by using a full length shot of my artist amongst surroundings in order for her style to be expressed, as well as not being represented as a serious artist, her colourful surrounding present her and her music as happy and fun. We challenged similar artists in the Indie Pop genre such as Ellie Goulding in which the front of her album Lights features a large image of her face, in order for the main focus to be on her whilst we challenged this in order for our artist to appear less self absorbed and serious.
My digipak also challenged forms as it featured aspects from my music video, for example scrabble pieces and the brick work. Commonly, other artists from our genre do not feature aspects of their video on their digipak, they usually feature images taken from a photo shoot, for example Rihanna (Image below). I did this in order to create a consistent brand image and allow fans to link these images. Unlike some artists who use one large image for the inside of the digipak such as Rihanna I used two images inside, one being the CD in which I transferred an image of Ruby onto, which commonly other artists do not use either using plain text or an image of other items such as Rihanna who uses a Rose.
Ideas from other videos
We used the idea of stop animation from other videos such as Kate Nash Foundations in order to add a quirky edge to our video. We also liked the effect this add and liked the way it fit in with the beat of our song. Similarly to Kate Nash we liked the way the stop animation of items represented the relationship of our two characters. We thought Kate Nash was a good example to follow due to her being in our indie-pop genre.
We used this stop animation using scrabble against a brick pattern to add to our quirky theme and add to the playful message of the video. We also used this as the beginning of the video in order to introduce the character of Ken.
Another idea we gained inspiration from was Olly Murs Busy video. We liked the idea of using a form of doll or toy in order to represent a relationship, at first we had ideas of using a mannequin but soon realised it was inconvenient.We brainstormed and came up with the idea of using a Ken doll as it was humorous and also more convenient to carry when going around London filming. Our concept was slightly different from the Olly Murs video as the video shows the story of Olly being in love with a mannequin figure who becomes real at the end of the song, we challenged this by showing two sides of a relationship with Ruby being both happy and sad in the relationship. We also challenged the ending as at first we toyed with idea of Ruby becoming a doll at the end or Ken becoming human, we decided to leave the characters as they were and have the ending of them going off together happy. We chose this as more of a quirky and less obvious ending and as the audience had watched the evolution of the couples relationship through the song, they should stay as they are.
Camera
In regards to camera angles, our video conforms to conventions of music videos of our genre. For example we use a lot of mid shots of our artist, similarly used in Kate Nash Foundations. This shot is commonly used in our genre as it features the artists clearly and closely, which in our genre is important as it is very image/appearance based.
ADVERT
My magazine advert conforms to other media texts as it is features a large central image of the artist, this is in order for the audience to identify the artist and learn about their music and identity. I also conformed to other media texts due to my use of quotes from publications such as 'the future generation of pop' Q magazine. This illustrates a convention of a music advert as the audience are able to see reviews of the album, which encourages them to buy it.
An example I looked at was Kate Nash's advert to advertise her album 'Made of Bricks', here a full size image is not featured as it focuses on the album title which relates to a house, the fantasy atmosphere allows the audience to identify the fun nature of the artist and the quirky message to her songs.
In order to create a brand for my artist I have used the brickwork image as it ties in with the music video when scrabble is spelt amongst a brick patterned background. I also chose bright colours for the text in order to identify the artist with fun and playfulness, which allow her audience to understand her personality.
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