Conventions Essay Question

In your experience, how has your understanding of conventions developed through creating your productions

Throughout my two years of study I have produced a film opening as well as music video. While producing these product, I have learnt all about how to use and develop forms and conventions and it is what I will be discussing throughout this essay.

Firstly, in year 12 we produced a film opening and chose to produce it with a crime drama genre. We knew it was important to identify a genre as this made sure the film opening would be easy to understand and have a clear narrative. With it being a crime genre, we knew we had to include some of its stereotypical conventions so that the genre would be portrayed. Some including; secretive characters, criminal activity, a hidden, deeper story lines, as well as an element of risk within that story line. We know this because we researched into the genre and what forms where included in similar films. The midnight express was one of these examples as it had the similar drug smuggling story line. They had drugs in shot so we chose to replicate this by using brownies brought from the shop. Obviously as these were not real drugs it meant we lost the realistic element to our video and this was something we could have defiantly improved on.

We also made sure to include enigma codes so that it kept the audience guessing and interested in the film. These were questions like why is he dealing the drugs? What is going to happen to him later on in the film? Why has he gone down this route? All of these were used so that our target audience found our film opening intriguing and it gave them an interesting drama to watch. Although we chose to include the regular conventions like the titles and exponential shots, we also chose to challenge conventions by changing the stereotype of the drug dealer. We wanted the film to be modern yet have elements of old fashioned gangs. Therefore, we chose to have an Italian drug dealer as the supplier of the drugs show him to be in power. This gave the image that the old mafia leaders were still in power today. This worked well yet when filming the shots, this idea didn’t come across very well and it meant that it was very confusing to the audience. Which gave us something to work on in year 13, making the narrative clear.

In year 13 we adapted on the generic pop genre and added an element of country, to make it a new and unique production that no one had seen before. We made sure it did so by including country outfits such as the hats, boots and denim. With also the use of the outdoor countryside locations. We made sure it was also a pop music video due to the upbeat music and our fashionable stylistic photo shoots and outfits used in the music video. We researched into these conventions and how other media products brought them across in their music videos and other ancillary products. Maddie and Tay were a main influence down to their fun-loving country vibes, as well as fifth harmony and little mix as they both had a similar target audience to our band and had also produced very successful work. These helped us massively as it meant we had certain guidelines we knew we needed to follow to be successful. We then lead on to focus on the works of carol vernalise and Andrew Goodwin. Their work showed us the conventions of music video, what makes it successful and professional. These included, the relationship between the lyrics and visuals, including multiple close ups and messing around with the narrative of the music video.

In addition to the music video we also produced a digipak and a website. We took influenced from Dolly Parton’s album cover for hungry again as we liked the shot of her on the bench and chose to replicate this. We also made all of the titles with a pastel pink effect to incorporate our sweet and innocent theme. These ideas were also used in the website where we used them as our text colours and the back-ground colours. We included more photos from our photo shoot of the wooden background as well so that it brought all of our products together. We chose to challenge forms and conventions of a typical country music video by not setting it in a dusty barn or pub, but to include the English country side. This then changed the stereotypical setting and proved that English country music videos can be made successfully and whilst still portraying the country theme.

Within year 13 we all pushed at producing our best work and then some and I feel it has really showed how we have developed our knowledge in the music industry. This knowledge and added background research has helped us to produce a product that is recognisable to our audience and create a brand image that is unique yet popular at the same time.