Task 1 - In What Ways Do Your Media Products Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

Our final media product has used the conventions of already existing media products such as the music video by Sade, ‘Cherish The Day’ where she can be seen standing on a high structure, overlooking New York City, clearly establishing her location. In our video, at first we used a birds eye view shot of London to establish the nationality of the artist ‘Ivy’ and then present her sitting on a wall in the foreground of iconic British council housing. This aided us in selling her star image as a young, homegrown British artist.

Here, again the use of already existing media product’s conventions to create our video has given us inspiration and support when in the production of the video. Having looked at Sade’s video for ‘Cherish the Day’ I decided that it might look affective too if Ivy was wearing an all white dress to prove the innocence and purity of her star image. ‘Breathe Me’ features shots where Ivy is placed in the foreground of iconic British council houses, whereas Sade is placed in the foreground of the iconic downtown Manhattan. The music marketing aspect of this choice allows Ivy to be sold as a British artist and gives her the gentle, innocent, good looking qualities that aspire to her target audience. Being high up above the skyline also provides her star image with a position of status and power, so she becomes ‘inspirational’ to her fans.

The narrative that Xenia Petley’s character followed in our video, of the girlfriend who is physically abused by her boyfriend is similar to narrative that is followed in Christina Aguilera’s video for ‘Beautiful’. Narratives in music videos are generally placed there in order to create a visible and clear storyline. Therefore, we have once again used a form and narrative that is already present in existing media products. The narrative of Xenia’s character allows the audience to see that she is weak and powerless. However, Ivy’s character then acts as a power providing resource. Therefore the narrative of Xenia’s character is made too boost the status of Ivy further.

In our music video we have used a form of cinematography that is already present in other already existing media products. The type of yellow shade, ‘street lighting’ we portrayed in our video is also present in the Alicia Key’s video, ‘Unthinkable’. All the references that I have made to other already existing media products, I have made sure I am able to relate back to Ivy’s star image because as real media stars, they hold some of the same dimensions as Ivy. Qualities that Ivy shares with other already established artists such as Alicia Keys is her innocence, purity, femininity, and empowering status to their fans.

The feather in our video is representative of Ivy and her star image as it features here, in the Digipak and on the album artwork. The feather is representational of many of her star image’s qualities. For example, it represents her ‘soft’ aspect which, too is made evident through her lyrics in the song, ‘Breathe Me’. The feather can be representation of her character as a whole. SIA, the original artist of this song has a ‘childish’ narrative that runs across her music videos and webpage as shown below. In the original music video for this song she incorporates other famous media products such as Star Wars and on her own webpage the choice of style emphasizes her star image.

The narrative based around sexuality in our music video follows the story of a transvestite. A story that has already been examined in Christina Aguilera’s video, ‘Beautiful’. Therefore, we have used narratives already present in produced media products. This narrative provides Ivy with a possible wider fan base attracting the Gay and Lesbian societies primarily of Britain and possibly further countries. It also shows that her star image is all-accepting, which is what audiences like to feel. Her star image attracts more fans because everyone feels as though they become closer to her actual self personally, when she touches on aspects of life that they’d hold close to themselves. 

Ivy’s star image is similar to that of the real star Sia. Ivy is represented at a young, independent, British artist. Her target audience is the younger teenage range, which we have tried to emphasize through the use of font choice. Our webpage therefore conforms to the narratives already produced around the original artist. The feather has also been placed on the webpage because it is representational of her star image and acts as her symbol.

With the album artwork we have tried to conform to the layout and style of already designed pop stars. For example, the work that we created is very similar to that of Adele’s. The choice of font we decided to use is similar to the star image of Sia, who is the original artist of the song that we chose. Her star image holds many child-like qualities, which is why we decided to use this font.