1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? <br /> The conventions of our media product depend on our chosen genre which was pop. The genre includes lots of performance based, high energy meat shots of the artist. Our music video follows these conventions by using short dance performance pieces that are fun and energetic throughout the video. Instead of using a full dance routine like most pop videos do and like we had planned to, we thought it would be more interesting to have short fast clips when there were short instrumental points in the song. This makes it more interesting to watch for the audience and keeps their attention instead of dragging out a repeated dance routine which may become boring after a while and distract the audience from the lip syncing which shows the personality and emotive side of the artist. We used lots of mid and long meat shots of the artists which helped introduce the artists at the beginning of the song and allowed us to add our own personality to our shots by using our own styled movements and illustrative gimmicks. Long shots also allowed us to show off our own unique quirky costumes that match the themes and conventions of pop music and allowed us to show each group members individuality. <br /> However we also used a number of close ups to challenge the conventions of pop videos as they are not often used in this genre of video. We did this by making sure we still kept within the themes of a pop music video. An example is a close up on the lips lip syncing, however to fit in with the rest of our music video we put glitter on the lips and edited the contrast and brightness to add an unusual quirky shot, this also helps to sell the artist and emphasises voyeurism.Our music video challenged the conventions of real music videos as we had no real narrative or story line and based our video on disjuncture and surrealism. To do this we used unusual costumes (cones, glitter, bright clothing and large shouldered tops) and unique props ( hoola hoop, megaphones and a cardboard TV) This added a quirkiness and surrealism to our video which gave the impression that all the themes were completely random but somehow fit together due to our energetic and fun style of video. This unusual method is a lot more interesting and fun to watch and grabs the audience' attention as there is always something different going on in the mise en scene. In our video we kept the use of thought beats which are used in music videos. We used this in places such as walking in a line with the mega phones towards the end of the video keeping to the beat of the music. This allows the audience to refer to the visualizations in the song the next time they hear it. We also developed a style used by Marina and the Diamonds when she uses cartoon speech bubbles in her videos but instead we used computerised style fonts to display certain themed words in the song such as 'Nightlife' and 'Inside' these can also be used in a similar way to thought beats but as a way of identifying the visualisation in the head when the song is heard. When considering our actors we had to think about our disjuncture theme as there would be no typical boy, girl relationship portrayed in the video. We chose actors that were confident and outgoing. It was important that their personality could shine through the meat shots of the artist. Our main actor is portrayed Similar to Jake shears from the original Scissor Sisters as he is energetic, fun and shows a care free personality with his own individual views and attitude. To help identify whether our music matches the forms and conventions of a typical music video we need to reflect back on Andrew Goodwin’s points of analysis. From looking at our video the genre characteristics are the most important aspects of our video. We do this well as our video is catchy, fun and lively which is typical of a pop video. We considered the mise on scene as a major aspect of our video and thought about our props carefully to fit in with our disjuncture themes. Costumes are a major feature of pop video and we followed these conventions by even making our own unique costumes however we challenged it slightly by adding some more up to date items of clothing such as a leather jacket to add a cool mysterious feel to our fun quirky costumes. We had no real connection between the music and visuals as our theme was disjuncture. However we created a relationship through thought beats by the use of visuals and on screen shots and typography. We created a connection through the lyrics and visuals by using some props to refer to the lyrics in the song, an example of this is the lyrics 'that is so taboo' and having a taboo bottle in the shot. Another way we have interoperated the lyrics is by using parody. This is at the beginning of the video when the main artist Alex is wearing a wig; this is to reflect the lyrics 'I was a young girl'. This emphasis our fun and outgoing genre. The next point is a need to sell the artist. To do this we use a number of close ups of each artist to introduce them and display their personality. Costumes also help sell the artist and become part of their brand which is an important part of promoting the band. We challenged typical pop videos by using unusual costumes that where created by putting our inspiration from other artists together. This is shown in the cone top with reference to Madonna and the pink top with large shoulders which was inspired by Lady Gaga. We used voyeurism to attract the audience through the use of our fast shots and brightly coloured interactive backgrounds. We created different gradient backgrounds which add colour and fun to our shots and then used motion paths to add energy and fast moving shots; this creates excitement for the audience. Another way which voyeurism is used is through the artists as the unusual costumes are appealing and large hair and false eye lashes create an attraction and individuality. We challenged the conventions by not using intertextuality in our shots but by using it purely through our costumes that were inspired by other artists which can clearly be recognised.<br />