1. Evaluation Question 1
In what ways does your music product use, develop or challenge the forms
and conventions of real media products
For my music video genre I and my group decided we wanted to follow a pop
genre, wedecided to do this because it would be upbeat and therefore would
be fun and interesting to plan and film.
Before we began planning weresearched the typical codes and conventions
that a pop genre follow, this therefore gave us a better idea on how pop music
videos are planned out and typically what they look like.
Fromresearching the codes and conventions of a pop music video I have found
that typically artists are clothed in fashionableand stylish mainstream outfits.
Artists are portrayed as happy and enjoying life which links well with the lyrics
as the lyrics are normally based around love and relationships. Often artists
and brands who aredescribed to be pop artists express unity associated with
teens, which is the main target audience for this genre. Another convention of
pop music is that within the music industry it tends to follow current trends
rather than being independent and making something new and unique. The
formof the song often follows a verse-chorus-versestructureand uses hook
lines which are catchy therefore stays in the audiences mind. Also the songs
usually include beats that are very dance orientated and dance is also
incorporated in the music video to link with the beats of the song.
Fromdoing this researching and finding these conventions I believe my music
video follows a majority of these conventions. While planning our music video
we made sureour artistwas wearing trendy clothing. We used different outfits
in each different locations used and these outfits included silver leggings with a
silver matching top and a white fur coat, a red and black fur coat with
matching red lipstick these outfits follow the trendy and stylish outfits that are
typically used in a music video. One of our outfits was jeans and a leather
jacket which represents a mainstream outfit as this is something most teenage
girls would wear.
Another convention is that the song follows a currenttrend of verse-chorus-
verse, me and my group picked a song that followed this trend and therefore
we could havean ongoing trend of choreography going on throughoutthe
song making the visuals and lyrics link well together. We also choreographed
our music video to make it very dance orientated which linked well with the
song as it is an upbeat and happy song, the dance routines weincluded were
synchronised dancing of two females which is typical of a pop music video, this

2. makes them appear to be all around performers and notjustsingers. We
believed the dance we choreographed wentwell with the beats of the songs,
we also made the cuts of our clips link well with the beats. There is typically a
lot of performancein pop music videos and this is because it can’tbe full of
narrativeotherwiseit would begin to get boring, they also want to be taken
seriously as an artist, so they show themselves performing aswell.
Another convention of a pop music video that wefollowed is that there is
usually bright lighting and some form of brightobject/costume in pop videos.
By doing this is makes the music video stand out and appeals more to youth
which is our target audience, this is done becauseit appears vibrantand lively,
which is something young people are attracted to. Italso makes it more
upbeat so it fits the beat and the general messageof the song.
Pop music videos often have a fast pace with a nice beat which makes the
music video pleasing to the audience, which is what our music video follows as
we chosea song which was upbeat with a fasttempo. However there are a few
times within our music video in which the pace slightly slows down or where
the song speeds up and to show this in our music video we used slow motion
or with someclips we slightly sped them up if they weren’t fastenough to
meet the tempo of the song, it was barely noticeable that the clips has been
sped up but it made it effective.
Fromdoing my research into the codes and conventions of pop music videos I
looked into the theory created by Andrew Goodwin and in this theory he states
that in somemusic videos there is a relationship between the music and
visuals. My music video conforms to this convention because the cuts that we
use for our clips are at the same time as the tempo of the song, also the
dancing in which we have incorporated is in time with the song, our music
video also has lots of fast cuts which is seen to be typical in a pop music video.
Fromstudying Andrew Goodwin I also found that a typical convention of a
music video is that there is frequent references to the notion of looking and
the voyeuristic treatment of the female body. The notion of looking includes
men or women being portrayed seductively or if there is eye contact with the
camera, the notion of looking can also be referenced by the use of props such
as mirrors, television screens and cameras as these are commonly used.
Voyeurismis widely used to sell the artist’s music through sex appeal, a recent
example is Miley Cyrus in her music video Wrecking Ball. One way we used this

3. theory was when the artist is seen through the mirror applying lipstick,
however this isn’tdone in a sexual way.
Laura Mulvey has also imposed the theory known as ‘The Male Gaze’, this
theory suggests that the male gaze denies women human identity, relegating
them to the status of objects to be admired for physicalappearance and also
suggests that woman can only watch a film from a secondary perspectiveand
only view themselves froma man’s perspective. Having the presenceof a
woman in mainstream film texts is something that is vital but often the female
character has no real importance herself, it is about how she makes the male
feel or act that is important. The male gazeleads to hegemonic ideologies
within our society and Mulvey argues, for women the result of media being
presented fromthe perspective of men and through the male gaze. Women
then gaze at other women in the sameway as a man would and they end up
objectifying women. We wanted to take this idea as a group and subvertit to
show that not all women in the media industry haveto be represented as
sexual objects, to do this we dressed the artist in suitable clothing and didn’t
include any male artists to show that women can have importance in the
media industry.