Media A2 Coursework

1. In what way does your media
product use, develop or
challenge forms and
conventions of real media
products?
In

2. A way in which we challenged the conventions of rock pop music videos was that many
conventional rock pop videos have shots of the band, either performing the song or acting,
interspersed with the narrative, whereas in our music video it is all narrative. We were
unable to film the band therefor we had to break this convention. Our narrative however
keeps to conventions with it’s showing the problems and mundanities of daily life. We stuck
to this convention because it is used so that audiences can relate to the band, and we
wished to achieve this with our video. Some of the biggest pop rock groups of today are
Panic! At the Disco, Fall Out Boy, Coldplay, The 1975, The Arctic Monkeys and Maroon 5.

3. Another convention of rock pop which we stuck to was keeping the colour scheme
bright, although we only did this within our dream scenes and interspersed this with
black and white in the reality shots to show the difference between her life and her
reality, this is shown in music videos such as Ed Sheeran- A Team, which use black and
white filters to show how bleak real life is and how dull it can be. Another such video
is Arctic Monkeys- R U Mine? And Hozier- Take Me To Church both using black and
white filters to show the unexciting reality of daily life.
Conventions of Pop Rock

4. Representation of women in the Pop Rock Genre
In our music video we challenged the typical representation of women in pop rock music videos, in
our video our female was the main protagonist whereas in typical pop rock music videos Laura
Mulvey’s male gaze theory is shown. A video of such is Evil Twin by the Arctic Monkeys which is
highly objectifying of women. The video stars the band’s drummer, Matt Helders as a biker with a
girlfriend who has a penchant for undressing
The opening shot is of a topless, possibly naked girl in a swimming pool. We challenged this
convention through the clothes our actress wore. In many pop rock music videos the females wear
skimpy clothing to show of their breasts and legs whereas, even when she was on the beach, our
actress wore jeans and a cardigan to cover up to challenge conventions. In the long shots the
actress, from Evil Twin, is wearing short skirts and sheer tops reinforcing gender conventions. In a
shot later on, the main actress and 2 other women are shown flashing their breasts at the camera
which reinforces Laura Mulvey’s Male gaze theory, this combined with the shots of the female on
top of the man and the underwater shots show the typical representation of female in pop rock,
which was something we decided to challenge by having a female as the protagonist and not just
there to please the male protagonist.
Screenshots on the
next slide.

5. Opening shot of Evil Twin
Three women flashing their breasts
Clearly showing the objectification of women
and Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory.
Clear objectification of women and voyeuristic shots.
Long shots to show her outfit and legs.
The low angle
shots looking up
on the actress,
who has mounted
the male actor is
further
objectification of
women and shows
how women are
represented in
pop rock and how
they are seen in
the media.

6. Fall Out Boy- Uma ThurmanOur video took rather a lot of influence from the Fall Out
Boy Video, Uma Thurman, in this video there is a strong
female character who gets to live her dream, which is to
spend a day with her favourite band. This video shows how
dreams are better than reality which is something we
wanted to show in our music video, in the video Uma
Thurman they do some unbelievable things, that normal
people dream of doing such as
• Meet your favourite band
• Take a Zebra on a walk
• Drive fast cars
• Go dune buggy racing
• Cover yourself in soft animals
• Run a car over with a tank
We wanted to do something like this with our video, but we
wanted to make it more realistic so having things normal
people could do, such as dressing up and disappearing into
the woods, or spending a day at the beach. We kept the
similar theme through our use of bright colours which is a
convention of pop punk.

7. Dreams in the media and
escapism
Many shows use dreams, such as Dallas where
they use dreams, to escape reality or to create a
fictional reality. We emulated this with our music
video where our character uses her dreams to
escape reality. Many other TV shows use dreams
to show an escape we wanted to show escapism in
our music video because this is something our
target audience could relate to because many
teenagers and young adults wish to
escape their tedious and lack-lusture
daily lives.

8. Nelly- Just A Dream
A music video which could be considered to have had quite a large influence
for our own music video is the song, Just A Dream by American rapper Nelly.
We took aspects from this music video and
emulated them within our own, using screenshots I have analysed the
ways in which we went about this and why we did it.
This music video shows escapism and detachment from reality.
Many teenagers also use music as a form of escapism and this
further links t our music video and it’s form of escapism.

9. The shots of things that
would never actually happen
in real life shows the dream
like state upon which the
artist has based the video.
The inconceivability of the
things shown further
highlights the separation from
reality, another thing we
wished to show in our video.
Another feature of this video
which we attempted to use in
our own was the use of black
and white to show the
negative connotations, in this
song it is about losing the
love of his life, in our video it
is about the mundane aspects
of daily life restricting the
things we wish to do.
There are many shots of Nelly
(the artist) looking
voyeuristically, either at the girl,
with who he is in love with, or
at his car. We attempted to use
shots of looking in our own
video, with Lauren (the actress)
looking into the distance and
dreaming or looking around in
the woods or in the mirror to
show her desire for her dream
world instead of her reality. We
also used a shot of her looking
into the camera which could be
considered breaking the fourth
wall but this was used to
connect with the audience and
to show them it is possible to
dream without being asleep.

10. Use of Narrative
In our music video we wished to create a narrative structure which
showed the mind-numbing daily life of a teenager, which would appeal
to our target audience, and show how teenagers use dreams as a form
of escapism. We used this as our basis to appeal to our audience
because many teenagers dream of escaping. We used Claude Levis
Strauss’ theory of “constant creation of conflict drives narrative.” We
used Binary opposition in our video opposing the daily life in black and
white and the dreams in colour.

11. Representation of youth
We showed and referenced contemporary issues in our music video
such as unstable relationships, shown between our actress and her
father. Another issue we tackled was isolation, shown through the fact
we only had our main actress and then a supporting actor, playing her
father. We tackled these issues within our video because it makes it
relatable to teenagers because many teenagers argue with their
parents and many teenagers feel isolated. We showed the isolation
through long shots showing her as the only person around.

12. Intertextuality
In our music video we have many Intertextual links to
popular texts. One of our links is to Alice in Wonderland
and the idea of falling down the rabbit hole, this is
shown through the way our female almost falls into her
dreams and there she becomes things, like in Alice in
Wonderland there is the Cheshire Cat and in ours the
actress becomes a wolf like creature. In our music video
we use a book of fairy tales to show when she is
transitioning between her dreams and her reality, we
used Alice in Wonderland before she dreams about the
woods showing how our daily lives and the things we
experience influence our dreams. A further link to Alice
in Wonderland was our use of mirrors in the forest
scene which links to the use of mirrors in the Lewis
Carrol book, Alice through the Looking Glass.

13. Intertextuality
We also used Intertextual references to other texts in our video such as
Panic! At the Disco, through the scenes with her in bed and also the
reversal of the shots. We had links to Narnia where she disappears into
the woods, just as Lucy does Narnia. We also referenced Cinderella
when we had our Actress reading the book before dreaming about
being at the beach, such as how Cinderella dreams of going to the ball
and then she does.