Our media product uses conventions of pop music videos such as linking visuals to lyrics, appealing to youth through vibrant costumes, and incorporating motifs. It challenges conventions by portraying the girls as independent and having the men chase after them, rejecting stereotypes of female objectification. Effects like split screens and chase scenes add comedy and energy to appeal to youth audiences.

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

2. Pop Music Video Conventions
• Links between visuals and lyrics
• Links between music and visuals
• Appeals to youth – Costume, vibrant and lively
characteristics
• Motifs
• Voyeurism

3. These two stills in our Music video involve
close ups of make up. This was to give the
girls in the music video a typical
provocative persona that many female
artists have.
This still of Miley Cyrus in the video ‘We
Can’t Stop’ is very similar, who also has a
very strong provocative persona.
The make up also fits with the ‘girly-pop’ theme, as our genre of music is pop, the bright
colour of the lipstick and quirkiness of the girls are typical of this.

4. We attempted to include a lot of
comedic effects in our music
video to appeal to the youth and
our target audience. This was to
entertain them and keep them
interested throughout the video.
Our split screen effects also helped
us to create this feel. The ‘Tom and
Jerry’ chasing gave our video a
youthful vibe, making us seem
carefree and childish, like many of
our target audience may be.

5. Another convention our music video
includes is linking visuals to the lyrics.
We decided to make the lyrics ‘Run,
run, run’ literal and fit with a story line.
The girls are running away from the
boys in many of the shots, showing the
free spirit of the girls. As one of the
conventions was to have lively,
youthful characteristics, we thought it
would fit quite well to go against the
typical message of women portrayed
in music videos and have the men
chasing the women instead of the
women being all over the men.
The fact that the girls are running away
shows that they are carefree and
independent, creating a good role
model persona for the youth, who are
typically the target audience for pop
music.

6. This shot incorporates one
of our motifs carried
throughout our music
video, digi-pack and
magazine advert. This is the
strong, bold light. We used
a torch while filming and
when taking photos. We
found that having a strong
motif helped potential
audiences recognise us as
artists and our work.
Katy Perry has a fantastic example of candy and sweets carried throughout her video
‘California Girls’ and her album cover and adverts. We wanted to create a strong, bright
motif that we will be recognised for, too. So do to this, we included golden colours and
bright lights as often as we could when filming.

7. This scene in the mirror was our idea to try and change the audiences perspective.
This was because our storyline first started with all four characters at the dinner
table, and there girls were ‘putting up with’ the men, even though they did not
want to be there. This was the scene where this began to change, so we the
mirror was a good chance to show a change of perspective.

8. To strengthen the change in
perspective, we made it clear at
the start of our music video that
the boys were un interested in the
girls by making sure no eye contact
was made between them.
This then changes after the mirror
scene, when the boys realise the girls
are gone. When running, the boys are
always looking straight ahead and
focusing on the girls. This goes
against Ariel Levy’s theory on
voyeurism as the men are now
chasing the women and the women
are not giving them what they want.

9. To add to the humour in our video,
we gave the boys clumsy, clownish
characters.
This was to present the men as the
vulnerable and desperate
characters, instead of the usual,
typical theme in videos where
women are portrayed to be all
over the men.
This shot from ‘Blurred Lines’ shows
rapper T.I. surrounding by women,
acting ‘dumb’. All of the women are
also facing him and only paying
attention to him. Our music video
does the opposite of this to reject
this stereotype.

10. Digi-pack
For our digipack, we carried through an important motif that was in our music video
and magazine advert. Using a torch to create a bright, golden light in all of the images
and shots made our audience start to relate our band with these colours. We were
inspired by Britney Spears’ ‘Oops!... I did it again’ album for the theme of colours and
light. Our text of our digipack also reflected this, as we used a golden font and used
photoshop techniques to make the text appear to ‘glow’ and also placed orangegolden glowing lines on our front cover to highlight this.

11. Magazine Advert
Or magazine advert contains photos we took
at the same time as we filmed our music
video as we wanted to wear the same
costumes and use the torch and reflector
used in out music video. We also looked at
other magazine adverts for inspiration. Our
example Marina & the diamonds. We saw
that they had included the album cover in
the magazine advert so fans knew what to
look for in shops. We felt this was an
important feature, so reflected this in our
own work.
We felt that each ancillary task
should be unique, so by slightly
changing the colour theme on
our magazine advert but
keeping the same lighting,
costume and other motifs, our
products were still
recognisable.