msA2

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

2. At the start, when we was given our coursework brief, we
had decided that we wanted to create a music video
based around the pop genre. Firstly because pop is of our
interest and therefore as we listen to the music and watch
the music videos we know vaguely the codes and
conventions.

3. • We decided to have a female as our pop artist as we feel that females
dominate music that are of mainstream pop music present. As pop music
is very popular, due to it being vastly mainstream, we felt that it would be
easier for us to research and access existing music videos and get a
clear idea on characteristics in which pop music videos must consist of.
We decided to have our artist be a mainstream pop artist from looking at
existing pop singers and being influenced by them, such as Katy Perry,
Ellie Goulding, Pixie Lott and Taylor Swift. We wanted to follow all the
conventions of pop music so that the genre is amplified clearly to the
audience.

4. We began our music video project by research. We researched into
existing Pop artists and their music videos so that we can get an idea of
what our music video will need to consist of to illustrate the pop genre. By
using Goodwin’s theory of codes and conventions of a music video I began
analysing a few pop music videos to get a real good understanding. From
my research I found that the pop artists costume and make-up are very
glamorous, bright and colourful along with the clothing being revealing.
Female artists in pop music are very voyeuristic and are presented in a
seductive way for them to be able to attract audience of all sex. The main
focus in pop music videos are the micro elements so that the music video
really captivates the audience.

5. • Taking into consideration of the codes and conventions of pop
music, we started to construct our artist by creating an artist
profile. The female artists in which inspired our artist were
Ellie Goulding, Taylor Swift and Pixie Lott. We came upon
naming our artist ‘Isabel Beau’ as it is a very unique, elegant
and soft name in which reflects upon the type of person she is
to the audience. Her name is also different from the other
alternative pop artists making her stand out. Our target
audience was decided, by the whole group, of being females
aged between 12-25.

6. • The persona of our artist being talented, sweet and down to earth
was reflected in our music video due to her innocence and
sweetness shown. The background of our artist was that she bullied
at school along with being betrayed by her dad and love. This is
really amplified and expressed in our music video due to it being
really personal, emotional and expressive through feelings. This is
therefore consistent with our album ‘Uncovered’ which is songs
based around her personal life.

7. • To make sure that our artist was identified clearly to the
audience as a selling point, we took lots of shots of just the
artist so that the audience can see the narrative and artist
performance being of two separate areas. By having a variety
of cinematography shots of Isabel Beau, we followed ‘the
demands of the record label’. Our location for the artist to do
her performance was in a drama room to connote and express
her performance in a dramatic way. This location was quick
and efficient due to it being in school meaning it was easier to
set up and start filming. As it is the key to make sure that the
visuals relate to the music and lyrics, when filming our
narrative and our artist we had to make sure that the actions
they were doing were relevant to the lyrics as well as going in
sync to the beat and pace of the song. As towards the end the
song starts to get fast-paced, upbeat and aggressive we
created short takes and had lots of cuts.

8. • After doing many re-shoots of our artists performance footage, we
decided to have the drama room be our primary location due to all
the performances, ballet dancing and Isabel Beau singing, are
filmed there. We decided to in cooperate an actor and two
actresses so that a role of being parents is fulfilled as well as a
character playing young Isabel Beau too. The drama room was
perfect for our performance scenes due to it having dark walls and
striking stage lights giving more of a professional performance vibe.
It was difficult sometimes filming there due to it being of a
classroom environment and therefore having whiteboards, chairs
and posters in the background. However, I feel that it worked really
well and was successful.
• Our other location was at a house. Here the scenes where the
parents are arguing and young Isabel is upset is very realistic due to
the iconography of the location being in a house. Shooting at one of
our group members house was very efficient as it meant that we
had no time limit giving us time to set up and plan the scenes more.

9. • The whole concept of our music video is to tell the story of our
artists life of her childhood. Our music video expresses this
through a narrative which is about young Isabel Beau escaping
from her house problems, of her parents arguing, through ballet
dancing. As the narrative is shown throughout the music video,
there are many cuts in between to reflect on the artist singing
present expressing her emotions ;by having these cuts made our
music video engaging and intriguing.
• To continue engaging the audience, we changed our artists
outfits and make-up slightly too by making her lips more bolder
and clothing at a dark tone towards the end to express the
aggressive emotion. As fashion is a major part in pop music
videos we made sure that the clothes worn were trendy and
fashionable to make it conventional.

10. • We constantly referred to Goodwin’s analysis when researching into
music videos that linked with our song and when planning our
storyboards. Due to the ‘record label demand’ we filmed lots of
close-up shots of the artist alone singing to the song so that she is
clearly seen as the selling point. To establish the relationship
between our music video and lyrics we made sure that the scenes
filmed were relevant . When filming the ballet dancing we made
sue that the movements were in sync with the beat of the music
really giving a great impact. We had a reference to notion of looking
of one of the parents eyes through the car mirror showing the
expressions on the eyes.
• As our music video was created in a linear creative way, being
mainstream, it linked into Adorno and Horkiemer’s theory of
cultural items(artists) all being produced in a similar or the same
way; in which our artist was.

11. • Overall, I think that our music video was successful due to it
amplifying the pop genre and not contradicting the codes and
conventions of pop but following it. We reflect the hegemonic
values and convention really well by going along with
Goodwin’s analysis of music videos as well as pop genre.