The document provides an evaluation of a media product (a music video) and how it uses and challenges conventions of real media. The music video uses conventions such as including a popular song, featuring party/club settings typical of the genre, and using various camera shots and fast-paced editing. However, it challenges conventions by not including a studio setting, having characters in everyday clothing rather than costumes, and having an abstract narrative rather than a clear performance narrative. Overall, the evaluation argues the music video both uses and challenges conventions of the pop/R&B genre to create a unique media product.

1. Final Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
My music video uses conventions from real media products, my video is titled ‘Let It Roll’
and in the music video you hear the song ‘Let It Roll’ by Flo-Rida here I am
using an existing media product in order to develop my own. The font I
opted to use on my Ancillary tasks was a serif font as shown in the image.
after conducting some research I discovered this that san serif fonts were
common in the pop/RnB genre see the font used on the existing product
shown, however I decided to challenge this convention and used a serif font.
I found the bold lettering looked very effective in my ancillarys.
In my music video there are a variety of different settings for example you see a nightclub
location, house party, inside a car, in natural settings such as a field and in the woods, all
these settings are typical of the pop genre and comply with forms and conventions of media
products, however my music video is in no part set in a typical studio. This challenges
conventions of real media products as the majority of music videos at some point see a
studio setting, I feel this differs my product and makes in unique. My product also meets the
conventions of existing media products as they often feature club/party settings for example
in Flo Rida’s ‘Whistle’ music video and Wiley’s ‘Can you hear me’ music video, you see the
typical club/party settings. We decided to encode this convention in order to make it link to
the genre and target audience.
When filming my music video we did not have set costumes, you see the featured people in
several different everyday outfits, I feel this challenges the typical conventions of similar
media products as you see the actors in set costumes however we wanted our video to look
as natural as possible so did not choose a costume, all featured were seen in youthful
clothing in order to reflect the target audience of the music video which is 16-25 year olds.
We did not use many props in our video apart from simple items such as drinks and alcoholic
drink bottles, we used these as we wanted to realistically show what teenage life is currently
like, I feel props such as these comply with current conventions of media products as these
are stereotypically used in the Pop genre. When considering camera work we used real
media products and saw that in music videos there is a variety of different shots used in
order to keep the video appealing, in order to comply with this we also used a variety of
different camera shots when filming for example, close ups, long shots, mid shots etc. We
used a lot of close ups of happy attractive females facial expressions’ in order to tie in with
the inspiration of the video which was having a good time. I found that close ups of
attractive females was very popular in the Pop/RnB genre for example this is used frequently
in Flo Rida’s ‘Whistle’ song, so here we met current conventions of the said genre. I feel this
worked well and made the music video entertaining and realistic.
When it came to editing we again used real media products in order to influence us from
doing this we decided to comply with forms and conventions of real media products and
used quite a lot of jump cutting and fast paced editing. A technique we found that was

2. popular within the genre was splitting the screen and having either duplicate or different
shots on screen at once for example this is used in Flo Rida’s Whistle song and in Beyonces
‘Countdown’ music video. We opted to do this in our video as we thought it looked really
effective. (Left Flo Rida, Centre Beyonce, Right My Video)
When it came to the narrative of our music video we decided we wanted to challenge forms
and conventions of real media products and make the video abstract from start to finish.
When doing this we discovered it didn’t really fit well with the pop genre so decided to add
in a performance narrative as well so our video challenges and also uses conventions of real
media products. We decided to follow the idea of just showing a collaboration of teenagers
having a good time, we made a script which we wanted to follow when filming however we
found that as there was no narrative to our video it was much easier to simply film many
different shots and then just piece them together without following a script. Our video uses
conventions of existing products by following the pattern of stereotypical pop by some
elements of performance but also challenges them with the abstract narrative of the video
which isn’t typical of a pop music video.
As stated previously the Genre of our music video is Pop, in order to encode the genre to the
audience (Hall) we used typical conventions of the genre for example typical locations such
as nightclubs, we used bright colours, stereotypical attractive girls in the video, and set a
feeling of ‘fun’ by showing happy people, we wanted to make the genre as obvious as
possible. When it comes to the characters in our music video I think we challenge typical
conventions of a pop music video as there is no set characters that you see throughout and
get to know you see many different characters, we did this to tie in with the abstract
narrative we chose. When it came to image manipulation and special effects we opted not
to use anything to drastic which challenges media conventions of a typical pop video as they
are usually full of special effects etc, we simply used a few fading effects to make the video
run smoothly and also doubled and tripled up some of the images and played them
synchronised which successfully made the video more appealing and interesting to watch an
doing this made the video relate more to the pop genre as effects such as this are typically
used. I feel all in all we successfully used, and challenged conventions of real media
products.