The document summarizes a student's media evaluation assignment. It discusses how their music video for Adele's "Turning Tables" both uses and challenges conventions of the pop genre. Specifically, it sets the video on a deserted beach portrayed with dull skies to represent sadness and heartbreak, challenging stereotypes of women in pop music by depicting the female artist as strong. It also discusses the use of props like phones and photos and costumes like a red dress and military jacket. The student concludes their video challenges conventions by showing the artist overcoming heartbreak rather than remaining vulnerable. The response discusses creating ancillary tasks like CD covers in Photoshop and editing the video in Premiere Pro.

1. Danielle Bridge
Media Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real
media product? (Question 1)
The title of the song I used for my music video was Adele’s ‘Turning Tables’, which is based around
the pop genre. The lyrics suggest love and heartbreak, which is a very common, conventional,
meaning behind many pop songs. As a group, we decided to set the music video predominantly on a
beach, with some shots also being on the road side. We gained inspiration from Coldplay’s video
‘Yellow’, as that was also set on a beach. As the lyrical meaning of our chosen song is love,
heartbreak and fighting back, we decided that filming our music video on a deserted beach
overlooked by dull, grey, skies would be a good way to use Stuart Halls theory and encode
conventional features of a pop song for the audience to decode, as it creates a vibe of sadness and
heartbreak. However, the bareness of the beach and the aggressiveness of the waves could also
represent a battlefield, enhancing the fact that the female artist is fighting back against her
heartbreak and not giving up. This challenges the stereotype of the pop genre and the female
gender, as it represents the female as strong and independent, which is not usually encoded within
the pop genre, as women are usually represented as weak and vulnerable. We decided to challenge
these conventions to make the music video an instance of difference, rather than repetition (Neale).
We also gained a small amount of inspiration for the location of our filming from Girls Aloud’s video
‘Call The Shots’, as there are shots of the females on a ‘battleground’ setting.
The female artist in the video is wearing a deep red coloured dress, in which we have encoded to
represent femininity and also love, which are conventional connotations of the pop genre. However,
the majority of the red dress is covered by a karki coloured, military-like, parka coat. This choice in
costume amplifies the idea that the female is fighting back, and shows that she is strong and is
battling against heartbreak, again challenging the conventional elements of the pop genre and the
representation of the female character. We have also purposely encoded this to enhance the battle
ground like setting, as it creates a war-like atmosphere.
Throughout our music video, there are several props that have deliberately been used to create
meaning. Towards the beginning of the video, we used a close up of a mobile phone prop, showing a
message that talks about love and the couple reuniting. Mobile phones are conventional props seen
in pop music videos, as they represent communication, usually between two individuals. We
encoded this conventional feature for the audience to decode and also to reassure them that our
music video is based around the pop genre. This would create a preferred reading for pop genre
fans, as it is following the conventions. Also, towards the middle of our video, there is a close up shot
of a photo of the female artist and a male, showing the couple when they were happy. Using
photographs to show a relationship is very conventional of many genres, especially pop, which is
why we encoded this feature, as the audience are then able to decode it and understand the
meaning behind the song’s lyrics. There are also shots of the female engraving heart shapes into the
sand on the beach, which again, represents the theme of love, following the stereotypical
conventions of the pop genre. There is a car used in the final sequence of the music video, showing
the female driving away and leaving the burning photograph behind, highlighting the fact that she
has moved on, which is a convention of a love song and also the pop genre. Through the use of these

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props and costumes, the audience may be able to identify with the female character or the situation,
creating a use and gratification.
The music video my group and I have created begins with a close up shot of the female artists face,
looking sad and depressed, and the camera then zooms out to reveal her body and location of the
stormy beach. This creates a contrast between the conventional and unconventional features we
have encoded of the pop genre; showing a facial expression representing heart break, which is
conventional, and then revealing a battlefield-like setting, which is unconventional. This shot also
introduces the artist, informing the audience as to whom she is, and, along with the piano riff,
announces that this song is a love ballad.We chose to use mainly close up shots of the props we
used, as it highlights their significance within the video and the narrative of the video. For the
camera shots of the artist performing parts of the song, we used a range of shot types such as; long
shots, medium shots, close ups and extreme close ups. This was done because we felt that by using
different shots, it would anchor the audience more, and intrigue them into watching the video.
Towards the end of the video, there is a close up shot of the text message being deleted.Similar to
this, at the very end of the video, there is an extreme close up shot of the previous photograph prop
burning on the ground. These shots highlight the significance of the props, and also show that the
artist has overcome her heartbreak, which is seen as a conventional feature of the pop genre.
As a group, we decided to use a black and white filter and also slowed the speed down on a few
shots to emphasise the sadness of the song, and the lyrical meaning. Slow motion is used widely
throughout many music videos, so this can be seen as a conventional feature of any genre, as it
enhances certain messages and meanings within the song or video. To allow the conventional linear
narrative and the different shots flow smoothly, we used cross dissolve transitions to link some
shots. This also enhances the slowness of the song, and reassures the audience that it is a slow long
pop song. Along with this, we also used continuity editing to help the narrative continue and
progress. At the end of the music video, as the piano riff is fading out, we decided to use a fade to
black to finish the video, which represents the end of the narrative, and it informs the audience that
the artist has overcome her heartbreak and moved on; which is also shown by the car driving away
from the beach scene. Even though the narrative is conventional, there are also some challenges
that we made to this. The shots of the text message being deleted, and the burning photograph,
show that the artist has got over her relationship, which represents the artist as strong and
independent. The female is usually seen as the weak, vulnerable character in music videos, and the
video does not usually conclude the heartbreak, however ours does; therefore challenging the
conventions of a pop video.
For my ancillary tasks, I created a CD front cover, back cover and disk label, and also a magazine
advertisement using adobe Photoshop. There are many ways in which the pop genre is reflected
within my ancillary tasks; however there are also challenges to these conventions and stereotypes.
Whilst researching three similar products to my ancillary tasks, I found that most album covers of
the pop genre, such as Jessie J’s album ‘Who You Are’, use a sans serif font in order to appeal to
their younger target audience. So, using this research, I decided to use a sans serif font that almost
looks handwritten. I used this as I felt it would appeal to a wider audience, and also follows the
conventions of the pop genre. The name of my artist ‘Ivy’ is printed in a red colour, similar to the
colour of her dress in my music video. This is representing love and also femininity, again, following
the conventions of this genre. However the album name of ‘turning tables’ is printed in a black

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colour, which is not stereotypical of the pop genre, as it contrasts with the red colour, and
represents rebellion, and is usually seen within the rock genre.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages? (Question 4)
Whilst completing my A2 media coursework, I used a range of media technologies to construct and
present my final pieces such as; Panasonic cameras, adobe Photoshop, adobe premiere, iPhone 5,
facebook, slideshare, blogger and many more.
The software ‘adobe Photoshop’ has helped me create many pieces of coursework to support my
final music video. To begin with, I had to use the internet to research CD covers, back covers and disk
labels and then use this research to create my two ancillary tasks, which were a CD front and back
cover and the disk label, and also a magazine advertisement. Whilst using Photoshop to create these
pieces of work, my skills have developed greatly, and I have learned many new ways to edit and
manipulate a photograph. Some of the techniques I used included the brightness/contrast of an
image, the clone tool, Gaussian blur and the saturation of the image. I now know how to use these
tools and techniques to the best of my editing ability. I also had to alter the size of the page within
Photoshop to get it at a CD cover size, and I had to import my own images, and text from
‘dafont.com’, in order to construct my ancillary tasks.
Adobe premiere has also been a huge part of my A2 coursework, as this is the software my group
and I used to edit and complete our music video of ‘turning tables’. This software is quite complex
and difficult to use to begin with, however after adjusting to it and learning how to control it, it
became easier the more we began to edit. There a many functions involved with adobe premiere
and certain adjustments that must be made before even beginning to edit. To begin with, we had to
set up a project on premiere, which involved changing the quality to standard and the size to
widescreen, as this is what our video footage required. We then had to import all of our video
footage into premiere in order to begin editing. On each shot we filmed, we had to choose a start
point and an end point before dragging the clip onto the video timeline, to ensure that we were only
working with the sections that we wanted in our final music video. This was quite difficult, as we
frequently found ourselves adjusting the start and end point after we had dragged it onto the
timeline, in order to make the shot the best it could be, however this got easier once we had gotten
familiar with it. For our final shot, we needed to film more footage, so we used an iPhone 5, as this
was more convenient and easier to upload the footage onto the computer. However, we then
realised that in order to make this shot fit with the rest of the shots, we had to scale of all of our
other footage to width: 133 under the motion tab. Once we had altered the framing, we overcome
this barrier and continued to edit as usual. My group and I used many techniques to edit out footage
in adobe premiere which included transitions such as ‘cross dissolve’; video effects such as ‘black
and white’; and we also slowed down and sped some footage up. As a group, we felt that the other
types of dissolves and transitions did not fit well with our type of music video or the audio track,
therefore this was a huge limitation whilst editing. We also used the ‘razor’ tool to cut a few shots,
and also to cut our audio track, which I found extremely helpful and easy to use.
To present all of my work, I had to use google blogger, in which I then had to create 6 separate tags
to display my work in the correct stages of production. In order to put word documents onto my
blog, I had to first upload these documents onto a website called slideshare, and then copy and

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place the embedded code onto the HTML tab on blogger. I found this process quite simple, and I was
able to understand how to work both websites quite quickly.
During the process of completing my coursework, I have used technological convergence, as media
technologies have come together to help me in the production, distribution and consumption
stages. In the production stage, I used both an apple iPhone 5 and a Panasonic video camera to
capture video footage, in which I then uploaded, using a USB cable, onto the computer. My group
and I then used the same computer machine to edit this footage using adobe premiere to create our
final music video. To distribute our final outcome, we used the same computer to upload our video
onto YouTube, and then onto our blogs using blogger, to share with other people. An audience
would then be able to use web 2.0 and watch our music video using YouTube.