This document discusses codes and conventions used in music videos. It begins by explaining that codes and conventions provide a shared understanding between directors and audiences about genre. It then gives examples of symbolic and technical conventions. The document goes on to analyze specific conventions used in a music video, such as portraying the artist as organic through costume choices. It discusses the use of camera shots, like long shots to show setting and close ups to show emotion. Finally, it explains how the narrative challenges conventions by having adults act childish and children act mature to create a sense of youthful rebellion.

1. Developing and challenging
conventions in our music Video

2. Codes and Conventions
• Codes and conventions are essentially a mutually agreed
system of signs in which the director and audience have
agreed upon meaning and use to communicate. This makes
it easier to create a product of a specific genre as you only
need to repeat the conventions of that genre. This is useful
for producers as they can instantly target their audience
with a plan and an audience can identify a genre when
looking for music as conventions help audience identify
what type of text they are viewing. Conventions are split
into technical and symbolic. Symbolic are generically
specific these describe a genre through costume, props
location etc and technical vary in genre but include camera
and editing

3. Artists with generic similarities
Ke$ha is similar to our artist she has a
rebellious, fun, attitude and is also a pop
artist. Her music attracts a similar target
audience to Lola, focusing on 15-24 year
olds. Ke$ha looks organic in the way she
dresses. She wears rock like clothing that is
not so revealing like our artist, she also
wears her hair very natural like our artist
further emphasizing her as organic

4. Star Image
• We are portraying our artist as organic with synthetic
aspects, this is challenging the conventions of a normal
pop artist as they are usually fully synthetic, such as
Rihanna, Beyonce. We used symbolic codes to promote
our artists star image such as her costume, she is
dressed like a punk in the video with ripped jeans and a
ripped like black top, but we wanted her to also show a
girl next door look, so she is wearing red lipstick with
her natural curly hair so portraying her as organic. We
have represented her star image as being symbolic as a
fun, upbeat teenager so we use props such as alcohol,
balloons and costume to emphasize this.

5. Use of camera in our video
• Long shots- we used this convention in order to show how the artist presents herself e.g her
clothing, her dancing, also to show the setting of the bouncy castle to show a youthful like
environment. We challenged conventions of a normal pop video by making it child like. In this shot
the audience can see the artists outfit to further show her star image
• We used close ups to show our artists emotions of being happy and excited here we conformed to
conventions as most music videos use close ups for the same reason. The close ups were her
laughing , winking to further show her as young and care free
• We used tracking shots, here we conformed to conventions as we used tracking shots to show the
location as well as to show the kids having fun and show the change from adults to children. We
showed her walking down steps as if she is a queen in a position of power she is the center of
attention

6. Lip Synching- Symbolic
In music videos, it is actively encouraged that the
artist makes eye contact with the camera as it
gives a sense of communication with the
audience through the lead as she is singing
directly towards you. This was desirable in the
case of my music video, the lead singer was lip
synching nearly throughout the whole video. Lip
synching can emphasize the artists star image as it
gives her more camera time. Also lip synching
allows her to portray her personality through
singing in our case this is her being up beat and
fun

7. Narrative
• We had a performance element as well as lip synching. We
tried to make a narrative of children acting maturely and
adults acting immaturely to create a youthful rebellion. This
was something that is not conventionally done in music
videos, therefore through our narrative we we trying to
subvert conventions as we were trying to make her look
more rebellious than the average pop star. We are using her
youthfullness in a music video and rebellion through the
alcohol and child like behaviour to set her apart from other
popstars so despite merging the narrative and lip synching
together which is not conventionally done in pop artists
videos unless they are lipsynching all the time we created
our narrative of youthful rebellion