When creating a music video which we did specifically for the genre of Pop there was certain codes and conventions and it was up to our group to follow, develop or challenge them in the creation. As a group we decided to chose a female solo Pop artist because the majority of us had knowledge and enjoyed this genre of music which thought gave us an advantage. We chose the song, ‘Battlefield’ by Jordin Sparks in agreement for the music video, then I began to research on the internet deeper into other Pop artists such as: Rihanna, Pixie Lott and Beyonce.

When looking at these types female Pop artists I found very similar things, they had there own brand identity which made them stand out from each other but the cinematography and mise en scene was very similar. Most of the shots were extreme close ups of their body and face also with mid shots to show their figure and wide shots to show the scene of them in it. In addition the facial expressions and their movements are key to them to look beautiful and desirable to the viewer. The songs the artists were singing were relatable for the target demographic of the female Pop artist which young female teenagers and women and stereotypical of the genre to be about: childhood experiences, break ups and love. Mostly important I think i found was that their artists appearance is heavily focused on throughout the videos which i found with this genre.

Andrew Goodwin was the main theorist we used when we started relating specific codes and conventions into our music video, the one we tried to abide to were these are:•Music video demonstrates genre characteristics•Relationship between lyrics and visuals•Relationship between music and visuals•The demand of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which reoccur across the work•Intertextual referenceWe also looked at Mulvey’s theory of ‘The Male Gaze’, which suggests the idea of men looking at women as sexual objects, ‘voyeuristic’.

Relating back to our music video when considering how it demonstrates genre characteristics of the genre of Pop which we chose, it can be seen that our artist Isabel Beau played Jess is a beautiful young women which you find constantly in the this genre. In addition the artist is always wearing clothes and an appearance that is always on trend so this costume for the video were cute tight dress that the viewer will expect to see to try and recreate her look. In addition in most Pop videos there is a mix of artist performance and a narrative which we felt strongly that the video should have, so we cut back and forth between the two. Also the use of mid shots, close ups and extreme close ups of her performing in the black studio is a main characteristic of the Pop genre to show her looks and figure to make it appealing to the viewer but also for a man to look at, ‘The Male Gaze’.

The relationship between the lyrics and visuals is apparent in the music video, the lyrics ‘Battlefield’ at the very start of the video is shown with a visual of the mum and dad arguing referencing there argument to be like a battlefield. Furthermore the visuals for ‘tear us down’ showing the artist sliding down a wall portraying the pain and battle she is facing. The lyrics, ‘both hands tied my back nothing’ is shown with the artist putting her hands behind her back showing her vulnerability.

Another part of Goodwin’s theory is, the relationship between the music and visuals half way through the song the beat and mood of the song changes from a vulnerability and sad to an outbreak of passion of pain. This change is also shown in the visuals at this point the music videos has more mid shots of the artist performance to show body movements to show passion a few examples are the artist : hitting the wall with her fists and big arm movements.

The record label we chose for our artist is , Mercury Records which is major record label which has many female Pop artists signed to their labels, such as : Pixie Lott, who was one of our main influences for our artist, Isabel Beau. According to Goodwin’s theory the record label wants close ups of the artist and I believe especially in the Pop genre if they are a new artist because their face is their selling point. We abided to this code and convention very closely, by throughout our music video having multiple close ups of the artist because we believed this to be crucial to our artists success. These shots show the artist feature more closely so she will be remembered more the viewer and the target demographic, they also show her emotion.

The last code and convention of Goodwin’s that is included in our music video is, ‘intertextual referencing’ as a group we had a clear of a existing media product we wanted to reference within in our own. The main idea we had at the very start which deciding on using was the opening dance scene from the movie, ‘Black Swan’ to reference. This idea worked extremely well with our music video as we wanted already to include ballet dancing in the video, they way we shot the ballet scenes was very similar to ,Black Swan’ and we took influence from this. In addition the costume in the video is very similar to what the young dancer wears in ours, it being a white leotard and tutu. This we believed would help the audience to make the reference between the two.

One way our music video challenges the codes and conventions of the Pop genre is that, most Pop video has bright lighting and are colourful throughout however are music video is all in black and white. The decision to do this was to keep the focus on both performances without any distract because they are emotional and passionate and give it some boosted elegance. I believe this choice was the right one to make because it i think it works very well and also from audience feedback we received they agreed.

Overall through the whole of the music video we as a group followed every convention very precisely which I believe this shows we followed a strong structure of a typical music video, and more specifically for artist the Pop genre. We only challenged one small convention to see if are own idea would worked better and I think we accomplished this to.