Evaluation - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

One of the most important things that we considered whilst and before making the music video was how we could make it look as realistic as possible. The planning and research stages were vital in order to make this happen, and as soon as we had chosen a song we looked back at the conventions of that genre throughout our research phases. For example, I had analysed Taylor Swift’s ‘You Belong with Me’ music video which is a very similar pop song.



The costume changes seemed to be a major part of the video as it shows off the girly side and similarly to our video it represents the change in character of the singer, as she goes from a tomboy to a girly-girl. The mirror used was to create a sense of vanity and to add voyeurism to the video. The idea of vanity adds to the moral behind the story in our video and the voyeuristic image was used to almost portray the reflection as a new person, really enhancing the idea of not changing who you are for anybody and to find someone who likes you for what you are. The use of the costume changes were used to depict not only a girly and glamorous star image but also to depict the stereotypes of specific characters.



The main stereotypes within the Taylor Swift video are the ‘geek’ and the ‘popular mean girl’. These characters are both portrayed by Taylor Swift however, there are clear differences with reference to hair, make-up, costume and body language. Where the geek has curly hair the popular girl has straight and shiny hair, the geek has little make-up and the popular girl has lots of make-up, the geek wears baggy and out of fashion clothing where the popular girl wears revealing and trendy clothes, the geek will only go as far as looking at the guy where the popular girl kisses and flirts with him and so on. We used the idea of stereotyping with our characters, firstly because many other pop videos do use stereotypes:

(top left clockwise; Cyndi Lauper – Girls just want to have fun, Katy Perry – Waking up in Vegas, Britney Spears – Hit me Baby one more Time, Beyonce – If I were a Boy)
… but also because it makes it so much easier for the audience to relate to the text and to work out the storyline. Our target audience was young, teenage girls and so we obviously didn’t want a video that was too confusing to follow, which was helped a lot by the use of stereotyping by mise en scene. Poppy’s (singer) character for example, was very much defined by her clothing. She would either be wearing trainers, a hooded jumper and a baseball cap or a dress with heels. As the character transforms into a girl and back to her former tomboy self the costumes and mise en scene make it a lot more understandable to the viewer.

The characters where also very important, and we opted to have teenage actors and actresses so that it would make the video target the audience more and really relate to their own lives as they can see somebody who is just like them. This proved to be a wise choice when we got our audience feedback as a lot of people said that they could tell who the target audience was through the use of actors and actresses. We chose drama students to perform in the piece as they can easily get into character and will make filming easy and fun as it will not take too many takes.

A lot of the filming was done outside so that the lighting was ideal and the rest of the in school shots where filmed in the link which is a corridor with floor to ceiling windows either side, keeping the light on the shots and making them look bright and colourful for the final outcome.

Make up was used similarly to costume in order to reflect stereotypes, Poppy began with little make-up and ended with little make-up but through her transformation phase we see her applying lots of blusher, mascara and so on. Lauren has lots of make up throughout to portray her ignorant and popular character.

Our choice of location was part outside, part in school and part at Charlotte’s house. The reasons behind this are that the school set meant obviously that the four characters are students and Poppy goes home for the summer holidays in which the transformation takes place. When she goes back to school she realised that he geek liked her for who she was and goes back to her tomboy roots. The use of students helps to attract our target audience and makes the piece relatable. We mixed in some outside scenes as the video is four minutes we wanted to keep it as varied and diverse as possible in order to maintain the viewers attention.

The use of the narrative was our main way of getting the message across that we wanted to portray and it is also one of the main conventions of a pop song music video that is aimed at a younger audience.

Like Demi Lovato’s ‘Lala Land’ video, a clear message is being portrayed, as the lyrics go ‘who said I can’t wear my converse with my dress, that’s just me’, and so depicting the moral of being true to yourself. This was very important to the target audience, as at a young age people often aspire to be like pop stars and so it was a good way of creating a role model through a media text whilst promoting the song.
The use of different camera angles made it easier to portray hierarchy

For the first minute or so of the track, for shots where Poppy (singer) and Lauren (popular girl) are in the same shots, although Poppy has the foreground, Lauren is standing to create a sense of being more important. The reasons for keeping Poppy in the foreground is partly because she is the artist and so the whole video is there to promote her, but also to keep the audience almost on Poppy’s ‘side’ of the tomboy vs girly-girl conflict.

The shots above depict a range of different camera angles which relate to how the characters are meant to be portrayed. The two left images are of the geek and tomboy positioned low in the shot compositions. These shots both come relatively early in the track and before the transformation takes place. They low positions have connotations of low hierarchical status and being less important. To maintain Poppy’s star image and status we kept these scenes very dramatic to add almost a comical edge to them with the characters almost mocking the bully’s by rolling their eyes and carrying on regardless. On the right hand side there are images of the popular girl and Poppy as a girly-girl. These images both have a low angle which emphasizes the characters high status.

We then went on to experiment with camera movement which worked especially well with the point of view shot:

We used this for the chorus as it makes the product more exciting especially as the music is picking up and it also added to the build up for the reveal of Poppy’s new girly character. To create a smooth tracking shot we had to place the camera on a tripod and put that onto a 5-castor base chair with wheels. This meant that we would have a steady image so not to jolt and make it less smooth. The reactions are also supposed to be suggestions towards Poppy’s new appearance, how the girls like it and how the girls are less keen through jealousy. The tracking motion also helps to relate to the idea of the camera being Poppy.


One of the main things used in our video was matching the lyrics to the visuals constantly. This was because the song almost told the story anyway, we just put a unique edge on this and portrayed Poppy the artist to not only be involved in a story, but to be telling the story. This kept the video very cheery as the lyrics are relatively light hearted and also made it more understandable to follow, which is obviously very important.