'Media texts rely on audience knowledge of generic codes and conventions in order for them to create meaning'

The piece of media that i will be discussing in relation to genre is the music video that myself and a partner produced during the A2 coursework. When making a media product it is important to consider genre as it categorises the media text and determines the audience. For my A2 coursework i created a music video. The video included a band made up of one girl and one boy. I would say the music video fell into Andrew Goodwins category of 'Performance' as the girl has an active role, singing and dancing. The song used in the video was a dance/pop genre song which gave us some freedom and dance videos can vary so much in terms of generic conventions.

We used the dance song because a dance genre matches the house party theme we wanted to achieve. It was crucial that we used some generic conventions in order to achieve the genre we wanted. Some of these generic conventions included, fast editing, steady cam effect on the girl dancing, and bright colours that we had at the start of the video to entice an audience. To gain a fast pace to the video and in order for the video to be synchronous with the sound, we used a lot of jump-cuts and cross cutting from each member of the band and the DJ mixer prop.

From the research and planning stage we knew that dance videos had a lot of fast editing and often used a DJ in the video for example DJ Calvin Harris appears in his own videos with a singer. Therefore we used similar iconographies. We used a lot of synchronous close-ups on the DJ's hand in our video, to demonstrate certain drops in the music. This matched generic conventions we had seen and matches the genre of dance as the movement is synchronous to the sound. We also used lip-syncing in our video. The li-syncing and active dancing from the girl in the video contributes to the 'first person mode of address' as she repeatedly looks down the camera, making direct eye-contact with the audience.  Her lively dancing and quirky character matches that of music artist's such as Rita Ora or Rihanna.

When it came to certain media language, such as costume, we wanted to challenge existing stereotypes. From previous research it became clear that dance video's feature a lot of bright and contemporary costumes, with female artist wearing slightly revealing outfits to attract a larger audience. We wanted our costumes to look contemporary and almost timeless, therefore we had the girl wear a plain black top and the boy a plain white top. This choice does not match the generic conventions of the genre and challenges Laura Maulvey's theory of 'The male Gaze' because although the female is making eye-contact with the audience, she is not sexually suggestive. We purposefully did not have any revealing clothing or logos on the clothes as we didn't want it to de-tract from the action on screen. I think the costumes fit a more casual style, seen in an alternative/indie genre songs targeted at a young generation of people.

There are certain stereotypes of male's and specifically male DJ's. I believe our DJ again, challenges the conventional stereotype of being active, fist pumping and jumping around as our DJ has a more aloof personality and takes a step back from the girl's leading role. The location of the video did match the dance genre as we has flashing lights and a ‘party’ atmosphere.

Genre is installed into a peice of media in order for an audience to feel secure in there knowledge and expectations of that certain media.The song 'heads will roll' is a dance song, however it didn't make it into the top 100 charts. Therefore we didn't use a mainstream song that normal dance genre songs would fall into. We also challenged existing stereotypes of alternative. Therefore i think our video could fall into the category of postmodern, as there is a slight clashing of genre's and roles within a band.