Research and planning: Audience profile.

Research and Planning: Mood Board.

This is the mood board for the genre of music I want to use for my music video.

I would expect them to be interested in watching live bands, including the ones on my mood board. They would be NME readers, as well as users of Spotify, Facebook, Twitter and iTunes. The majority of the audience play an instrument of their own, and wear similar clothing to that shown on here.

Research and Planning: Audiences and media 2.0.

The idea of the audience and the media being completely separate from each other, and that one is the sender and one is the receiver is now outdated. In the present day, due to new technologies and the increasing use of the internet, audiences are now able to become the producers as well as consumers of media.

Flew points out; When compared to other media the Internet stands out because it is networked, interactive, enables two way communication, and allows its users to be both producers as well as consumers of content. (Flew, 2004:1).

These new technologies enable people to create their own content to upload and share to the whole world over the internet. One good example of a website that allows this is YouTube. Youtube was created in 2005, it's aim to let people upload video clips including film clips, TV clips, video blogging, music videos (which now have certain copyrights on them) and pretty much any type of video that they have created themselves.

Another thing that makes it a lot easier for people to create their own content is that the equipment is now relatively less expensive than it used to be; you can buy amateur equipment from so many well known retailers for reasonable prices and still be able to make a decent product.

This can be worrying for the big companies of media, as they will not gain as much revenue through their own means of productions, even though they use the top equipment, producers, etc.

Research and Planning: Audience theories 1.

Effects Theory

Psychologists attempted to explore a pre-existing presumption that media violence would make the audience violent, and came up with The Effects Theory. The Effects Theory explained that the media has a direct behavioural effect on the passive audience, and is sometimes known as the Hypodermic Needle Theory. An example of a famous experiment on this was the Bobo Doll Experiment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdh7MngntnI

The kind of music I'm going to be using on my music video is in the indie/acoustic/alternative genre. The intended effect this will have on the audience is to make them feel as though the artist is genuine, and works hard to achieve what they have gained in their music career. Also that not all artists have all the work done for them, such as mainstream artists.

The audience won't all take the preferred reading, some will either be completely opposed or negotiated towards my video, which will make it harder for me to achieve this effect. I'll also have to get the filming and content just right to achieve it, which means I will have to plan it well.

Cultural Studies Approach

This was developed by David Morley at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.

This approach uses the Effects Theory and understands the intended effects of media texts, but also considers the active nature of certain audiences, and how different audiences take different views in relation to the values expressed in a media text. There are three different views that an audience may take:

• Preferred reading: The values in a media text are accepted by the audience as the creator intended.
• Negotiated reading: The values are generally accepted, but there is some debate over them, depending on the audience's different interests and experiences.
• Oppositional reading: The values in the text are understood, but are rejected and disagreed with completely.

This can be applied to this music video:

I think that the preferred reading of this video is to see the band out and about, having fun together as a band.
The oppositional reading may be that as they are in Japan, some people may feel that they are making fun of the country/culture.

Research and Planning: Music effects and theory.

The researchers are interested in what effects the music has on the adolescents, and how it influences them. Also, why is it only rap and heavy metal music that effects them?

The key concerns that have been raised about the effects of rap music are that they provoke crime in adolescents, shows sexism, and not conforming to society.

The author of http://www.funk-the-system.net/usualsuspect.html has explained that there are more important issues other than media products affecting adolescents. The main one being the availability of guns and other weapons to them, as well as their family background, how they've been brought up by their parents/guardians and other life experiences.

Research and Planning: Digipack and advert research.

Digipaks and adverts.

View more presentations from Sophie Thackeray.

Research and Planning - synaesthesia.

Synaesthesia is a condition and is estimated to affect just over 1% of the population. It is generally the joining of senses which are usually experienced separately. For example, some see colours when they hear numbers, sounds, or certain words. Others may experience taste, smell, touch, or sights in different combinations. This condition cannot be turned on or off, but people have been known to grow out of it when they left childhood. It's not harmful to anyone who has it. It is thought to be an inherited gene, one which many scientists don't know much about.

I have tried to apply this effect when I listen to certain songs, so I can visualise some ideas I might be able to use for my music video.

http://hypem.com/track/750403/Sick+Of+Sarah+-+Breakdown

When listening to this song, I can visualise the band either practising this song or playing it live in front of a crowd. Between these clips I could imagine some 'backstage' footage of them recording, or on tour etc.

When I hear this song, I could also imagine this being performed live, but there could also be a narrative in between performance clips. I imagine that the song is about the singer's hate or dislike for someone, so the main theme would be anger. The colours that come to mind are a lot of red, dark colours, and the possibility of some black and white shots.

I think this particular one would be a narrative/performance. Because the song is named Barlights, I can expect the band to be in a bar, lip syncing along to the song. There are lot of bright colours that come to mind, perhaps because it is an upbeat catchy song. I'm not sure what the story line would be, but because of the general tempo and feel of the song I can visualise the band and extras in the video to dance around, maybe with 'barlights' flashing in the background to the rhythm of the song.

Research and Planning: Music video and narration.

There are two key types of narration:

• Restricted narration - When the narrative is based around one character, so the audience are restricted to seeing only what the character knows/sees. This can create a sense of mystery as they cannot predict what is going to happen.

• Omniscient narration - The audience usually know more than the character(s), as the camera reveals elements that they may not voluntarily have wished it to, generally creating a feeling of suspense as the audience are waiting for something to happen.

This particular video is a restricted narrative. This has been constructed through media language due to the many point of view shots, and the majority of the shots focusing on the one main character. * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQUIBJ_jYTU *

Whereas this video has omniscient and restricted narrative features. It has both point of view shots and parallel action editing. *http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEukS2YN9B8*

Research and Planning: Music video and narrative: Claude Levi-Strauss.

Levi-Strauss explained that a narrative is motivated by a struggle between binary opposites. The audience should identify the 'right' side and support it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEukS2YN9B8

Binary opposites are clear in this video; we can see that the man walking down the street is representing the 'right' side, and the suicidal girl is representing the 'wrong' side. This is clear due to the first shot of the video is a mid close up of him, which then tracks in front of him confidently walking down the street and we can see the secure/confident expression on his face.

The 'right' side of the binary opposition does represent dominant values as the Proppian hero is a young white male. Also we can see that the subject of suicide is deemed as 'wrong', which is the binary opposite. Although, as we see them into their last conflict he pushes the woman; a dominant ideology in society is to not use violence , especially against vulnerable women. So here we see the hero now on the wrong side of binary opposition.