Audience and Genre

Genre means kind or type, each genre has it's own characteristics features that are known to and recognised by audiences, this formual is reproduced again and again. Why do audiences find genres satisfying? Audiences develop an understanding that certain expectations maybe fulfilled and they may find pleasure in predicting what will happen. Audiences recognise the key elements of conventions of a genre and respond accordingly, these key elements are called paradigms. Paradigms in music videos and thrillers: Thriller Weapons Protagonist Antagonsist Relationship Violence/Struggle McGuffin Secluded Places Cities Police Music Video Lip Synching Instruments Settings for genre Relationship Dancing Dramatic Lighting Glamourous Clothing/Costume Product Placement

Narrative Theory

Roland Barthes described all texts as complex 'bundles' of meaning which can be unraveled to create a while range if different meanings. According to Barthes texts can be:

• Open- with numerous 'threads to pull'
• Close- with only one obvious thread to gasp
• 
  

Texts that can be read in a number of different ways are known as as polysemic texts. These threads that Barthes referred to are known as narrative codes. The most significant being the enigma codes. This is constructed to attract and hold the attention of the audience normally by creating a mystery of a puzzle that the audience want to see solved.

When applying this theory to my music video I can see that it would be considered a closed text, as there is only one main thread to grasp and it is also very abstract.

Music Video: Lighting

Lighting is hard to control both inside and out.



This scene was the second piece of footage that we shot. The image on the left was the first thing we shot on that day, from the image you can see that that light from the window is shining on the right side of Hayley’s face.
Although the light doesn’t ruin the shot when we looked over the footage on the camera the light looked as though it completely obscured Hayley’s face. So we reshot the scene this time closing the curtains and turning on the lamp in the background, but when we uploaded the original footage the light hadn’t obscured her face at all.

These were some of the last pieces of footage to be shot by Hayley, they were done during one of the weeks when the snow was melting and from the background you can see that it was extremely dark. These shots wouldn’t have worked had Hayley not lighted the scene just enough so that we could see her and some of the background.

Music Video: Camerawork

We used a variety of different shots within our music video.

Long Shot:

The long shots in the video allow us to show the audience both our main character, Hayley, and her surroundings. If we had used a long shot at the beginning of our music video to introduce the characters or setting, it would be called an establishing shot.
Long shots are also often referred to as a full or wide shot, which typically show the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surrounding.

Medium Shots:

Hayley playing guitar


Using the mid-shots allowed us to get closer to Hayley than a long shot in order to see her facial expressions, but still be able to see her body language.
The line between long and medium shots and medium and close-ups is often unclear, though it is more commonly known that a shot framed from the waist up is a medium shot.

Close-Up:



Close-up’s allowed us to focus the audience’s attention solely on Hayley’s character and not the background.
Close-up’s are often used as cutaways from a more distant shot to show detail, such as intricate activity with someone’s hands. They are often used as a way of distinguishing main characters, as they are often given a number of close-ups to indicate their importance.

Steady shot

This image shows a steady shot, we were able to get this shot by using the tripod.

My Contribution To The Group

This year I worked with Hayley, Louise and Paul. We had originally planned to worked as a three with Hayley, Louise and myself, therefore we had already discussed who would be responsible for what. When Paul joined our group he helped with everything, apart from the editing of the actual music video as he was unfamiliar with the software.

My role within the group was editor, though I did some filming. My role as editor meant I had to edit the footage of a music video, as well as creating the Digipak and Advert.

Erotic Desire and Agency

In classical Hollywood cinema the male protagonist has agency, he is active and powerful and he is the agent around whom the dramatic action unfolds. The female character is always passive and powerless, as she is the object of desire for the protagonist and the audience.

Laura Mulvey also argues that women have two roles in film, the first being the object of erotic desire for the characters and the second being the object of erotic desire for the audience.

This can be seen in films such as James Bond, Thelma and Louise and also Top Gun.

Suture

Suture is where classical Hollywood narratives, editing or music 'sutures' or positions the audience in certain ways making only one preferred reading possible, however unconscious the audience is of that position.

Feminist Film Theory and Audiences

Laura Mulvey

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975)

Laura Mulvey argues in this essay that we live in a male dominated society and that the patriarchal society we live in is reflected in cinema, meaning that films are shown from the male point of view. She also argues the theory of "The Gaze", where the camera is the male gaze and the male gaze is active ans the female passive.

Within the media texts the male characters direct their gaze towards the female characters, the spectator is made to identify with the male gaze, because the camera films from the optical as well as libdinal point of view of the male character. Therefore the audience is constructed as though everyone was male.

Thus there are three levels of the cinematic gaze that objectify women- camera, character, and spectator (triple gaze).

Advert Final

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Music Video (Better Quality)

The Making Of Our Digipak: Part 3

This is the alternative picture that could have been used as the front cover image had we not used the one of Hayley.

This cover has an image of a gypsy and a skull pirate inside her crystal ball, with the name of the album below. The image was put together by myself using Photoshop and the text was also made using a font from Photoshop.

The Making of Our Digipak: Part 2

These are lyrics from four of the songs on the album, which can be found either side of the disk.

As it would have taken too long to wait for Jenn to send us a copy of the lyrics, I hand typed the lyrics above and edited them once again using www.picnik.com. The title of the song's were also edited separately using the same site, as I wanted them to be slightly bigger.

The Making Of Our Digipak: Part 1

This is the front cover of our digipak, which was made using photoshop and an online site www.picnik.com. Hayley went home and took some pictures on her own camera, we chose a picture of her and used the site above to edit it.

This is the back cover of our digipak. The image on the back cover I had originally changed to have the same effect as the image on the font cover, but as it didn't have the same effect I just left it in black and white. The track listing is in the same font as the front cover, as it was made using the same website.

The album tracks were taken off Jenn's Reverbnation site www.reverbnation.com/jennkrahn and their youtube channel, www.youtube.com/user/aida462.

Digipak Final

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Changes From The Original Plan

1. We completely changed the artist and the song we were going to use, from Wendy Bennett to Aida and 'Oh Me, Oh My'.

2. Due to the change in the song we used we also changed the locations we planned to use, instead of using a bar we used a bedroom, field and a drama studio.

3. We completely changed our plan in terms of the storyline. Instead of it being a doomed love story featuring a boy and girl, the story was just about the girl being alone and how she will always hold him in her heart.

4. Along with changing our storyline, we also changed the ending scene. The end scene originally ended with Hayley being accidentally run over by her boyfriend, we decided to end the video with Hayley sitting in her bedroom singing the last lines of the song.

Narrative Theory: Propp

Propp

Propp's theory analyses Russian folk tales and identifying the 8 key character roles.

These 8 key character roles can be applied to films such as The Wicker Man, Don't Look Now, Batman, Star Wars and The Matrix.

If I was to apply this theory to The Matrix the character roles would look like this:

Hero - Neo

Princess -Trinity

Villain - Agent Smith

Helper - Trinity

Father Figure -Morpheus

Dispatcher - Oracle

False Hero- Cypher

Donor- Oracle

The only part of this theory that we could apply to my music video is the character of the hero, which would be our main character Hayley.