Audience Theory

MUSIC VIDEO

1. Who is your target audience? How did you choose this audience?
Teenagers aged 13-16. The genre of music will appeal mostly to them along with the video concept.

2. (a) What expectations (gratifications) might they have of your text?
-LINEAR MODELS
-HYPODERMIC SYRINGE THEORY (might not be relevant - more active audiences now instead of passive)
-TWO STEP FLOW
From the start the audience would expect the video to produce a fun / playful mood and a story involving the camper van that matches the lyrics in the song.
(b) How have you tried to meet these expectations?
I tried to meet these expectations by creating a journey for the toy camper van which is the story, matching music / lyrics to visuals and introducing a concept for the fun / playful mood.
(c) What is their motivation for accessing texts like yours? (uses)
A different approach to creating a music video produced something original and new for an audience with the same elements that would be expected to be seen.
-USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY (also out dated - more than four uses now)
DIVERSION - the fun feel of the video allows an audience to forget about everyday life and just enjoy watching something care-free. Because of the location is a familiar setting (inside a house) the audience can relate to this and feel involved in the video by perhaps imagining the toy camper van in their own home.
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS - The target audience would be the people watching the video therefore they can talk about it amongst each other.
-MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
SOCIAL - linking to personal relationships in Uses and Gratifications the target audience is able to talk about the video among each other and friends. By talking about this other members of the target audience will be accepted.

3. Under Stuart Hall's theory what type of 'reading' might your target audience give to your text?
-STUART HALL 'PREFERRED READINGS'
Dominant
Negotiated
Oppositional
Aberrant
My target audience would probably give my text a negotiated 'reading'. This would be due to it not being a typical music video in the sense that it involves a concept and no actual performance. Although it was my intention to not include a band performance, my target audience still might expect to see one which could be where they disagree. However, they should enjoy the story, concept and song which is the part they hopefully will agree with.

Twin Peaks

How can ‘Twin Peaks’ be considered postmodern?

The term ‘postmodern’ describes an approach to culture which sees all texts as being intertextual and having meaning shown in a media conscious way, rather than representative of a realistic state. As reality is increasingly mediated, the boundaries between reality and media-reality are blurred. ‘Postmodernism’ can be referenced to describe a number of concepts such as visual style over content, fragmentation, genre blurring and confusion over time and space.

            One particular American television drama called ‘Twin Peaks’ can be described as postmodern due to many of the characteristics it contains. Audiences would describe this cult classic as ‘confusing’ but that is a major element concerned with postmodernism, and confusions over time and space is a recurring feature that is pushed to the limits. There are very sudden cuts between scenes throughout episodes of ‘Twin Peaks’ meaning that in some places they are stopped short and there becomes a jump to the next one. This alone causes confusion for the audience over what is happening at what time, and whether all of these situations are taking place at once, it also disrupts the audience’s viewing. Lyotard’s postmodern theory concerning meta-narratives can be applied to ‘Twin Peaks’ because in this instance they do not work. The meta-narratives that appear in the television drama are not believable or viewed as particularly realistic which links to the postmodern characteristic of confusion and blurring boundaries.

            Intertextuality appears in ‘Twin Peaks’ frequently. Intertextuality describes the inclusion of texts that refer to or reflect each other, in other words a text within another media text. However in this television drama it might not be obvious to the audience when intertextuality appears. It is introduced mostly through character names which are taken from existing beings, for example the series murder victim Laura is loosely based around a character from the 1950’s noir film ‘Laura’. Despite just the name being the same, a number of their characteristics are also similar. Another example is the brothers Ben and Jerry, named after the ice-cream called ‘Ben and Jerry’s’ and ironically these brothers are food-obsessed. A character called Audrey Horne, who is used to getting her own way, has a style and appearance which reflects that of Marilyn Monroe. She is only supposed to be a teenager, so for a girl of this age to be dressing in such a way and having that particular style is not something that is recognised in many other television dramas in different eras. ‘Twin Peaks’ was broadcast in the 1990s; a long time after Marilyn Monroe was on our screens.

            Other ‘postmodern’ characteristics appear throughout the episodes such as taking a dream and making it appear to be real. FBI Agent Cooper dreams about who murdered the character Laura Palmer, but the whole thing is very fragmented and confusing because none of it makes much sense, however it is still realistic to an extent. The concept of visual style over content can be applied to the brothel scene because there is no actual content, but the flesh-baring women are visually pleasing for the viewer, particularly men, which is why only male characters enter the brothel in the scene. The music is repetitive with only slight changes that keep returning to the same part which is typically ‘postmodern’. This can either become boring for the audience or they get drawn into it and forget about the music, in some ways it enhances the action because of the general feel of the programme and the music matches this. Early on in one episode when Laura Palmer had recently been murdered, Agent Cooper was trying to solve the crime by throwing rocks at bottles. If he hit the bottle, then whoever had been associated with it was a suspect. This is a completely unrealistic and ridiculous way to solve a murder, especially when it is such a serious crime.

            Most people would say that ‘Twin Peaks’ is confusing, strange and not realistic at all, but that is just due to the charming ‘postmodern’ qualities and characteristics it contains. Media texts which have these ‘postmodern’ elements within them are becoming increasingly more popular with audiences after the creation of other television programmes such as ‘Lost’, ‘X Files’ and ‘Mighty Boosh’. In essence these characteristics are almost expected by the audience because we are so used to seeing them; this just was not the case for ‘Twin Peaks’ at the time it was broadcast so they were not appreciated.

Question 1(b)

AUDIENCE

Audience

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REPRESENTATION


'The Male Gaze' - represents women as if through the eyes of a male heterosexual.
Related to thriller: hero / heroine in situation of threat - easily led.
'The Female Gaze' - women's answer to this theory.
Notion of looking, voyeurism.
John Fiske 'open / closed' texts' - how much of the text is left to our own interpretation?
Verisimilitude - how close does a media text get to reality?
Anti-realist films - opposite to verisimilitude.
Stuart Hall - TV 'fills in' our picture of the world through its representation.


NARRATIVE


Barthe's Theory (5 'codes') - setting up 'codes' or enigma (mysteries) and then solving them.
Related to productions: building tension to raise suspicion with audience.
Connotations and denotations within a media text.
Meanings arise out of conflicting ideas.


LANGUAGE


Stuart Hall - describes language as communications or anything that can communicate meanings.
Encoding / decoding texts.
      Encoding - instruction
      Decoding - interpretation
'Preferred Readings' - dominant (agree)
                                  oppositional (disagree)
                                  negotiated (agree in parts)
Saussure - semiotics: symbols to create meaning e.g. image motifs.


GENRE


Tom Ryall - 'a framework of structuring rules'.
Stephen Neale - repeated characteristics AND different characteristics not always expected to be found within that genre.

Conventions Timed Response

“Sometimes, working within constraints produces the most interesting work” (Branston and Strafford)

How have you used real media conventions to produce interesting or effective coursework productions?

Across my two productions (thriller opening at AS and music video at A2) including typical conventions found in both of these helped to create convincing work, and having to work around these enhanced my creativity. Essentially, the quote means that by having to include certain conventions the outcome is better than it would be without them, and if you challenge them the reasons for doing so must be justified. The audience expects to see these conventions within productions.

In my thriller opening a build up to the action is the first predominate convention that features and this was created in a number of ways. This is a typical thriller genre convention so by including it I was following what was expected. To achieve this build up and tension, there are many scenes of the protagonist walking on his own through a particular location at night time. This raises questions for the audience such as why is he on his own, where is he walking to and for what purpose? Therefore this creates anxiety because the audience is waiting for these questions to be answered and should be wondering whether something might happen to this character. This was not a particularly adventurous use of a convention, but it is often found in existing thriller films.

In comparison to this safe use of a convention, I was more able to experiment in my music video after not doing so very much in my thriller opening. I challenged a lot of conventions here by first of all using stop frame animation throughout the video, a feature which is not often found in music videos. Along with this stop-motion effect a concept was introduced, which again is challenging because music videos are often performance or narrative based. The concept was a toy camper van embarking on a journey through a house while a band member was out. I feel that this whole idea with the genre of music which matched the concept perfectly expressed how creative and adventurous I can be with production. By challenging conventions alone has proved progression from my AS production because I was not brave enough to do so then. I wanted to create something more exciting and original than a typical music video, but still containing other music video conventions.

I also followed the conventions in my music video by sticking to Goodwin’s principals. A distinct relationship between music and visuals was created and the use of stop frame animation exaggerated this. The shot cut exactly on the beat and the fast-paced genre of music matched the speedy cuts. A blackout appears at a particular point in the music when it stops and the images appear again when it starts, the action is also slowed down with an instrumental to highlight part of the song. By following these principals very closely here I was more able to experiment elsewhere in the video with other elements to create a vibrant production. This shows progression from my thriller opening because the guidelines in some ways were tighter and more restricting, at least that is how I felt creating it unlike with my music video. I realised with my A2 production that it was ok to subvert conventions as long as I justified my reasons for doing so.

By including a flashback scene in my thriller opening this again shows that I followed the conventions closely. I used a black and white colourisation effect to connote this element. The flashback featured the protagonist having a conversation with his sibling and giving her a present. However, he does not have a job so how did he afford to pay for this? The answer follows with the introduction of the ‘main dealer’, whose face is never shown, so this is another use of a thriller film convention. Although I did what was expected by using the conventions, I did not express much creativity like I did in my music video. If I had somewhere included something unexpected to throw the audience off track then it could have been a more exciting production. For example, somebody about to watch a music video would not be expecting it to be a concept idea built from still images in a stop-motion effect.

Close ups of the main vocalist often feature in performance based music videos but instead I used close-up shot of the toy camper van which means that another convention was challenged. This was a positive thing because it helped to create a personality for the vehicle and almost make it appear to be in place of a main vocalist.

Conventions

Conventions of a Music Video

Goodwin's:

• Lyrics and visuals are related (visuals might illustrate, amplify or contradict lyrics)
• Music and visuals are related
• Particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography (heavy rock videos often use live performances) CHALLENGED
• Lots of close-ups of the main artist/vocalist CHALLENGED
• References to voyeurism especially in the way women are treated, but also by using screens, cameras, binoculars etc.
• Intertextual references (to other music videos, films or TV texts)

Pete Fraser:

• The tempo/pace of a track might be matched by editing (e.g short cuts to match a fast pace)
• Images of guitars, keyboards, a mouth etc. might be used to emphasise a particular sound in a track.



Conventions of a Thriller

"Settle them down and create a sense of anticipation. . hit the ground running"

(Complexity within simplicity) Saul Bass

• A build up to the action
• Creation of fear / apprehension / anticipation / unsettling feeling / confusion / doubt over a character
• Dark, shadowy atmosphere (use of light and dark images)
• Establishing mood and atmosphere throughout the film
• Delay in showing the face of a significant character, or the action of an important event by first showing the hand of the character for instance or a reaction of someone watching the event
• Creation of suspense using soundtrack music - eerie innocent music?
• Morally ambiguous central character - film noir (Seven)
• Murder encouraging a suspecting audience
• Realistic settings to create a sense of 'the unusual' occurring within a normal setting
• Flashbacks
• Hero(ine) in situation of threat or struggle
• Red Herrings (Hitchcock movies)
• Twists and unexpected turns (The Usual Suspects)
• Making and keeping the audience tense and on the edge of our seats.

"the conventions of each genre shift, new genres and sub-genres emerge and others are 'discontinued'" (Chandler).

In my thriller opening I stuck very closely to the conventions by including flashbacks, a dark, shadowy atmosphere and morally ambiguous central character... In my music video I challenged the conventions a lot more by including close-ups of a toy camper van instead of the main vocalist... I took more risks by using a concept idea with the camper van and use of stop frame animation...

"one could... argue that no set of necessary and sufficient conditions can mark off genres from other sorts of groupings in ways that all experts or ordinary film-goers would find acceptable" (Bordwell 1989, 147).

I think it is good to have a set of 'rules' there to provide guidelines when making a product, however as long as you are aware of the conventions it is ok to subvert or challenge them... My creativity would have been more restricted making my music video if I was not able to break the 'rules'... I followed them in the production of my thriller opening but felt a lot more confident to not follow them with my music video... Ibroke them a lot in my music video by using googly eyes on the toy camper van in relation to the concept of the notion of looking instead of real eyes...

"conventions give the producers a framework to work with - a set of guidelines" (McQuail).

I was able to work within a set of guidelines to produce a convincing product but also work against them to be more creative...It was helpful but also allowed for creativity...I felt more secure knowing what I had to do to create something convincing...

"sometimes, working within constraints produces the most interesting work" (Branston and Strafford).

I think breaking the conventions actually allowed me to express more creativity by not producing something predictable with my music video...In my thriller opening I didn't challenge them as much which I regretted.

The Mighty Boosh

(Taken from an existing analysis for revision purposes)

The Mighty Boosh, at first glance is more surreal than anything else, with the main characters being (in the first series) two zookeepers - Howard Moon and Vince Noir, the zoo owner - Bob Fossil, one shaman and strangest of all, a gorilla. Many other minor characters are also played by Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett, which in itself could be considered postmodern, as a form of bricolage, but also because some of the characters they play are direct references to other people, both real and fictional (e.g. the Spirit of Jazz can be seen as a representation of Slash from Guns and Roses, and also Papa Lazarou from the Leage of Gentlemen). This is not only intertextual, but it also draws attention to the celebrity-obsessed culture that we live in, as many references made are to celebrities. Vince also craves fame, and will constantly re-invent himself in order to do that - one day he is a punk, the next he is a goth.

 At the beginning of the first series, Vince and Howard begin each show with a direct address to the audience about what is to come. Not only is this self-reflexive, as it draws attention to the constructed nature of the text and also references what is considered to be 'high art', the theatre, with curtains behind them.
 The use of bricolage throughout allows the show to reference many different genres, from music videos (the tundra rap) to fantasy ("welcome to mirror world") and romantic comedy, not to mention the cartoons used throughout later episodes. This mixing of genres is typically postmodern, however, The Mighty Boosh tends to blur the boundaries between genres rather than use bricolage in the traditional sense. The Mighty Boosh can be classed as a comedy, musical, fantasy, science fiction and many more besides. This show also parodies many other shows, as well as genres in general. The episode 'Mutants' is a  parody of the sci-fi/horror genre, and a more precise parody is 'The Nightmare of Milky Joe', which is a parody of the film 'Castaway' starring Tom Hanks. Obvious parallels can be drawn between the two texts, with Tom Hanks' character creating an imaginary friend out of a football, and in The Mighty Boosh, Howard creates Milky Joe from a coconut. However, The Mighty Boosh takes the idea one step further into the surreal, with the coconut people coming alive to capture Howard and Vince.