Audience Theory

There are three important theories which we have looked at,

• The Hypodermic Needle Theory
• Two-step Flow 
• Reception Theory

The Hypodermic Needle Theory shows us that the media has a direct influence upon the audience, and we passively receive and absorb the information. 

This was developed in the 1920's so therefore our opinion is an outdated model. Also the media is blamed for our behaviour, for example: the debate about is violence in video games influencing the minds of the players when become violent themselves. 

A good point about this model is shown that there is no need for intelligence, experience and/or an opinion to be taken into account when you are receiving the information. 

The two step flow theory by Lazarsfeld and Co.  showed that the information was not directly transmitted to the audience, but through Opinion Leaders. 

The weaknesses following this theory are that we can be manipulated in a bias view of the opinion leader, this person can influence is through their opinions and views over our own views.

The strength of this shows that our opinions against the opinion leaders can trigger new ideas and views of our own for a good benefit.

The reception theory is the way in which the individual receives and interprets the text and how their individual circumstances (gender, class, age, ethnicity) affected their reading. 

Ideas for our Record Label

Record Label name ideas


Independant Records
Monument Records
Generation Records
Metamorphesis Records
Interactive Records
Empire Records
Platinum Records
City Records
Premium Records
Apocalypse Records
City Records

Out of this list of ideas for our Record Label name, We have decided that the combination of City Records and Premium Records would work well together.
This making our Record Label name: Premium City Records


Ideas of fonts:

These were some ideas of fonts we were deciding on, we liked the first font because of the use of the fully capital lettered font, however when putting it onto the background of the skyline it did not look right, this was the same case with the full lower case lettered font.
When trying out the second font we thought it mirrored the skyline effect of the background, this being the reason we did not want to use this font as it would contrast and we did not want this.

We decided on the bottom idea, but we chose to use an unbalanced look so we moved and angled some of the letters and made it into this design.

 This was the first logo idea we came up with:

This was our first attempt of our Label, We have chosen to stick with a black and white theme with our logo as well as what our production will be. 

We used the skyline to represent the city in the name with a black silhouette to show the 

main feature is the name. The name is in Grey/Silver writing to outline the idea of Premium being 'first class'.

However, when thinking about it we decided a different route would be better because when asking feedback within our classroom, as this was used as a class exercise, the feedback we were given was:

We decided to change the image slightly so we still have the silhouette in the background, however we have decided to use Typography as a way of changing our font. We have took the feedback from Helen and Connor and are going to take away a lot of the blank space which would be the sky. This is changing so that the Typography will be in the sky making the background silver/grey to form the dark image. 

Here is the first attempt at the Typography:



We like using this because the name is repeated over again, it is filling up the blank space unlike the last attempt. Also its black and white contrasting look is one which we both like for our image. 

This is our finished logo design for Premium City Records. We have used typography repeated behind the image, the use of this gives us space in the black silhouette to put a larger piece of text. (as seen below)

This is the very final piece screenshot from iMovie where we will create the music video. The effect is called "sideways drift" which means it will zoom onto the screen, slow down, and zoom off. The font is a different one from what is used in the typography. We like the colour used against the black and white as it contrasts with what we will want in the video. We used the outline of the black as it stands out better against the silhouette of the city skyline.

Post-Modernism

Today we have looked the Post-modernism theory and how we are going to apply it to our text.

Does ours use Intertextuality?
Our product refers


Does it playfully mix different genres?
No, the genre is based around Romance.

Does it mix elements of high and low culture?
The use of the Low Culture in our product shows we can celebrate this with out the use of contrasting this with the High Culture. In our product the Low Culture is presented through the idea of our main character using the public transport and the concert attended. These being the elements of low culture we have used along with the use of 'cheap alcohol' to show our culture in a negative aspect. However it is still something to be celebrated in the eyes of the post-modernists.

Does it draw attention to the way it is constructed?
Yes, our idea is basically about a girl who gets neglected by her boyfriend and goes to a concert by herself and gets drunk. The way in which it is constructed is different to the norm of a music video.

Does it exhibit fragmentation of location, era, viewpoint?
The fragment

Does it want the audience to notice and enjoy any or all of the above?


Is it playfully ironic about anything 'serious'?
No, it doesn't. Our video is one that is serious, however it is not playfully ironic. It tells a story of a heartbroken girl and how she copes with this. The seriousness of her emotions are not ons that can be played upon.

Is its style more important than its substance?
Yes, the way in which our video is filmed plays a bigger role to our production than the storyline itself.
By using certain cuts and angles for our task it will create the emotion needed from the audience to feel sympathy towards our main character.

Research into institutions

For our music video institution and record label we have decided to use a subsidiary label from a larger institution.



Example: Ed Sheeran, who we have previously looked at for a music video idea, is part of a subsidiary label named "Asylum Records" which is part of the large institution Warner music group. (WMG)

Warner music group is the home of a collection of the best-known record labels in the music industry including Asylum, Atlantic, Cordless, East West, Elektra, Nonesuch, Reprise, Rhino, Roadrunner, Rykodisc, Sire, Warner Bros. and Word, as well as Warner/Chappell Music. It is one of the worlds leading music publishers worldwide.

Structuralism

Structuralism

In our moving image storyline we can apply Barthes Enigma Codes theory.
This Hermeneutic code to be precise.
This applies to the storyline unfinished/unexplained, this is shown within our own narrative by the ending of the music video. At the very end the main character is alone in an alleyway and there is no clue as to what happens after this. 
This creates tension that engages the audience into wanting an answer. 

Vladimir Propp's character theory can also be applied to our narrative. Our main character would be classed as a victim in the sense that she has been ignored and let down by her boyfriend. 

Genre & Audience

The Genre we have chosen to do is Indie Alternative. 

The term "indie" comes from the idea of "Independent" meaning it is not influenced or controlled by opinions. it is unique to dress in a certain style and portray a different look to everyone else.  

Rock
This style of music originated in the 1980's which was identified as post-punk rock, this included bands such as; R.E.M and The Smiths in the UK. 
Pop
Indie pop came on the scene in 1986, artists such as Josef K and Orange juice were the significant postcard bands. Another major movement in the 80's was the drug-fuelled Madchester scene, bands such as The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays mixed with dance rhythms. 
 From the 90s alternative entered the mainstream. This brought a change to the scene when grunge bands such as Nirvana and Soundgarden and Pearl Jam broke onto the scene. "Alternative" became an umbrella term, bands such as Greenday and The Offspring came under the "punk revival" idea. The bands Oasis and Blur came into the "Britpop" suggestion in the UK, abandoning the 1980's small-scale "indie" scene. 
 2000's had a large change in the industry with the decline of record sales and the incline of digital technology, this allowed the internet use for indie rock bands to achieve mainstream success. This commercial breakthrough used the term "indie" very widespread. 
 Now in the music scene we see different genres all of the time such as; Garage Rock, Emo, Indie Pop and Indietronic. All of these genres have derived from each other since the 1980's, and the music we listen today all takes a part of the 1980's and makes a change to make it their own. 

The Smiths:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AlH2oYedfk&safe=active
The Stone Roses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct-qa6SjRZo&safe=active


The reason for this decision is because when we were looking into the different genres this is the one we thought would fit with the theme and idea for our music video. We also looked at some bands and artists who are Indie alternative who have inspired us for our production piece such as The libertines and The Arctic Monkeys.

source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_rock

Our target Audience is aimed at 15 to 24 year olds both genders however the group much broader depending on music taste of various generations. Although our music video will be aimed at that age category. 

From an indie band, the audience would expect a certain image in their minds. 
This type of image shows the bands coming across as rebellious and also quite calm in their perceived imagine and music style. The conventions which are brought to life by indie bands  is the style of clothing such as skinny jeans and long coats. Hairstyles such as longer hair, normally straightened and quite messy. 
We will be meeting these stereotypical conventions within our music video as the band Bleachbird itself already conform to this style, however we will be changing their style to suit the song we will be videoing, 
for example: If we shoot the video in a town, or street on a cold day we will give the conventions of coats and boots, However, if we shoot in a venue with them performing, they will most likely be wearing less of the heavy clothing such as a t-shirt and skinny jeans rather than the coats.

The Simpsons task

For this task we had to create a teaser trailer using supplied clips of the Simpsons movie and also to create a CD cover for The Simpson movie soundtrack. 

The Simpsons teaser trailer: 

Here we have created a Simpsons movie teaser trailer using iMovie. what we think works well with this video at the beginning the wall of sound and the clips builds up suspense for was is to happen in the movie. After the introduction, where Homer and Bart are sitting on the roof and then the music fades in works well as a trailer needs a bit of dialogue to break it up so its not all music and silent clips. Our choice of music works really well with the video as its upbeat, this evidently grasps the attention of the audience by making them feel alert and pay attention when the music begins. What we learned when we watched over the finished product we did find a few problems through out. Such as; at the beginning when the president pointed at the file the sound effect should of been then. The thing we can improve on with the video is the music, we could improve this by not stopping and starting the music continuously. 

Here we have created a Movie soundtrack front cover for The Simpsons. I did this by using Photoshop and found images off the internet. I thought it would look good by using the clouds from the title sequence in the TV series. I tried various techniques for this CD cover such as photoshopping a tambourine into Bart's hand,  sadly that did not work. I then found this image of the whole Simpsons family in a bursting effect  thought this would look good.    

Practice StoryBoard and Filming

In class we started to do some practice story boarding and filming so that when we came to producing the actual end pieces we know what we are doing to make it the best of our ability.  At first we worked as a group of four when making this video, however we split into two groups of two, this leaving a split video between us.

Here is our video we created using the storyboard. 

good bad learned

When creating this video, we thought black and white would be best suited as it gives it a more dramatic effect. The music used is very calm, which in fact is the opposite to the storyline, therefore we felt the contrast worked well together, until the scene inside the room after the message is read and the music changes to the dramatic sounds. Another good aspect we liked within the video was the short space of time in which the instigator enters the room, shows the text and the victim walks out as opposed to the long walk from A to B. We believe the interest of the storyline and the camera angles put forward by the director of the recording were simple, but well edited especially the opening and closing of the lift door, and also the edit on the opening of the door handle into the room in the main scene. 

The bits that could have been better would be the long walks in which the instigator takes to make it to the main room, also, as the instigator walks the sharp starting and stopping of the camera movement could have been smoother. Just before the room is entered there is a small zoom that is not needed, therefore could be changed to the camera staying still. 

Through this task, we have learned the different camera movements that can be used. Also, we understand the use of black and white for the elaborate effect along with the calm music changing to dramatic sharp sounds giving the spontaneity idea when the chair is pushed. Another aspect learned from this is the use of putting a storyline into a moving image. 

This was all helpful for our task we will be completing as we can understand the best angles and movements of the camera, good ideas for the storyline itself and also know how to achieve our goal.

The feedback we got from our lecturer. 

Sherlock Holmes Script Writing

We looked at this trailer or Sherlock Holmes as we were looking at script writing and looking for particular actions to match them with. Whilst looking at this trailor we found things such as pre-production needs, needs as it is being filmed and then post preduction needs. We noticed that pre-production needs things such permission to film in areas of choice, a schedule to when people are available and when the right times of day are needed for certain parts. They also need to make sure that health and saftey has been checked as well as finding the right people for the right job including props. One main one is planning your script within your budget. During the film you need things such as the right times of the day or night, the weather conditions need to be checked to makesure its ok to film. The main ones being the cameras are set up along side with lightning if its needed. Post production mainly consists of the editing of the production. So this involves things like transitions between shots, special effects, music and CGI. What else we learnt whilst doing this task is film making conventions. Some examples being if there is a extreme close up (ECU) of a persons face it could be that shot to empathysis emotion within that person or that scene. Another example could be a long shot of a person could empathysis isolation towards that person, as the shot has been taken from a distance. High angled shots are another as they could connote power over another. Cultural codes is yet another thing we learnt from this task as things such as clothing and areas. The type of clothing a character is wearing could represent that person. An example being if a male is wearing a suit and carrying a breifcase you automatically persume that character is wealthy and some form of buisness man. Social class is also a one as the view of the house you see in the shot can tell you what sort of charater is going to come next. 
We believe that script writing has helped us with out work as learning key aspects which have been mentioned can help us improve and plan our music video out more with a realistic approach.

CD Magazine Advertisements

This advert for PLAN B's album we thought was interesting as there is a big image of himself to the side, and the second image is the CD itself. The way in which his name is written at the top in red bold lettering is a good idea as it is probably the first thing you would look at if you saw this in a magazine. We also liked the idea of the ratings list from other magazines and newspapers. We thought this would be an interesting feature to use as it would potentially gain more fans of the band and have more people listen to the CD. The colour of the black and white image contrasted with the red writing is good as it makes it stand out more, this is definitely an image idea we would use to influence ours.

The Razorlight advert is also a type of advert we would be interested in using in our work. We like the idea of all four members on the cover in their own space with the light shining against them. Although it isn't a black and white cover which is what we would be leaning towards, we like the small element of colour against their clothes and faces. It is interesting how one of the band members are looking in a different direction rather than into the camera. The top left member is dressed in white rather than black, this could show that he is the lead singer maybe and the 'light' of the group. The title font is big, bold, white and eye catching against the black background. Whereas the copy font underneath is also white against black, but smaller as it is the extra information. This advert is also a good idea to use, however it would more than likely be black and white.

Magazine Covers

These are some issues of the New Musical Express, an extremely popular magazine that covers an assortment of different bands and genres. These are some modern bands that are in the same category as Bleachbird and have been chosen due to the same style and genre. All these bands look very laid back in their photo's, and they give off the impression they're in a tight knit gang. This is the kind of image we would like to give Bleachbird, because they all work very closely together to make their music and the frontmen work together to create a good stage presence for their audience. We also liked on these magazines how there is a colour theme to each one. For example on the first and middle magazine there is a lot of red and white and then on the third there is a lot of yellow.

Flat Plans

These are the two flat plans for the front, back and spine of a cd digi pack. We came up with the first idea by looking at other original CD covers. The covers we looked at all involved an image as the main focus of the cover in which we liked the idea of. On the first cover flat plan we liked the idea of having newspaper text as a background throughout the whole pack as we thought from The Libertines cover were the title is in cut up text from magazines or newspapers. We also liked that idea and would like to try it out for out title. The back cover of the first flat plan, we had the idea of using like a notebook style then having a list of the songs on the album listed on to it so it looks quite 3d. The second flat plan is a slightly different layout to the first as not the image is not in the centre of the cover, its more to the right hand side of the cover as we thought the title would look good going across the image similar to the Sex Pistols cover. Again on this one we would carry over the idea of using the newspaper print as the background.    

This is a basic idea to what we would use for the inside of our cd cover. We decided we didn't want so much going on on the inside as that is where the cd will be. We liked the idea of the inside being two photos of the members joined together on each side as then there is not a lot going on. The only other thing that we would add in is a short bit of text on the left side cover. Or If we were to make a little book to go in with the lyrics and images inside.   

These two above are basic flat plans for magazine advertisements. These are the things you would see inside a magazine when a cd is about to be released. The two we have made are similar to the the two covers that we have made as we wanted to keep the 'trademark' recognisable. We have also kept the idea very simple as again we don't want to much going on as if there was it would look over crowded and take the advertisements purpose away. All we have put on it is the band name, images and the release information on the cd.   

Songs for the video

Bleachbird

This is a sample of the music by the chosen band Bleachbird.

This is the band we have decided to make a music video for in our task. The song we are using is yet to be chosen, however Bleachbird are currently writing a new song which we believe will be used.

Click on the link above to preview the songs.

Permission

For the use of the music and band use we needed to ask permission from the band.

We Emailed Connaugh asking for his permission...

and this was the response:

By this we decided to use the song and the band, this was good as it wasn't unknown to Bleachbird that we were using their music and with this they were incorporated into the Video.

Inspirational Music Video.

We came across this video on Youtube whilst looking for inspiration and decided that we liked the theme of producing a black and white style video. We liked this idea because our theme is going to be based on indie rock type music and we believe that the black and white would work better than doing it in full colour as we thought it would be a different approach of taking back time and bringing the the past back to life, by using an unsigned local band to our advantage. What we liked from this particular music video is how the story gives you a sense of emotion towards the main character and automatically links the attention to the story. What we noticed about this style video is that with it being in black and white it is associated with negative feelings which reflects the song within the video.

Again we came accross this video and straight away we liked how is was also in black and white. Another aspect we noticed was how the story on the video starts before the actual music starts as this gives an insight of the storyline. Also we like how ther camera follows the characters every move, then sometimes she is the cameras perspective. The video is set in the mode of the first person which we thought was interresting as its as though the whole song is based on her life. Throughout the video there is an aspect of isolation to the extent that she is the main focus and there is only one other recognisable character. This is also very useful to us as the area we would be filming in is sort of like the one in this video. We liked this because it has the theme that we are looking for in our own video.    

We also like this video, it is a bit different to the others as they are fully black and white.
This video has the use of contrast between both the colour and the black and white which we also like. There is the use of different ways in which it is shot, such as the four grid shot which has different colours in each box (photo A). We like the way in which the colour is used in (photos B&C).
In our video we will be using the staged band aspect, the way it is used in this could be used in ours, however our storyline doesn't revolve entirely focused on the band.

 Photo A. We like this effect on the video for ours because it isn't like a normal video, the effect of using the different colours in each square gives a different view on each position that he is in.

Photo B & C. We like the contrast of the red and blue and the pink and green, however in the video each colour is practically pushed off the screen, fading from red, to blue, green to pink. This effect would be good to use in ours as it will place a contrast with the black and white at certain points within the video

Inspirational Cd Covers

This album cover we have chosen to look at is Tribes. The cover of the album is very simplistic, plain but catchy. Looking at this cover you would assume that their genre of music is very laid back, by their positioning and clothing. But can give you false impressions. Tribes are being represented as laid back men, taking a break on a bench against a white wall standing out but looking nonchalant. There is plants in the bottom of the wall growing through the brick and cement which might represent beauty underneath, after all the album is titled 'baby'. It may be a stereotypical representation of a band all sitting together. The target audience for this particular album is teenagers or adults of both genders with this sort of music interest. The audience are represented in the album cover by the age range of the band members as they look like young adults.

We chose this CD cover as we liked the way in which it had been set out. the whole cover is in black and white apart from a two words in the name of the band. We like this becasue in out ideas we thought of doing a black and white style video which would match this cover. Also in the logo for out band we liked the idea again of staying with greyscale colouring with only a bit of colour. Which is why we chose this cover as inspiration. Another aspect of this cover we liked is how the background is very basic and the people involved are making the cover complete. The people involved give of this tough look towards the viewer but mixing it with a white background could give a different impression as they are not usually two things you mix together. We liked this idea for out cd cover as in out badn we have 4 members and keeping it simple the way this one does would work quite well.

We chose to look at this CD cover as well because we liked the contrasting dark and light colours of the pink and the blue.
We also liked the style of font use and the

Our Plan

For our Media Product we have decided to create a music video based around one of the songs of a band and genre we both like to listen to.

The genre we have chosen is Indie Alternative, in our pair we both enjoy elements of this genre such as the style of music and the dress style of the band members and the difference in video's by existing bands such as the colours used, the shots used and the storyline behind the video.
By using this genre we will take on board all of these ideas and make them into our own.

In the product, we need to create a music video, CD digipack and a magazine CD advertisement, for this we will look at inspirational texts for each, including different videos's, CD's and adverts.
We will also look indepth into genre and audience along with producing a production logo for our company.