Essay plan for Media Language.

Introduction: When it came to producing and editing my music video, there are many aspects of media language that I constructed. Media language is important in any text as it can give underlying narratives and also gives the product a language of its own.


Paragraph 1: Band and Character costumes: colours, red,-love, danger. white- innocence (band members) and black- andy wore black to portray his villainous character (guilt as well), he wore this in both narrative and performance as I wanted to link the narrative and performance together.   Sophie; wore flowery shirt and it was white, ----Barthes theorist, denotations and connotations---- 


Paragraph 2: the use of close-ups, voyeurism: represents the main characters---- theorist, Vladamir Propp, his theory of characters---- especially andy, even though he isnt the lead singer, he had alot of close ups to show his guilt.. (acapella part, he has his head down) 
also close ups of the lead girl, to show her innocence being broken down and how things changed her. her progress.


Paragraph 3: Symbolism of the ring: ----genre theory (do not associate super natural powers within a punk/rock music video)---- how we portrayed it with camera shots, did it because we wanted to keep picking up the theme of love through out, ---- goodwins theory; visual to lyric, love, promises etc.----


Paragraph 4: Use of intertextuality: titles at the beginning, intertextual from storybooks and other music videos. ----genre theorists, representations of rock and roll; what's stereotypical----


Conclusion: 

Audience essay.

Audience is one of the biggest parts to consider when planning and producing a new media product. Each company needs to find their target audience and then put aspects of it into their product, when planning my music video, audience was a very big part of it as we had to identify the audiences of pop/punk music.


 Hall came up with the approach of three different readings when viewing a media product as an audience, two of these apply to my music video, which is 'Dominant and/or preffered reading' which is the reading that the producers want you to have, so it is accepted, in my music video, the accepted reading is that the ring is supernatural, appearing when the characters are hallucinating. The second one is 'negociated reading'  which means the audience may disagree with the set reading, and might make their own interpretation, this applies to my music video as the boy and girl have an argument over the boy apparenty 'cheating' audiences may disagree with this reading and feel the girl overreacted. The third one 'Oppositional reading' does not apply as audiences will not find my video offensive or explicit. 




]McDougall argued that 'it is getting harder to identify a stable group'which in many ways I agree with, as it isn't just one group of people that listen to pop/punk anymore, the conventions of that specific audience have grown. When planning my music video, it was hard to identify the aspects we should put in to help gain an audience, in the end we did but twisted many conventions to find our ideal audience, such as associating love in a pop/punk video.


Hartley said that 'they must know their audience so they can target them effectively'  I agree with this as when planning and producing my media product, I had to know who my target audience was, so when filming I could make sure I included everything, to ensure I enticed them and they would enjoy it. 


My audiences do follow these structural theories, as I had to identify who my target audience was and ensure that they would enjoy the product.

Secret Question!

Section 1A; The Creative Journey (ooooh!)

'The processes must generate something original' (in blue)


AS:

1 + 2: These two screenshots are taken from my Thriller production, the hands that feature during it and at the end is creative because it creates enigma for the audiences, as they do not know what is following the main characters. 
This is a process as usually the 'villain' or 'bad guy' is fully in shot, unlike my production where they were faceless. It features in some productions, like Scream and Friday 13th, which also fits in with my film genre, so it can be argued that my production isn't original.


3: The flashbacks of the two main characters Elly and Seth, I put it in a black and white 'victorian' film effect, this lets the audience know that they are looking into the past, this boosts audience emotions. This is creative because it allows the audience to attach to the characters, letting them become apart of it.
The victorian theme makes it seem less original, but for the use of it for flashbacks, it seemed original as many other productions have not done it. 


A2:


4: This is taken from my A2 music video, the 'power' of the ring, and the 'supernatural' feel it possesses, it follows the boy and girl makes this creative because it is an element of hyper reality and allowed us to give our music video another meta narrative. 
I would say this is the most original part of my journey throughout the course, as I have not seen this type of symbol in any other mediated productions. It highlights the meta narrative of supernatural powers.


5. The titles at the beginning (+end) 'Once Upon a Time' makes it creative because it gives the music video a 'childhood story' theme, and you do not see this in a pop/punk video usually. 
In many ways this is original as it hasn't been used in a media production, but in other ways it isn't as it has featured in childhood stories for centuries, but it was taking something old and recreating it, making it a new product.

Media Language Music Video Analysis

I chose this song and video as the song and the visuals link together strongly, the song was written by Danny, the lead vocalist of Asking Alexandria, and it is about his drug and alcohol addiction that he has since overcome, but he wanted to show his fans how bad he genuinely was, bringing him closer to them in the form of a song. He felt like he was fighting a losing battle, and this is shown in the video, all the way through it shows links between them both constantly, most of the time only with timing, but it all still links.


It shows all of his weaknesses, and how he would behave when out with his fellow band members, and the way that the music video is presented makes it obvious that the band had many difficulties coming to terms with Danny's addictions. It is obvious in the mise-en-scene, as it is filmed in a club, Goodwin's theory of lyrics to visual is apparent as it has the connotations of alcohol and drug abuse. 
In a way this music video is Arbitory, as you you can have your own interpretations of it, but it can also be said that the music video is cultural as the bands fan culture is associated with alcohol and drugs. 


Other media language that is noticeable in this music video is the editing, as it is fast paced and cut quickly to fit in with the speed of the music, the camera work also uses shots such as pan, a canted crane shot, but the main shot used is a closeup, as it makes the audience see the appeal of the band members, but also brings them closer to them, making the music video even more personal. 


There is a small reference to Intertextuality at 1:43, where the band have all met up and are crossing the road, this is a slight Beatles Reference.