AUDIENCE CONCEPT applied to my coursework

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
Blumler and Katz
Personal Identity
This theory outlines the ability to compare your own life with characters and situations that occur in media texts, and to explore your personal problems and looks for solutions and reassurance.
I feel that this theory applies to my video concept as the narrative involves a couple breaking up, which is a typically occurence for the age range of my intended audience. They would be able to relate completely to the idea that a boy/girl doesn't want to be in the relationship anymore, when their partner does, and they go through a tough break-up. The emotions that I plan to convey would evoke sympathy from the viewer because guaranteed they will know someone, or will have a personal experience with this sort of situation.

David Gauntlett

STRUCTURALISM applied to my coursework

Anthony Goodwin;
I feel that my music video concept follows a number of Anthony Goodwin's theories of language use and structure in a music video. The first is 'Links between lyrics and visuals', which I have planned to embody by having one of my characters mouth the words to the song for some shots. I feel that the more emotional lines such as 

"I don't want you, and I don't need you anymore" 

would benefit from being shown coming from the character as I feel this would heighten the emotion of these words and will make them more believable, evoking an emotional reaction from the viewer. Furthermore, a lyric at the beginning of the song refers to holding hands, so I plan to film my two characters holding hands at this point, then gradually separating hands, which foreshadows their break up.

Another of Goodwin's theories of language use and structure in a music video that I feel links to my video is the similar 'Links between music and visuals'. The way in which I plan to do this involves a friend of mine coming with me to my location and actually playing the guitar melody for me to film. Because the guitar melody is so prominent at the beginning of the song I wanted to have someone playing it to give the video 'something else' to occupy the time rather than just the couple on screen throughout. Obviously, I plan to only film the guitar in a close up/extreme close up as I don't want to confuse the viewer by adding in another character, unless I choose to make the guitarist my main male character, which I have yet to decide.

Typical Structures;

My video concept, in my opinion, loosely follows a 'Fragmented' structure. Although it does have a narrative, it doesn't follow a solid 'fairy tale' structure whereby the couple break up, get back together and live happily ever after, etc. My narrative is literally that they're in the process of breaking up, but don't follow a string of events that decides their fate. I feel that this confusion/enigma is fitting for my chosen genre of Alternative/Indie, as videos from this genre rarely follow an obvious narrative like videos from Pop artists might.

Language Use;

Genre reflected language use is something that will be evident in my video. An example of this is in the editing style I plan to incorporate, which is very similar to other videos of the same tempo from my genre. For example, one of the editing techniques I plan to use is slow motion, but only slightly in scenes such as where one of my characters is running away from the other, to symbolize their break up.

Barthes' Five Codes;

Proairetic Code - My video follows this proposed code because at the beginning, the couple are going to be holding hands, and as I zoom in they will gradually let go of each others hands. By witnessing this event, the audience can understand that the rest of the video will be about their break up, and that the parting of hands represented that they are no longer together.

Cultural Code - I'm not quite sure whether or not my video could be considered to follow Barthes' cultural code, however I feel that it does in some ways. My video concept's narrative is based upon a young couple breaking up, which we see a lot of in society, and the lyrics make this obvious. Therefore I believe that because the audience will already have a clear understanding of what goes on in a break up, provoking their preexisting ideas based on the cultural stereotype of a couple experiencing this event.

PITCH

Genre - As I mentioned, 'Please Let Me Go' falls into the Alternative music genre, however I don't feel that it is like many songs that are categorized into this genre, as they are much heavier and don't appeal to a wide audience as my song does. For example, I'm 17 and I enjoy listening to this song, my Mam is 48 and she also enjoys this song and my brothers are 12 and they also enjoy it. This is because the song has a very smooth feel and a beautiful acoustic guitar melody which makes the listener relax into the song. I want this to be portrayed in my video in order to retain the wide appeal that I feel the song has the potential to have.

Narrative - My interpretation of the lyrics is that the narrator is in a relationship and is trying to end things, and this is the narrative which I am going to base my video on. Lyrics such as "Oh just please keep still, cause I don't want this" make it seem that it's hard for the narrator to end things but as he says further into the song; "I don't want you, I don't need you anymore", he is ready to be on his own. This makes one of the characters more prominent than the other and means that one will have more screen time, so I must be careful who I choose to pose as the narrator. Even though it's quite a sad song in some ways, I don't want my video to be dark and depressing as you would imagine it to be. 

Location (forecast + timescale) -  When I listen to this song I imagine it to be set in a quiet, remote location such as a forest where life is uninterrupted by the outside world. I feel that this location choice fits in with my narrative very well as this couple are going through a crisis and don't have any concern of what is occurring in the outside world, as this is the only thing that is important to them at that moment. Also, the opening lyrics are:

"Please hold my hand tonight, cause it's so cold outside. And the trees are whistling to themselves, just trying to keep warm"

which support the image of a forest. These lyrics and also the song as a whole give me the feeling of Autumn when I listen to it. Autumn is my favourite season as it provides (in my opinion) the most beautiful colours such as reds, browns, deep greens. I feel that this colour pallet will compliment my song and will be widely available in my choice of location. Autumn is when I will be starting my project however the weather that I want for my video usually lasts longer, giving me plenty of time to get all of my footage. I want to film in the late evening as I feel that this time will provide the best lighting for the mood of my video - not too dark and not too light, a soft and pleasant light which also signifies the end of the day, tying in with my 'end of relationship' narrative. 

Cast (appearance and costume) - Because the narrative of my song involves a couple, I plan to include only two people in my video: one boy and one girl. These are the only two characters that I intend to include in my video as the emotion of the song is being experienced by two people in a crumbling relationship, and I want that to be uninterrupted by any background cast. In the song, the singer is male, and as the lyrics are in the first person he is the narrator of the story. I don't know whether or not I will keep the narrator as male, as it may be more convenient for me to use a female as the narrator. The lyrics don't come across as being typically male so using a female narrator won't take away from the emotion of the words. I will decide whether to use a male or female narrator once I have chosen the people I intend to feature in my video. Using my close friends is convenient for me as I have more flexibility of how much I can film them and I can rely on them to perform and follow instructions.

I would like the characters in my video to be attractive, as I feel that although this is a very stereotypical and somewhat shallow approach, it is what often attracts a viewer to the video and is what many famous bands/singers practise. The costuming for these two characters should be very relaxed and informal, and should feature soft/dull colours such as browns, blacks, greys etc. For example, I may dress my female in a pair of jeans and a baggy jumper, and the male in a casual shirt and jeans. I don't plan to use any props such as bags or microphones, however I may use natural props that I find at my location. For the female, I don't have any strong preferences for her make-up, other than I would like it to be natural and not too fake (no false eyelashes, bright lipstick, dark eyeshadow etc) in order to compliment my choice of song and location.

PROPOSAL

For my A2 Media project I intend to pursue the following brief;

A promotional package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

A website homepage for the band;

A cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package);

A magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).

I am very passionate about music and it has always been a big part of my life so I feel that this would be the best brief for me. I understand how to dissect a song and figure out the meaning behind the less obvious lyrics so I can best portray the emotions of my chosen song.

The song I have chosen to create a music promo video for is ‘Please Let Me Go’ by Charlie Simpson (Busted front-man gone-solo) from the album 'Young Pilgrim'. I would say that this song falls into the Alternative music genre however it isn't a heavy song, it is more like an acoustic set, where the most prominent aspects of the song are the vocals and the acoustic guitar melody. It is a song which I like very much and from listening to it leisurely, I already have an image in my mind for how I imagine the music video to look. Because both the singer and the song aren't very well known, the track doesn't actually have an official music video, meaning that whatever I create will be entirely original and not based on any pre-existing material.

Out of the three provided options I plan to create the CD cover and the magazine advertisement. I have chosen the first because the location that I plan to use will provide many photo opportunities which could be used for the album cover, to give the artist a distinct image and a consistent advertisement theme/concept. As part of one of the units of my Music GCSE I had to record a song and create an album cover for it, so I could use my experience to help me in this project. Also, the skills I have acquired from my Graphics A Level will help me to produce an aesthetically pleasing album cover which will appeal to the viewer, having a very simple and natural feel to ensure the cover is appealing to a wide audience.
The second option of the magazine advertisement appealed to me because like the CD cover, it focuses heavily on design and creativity, which I feel are my strong points. My AS Media project of creating a magazine gave me a taste of how magazines work, and therefore I can use the skills I picked up to help me create an advertisement which would fit into any type of magazine and would catch the reader's eye, making them take notice rather than just flick over onto the next page.