Genre Essay

The coursework piece I have chosen to write about is my A2 music promotional package consisting of a music video, a website and a digipak. The genre of my music promotional package would be indie, my group and I took inspiration from other indie artists such as $uicideBoy$ and 1975. I believe the concept of genre to be the style of the piece, each genre has a different style and different elements that help an to distinguish what genre the the music promotional package is. It also provides a people with a way of characterising, grouping and marketing a piece of media to an audience.

An example of how our piece is indie is the iconography of fashion through the music video and the ancillary pieces. It is very typical for indie artists the wear certain clothing and fashion. We tried to recreate this in our video, by looking at other indie artists we gained an idea of what kind of fashion to wear. Additionally our research helped us to discover that many indie artists like to film and shoot in urban locations and almost all of their footage and photos are shot outside in urban locations. This is why we chose to film in urban abandoned location to ensure that our video and ancillary pieces conform to the conventions of the indie genre. 

We chose to conform to certain theories that we felt would add further meaning to our video. The first theory we chose to follow was Goodwin's theory of thought beats. At the start of our video there are shots of our artist walking, but only his feet are visible, every time there is a drum beat the place where he is walking changes. This is how we used the theory of thought beats, it also helped us further develop the indie genre of our piece. This is because right away the audience understand that they are looking at our artist, as he is the main and only focus of each scene, but they are intrigued by the mystery we have created by only showing his feet. This is very typical in the indie genre, to create mystery either through a very rough and vague narrative of through the use of shots. We chose to create the mystery around our artist as it helps to establish the mysterious indie genre of our video and makes our audience want to watch on to discover more about the artist. 

 We also chose to follow the theory of Rick Altman that all videos follow certain semantic traits of their genre. This would be true for our video as we have followed certain semantic traits of indie videos, such as following a 'hipster' fashion throughout and also the fact that our video was filmed in urban and abandoned places. The reason why we wanted to follow certain semantic traits was because we wanted our video to be easily identified as being the indie genre, another way in which we ensured our video was clearly belonging to the indie genre was because we made sure our video was pragmatic. This is because our audience will be able to identify traits that are typical of an indie video and will want to watch it, additionally we ensured that our video conformed to what an institution would publish, this helped us to stay on track with what a typical indie video would include and meant our audience could easily establish the genre as being indie. 

However we also chose to challenge and subvert certain media theories, as we wanted our video to be original and not exactly the same as all of the videos we researched. We did this as it once again helps to establish the indie genre as indie videos and music often goes against the 'norm' or the mainstream and provides and alternative for those who don't want to follow what everyone else is. Therefore we chose to subvert Rick Altman's theory of a syntatic approach. This is because we don't have a typical indie narrative in our video.    

Apply the theory of media language to a piece of coursework

Apply the theory of media language to a piece of coursework.

Paragraph 1: For my A2 final project my group and I have created a cross media promotional package, we used many codes and conventions of media to create meaning and emotion and entice our audience in our final product. 

Paragraph 2: We used Mise en scene extensively during the creation of our final music video to create meaning. Firstly costume, we wanted our artist to be involved with the current youth and we wanted to make our audience feel like they could connect with our artist through his fashion sense and costume. We always ensured that our artist was dressed fashionably but also wore outfits that apply to the 'indie' genre of our music. Therefore our artist was mainly dressed in black, which helps to outline the depressing and dark nature of most modern indie songs. However we also ensured that our artist wore light colours to juxtapose the darkness of the genre. This helped us to create a more upbeat persona of our artist and meant that our artist had a much wider audience that he would appeal to. Moreover the juxtaposition of the light and dark outfits reflect the contrast in mood in the song, as at the beginning and the end the song is very depressing, however during the chorus the song is much more upbeat. This juxtaposition is also seen through our use of props, especially the powder paint. The use of powder paint contrasts the dark and gloomy feel that our editing created when we used the leave colour effect. The bright coloured powder paint is a direct juxtaposition with the black and white look of the final video. 

Paragraph 3: Additionally my group and I thought extensively about the camera shots we would use during our final production of our music video. We used a lot of close up shots at the start of our video to introduce our artist without seeing his face. An example of this is the opening of our video where there are multiple close up shots of our artists feet. We incorporated Goodwin's theory of thought beats in the opening, this was used in conjunction with the camera shots we used. Using the beat of the song to change shots, but still using close ups of our artists feet created a feel of mystery about our artist and enticed the audience to watch more and discover more about our artist. We also used camera shots and framing to empower our artist at the upbeat parts of the song, but to also make our artist look incompetent during the darker parts of our song. For example we used a low angle shot of our artist standing tall over the camera and singing into the lens. This shot was used before the upbeat part of the song to empower our artist and show his importance. The low angle makes the audience feel as if the artist is much bigger than them and creates a 'star image' of our artist, however we wanted our audience to connect with our artist rather than think he is a big 'star'. This is why we used high angle shots to make our artist look small and incompetent, we used this shot during a part of the song where the artist is talking about a failed relationship. So the use of a high angle shot shows that our artist feels emotional towards it, this helps our audience connect with our artist more and makes him seem a lot more human than just a music star.

Paragraph 4:

Audience Essay Plan

Apply the concept of audience to one piece of coursework.

Theories and Theorists:

• Hypodermic Syringe (Passive):

             Messages are 'injected' into the audience, the audience is powerless to the media and is effectively 'drugged'. 

• Cultivation/Drip Drip (Passive):

           Slowly introducing feeling to your audience, the audience notice it less as it is more subtle, for example less                        violence.

• Schadenfreude (Active):

              Gaining pleasure from others misfortune

• Hall's Reception Theory (Active):

             Considers how texts are encoded by producers and decoded by audiences. In some instances the audience will                    understand it, but others will not. 

         3 ways to read and interpret a media text
        - Dominant or preferred 
           - Negotiated ( Can see the idea but doesn't believe it)
           - Oppositional (Seeing and thinking the complete wrong thing) 

• Uses and Gratifications(Active)

            Actively choosing to consume a certain media for your own gratification, not being forced to consume it.  
            Gratifications:
          - Diversion - Escapsim - Information - Pleasure - Compare relationship and lifestyle 

• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (Active)

                

• Marxist Hegemony (Passive)

             The elite at the top control us 'The Passive Masses'. We wait and we are fed our media. 

• Liberal Pluralism (Active)

         Allowing ANYONE a voice and allowing different views and interpretations 

Narrative Essay

Apply the concept of narrative to one piece of coursework.

Intro:

Brief overview of piece, what was it? Media type. Film opening called... followed by brief overview of plot. 

Paragraph 1:

Levi Strauss - Binary opposites, the opposites in narration, children and adults, tattooist and consumer. How and why you used it. 

Point: We incorporated Levi Strauss' theory of binary opposites

Evidence: This was shown by juxtaposing the views of old and young

Explanation: The juxtaposition of these views show the divide in generations and how young people are more interested by tattoos than the old 

Paragraph 2:

Bathes - Codes, enigma code, iconography (starbucks etc.)

Point: We incorporated Bathes theory of enigma codes in our final piece

Evidence: The narration and voice over poses lots of open questions to the the audience 

Explanation: Audience want to watch on and try and answer the questions for themselves

Paragraph 3

Todorov - Theory of equilibrium

Point: We purposefully decided not to include Todorov's theory of of equilibrium 
Evidence: 
Explanation: