Audience
Correlating to Blumler and Katz's Uses and gratification theory i feel this was the most influential part of planning and research relating to my video, relating to all 4 distinctions relating to the audience through all different forms surrounding the video. Personally i think the main distinction relating to my video is surveillance; due to the video's ideology being so strongly related to the video and song lyrics, this creates a sense of a moral panic provoking the audience's thoughts about the deeper thoughts and messages once looked at without the rose tinted glasses. The sense of moral panic comes especially in the song ‘uprising’ with its powerful messages and ideologies towards the government it has a strong sense of surveillance. We watch the news as we feel it is a reliable source of information and it makes us feel secure that we know what is happening around us. Bellamy, the lead singer explained this: “The lead single, ‘Uprising’, was kind of inspired by the G20 protests which took place last year”. If this is true, it is consistent with my interpretation of the lyrics, namely that "they" represents large corporations and the government. Unfortunately we live in a business and government run society in the wrong way; they control the media along with more and more aspects of people's lives all the time. The term for this culture is called neoliberalism. That is the basic background of this song. Muse clearly wants to put out this message and they act as advisors and almost like seminar givers who preach about powerful messages about life. Through the ideologies of the song you understand that the macro purpose of this song is to inform and educate the audience on the truth about how our society is run. Therefore at the same time the micro purpose being to advise the mass audience on how to deal and solve this problem. To summarize this up, this model is all about making the consumers aware of what is happening around us, therefore Muse informing people about what is happening all round us in relation to the government and the G20 protests which inspired the song helps the song and video conform to this theory. This also inspired my video and ancillary texts, in my video you see what's happening all around you and how you feel you are on a journey with the protagonist; relating to the surveillance distinction as you realise you could be under control at some point in your life and realising that securing yourself from this control is the best option. However my video reflects the messages but in a different form, the doctors with the pills resembling the government and their lies relating to the hypodermic needle theory as through the understanding of the hidden messages and attitudes of the video is like an injection of information being fed to the audience . Therefore relating back to the Surveillance distinction, because once the audience consume this information injection, the reaction is to secure yourself.
Genre
According to Jason Mittell (2001) genre surpasses the boundaries of media texts and that genres are cultural categories and operate within industry, audience and cultural practices as well, in brief industries use genre to sell products to audiences. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions that often make cultural references to their audience's knowledge of society and other texts. My video consistently challenges this convention as for many consumers including me relating back to Stuart Hall's Reception theory, i specifically targeted my products at people coming under the dominant view including: younger people, women and lower class people, simply to give them a voice as they are stereotypically the most belittled and seen as inferior groups of people. Rock and punk music for example Hurry up Harry - frequently categorised as having a progressive views across the entire political spectrum, therefore challenging conventions as my products are aimed at a group of people who will have a dominant view because the negative semantic field of politics is predominantly used by the inferior groups. Reflected by the protagonist is a semiotic to be used as the voice for the groups with a dominant view. Therefore i feel as if when the dominant viewers watch my video they can understand this on a wider scale and understand the semiotics and connotations a lot more deeper than for example an upper class consumer would. An upper class consumer would have an oppositional view because of the ideology that this is a song opposing the government, when upper class people benefit more from the government therefore cannot relate or see what consumers with a dominant view see.
Representation
Tessa Perkins' stereotype theory is both conformed to and also challenged, being divided by performance and narrative clips. Stereotypes are generally used more in pop and RNB music, as they are easy genres to generalise and stereotype, however rock music and artists are more individual, and its more acceptable to challenge conventions and not fit a stereotype and not getting judged purely for aesthetic reasons. However within my performance clip you predominantly see the band in dark colours which have meaningful connotations of death, mystery, dark and fairly hollow, which represent how meaningful rock music actually is. Stereotypically rock artists are seen as unconventional, however my artists are seen as overriding yet relaxed and chilled. They don’t conform to the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll but conforms in the freedom and rebellion sense. However fit a stereotype to be part of the rock/ indie music artist genre due to their costume in the products. Completely ignoring Laura Mulvey's Male gaze theory i challenged it to turn it on it's head to conform to it. In my video there are no female influence's as she argued that women in video's are there to be used as sexual objects by the way they are used, dressed and treated. However relating back to the Reception theory I included women in the target audience as I feel they are part of an inferior group in society therefore by using male influences to create the voice for the inferior groups of society. I felt the use of women to sexualise them to get my ideology and messages conveyed to the consumers was unnecessary but at the same indicating equality and that you don't need to be a feminist to stand up for equal gender rights.
Narrative
My initial idea of the narrative, was a mental patient confined in this institution, representing the inferior groups of society - who is under the control of the doctors representing the powers/ superstructure, who are poorly treating the patients and exploit and abuse their power and suddenly they find a voice and a way out. My narrative however isn't just as simple as that, because it completely shatters this theory of a linearity and chronological order of Todorov's theory within the narrative.I felt the mixture and breaking down of the narrative helped to understand the narrative in a more understanding way due to mixing up the narrative it allows the consumer to see the change and contrast between different paths however conforming to the theory by seeing the change and progression by breaking the conventions and chronology. My narrative is very confusing between time and space possibly indicating that it is a postmodern text. I wanted to tell a specific story that, which was quite simply that one shouldn't be under so much control it will only lead to unity and strength in numbers. I feel this made my video more relatable to the inferior groups who can see my video in a wider understanding, as they were my intentions, which is almost a hybrid of Andrew Goodwin's theory in 1992 stating that modern audiences create their individual meaning based on their understanding of experiences and culture. Foregrounding that the dominant viewers will create their understanding of it based on their life experiences and how they fall in society, allowing meanings to be created because of deeper understanding of thoughts and ideologies. On the other hand I followed Sven Carlsson's theory of music videos. If the video is predominantly understood as a short film whilst the music is playing, it is generally a narrative clip, including a visual story that can be interpreted by the audience in many ways, which involves no relation to music whatsoever. The divide in my video is approximately a 50/50 split as you see the band playing in the woodland introducing the performance side of it. I used the band performing as they act as the story tellers of this narrative, indicating this is a surreal and fictional world almost acting as a morality story.
Magazine Advert
As you can see with my Ancillary text 2, which is a magazine advert, i decided to conform to the conventions of a magazine advert, because i wanted my product to look individual but giving it a professional and realistic look. Specific features i labelled and explained why they are there as you can see above.
As you can see i decided to conform to the conventions as challenging them would make my product look a bit all over the place and wouldn't get the full benefits from it, for example by using the large font for the band name draws the attention to the advert, as it is aesthetically pleasing for the audience. However i challenged one or two conventions, the first one being not putting any track names on the advert, simply because i feel like the audience should have to consume the music and listen to the full album and not teasing the audience with a couple of tracks, as they should all be equally as good. The second one being not including a predominant image of the full band opposed to just being a predominant image of the singer with the other members faded in the background. I chose to do this as i feel the emotions on the singers face can tell a lot of stories and reflects the journey in my music video and on my digipak. Possibly another convention challenger is that the album name is down the side and vertical rather than horizontal, i did this as i felt to adapt to the image that was the correct format in which to place it.
Digipak
According to Jason Mittell (2001) genre surpasses the boundaries of media texts and that genres are cultural categories and operate within industry, audience and cultural practices as well, in brief industries use genre to sell products to audiences. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions that often make cultural references to their audience's knowledge of society and other texts. My video consistently challenges this convention as for many consumers including me relating back to Stuart Hall's Reception theory, i specifically targeted my products at people coming under the dominant view including: younger people, women and lower class people, simply to give them a voice as they are stereotypically the most belittled and seen as inferior groups of people. Rock and punk music for example Hurry up Harry - frequently categorised as having a progressive views across the entire political spectrum, therefore challenging conventions as my products are aimed at a group of people who will have a dominant view because the negative semantic field of politics is predominantly used by the inferior groups. Reflected by the protagonist is a semiotic to be used as the voice for the groups with a dominant view. Therefore i feel as if when the dominant viewers watch my video they can understand this on a wider scale and understand the semiotics and connotations a lot more deeper than for example an upper class consumer would. An upper class consumer would have an oppositional view because of the ideology that this is a song opposing the government, when upper class people benefit more from the government therefore cannot relate or see what consumers with a dominant view see.
Tessa Perkins' stereotype theory is both conformed to and also challenged, being divided by performance and narrative clips. Stereotypes are generally used more in pop and RNB music, as they are easy genres to generalise and stereotype, however rock music and artists are more individual, and its more acceptable to challenge conventions and not fit a stereotype and not getting judged purely for aesthetic reasons. However within my performance clip you predominantly see the band in dark colours which have meaningful connotations of death, mystery, dark and fairly hollow, which represent how meaningful rock music actually is. Stereotypically rock artists are seen as unconventional, however my artists are seen as overriding yet relaxed and chilled. They don’t conform to the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll but conforms in the freedom and rebellion sense. However fit a stereotype to be part of the rock/ indie music artist genre due to their costume in the products. Completely ignoring Laura Mulvey's Male gaze theory i challenged it to turn it on it's head to conform to it. In my video there are no female influence's as she argued that women in video's are there to be used as sexual objects by the way they are used, dressed and treated. However relating back to the Reception theory I included women in the target audience as I feel they are part of an inferior group in society therefore by using male influences to create the voice for the inferior groups of society. I felt the use of women to sexualise them to get my ideology and messages conveyed to the consumers was unnecessary but at the same indicating equality and that you don't need to be a feminist to stand up for equal gender rights.
My initial idea of the narrative, was a mental patient confined in this institution, representing the inferior groups of society - who is under the control of the doctors representing the powers/ superstructure, who are poorly treating the patients and exploit and abuse their power and suddenly they find a voice and a way out. My narrative however isn't just as simple as that, because it completely shatters this theory of a linearity and chronological order of Todorov's theory within the narrative.I felt the mixture and breaking down of the narrative helped to understand the narrative in a more understanding way due to mixing up the narrative it allows the consumer to see the change and contrast between different paths however conforming to the theory by seeing the change and progression by breaking the conventions and chronology. My narrative is very confusing between time and space possibly indicating that it is a postmodern text. I wanted to tell a specific story that, which was quite simply that one shouldn't be under so much control it will only lead to unity and strength in numbers. I feel this made my video more relatable to the inferior groups who can see my video in a wider understanding, as they were my intentions, which is almost a hybrid of Andrew Goodwin's theory in 1992 stating that modern audiences create their individual meaning based on their understanding of experiences and culture. Foregrounding that the dominant viewers will create their understanding of it based on their life experiences and how they fall in society, allowing meanings to be created because of deeper understanding of thoughts and ideologies. On the other hand I followed Sven Carlsson's theory of music videos. If the video is predominantly understood as a short film whilst the music is playing, it is generally a narrative clip, including a visual story that can be interpreted by the audience in many ways, which involves no relation to music whatsoever. The divide in my video is approximately a 50/50 split as you see the band playing in the woodland introducing the performance side of it. I used the band performing as they act as the story tellers of this narrative, indicating this is a surreal and fictional world almost acting as a morality story.
Magazine Advert
As you can see with my Ancillary text 2, which is a magazine advert, i decided to conform to the conventions of a magazine advert, because i wanted my product to look individual but giving it a professional and realistic look. Specific features i labelled and explained why they are there as you can see above.
As you can see i decided to conform to the conventions as challenging them would make my product look a bit all over the place and wouldn't get the full benefits from it, for example by using the large font for the band name draws the attention to the advert, as it is aesthetically pleasing for the audience. However i challenged one or two conventions, the first one being not putting any track names on the advert, simply because i feel like the audience should have to consume the music and listen to the full album and not teasing the audience with a couple of tracks, as they should all be equally as good. The second one being not including a predominant image of the full band opposed to just being a predominant image of the singer with the other members faded in the background. I chose to do this as i feel the emotions on the singers face can tell a lot of stories and reflects the journey in my music video and on my digipak. Possibly another convention challenger is that the album name is down the side and vertical rather than horizontal, i did this as i felt to adapt to the image that was the correct format in which to place it.
Digipak
Lyrics and Imagery
I strongly believe in the images and shots correlating to the lyrics, because how else are you going to understand it on a deeper, more intellectual form. For example one of the main semiotics relating to imagery, is when the lyrics 'we will be victorious' was sung i got the few patients to do that part together and as it was later in the song it reflected the journey they have all come on and now at this point they had to unify and become one. During planning and research i analysed a lyric analysis, understanding every line of the song and this helped me plan my storyboard and content of the narrative, which had to reflect the initial ideologies of the song.
Another vital lyric and imagery link was the same lyric, however it was when the patient broke free of the straps and out of the bed. This connotes the optimism and true determination it takes to fight against some form of superstructure or powers who are on top of you. It also links in to Todorov's stage 3 disruption of an equilibrium, adding chronology and structure to the video. However it also re-establishes the narrative clip of the video as it introduces a section almost action like, which is conventional of a high intensity, fast paced narrative clip.
One more link that i found fairly interesting was the blank screen as the patients have just collapsed as the lyrics 'we should never be afraid to die' connoting a blank piece of time and space. Thus indicating that nothing ever dies, it just simply means that you get back up and start fresh and start living again, which is why the patients are seen as so determined and charismatic throughout the intense sector of the video. I slowed that part down to show that there is no rush to die, but also no rush to start living again and that you should start living when you want, not under anyone's control.
Conclusion
In conclusion I feel like I have constructed three media texts that are both conventional and convention challenging at the same time. I chose to challenge these conventions for pragmatic reasons, but i felt it was necessary to challenge conventions to fit the genre and reflect the ideologies and emotions being conveyed in the song.
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