Changes to Music Videos

Theories of Audience Consumption

Theories of audience consumption have developed over time along with the evolution of consumption habits in conjunction with the proliferation of hardware and content.


'Uses and Gratification Theory’

This Theory was initially created by a man named Lasswell in 1948 but was then adapted by Katz, Bulmer and another colleague for the modern audience who use new technologies.

The Uses and Gratification theory views the audience as active, meaning that they actively seek out specific media and content to achieve certain results or gratifications that satisfy their personal needs. It contradicted older views that said the audience was passive.

The uses and Gratifications Approach has five basic assumptions:

1. Audience conceived as active
2. People use the media to their advantage more often than the media uses them.
3. The media competes with other sources of need satisfaction.
4. People are very aware of their motives and choices and are able to explain them verbally if necessary.
5. The audience can only determine the value of the media content. It is the individual audience members who make the decision to view the media; therefore, they place the value on it by their individual decision to view it.

In yesterday’s lesson we were thinking about why audiences consume certain media and this links with the theory because the theory states that the audience actually seeks out the specific texts it wants instead of stumbling on them randomly meaning that there are reasons behind consuming texts and the media has to abide by those reasons to create an audience.

Leaving the Death Ambiguous

So far, we were intending to have a suicide scene at the end of the video using a fake gun the would be used to shoot Tamas; however we have decided that we are trying to promote the band and this scene would create a depressing image which is definitely not the way the band would want to be promoted, on top of this there have been recent concerns expressed in the media of cluster suicides in Wales so there is also the possibility that an audience might be offended by the suicide scene. This means that the record would not sell very well and seeing as how music videos are designed to boost record sales that would be a pretty unsuccessful video.

We have already shot a scene in which Tamas walks into the light signifying his death, by using this scene the death remains ambiguous but we can still use this great shot. Because we are not using our Death scene we therefore are having to get some more footage to fill the time we have decided to use this as an opportunity to shoot some more close-ups to strengthen our narrative and make our video more interesting for the audience.

We are using Madonna's video for 'Like a Prayer' as inspiration for this



If the embedded video does not work properly follow this link for a better quality video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79fzeNUqQbQ&feature=fvsr

This video for Madonna's song "Like a Prayer" has shown us that a narrative can be transformed by a myriad of different shot types and lots of close-ups.


For example, as you can see there are plenty of close-ups of Madonnas face, by doing this the audiences attention is kept and it promotes the artist. This type of shot is really easy to achieve and is very effective so we will be using this is our own video.

In the video this shot is played with a slow zoom as are other shots in the video. By using a slow zoom in the mellow sections of the song whilst the artist is the focus of the shot is a more imaginative way of promoting them and it allows for the shot to be slightly longer than usual as the added dimension of the zoom keeps the audiences attention for longer. This is also another technique we can easily utilise in our own video to create an improvement to our medium to close-up shots.
The extreme close-ups above and below are also really useful because they add significance to the subject matter. In the picture above for example the extreme close-up reinforces the recurring image of roses which connotes love. However it also symbolises the outward beauty of the man with the difficult racist past represented by the hidden thorns. These extreme close-ups enable a theme to be quickly produced.

The extreme close-ups are also convienient for use in our music video. Madonna's video has taught us that a theme, in this case religion, can amplify the meaning of the lyrics but can also make the narrative easier to comprehend. We have not got a connoting theme like this video has but it is useful to know if we do create one or if we ever make another music video.

Alternative Endings

Inspired by The French Lieutenants Woman by John Fowles we are thinking of having two alternative endings to our music video to give a new dynamic and create a wider interest. On top of this it is a nice feature to add on to our DVD allowing the audience to pick their favourite ending and increasing our demographic whilst creating an active audience that will consume the product more thoroughly.

Ideas for alternative endings:

1. Where the male and female meet and forgive each other to create a more conventional, Americanised ending. This would appeal to a wider more international audience like American's which is a market that every artists wants to conquer as that means a lot of money.
   


2. Where the couple walk past each other and ignore one another; which is what happens in the end of The Third Man (below). To create a sense of mystery through the ambiguity.
   
   
   
   
3. We already have some nice random shots of Tamas and Lucy walking into the light which consumes them . This would create a really stylistic ending and leave a great deal of ambiguity because is he dead or merely dead to her? - This is probably the ending that we will use but if we get the chance we will try and make the others to be able to market for a wider audience.

The use of alternative endings does mean a lot more work so they will only be made if we have enough time.

T4 - brainwashing the music scene?

Shooting Schedule

During our lesson time at school Ms Barton our teacher for the Production part of the course allowed us to film which was extremely useful considering we have two, two hour slots with her which meant that we had the potential to film for four hours a fortnight. As a group we grabbed this opportunity by the horns and went out for two hours just to find the locations in the city. We also went out twice to film during these lessons. However this was not enough because we have several different locations so we decided to go out after school on random dates to film. So we ended up filming.

• 11.20am - 1.20pm on Mondays during our lessons.
• 4.00pm - as long as it takes monday, tuesday and occasionally wednesday evenings

By filming at the beginning of the week this enables us to edit our existing footage and identify early on whether their are any shots that could be improved or if some footage is just not good enough.

Before half term (26th October - 2nd November) we filmed a lot of footage on Friday 25th October, it was because of this that as a group we decided to push on with the editing and shooting throughout the holiday, so I inivited them both round on Monday 26th and Tuesday 27th October. We had previously decided to edit our video using software that Tamas had () on his laptop instead of using the less advanced programme on the school computers, this enabled us to edit at my house over the holidays. We also shot a lot more footage in the village where I live on the 27th, to create an interesting mise-en-scene of the vibrant city life next to the river juxtaposed with the bleak, silence of Mulbarton graveyard.

The initial raw footage that we have filmed down Elm Hill has not turned out very well as we didnt film enough close-ups and extreme close ups which is hard to achieve when filming someone walking across cobbles. It is for these reasons that we have decided to refilm and not use much of this first shoots footage.

We have also had to film some extra dream/memory footage which we are going to film at Cringleford park on 9th November. this footage shouldnt take too long as we intend to just use the swings to get closeups and high angle shots etc.
Update: Unfortunately when we got to the park the swings had been removed a few days before hand and we had to improvise using the Carousel. However this footage has turned out really nice and is better than it would have been if we had used swings.

Parka - 'Disco Dancer'

I recently bought a Creative Zen music player and on it came this music video by Parka. They are an 'indie' band as it says on their MySpace page, and I am putting this on my blog merely for the fact that their video has amazing utilisation of balloons.

The video although a little long and tedious has shown me that narrative is not neccessarily needed within a music video however an added dynamic is needed like here the balloons are used. On the other hand this video would benefit from more dynamics instead of just the balloons which by the end the novelty has gone. So in music videos without a narrative, like this one, more than one interesting dynamic perhaps different coloured lighting or more special effects and a larger variety of shots is definitely warranted to grab and keep the audiences attention.