a) Uses and GratificationsBlumler and Katz argued that audiences are ACTIVE not PASSIVE and approached and use media products for the following reasons:
1) Diversion (a form of escaping from the pressures of every day)
2) Personal Relationships
(where the viewer gains companionship, either with the television
characters, or through conversations with others about television)
3) Personal Identity
(where the viewer is able to compare their life with the lives of
characters and situations on television, to explore, re-affirm or
question their personal identity)
4) Surveillance (where the media are looked upon for a supply of information about what is happening in the world).
For what reasons would an audience approach/use our media product?
1) Our audience will approach our video for many reasons. Firstly, the narrative we are using will appeal to not only our audience type but potentially to everyone . A love story is not only conventional for our genre but also provides a short film within our product. It also allows distraction from our every day lives, attracting our audience and allowing them to escape into another world. This narrative also links to our upbeat choice of song. This will attract an audience as it is uplifting. The transactions used in our video are also linked to the beat of the song. This keeps our video interesting while linking the two aspects together. Our video also includes a performance from the artist. This is often a diversion for an audience as they may be interested in the artist in some way and therefore intrigued to watch. We have also included vintage filters in order to make our video visually more appealing. This will interest an audience as it may be different from many other videos they have previously seen.
2) Our music video has both an abstract narrative and a performance element to it. Although conventional, fans of this genre and artist will be attracted to this video as it is focused around the star. Regardless of the quality of our video, the fan base of the Indie-Pop genre can converse over their opinion of it. As the artist is both the performer and character within the video, a relationship with the character portrayed by her will be formed by the viewers.
3) Not only are love stories conventional of our genre, but they are also relatable to the audience. Our story line of a girl who used to be in, but has fallen out of love with a boy who is still in love with her could be considered as generic. This allows for a bigger audience to relate to this story line. The artist is portrayed as down to earth and average through the narrative and clothing. This again allows the audience to relate to her further as they can identify with her. Despite this, she is also shown as the dominant individual in the relationship. This may either be identifiable for the audience or possibly desirable. This could portray the artist as an idol.
4) The style of the artist is clear in this video as she is shown in several different outfits and shots. This is conventional of the Indie-Pop genre, building on the image of the artist and their music. This specific look is also very trendy with current teenagers. This may be looked upon by an audience in order to stay up to date with the latest fashion.
b) Focused and Ambient Audiences
David Buckingham explains that some audiences are not as deliberate or active in their consumption:
He
believes it is essential to situate young people’s media use within the
context of their other social activities and experiences due to the fact
that many young people are using the media as a wallpaper: a wall of
noise to fill up ‘down time’ or just to pass the time due to boredom.
That many of their interactions with the media are not contrived,
commited or concentrated but fleeting, visceral and meaningless.
With
this in mind we have can have a focused audience –
1) deliberately
choosing a music video to watch and carefully looking at the contents.
OR
2) an ambient audience – that will have videos on in the background and
will take in the content with glances.
How am I accommodating for these two audience types?
1) Our video offers a strong narrative throughout. I believe this will hold the viewers attention as it develops throughout the video, becoming more intricate. Our use of vintage and blured framed filters along with techniques such as emphasising the beat with editing and slow motioned footage, keeps our video interesting and exciting to watch.
2) Quick paced editing is used, again keeping our video interesting to watch. Our video offers performance scenes in many different locations with a range of angles and distances, keeping it up tempo and enjoyable to watch. The narrative is also quite simple, which makes it easy to grasp for an ambient audience.
When it comes to designing the digipak as well as making sure it is appealing for the eye you must think about how you either want to continue the same representation of the artist that you portrayed in the music video(s) to ensure you appeal thoroughly to a niche market or whether you want to show them differently to give a variation of persona's to try and reach out to a wider, less specific market/audience.
The first was that throughout the video Scarlett is very playful and acts her age, not trying to be older like many young female artist do within their videos to try and achieve a sex appeal. I thought this would be echoed well with the doodles as doodling is very innocent and cute and something every teenage girl has done therefore giving something our audience to relate to.
The third and final point I took was that due to the use of the filters we used in the video all the shots have a neutral colour pallet with no bright or garish colours, so I thought to create a seamless link between the two (music video to digipak) this could be subtly used within the digipak so like mentioned in the 'Digipak Imagery Ideas' blog I was thinking that light mint greens, oranges and creams would be a good pallet to stick to.
On the front panel will be a picture of Scarlett (our artist). This will be the main the focus as this is what the consumer will see first and therefore it must be the artist of the album so they know who's it is. However also on the front there will obviously be the name of the artist and the album name, as this will again alert the viewer of what it is they are looking.
On the inside panels although Scarlett will still be on all the panels (bar maybe the CD tray, which I haven't decided yet, as I'm thinking that on the actual CD facing there can be doodles so even that links in with the theme and have the background plain) the doodles will be prominent.
