"A production's success is determined by its audience"
The coursework production I have chosen to talk about is the music video 'Please Don't Say You Love Me', by fictitious artist Luna May. Our video had the dominant mode of address of a young (16-24) female audience. Our main intentions for Luna were to make her a relatable, fun loving and outgoing character with whom our audience could form a bond with.
We created our dominant mode of address using several features of mise en scene such as stylistic choices E.G: clothing (Young & Indie) and the setting (naturalistic) we used, which linked to our chosen genre. From this we were able to create a music video specialised in addressing a particular demographic, which is proven to more effective. By reaching out to a specific audience, our music was capable of higher successes, creating the preferred response in the reader.
Morley's view of dominant, oppositional and negotiated reading was a particularly important factor to consider when looking at our audience during the production of our music video. As the producers of the video, we intended to create a preferred view of enjoyment and entertainment created by using a relatable and fun loving character. We did this by using lots of close ups of Luna with warm facial expressions & direct address by using direct eye shots, engaging the audience. The storyline/ narrative contained some emotional content, so we had to be careful that we didn't get an oppositional reading. Particularly because we had a young, vulnerable female audience, the video (a love story) could have provoked oppositional emotional responses (sadness created by the memories that may have arisen from the video). Therefore, we tried to keep the video subtle and use a 'happy ending' (genre convention) which would prevent these oppositional readings from occurring.
Our music video links most closely with Maslow's theory and the hierarchy of needs for uses and gratifications. We identified a highly active audience, mainly due to social contexts. A young, female audience would want a character that was identifiable and that they could relate to.Young females are particularly active with their use of media in the present day through platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. This is why we created Luna as we did. We wanted to create a response of diversion, identity and social interaction in our video which would allow our audience to engage with the music video. If this was successful then so would be our music video.
The enthographic model of audience interaction was also helpful in the creation of our music video. We chose to publish 'Please Don't Say You Love Me' by Luna May on YouTube. Female's are particularly active on YouTube, due to the huge scope of videos accessible from make-up tutorials to parodies surrounding the issues young girls face. By addressing the technologies our audience engaged with, this allowed us to publish our video to a format most suitable to our audiences needs, therefore increasing the potential success of our product.
In conclusion, our video focusses much more on the individual needs of our audience members as a opposed to the mass audience. We question the validity of Blumer's view. Maybe twenty years ago, aiming our product at mass audience would have been more appropriate yet due to the development of technologies, where we can now have our own handheld devices, aiming a music video at an individual audience as opposed to a mass one is much more appropriate. I do agree with the above quote, however I believe that it is not the audience who shape success but the way a production targets itself at a preferred, dominant audience which determines the successes of a production.
We created our dominant mode of address using several features of mise en scene such as stylistic choices E.G: clothing (Young & Indie) and the setting (naturalistic) we used, which linked to our chosen genre. From this we were able to create a music video specialised in addressing a particular demographic, which is proven to more effective. By reaching out to a specific audience, our music was capable of higher successes, creating the preferred response in the reader.
Morley's view of dominant, oppositional and negotiated reading was a particularly important factor to consider when looking at our audience during the production of our music video. As the producers of the video, we intended to create a preferred view of enjoyment and entertainment created by using a relatable and fun loving character. We did this by using lots of close ups of Luna with warm facial expressions & direct address by using direct eye shots, engaging the audience. The storyline/ narrative contained some emotional content, so we had to be careful that we didn't get an oppositional reading. Particularly because we had a young, vulnerable female audience, the video (a love story) could have provoked oppositional emotional responses (sadness created by the memories that may have arisen from the video). Therefore, we tried to keep the video subtle and use a 'happy ending' (genre convention) which would prevent these oppositional readings from occurring.
Our music video links most closely with Maslow's theory and the hierarchy of needs for uses and gratifications. We identified a highly active audience, mainly due to social contexts. A young, female audience would want a character that was identifiable and that they could relate to.Young females are particularly active with their use of media in the present day through platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. This is why we created Luna as we did. We wanted to create a response of diversion, identity and social interaction in our video which would allow our audience to engage with the music video. If this was successful then so would be our music video.
The enthographic model of audience interaction was also helpful in the creation of our music video. We chose to publish 'Please Don't Say You Love Me' by Luna May on YouTube. Female's are particularly active on YouTube, due to the huge scope of videos accessible from make-up tutorials to parodies surrounding the issues young girls face. By addressing the technologies our audience engaged with, this allowed us to publish our video to a format most suitable to our audiences needs, therefore increasing the potential success of our product.
In conclusion, our video focusses much more on the individual needs of our audience members as a opposed to the mass audience. We question the validity of Blumer's view. Maybe twenty years ago, aiming our product at mass audience would have been more appropriate yet due to the development of technologies, where we can now have our own handheld devices, aiming a music video at an individual audience as opposed to a mass one is much more appropriate. I do agree with the above quote, however I believe that it is not the audience who shape success but the way a production targets itself at a preferred, dominant audience which determines the successes of a production.
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