How I applied Uses and Gratification Theory

In order to target and appeal to my target audience I am going to apply the 'Uses and Gratification theory' to my music video. To gain my target audience I am going to have to use all four of Bulmer & Katz reasons.

Diversions – escape from everyday problems and routine – this is shown in my video through the narrative when the boy starts drink alcohol to forget all of his problems.

Personal relationships – using the media for emotional and other interaction – this is shown by  showing the emotions between two characters within the narrative, the audience is going to be able to relate to it and find it more appealing. The audience is going to be able to identify with sections of the relationship, and will accept it easily. I am going to show this through still shots of the two characters being close and happy and also using flashbacks of them doing the iconic relationship actions. 

Personal identity – constructing their own identity from characters in media text, and learning behaviour and values - This has been applied by the age of my actors, through the fashion and role models. I am going to have my actors and members of the band wear clothing that will represent and relate the genre. These means clothes that is similar to 'The Script,’ and other similar bands that fit into the alternative indie rock genre. By applying this reason of the theory to my video, it will allow the audience to link the video and themselves to the genre.

Surveillance – information gathering e.g. educational programmes, weather reports, news reports – this can be shown through the ‘message’ that we tried to portray to the audience as not everything is ‘perfect’ in real-life and by consuming alcohol doesn’t make everything better.

Digi Pack Development Draft 2

Here is some feedback from target audience's that will help me make a final succesful ancillary task:



Eden: The solo shots are very effective as they are all clear and making eye contact with the audience, however I think they could be placed differently as I feel they looked squashed.

Kieran: I like how the lyrics are layed out but I don't like how the images have been structured I think they look messy.

Harry: I think they follow conventions as you have put the lyrics in the right place as well as the images but I think it needs to be rearranged to make it look more professional.

Digi Pack - Development Draft 1

I knew this is how I wanted my layout to be with the logo at the top. Although I got some of the features wrong as I made this out to be an album however 'For the First Time' was the single so I had to changeeither the 'For the Fist Time' or get rid of the '#3'. 



Album Release Poster Development Draft 3

Below are other scans of developmental drafts. I felt like I included all the conventions and furniture that matched the genre. However I felt like my layout was not right so I still kept using InDesign and Photoshop to improve.

Album Release Advert - Development Draft 2

Below is my second development draft of my album advert. I have now changed the design of tour dates to album release with credits as my other partner in the group did a tour release. I thought this would be different and still as effective.

 

Here is another scan of the way the album release should be set out. I asked my teacher for some help as I felt like the advert wasn't coming together to give it an overall professional look.



 

Album Release Advert- Development Draft 1

Below are my first development draft of my magazine advert. In order to improve my work I have asked my peers to critise my work.



Below is the feedback I was given:

· I need to say who the 'Special Guest' is going to be, this will make the generic conventions stronger and make it more appealing to the audience.

· Need to include the 'Facebook' and 'Twitter' logo in order to make it a more realistic magazine advert.

· The colours work very well, I like how the black and white contrast with each other and make every stand out more.

· The band images are to large as they go over the two lines and the middle image is over some of the key text.



Creative Arts Evening

On the 25th March, our school held a Sixth Form 'Creative Arts' Evening which allowed the Sixth Form of the school to exhibit their creative work to a hall full of guests.

Showing our video to a wide audience of varied age groups, meant that audience feedback could be obtained not only from our peers. To do this, a 'video feedback' booth was set up on the evening to allow guests to be filmed whilst they spoke about their opinions.

A short clip of our introduction to the video:

-video not working

Here is some feedback from the audience:


After showing our video here is the response of the audience:

-video not working

The group being very busy

Over the past few weeks, the group has been busy, in filming and editing all areas of this task, from filming clips, to working on the Ancillary tasks such as digi-packs and adverts.


In the half term, we sat down as a group and thought hard about what needed to be finished as we only have 2 weeks left until the deadline. We needed to include a lot of transitions in the video to make it look superior but professional also finish designs of digi-packs and adverts.


Below is a few pictures of myself editing, this is when we started to add transitions and zooms to create the full effect of a finished video, it is important to edit the video as poor editing can bore the viewer and also damage the way the narrative is conveyed to them. We also needed to ensure that the narrative created feeling that the audience could relate to.

Narrative Filming/Shots

Whilst filming the narrative section I took some still shots to show what angles were going to be used for example low and high shots, close-ups and zooms. By using different types of shots creates feeling for the audience as they are able to relate to what is going on.

Here are a few pictures to show what type of shots that will be used in the music video:

Main Location Filming - Band

One of our main locations for filming was at Mick Jagger Centre. This setting was to show an isolated area of the band which helps the audience to separate the band from the narrative. We found this setting didn't work because of the lighting it didn't look professional whilst editing.

However in the school was another isolated area which was a dance studio with professional stage lights that we could adjust to fit the mood and theme of the our song choice. This worked really well and we were happy with how the filming and still shots looked. Here are some still shots that I took whilst some of the band filming was being done.

As a member was in the band I was able to video the band shots with help from the others with lighting and direction of the camera.

We have used a handheld dolly camera to make the band shots fluid throughout the video. The location that we decided to go with was the dance studio, as we were able to control the lighting, which made each band member stand out more. The dance studio also helped to create the sense of isolation with the black background and just the small glimpses of light. We took each shot several times in order to get different angles, lighting effects etc. Which allowed us to choose from a wider selection of shots. I also helped to look at the storyboards and say how to take the next shot, which angle, movement etc.

Below is a video showing me helping to set the drums up, as of course I do not have images of me filming as I was in the band:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vmq_LU8Yrg