Apply the Concept of Narrative to one of your Productions

Narrative is the way in which a story is told through the use of codes and conventions. Within our AS production, narrative played a huge role as the production we created was a film opening in the genre of Film Noir. The film opening we created was called ‘A Dame with a Clue’, and it was based around a woman going to the detective’s office with a murder case.

Within this opening there were multiple displays of Strauss’ Binary Opposites, for example in the locations which we filmed, going from the dark, night light with dull rainy weather when the ‘dame’ is walking to the office to the light, indoor, 1940’s themed detective’s office. Although the key Binary Opposite that we concentrated on was gender (men vs women). This is because our two protagonist are opposing genres, with the ‘dame’ acting in a distressed manner and the detective holding control and power, trying to calm the woman. This is something that we continued to develop further throughout the narrative for the rest of our film with the personalities of these two protagonists reversing, giving the woman control and power as the murder case was all part of the ‘dame’s’ plan to trick the detective.

Our detailed placement of mise en scene throughout the film opening also follows Strauss’ Binary Opposites, with specific symbols that shaped our characters’ personalities. For the ‘Dame’ we completed this through the costumes she wore. In the film opening, she was wearing a dress, which is stereotypical for women in the film noir to wear. However we also made sure that her whole outfit was black, suggesting the idea that she was a widow, but by contrasting this black with the bright red if her lipstick, it enabled us to show her as a mysterious character who is hiding something, making her a seductress and a ‘sweet talker’. This once again showed a binary opposite throughout the detective who was wearing a smart suit, this added to the narrative that he was clever, straight talking and honest. Although through the continuous holding of a whiskey glass it portrayed that he had an alcohol issue.

Also as our production was a film opening the narrative was linear. This is because particularly in the opening otherwise it would be hard to follow and understand. This linear narrative was used, as we showed the ‘dame’ walking to the office (outside), then entering the building and office, and then sitting down in the office and talking to the detective. However as the film is a film noir detective’s mystery film, in order for the final reveal of the murderer to be understood by the audience, other parts of the narrative will have aspects of non-linear narrative due to the use of flash backs.

This linear set up of our opening further enabled us to follow the theory of Todorov, with the film opening creating Equilibrium and the beginnings of Disruption. This is because for the setting of the scene and equilibrium the ‘dame’ is making her way to the office in the dark with a slow reveal (e.g. through the use of extreme close ups and panning long shots) and then the disruption is started as she hands the murder case to the detective with the note that says ‘You’re Next’.

The slow, mysterious reveal that we completed on the dame also applies to Barthes Theory, as it creates Enigma Codes in the narrative which is important if you are to keep the audience interested. So, by not showing the whole of the dame’s face before she enters the office and not fully showing where she is going, by the inclusion of extreme close ups and panning long shots, it causes the audience to want to know the answer and therefore watch on. This is an extremely important theory that we involved in our narrative as it is key in creating the shock factor at the end and following the codes and conventions of the film noir genre. Within Barthes’ theory we completed this further particularly with the detective and his glass of drink, because it meant we followed the idea of the Symbolism Code, as the use of the prop enabled us to show to the audience he was possibly an alcoholic, without having to have a character say it.

In conclusion, all of the theories mentioned were vitally applied to the creation of our narrative, because without these theories being applied for their best effect, the narrative would not be interesting or desirable to watch for the audience as it would make it easier for them to become bored.

Understanding of the Convention of the Real Media Texts

Real media texts are essential in influencing both my AS and A2 productions. They enabled us to understand what was needed to create the genre codes and conventions of our choice and also gave us inspirations for our final productions. For our final productions, my group and I produced a Film Noir film opening called ‘A Dame with Clue’ in AS and a promotional package with a music video to the folk genre song ‘Family’ by ‘Catey Shaw’. The use of real media texts was developed on the transition through the two years from AS (Year 12) to A2 (Year 13).

At AS we completed research into real media text film openings by watching them on YouTube and Vimeo. These films we classic film noir films such as ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘The Third Man’. This enabled us to learn of and follow the traditional genre codes and conventions of this genre and therefore create a narrative that would fit this genre, with the female (Dame) in distress, she is the main female protagonist, in a dark street lit urban setting, making her way to the detectives’ office who is the main male protagonist, with a case which he excepts. Also when watching ‘Laura’ it enabled us to learn that our female protagonist, should come across as mysterious and tempting, therefore inspired our slow reveal of the ‘Dame’ character. Along with this we also watched more neo-noir film openings on Art of the Title, including ‘Drive’ and ‘Sin City’ which inspired our titles, to involve more colour at the start, hence our gradient of colour removal in our first title, to create the more modern feel to the genre and suggest the mystery which is about to take place. As when we were inspired by a film opening at AS, we almost copied what took place, it caused our final production to be heavily influenced and dependent on real media texts.

At A2, due to the fact that we were creating a promotional package including a music video, the research into real media texts was much more extensive compared to the year before. We persisted to still use YouTube and Vevo to watch similar genre videos, of folk/folk-pop music, which included Ellie Goulding’s ‘Your Song’ and Gabrielle Aplin’s ‘Power of Love’. However, compared to last year, we realised that at A2, there were multiple different ways in which we could interpret a single media text (a song in this case), showing that there was not necessarily straight forward codes and conventions that needed to be included to be considered from that genre. With ‘Power of Love’ all taking place in the same location and place, but ‘Your Song’ and ‘Please Don’t Say You Love Me’ taking place in a variety of locations. Also throughout A2 research we were continuously further looking for ways in which we were able to make our artist different and unique to others in the music industry, which we did not want or have to do in AS. This explained why for A2 research we also looked at videos in the pop and rock genres, such as Coldplay’s ‘Charlie Brown’ and Jessie J’s ‘Bang Bang’, which showed us that the use of Thought Beat’s and bright colours is extremely common as a way of making music videos more exciting and gripping. This explains why we decided include these features in our music video. Along with the use of other music videos, we looked into other types of real media texts for inspiration which we didn’t do for AS research. This included looking at social media such as ‘Instagram’ where the logo uses a polaroid camera and this shows how our teenage target audience enjoy the theme of photography at the moment. Therefore, this suggests the inspiration of the use of camera flashes and the photo album at the end to link it all together, which we used throughout our music video. This displays how at A2 in Year 13, the use of real media texts was more developed, whilst still using the basic conventions of music videos, such as varying shot types, more cuts and no need to have a chronological narrative.

Along with that more real media text research was completed for A2 due to the promotional package aspect of the Year 13 course, meaning we also had to produce ancillary products of a DigiPak and a Website. We discovered that for websites by using Jasmine Thompson’s Website, it was important for it to be easily accessible and interactive, which was shown in the live link of the Instagram. This inspired us to include this live link of our artist’s Instagram account on our ‘Connect’ page. We further included the traditional, ‘Tour’ pages and ‘Shop’ pages that were displayed on multiple same genre websites including Ellie Goulding’s Website and Carrie Underwood’s website. This gave the audience the opportunity to purchase tickets and merchandise. For the tour, we looked at similar fame sized artists’ tour posters, for example The Vamps when they first ever went on tour, and looked into where they performed, one example was the ‘O2 Indigo’ which is where we decided to place one of our concerts.

The DigiPak was also influenced by real media texts, from looking at previous debt DigiPak and album covers, including Ellie Goulding’s ‘Lights’ and Birdy’s ‘Birdy’. We discovered that the front cover should reveal to the audience clearly who the artist is, especially in the debt cover as many will not know who the artist is yet, thus creating a star identity. Therefore, this is what we applied to our DigiPak front cover. Creating these ancillary text products was not something we had to consider for AS, as synergy was not needed since we only had one product. However, at A2, synergy was vital and for our cross media branding, we took inspiration and researched the campaign, which was run by Ellie Goulding using blurred lights on all three products. This inspired our use of travel throughout, with the use of the tube map and letter stamps in our video, Digipak and footer of our website.

In conclusion, real media texts played a vast part in our understanding of what is expected in professional products. Without them our AS production would have been near to impossible. However, by A2 we used our real media text research in a more advanced and developed way, as rather than guiding us as to what to do, it was used more as inspiration to help us make our artist more unique and therefore making both our final products more professional.

Apply the Concept of Audience in one of your Productions

Audience is extremely important when producing a media production, as this is who you are trying to engage and sell your product to. For my Advanced Portfolio coursework, we had to create a promotional package, where we had to create an artist for a release of an album, which included a music video from the folk/ pop hybrid genre to the original song of ‘Family’ by Catey Shaw. Due to the light hearted feel of the artist, we decided our psychographic model was young teenage girls aged 11-15, who are still at school and looking up to role models in the media.

We made sure, due to the upbeat feel of the music video, to maintain high key lighting and high levels of saturation throughout the video. This mixed with the excitable and joyous personality that we portrayed of our artist, Heidi Holmes, meant that when our audience watched our music video production they were instantly hit with happiness and a feel good factor. This shows how our audience were easily exposed to the Hypodermic Syringe. This is because through the instant injection of happiness each time they watched or read media involving Heidi Holmes the audience subconsciously became forced into that joyful feeling, causing enjoyment for our products, via music, social media and interviews.

We were able to develop this idea further throughout the entirety of our products, more specifically through the use of social media, YouTube posts and website updates. This is so that over time our audience become more and more subjected to enjoying our products, as these consistent updates on the sections mentioned before, mean that our artist were ever present. This suggests that we were able to apply the Cultivation Theory to our promotional package, because the continuous revealing of the information on these platforms means that our audience maintains engaged in our artist and is changed into holding a positive mind set parallel to Heidi Holmes.

As our artist throughout the project was continuously updating her social media platforms, which included Twitter and Instagram, along with her website and magazine articles, it enabled the audience to gain multiple views and voices on and from our artist. This therefore meant that we were able to, as a result, defy stereotypes of teenagers and girls/ women by portraying them in our video in a positive, independent manner. This enables my production to suit the idea of Liberal Pluralism, as the different platforms and subversion to stereotypes enables our audience to be open to multiple views and voices.

The variation within our promotional package also enabled our audience to use the media for what they need, whether that be escapism or information. This shows how our artist was able to offer the audience ways of gaining a diversion, information, escapism, entertainment and pleasure from all our platforms including the video, website and social media. This means that we were able to follow the theory of Uses and Gratification. A specific example is that we were able to gratify the needs of escapism and pleasure, for our audience, due to the bright, extremely happy feel that is created in the video. Along with this our website and Billboard magazine article was able to offer information about Heidi Holmes and her music.

This idea of satisfying the audience’s needs was continued by our artist once again. This is because our artist has created a fan base under the name of ‘Holmesies’, enabling them to have the feeling of belonging and love. This is important for our artist, as according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs people need to have (as an extra to the vital needs) a sense of belonging. Another need that is mentioned is the build of self-esteem, which is another need that Heidi Holmes covers as we have made our artist a positive role model to our psychographic model as through our magazine article we released a self-confidence project, with the idea of boosting their self-esteem.

In conclusion, the intent behind all of our products was primarily our audience hence why we were able to apply the mentioned theories. This is because unless a substantial audience is appealed to by the products, they will never be successful.