Make sure you address all of the following bullet points in depth:
- How and why will you use media language in your cross-media production?
- How and why will you construct representations of individuals, groups and issues/events?
- How will you target your intended audience?
- How will your production conform to its industry context?
- How will your cross-media production demonstrate digital convergence?
In order to achieve an 'A' grade in the aims and intentions, you must create
- An excellent, highly detailed, statement of consistently relevant aims and intentions that clearly responds to the brief, targets the intended audience and reflects the specified industry context through a coherent concept for interrelated products
- A plan for thorough and sustained use of appropriate codes and conventions, and insightful representations
- Excellent evidence of application of knowledge and understanding of the theoretical framework of media through sustained use of highly appropriate subject-specific terminology
Here's a reminder of the A grade criteria for the cross media production (music video and magazine)
Point out how you're going to address these points
- Use media language to demonstrate intertextuality and/or generic hybridity
- Convey a complex representation of a social group using media language
- Subvert and challenge typical representational stereotypes
- Present an ideological context typical to an major music label
- Create a magazine that demonstrates clear stylistic, thematic and ideological links to your music video
Exemplar 1
I will construct representations of young teenagers in my music video in a subversive way by including themes of rebellion reinforced through the mise-en-scene of drug use and experimental psychedelic filters. I will target my audience of heterosexual 16-25 year olds by using intertextual references to popular music videos (the XO TOUR Llif3 music video specifically). This music video was popularised due to the song being played in nightclubs and bars which are targeted at young adults. I will construct representations of young male rappers in my magazine with the subtle use of expensive brands to reinforce the ideology that young people aren’t careful with their money.
My cross-media production will demonstrate digital convergence as I will be making a video to advertise a music track and the artist of the track. I will use beat-matching in order to make the video in time with the music so both pieces of media complement each other. Because this is an independent music video, it has a low budget. This will be represented through the use of experimental VHS and film grain overlays. I will use countercultural imagery taken of products from the clothing brand of supreme with the ‘fuck em’ text of either a badge or carpet showing the ideology of not caring about what others think.
I will use a lot of bright colours in certain shots and a lot of darker colours in others to create binary oppositions that reinforce the many different feelings that are encountered under the influence of drugs. I have deliberately glamorised drug use as it is a stereotypical convention of rap videos and is relevant to current world issues like the opioid problem in America. I will do this to further reinforce the ideology that teens tend to be adventurous and I believe the use of a lot of different colours and brightness in my video will reflect this. I will target my audience through the imagery of ‘hype’ clothing brands in my magazine and music videos because people between the age of 16-25 tend to wear brands or aspire to wear brands like Supreme and OFF-WHITE. These brands could be seen as a symbolic code of success and popularity amongst a heterosexual audience of 16-25 year olds.
I will use a lot of links to anti-religious iconography such as triangle which relate to conspiracy’s that may represent a stereotypical teenager’s oppositional outlook on life and different changes in mood that may be experienced under the influence of psychedelics. In my music video, I will have my actors use a lot of slow gestures to represent a descent into madness as the video begins to incorporate more and more psychedelic filters as the video goes on with shots jumping between no filters and having a lot of filters to give a sense of unease und unpredictability. My magazine front-cover will have the stereotypical conventions of a magazine including a title, masthead, price and barcode. On the double page spread will include an article, headline, stand-first and columns on the double page spread. I will also include images and a pull quote.
In my cross-media production, I have decided that I will use extreme close-ups only when filming the main singer to create the subversive representation that women are not meant to be sexualised in media products which disagrees with Lizbet van Zoonen’s Male Gaze theory. This subversive representation will be reinforced via the mise-en-scene of just the female actor’s lips lip syncing along to the male vocals. I have decided that a master shot of one of my actors pouring ‘codeine’ into a ‘double-cup’ is going to return throughout the video to anchor the audience into believing the ideology that teens and young adults are adventurous and want to try new things even if there is a high amount of danger associated with what they are doing.
My music video will be exported so that it could be uploaded to sites like YouTube for viewing on multiple devices and my magazine will be exported as a jpeg so it can be viewed digitally and printed.
I will also push forward the same ideology in my magazine by making use of the same drug related themes. Furthermore, I will encode the ideology that drug use is not as bad as it is made out to be and I will do this by using bright colours, as mentioned earlier, that may appeal to my target audience. I will also use a range of different shot types including an extreme close up of the performer’s lips to emphasise certain lyrics that are sung.
Exemplar 2
In my music video, I intend to use subversive imagery and key themes of poverty and teenage youth, using performance and subtle narrative.
In my music video I will:
Have an unappealing setting (a dirty bedroom) to encode the imagery of what the realities are for teenagers, particularly those who are from more deprived areas
The unexciting almost ugly costume is used to contrast the use of the masked head (based on the film Frank, in which a enigmatic figure who wears a giant fake mask as he suffers from various mental health issues since he was young) The head is used in a similar context, a literal and metaphorical mask to hide the pains and health issues of those who feel like they are not heard.
Many close up shots to establish an emphasis of the people in the music videos and their individuality, they’re all uniquely ordinary.
Various intertextual references, including the mask, classic subliminal cigarette adverts in the 1930’s where they were placed in various TV shows, notably child’s cartoons and shares the same close-up shots and same caste study like structure as Jean-Luc Godard.
In reference to music videos, When The Sun Goes Down by the Arctic Monkeys shares the same case study nature and close-ups as the intentions of my music video.
Natural and deliberately untouched lighting to bring the meaning of raw storytelling, without filtering it encodes the authenticity that is the sad and depressing realities.
I aim to deliberately subvert the classic music videos with a desirable character and performance, the inclusion of the performance in my music video will be to show how pathetic they are. By encoding using the presentation of a low budget and independent label as well as through performance showing the sad reality of the poor generation that because they have no money and no access to anything other than their bedroom, they resort to miserably smoking cheap cigarettes and hiding their insecurities and fears with a mask as they are overwhelmed by their mediocrity. The theme of poverty is encoded mostly through setting and costume, the setting is a demonstration of the extreme levels of the classic trope of a messy bedroom and the costume resembles charity shop clothes that are mismatched and cost little money.
For my magazine, I want to encode a subversive interpretation of the modern pop star. Instead of heavy makeup and extreme costume, I will choose instead to have a bare-faced and rough costume with my models, challenging the stereotype that all women must wear makeup and dress in a particular way. The androgynous presentation of these models will contrast the relatively conventional structure of the magazine. The genre will relate to an indie and independent magazine with a slight edge away from convention, with a large cover image and a bold title, with a slight deviation from the conventional structure, possibly the displacement of the main image. I will highlight some of the issues within my magazine that will be in my music video, like poverty, independence, and mental health. This will draw in my target audience of teenagers, my magazine will encode messages that teenagers will relate with and the subversion of that classic unachievable celebrity aesthetic will be more eye-catching to the audience I aim to represent.