Apply Theories of Audience to One of Your Course Work Projects

The Course Work I could easily reflect on is the Marketing Campaign for a Film we did this year. It consisted of a poster, a magazine cover and a trailer for a film that is ''to come out soon''.

The target audience I had in mind are 16-24 year olds, with a C2 D E economic status. Mainly aspire-rs and mainstreamers, people who'd want to experience what's popular ''now''.

The Media Message that our product conveys isn't much of a moral one as in most horror films, our genre is psychological thriller. The message is more of a suggestion to young people, to be more observant of women and experience the danger in their nature. I believe a similar message is brought by films like The Black Swan and The Roommate .
As a group, we had no initial ''Hypodermic Needle'' effect in mind for our final product. We don't exactly believe that our narrative could be influential to that point; however  we do have some shots of the character threatening a guy with a knife and this could be seen as a graphic way of portraying the female as the villain .
We believe our audience isn't passive and has made a choice  over why they'd like to see the actual film, therefore the ''Hypodermic Needle'' effect seems impossible.

The Audience could use our trailer as a taster of the product itself and reflect on the usual conventions of the genre. Escapism is one of the audience pleasures we could offer, the viewer could see the world trough the ''mentally ill character's eyes''. Our editing and the camera shots, movements used are quite disoriented and reverse to brief cuts of the character's face. We did this to enhance the feeling of not being in charge of what you are seeing, as we'd assume the character would feel this exact way.

Applying the Reception Theory by Steward Hall, we could see that, given the idea in our trailer about having revealed the ending some viewers may not even bother considering the actual film. While others may see it as a challenge and offer a preferred or negotiated reading - i.e. find that they have similar values with the producer and the director in terms of the final product.
Some may not so much like the idea of the feminine being so dominant throughout the footage, hence an oppositional reading may be placed - i.e. the person is not sharing any whatsoever values with any of the people behind it.

We have stuck to most of the key codes and conventions of psychological thrillers in terms of

TV in the Online Age

 HBO - Tv channel 
Net flix - website

1. What are the two business modes of the two companies?

HBO is a cable subscribtion TV channel and Netflix is an online straming channel. 

 2. How are they becoming more similar?
Netflix are using original content to battlle with piracy and as everything is easier to reach online ; HBO is also offering online content for the viewers .

3. What are some good examples of Netflix and HBO's actions to develop online subscription  ?

Netflix is offering original shows to draw in new subscribers while HBO is developing an online share so that conten the subscibers one go.

4.What are some good examples of how audience taste has changed in the online age?

Binge viewing is a great exmple, as more subscribers rather watch several series at once instead of wait for a specific time . As the online age is at it's peak the audience watches almost everything on the go e.g. tablets and smartphones. Hence using the web is more and more convenient. 

Film Case Study - The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises is a part of the Batman film franchise.
Directed by Christopher Nolan . Starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Ann Hathaway etc.
It has been released on the 20th of July 2012 in the UK
Productions companies -
Warner Bros. Pictures
Legendary Pictures
DC Entertainment - as DC Comics
Syncopy.

A previous film film of this franchise - The Dark Knight, had a strong marketing campaign involving creative examples of Web 2.0 mdeia used.
The Dark Knight Rises has gone even further and used the popularity of social websites, such as tweeter to create a viral marketing campaign.

''The Dark Knight Rises, tweet graffitti, get trailer'' campaign assumes that the fans could get to see trailer for the film earlier than it's actual release, by participating in the Gotham's Police investigation and help them ''find Batman''. Graffitti of Batman have been printed and spread around the globe, all fans have to do is find them and unlock the the trailer's still frames by uploading pictures of the graffitti I mentioned.

The Film's Official Website has ''leaked'' police documnets of the case. The Site is hosting an official arrest warrant, as well as a wanted poster for the Batman.
There are pages of addresses online, where fans could find Batman Graffitti. And read a repot by the film's fictional deputy police commissioner Peter Foley .

Audiences have taken things into their own hands and make the films even more popular by turning screen shots into ''memes'' . Those are incredibly popular amongst young people and have a great social impact .

              





There are some Youtube users making ''Honest Trailers'' of films, which resembles a film review in terms of how would the audience react to the film. This is convenient for the audience, liberating them from a dry article by a critic.
Also the web is full of fan made trailers of films and key scenes or bad - lip - reading montages .

Coldplay promotion case study web 2.0

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David Gauntlett and Life in a Day

•In 2008 Gauntlett presented ‘the Make and Connect Agenda’; an attempt to rethink audience studies in the context of media users as producers as well as consumers of media products.

•This argues that there is a shift from the ‘sit-back-and-be-told culture’ to a ‘making-and-doing culture’, and that harnessing creativity in both web 2.0 and in other everyday creative activities will play a role in tracking environmental problems. These ideas are developed further in ‘Making is Connecting’

•Wrote an article about traditional form of media teaching and research fails to recognize the changing media landscape in which the categories of ‘audiences’ and ‘producers’ blur together, and in which new research methods and approaches are needed.

•Interested in work regarding qualitative research on audiences with contemporary critical approaches.

•Also interested in research that tries to get to grips with the ‘power’ of media and the agency of audiences.

•Gauntlett’s theory illustrates how the technological evolution of the post modern era has allowed us to become media producers in our own right. This links with the collective identity of young people  because they use the internet as a “creative outlet” more than any other age group, this relates to my entry, because it presents young people as non stereotypical young adults that come from different backgrounds .

Young people are the main age group, consisting of an observing and producing audience. There are multiple sites used by them to express something or show off a creative way of thinking or a skill.

The Internet has become a place where everyone can show what they can and be sure their product will be viewed by the whole world. There is no need of advertisement or distribution. Viral videos are a great example of products created by consumers going around like a virus and gaining more popularity than an advertised media product constructed by a producer.

The project Life in a Day is a great example of David Gauntlett's theories. The mere fact that it has been created by consumers only would leave people expecting a poor quality in terms of footage. However that is not the case at all. From the footage we gather that the people who've taken part in the project are interested in filming. Their skills are quite developed and they know what they are doing. Many chose to not only document how a typical day in their life goes, but also included a little summary of their life's story, which made the footage an actual film with mini narratives .
From the project we can see, that many close up shots and tracking shots have been used, making the distance between the viewers and the people recording minimal and helping us get in touch with their life. This makes the film seem even more realistic to me and I'm sure has proven consumers to be better producers in terms of the fact that they are both consuming and producing, hence have a better understanding of the product and know what is valued most by consumers.
Life in a Day is a brilliant example of Media in the Online Age. The changes are heavily underlined with the consumer's use of honesty you wouldn't easily find in most films these days. In the film there were no stereotypes, no expectations set by the narrative and most importantly no genre, hence no conventions to be followed.
This project is in contradiction with the Hollywood idea, that audience's like to be told what to see and what to like in terms of critic's opinions and Box office results. Also the fact that piracy has made it almost impossible for cinemas to function properly, hints that audiences aren't happy with all the advertisement tactics going on behind a product. Therefore they rather produce their own media materials and be their own critics on sites like Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB e.t.c. 

Analyze the Target Audience your Media Product is aimed at

Looking at my A2 Media Course Work - the Trailer for a film, as well as the rest of the Marketing Campaign along with it, our Product would appeal to a variety of Audiences.
In my group I worked behind the camera, so I had to keep in mind that I need to make the footage engaging and able to bring audience pleasure to almost any social class.
In the trailer I took care to underline the fact that the girl, who is portrayed as a damsel in distress at the beginning - being abandoned by her best friend , has actually been the villain all along. This is a way to break the stereotype of women being abused in thrillers, which is a typical convention of the genre
(e.g. Hitchock) . That would surely be refreshing to any gender .

The specific target audience for our product would be quite narrow. I consider their age would be16-30, social class C1/B. A Reformer by the psycho - graphic profiling. This person would be the main target of our advertisement in general, a highly educated person who cares about the world around them . Who would get the message behind the film and its idea, who'd appreciate the micro and macro features used to create emotions in them . Other social groups that we have targeted would be C2/D as they might have gone trough a mental illness or are suffering from something similar and can relate better to the main character. They could be a Struggler, knowing what it's like to be an outsider or an Aspirer - someone who seems to be trying to look like they have it all and know the struggle of the main character who deals with break downs on a daily basis.

The Audience pleasures drawn from our product cannot be the same as if it was the actual film. Nevertheless, we've tried to use a feature for every kind of viewer, so that we'd try to please as many types of audience as possible.
Psychological Thrillers have a guarantied audience that is in love with the genre and more or less knows what to expect . That is why most of our thriller conventions are highlighted in the trailer to bring their attention and make them want to see the film. There is a fine line between pleasing the audience by letting them ''predict'' the conventional parts of a film and switching the genre up entirely to confuse them. So we changed only a small bit of the narrative up. Our main character is a girl, she is also the antagonist and her victim is her best friend . This is rarely used in psychological thrillers as there's mainly a male antagonist and a love relationship between the antagonist and protagonist .
I suppose this change will arouse interest in more audience types. Another change is, in terms of our trailer we made it look like we've shown the end. This would either make people wonder and want to see the film or make them feel like we've told them the story so they would lose interest.
Our product was intended to provide a feeling of escapism for those who don't resonate with it and a feeling of identification for those who do.

The so called Hypodermic Needle also known as The Magic Bullet perspective, is the idea that what the media wants can be ''injected'' into the audience's mind and influence them. The case in our sequence might as well be the tearing down of the ''damsel in distress'' stereotype. Or the violent knife scene, although no actual violence is really shown .

Stuart Hall has also addressed theoretically the issue of how people make sense of media texts. He argued that the dominant ideology is typically inscribed as the 'preferred reading' in a media text, but that this is not automatically adopted by readers. The social situations of readers/viewers/listeners may lead them to adopt different stances. 'Dominant' readings are produced by those whose social situation favours the preferred reading; 'negotiated' readings are produced by those who inflect the preferred reading to take account of their social position; and 'oppositional' readings are produced by those whose social position puts them into direct conflict with the preferred reading .
Hall insists that there remain limits to interpretation: meaning cannot be simply 'private' and 'individual''.

Hall's theory is very useful in helping me understand how certain social groups would view the ready media product and the trailer, which would of course bring up different issues and appeals. Not many would pick up on what our narrative is trying to connote, however they might still enjoy the cinematography used to create suspense and mystery. Also the variety of shots provides an intriguing sence of duality and grants the audience with confusion they are eager to resolve by wanting to see more of the film.

For our AS and A2 course work we have researched into multiple media products as to influenced our own

We’ve looked at multiple opening sequences in AS and have carefully chosen features in terms of cinematography and mise-en-scene that are in synchrony with the conventions of the genre we’ve chosen.

For our AS Coursework my group designed a company logo that would come up in the beginning. We looked over multiple examples on the Internet. When we chose what we wanted we spend days on Youtube, looking at tutorials in Photoshop until we get the hang of working with photopshop.

As for the A2 Course work, our ideas were influenced by multiple trailers in terms of the narrative structure and genre they own and how is that relevant to our work.

We looked at posters and film magazine covers to get an image of how we’d like our marketing campaign to be presented. After we picked our designs, the creation process was a bit of a challenge in terms of using photoshop. It took us quite a while to get used to the program and manipulate the images the way we want them to look, but the final result taught us a lot in terms of skills.

Trough both years I have developed my research skills in terms of using the web and the photoshop, also my knowledge of film’s genre conventions has improved a great deal. This is very useful when it comes to evaluating my work and comparing my work to already existing media products.