M4: Meeting the Client Brief

 M4: Meeting the Client Brief

How I met the Client Brief:

Within the Brief I was asked to create a music video for an established artist or local band, the song being suitable for the target audience of a 13-20 year old and from middle to lower class demographics. I chose the music video to be a narrative to convey a plot that fits well with the theme of the song as well as to employ a message of the consequences of drug abuse to my audience. To add to this, I chose to work individually as I felt I would accomplish more work and made sure all of the content produced was original and made and produced by myself. 

I ensured that I fully researched the genre of hip hop, grime and electronica, all being sub genres of the chosen song, 'All For Us' by Labrynth, this is evidenced in my M3. I exported the music video onto the platform Youtube, to distribute this I converted the music video to a HD 1080p file format, as this is the rate the platform showcases content, if it were not for this I would have used 4K to have better and more high quality resolution. I encountered the unexpected risk of the software I was using to edit and export the file to fail, thus gave me the challenge to re-edit the music video, however was an opportunity to make improvements and ultimately make the quality and narrative better. As well as this, when exporting onto Youtube, I had difficulty showcasing it onto the blog as a video format as persisted being a PDF, I solved this by re-exporting the video and distributing it a second time on Youtube.

Due to the COVID 19 guidelines, I was forced to change some scenes within the music video to comply to the social distancing rules, this then included scenes where there was more than six people in a space and not create or show scenes of a party or rave as again, is against the guidelines and would result in a fine. This did not change much in context to the client brief, as I chose to work on my own, this then stopped any possible infection in other groups when filming and editing. However, as stated I created a hip hop genre music video, again meeting the client brief of a specific genre, it is typical in a hip hop styled music video to have scenes of partying or being with friends, due to COVID, this was something I was not able to do; to overcome this I replaced these scenes with close ups or filler shots.

Although I had set backs in editing I met the deadlines within my production schedule and work plan on time, this including location checks, filming dates, time spaces for editing and distribution, etc. 

Uses and Gratifications:

The purpose of my music video is to serve as a form of escapism for my target audience, this theory of Uses and Gratification formed by 'Bulmer and Katz' suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media. The form of media that I created is directed for audiences who want something that can relate to their personal identity (a type of uses and gratification) , within this viewers can recognise a person or product, role models that reflect similar values to themselves and mimic or copy some of their characteristics; this is then shown in the protagonist of my music video, in which the character struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction, a theme that my target, behavioural and geographical audience may struggle with. The theme of subject of my music video can also fall into the 'Information & Educational', 'Entertainment' and 'Escapism' categories. 

Reception Theory - Stuart Hall:

Reception Theory developed by Stuart Hall writes that media products and texts are encoded and decoded; this suggests that the producer encodes messages and values into their media which are then decoded or interpreted by the audience. Although, as there is a range of numerous types of audiences, different audiences will decode the media in different ways. The theorist suggests there are three different ways audiences may perceive this message hidden in the media, this includes:

• Dominant, or Preferred Reading - how the producer wants the audience to view the media text. 
• Oppositional Reading - when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own meaning for the text. 
• Negotiated Reading - a compromise between the dominant and oppositional readings, where the audience accepts parts of the producer's views, but has their own views on parts as well. 

Others factors within the media product that may differ there decision of their interoperation follows:

• Age

• Beliefs

• Culture

• Gender

• Life experience

• Mood at the time of viewing

For my media product (music video), the promise of the music video is to suggest a moral learning outlook on the addiction of drugs and alcohol and the effects this can have on the dominant target audience, the message is then meant to portray this as a bad thing, however, some oppositional reading audiences may then perceive this as a tool that promotes drug and alcohol abuse and other negotiated reading audiences may interpret it to be a morally bad thing to do but doesn't have the effect of not wanting said audience to take part in it.