Applying Audience Theory to a Rock Music Video

The uses and gratifications theory is an approach to understand why people seek specific media platforms to satisfy specific needs, in this case music videos. The uses and gratifications theory focuses on 'what do people do with media?' - it discusses different factors to why the audiences selects that specific media product. These factors are information, relaxation, social iterations, entertainment or escape. 

Information: this is the idea that audiences watch media products to find out about relevant events in immediate surroundings or around the world, they want to seek advice on practical matters, to satisfy curiosities, or to learn something new.

Personal Identity: this is the idea that audiences watch media products to gain an insight to their personal self, to find reinforcements for personal values or to find models of behaviour. 

Social Interaction: this is the idea that an audience watch media products to gain an insight into the lives of others, social empathy, to identify with others or gain a sense of belonging, to find a basis for conversation or social interaction, to have a substitute for real-life companionship or to connect with family, friends and society. 

Entertainment: this is the idea that the audience watch media products to escape or be diverted from their real-life problems, to relax, to fill time, emotional release, sexual arousal and for general enjoyment. 

Now we can apply this to an alternative rock music video. 

We Are The In Crowd - The Best Thing (That Never Happened)

If we apply the uses and gratifications theory to this video to see why people would watch this video then we would rely on Entertainment or social interaction. This is because the typical target audience for We Are The In Crowd are teens/young adults probably aged around 16-22.

If we apply social interaction as most teenagers watch music videos because they've heard a friend talking about it so they want to see what its about. This means they then have something to talk about at school. It may also be because they feel they can relate to the song specifically girls as its about a boy who you're glad you never got together with.

Similarly if we apply entertainment we know that teens often have spare time on weekends or evenings therefore they could be watching music videos to fill time, similarly they may enjoy watching music videos to get away from the stress or troubles that comes with school work. In terms of sexual arousal this video would appeal to both boys who would find the lead singer attractive or to girls who find the rest of the male members attractive. 

Therefore to a teenager this would satisfy both their social interaction and entertainment needs which is why they would watch this music video. 

Best Music Video - Summer 2014

5 Seconds of Summer - Amnesia

• To improve the video I would add more scenes about the personal relationship as opposed to a group with a girl to make it fit the lyrics better it would also make it more emotional - which is what the song is as he's singing about missing a girl, i would add more performance of the band performing the song as opposed to shots individually
• I think that the blur effect could be taken out because it doesn't fit in as its every now and again, also I would take out some of the individual shots of them singing as it doesn't convey that they're a band 
• The video conforms to the genre of rock/pop from the performance with the instruments you can see electric guitars, bass and drums to show they're a rock/pop band, you can also tell by the costumes i.e. jeans and t-shirts which is quite casual 

Types of Music Videos - Narrative, Concept and Performance

Concept:

Concept videos are based around a single idea and are usually unusual or obscure for an audience. The unusual content is an attraction to many consumers, which draws them in. Concept videos entertain the audience as they're constantly watching what is happening on the screen. Usually the concept of the video doesn't have anything to do with a narrative or the lyrics, it will just be to entertain the audience. However concept videos can have a theme depending on the genre of music i.e. in pop there might be a big dance routine. Or some concepts might be more symbolic to show a meaning this could be using pictures or a montage. An example of a concept video is in Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Californication. In this video the band pretend they are in a video game however it also overlaps with performance as it cuts between shots of the band performing and the band taking part in the game. 

                                                       Narrative  

A narrative video tells the story that could feature in the lyrics or to do with the message of the song, sometimes the narrative can make a mini film with a beginning, middle or end - some involving Todorov's equilibrium theory. Also some narrative music videos mat feature film clips which tell a story if that song is promoting the film for example Bon Jovi - Its my life where it shows the band performing the song so it has that overlap but it also shows the journey of the boy character trying to get to the Bon Jovi concert in order to meet the girl - it shows him not giving up.

Performance

Performance videos are commonly used within the Rock or Pop genre. Performance music videos include a performance by the artist performing the song, it often includes behind the stage footage from the live show for the audience to see. It gives a sence of realism to the audiences to what it would be like to be at that artists concert. The video usually would have a wide range of camera shots which would all focus on the artist on stage if its a band then it would swicth between band members, it wouldn't usually follow a narrative. Performance videos are also used to show that the band/artist can actually perform instead of just being manufactured, it shows their ability within the music industry. An example of this is Aerosmith and Baby, please don't go. In this video you see the band performing as part of a concert therefore its realistic and proves that the band can actually play their own instruments. It also can overlap with concept as it shows shots of people in a bar dancing. 

Evaluation - Lego House by Ed Sheeran Reconstruction

Our task was to reconstruct a music video as realistic as possible, we got given Ed Sheeran - Lego house. For this we watched the original music video and selected a minute which we would reconstruct, after we selected our minute we storyboarded everything that we would need to film along with a shot list of all the types of shots we would need, then we made a list of all the costumes and props that we would need to get in order to make it look like the original version. Then after we went out to film it we would need to edit the video down in time with the song, including syncing the lip singing shots in with the right lyrics, and ensure the music video ran smoothly. The point of this task was to be able to practice getting shots for a music video frame by frame also to enhance our editing skills to match that of a music video as opposed to a film opening. 

We went out to film our shots, the majority of the shots were mid or close up shots however we did include a range of different shots as seen in the video like long shots, wide shots and extreme close ups however they weren't as frequently used in the music video. We needed a range of props including: lamps, guitar, a book, CD's, photo frame, high vis jackets, etc.. For this we searched all over the school to get these props and we were able to use various different settings around school including the drama studio, field and hallways. the costumes were quite simple as it was just one person in one outfit.

Then it came to edit the clips together. We had some trouble trying to import the clips onto the macs however we eventually got it sorted. It was quite tricky trying to get the clips down to a minute and then trying to synch up the lip singing shots. We had to compare it to the original music video multiple times to look for the timings of each shots so that we could cut down each of our shots to the correct timings to that it was in the video. We found that for some of our shots we had to slow them down because the content happened too quickly compared to what they did in the video. The editing was quite tricky for the music video as the edits were quite quick, and we had to get them all very precise to what the original video was. From this I have learnt that the cuts for music video's are very quick and so the editing is more more difficult as the shots have to be more precise as they don't last that long. It is also hard to match up lip synching with the music as some of our clips were either longer or shorter than they should have been.

I think this was a good task as it gave us good practise to what it is like to film and edit a music video even if it was a minute long clip, lots of skills were involved in doing this task and it enabled us to improve on the editing skills.

Analysing a music video - Lawson: Juliet