As an audience we are reached out to by the media. media conventions are used to construct meanings to audiences. how a person represents themselves or how they are represented can have a huge affect on the audience that they then will appeal to. therefore choosing our target audience was a crucial part of the course. we felt that to appeal to the vast majority would be easier than choosing a niche media market. we felt that it was important to attract young adults and teenagers as it is this age group that are influenced by the media the most and who statistically listen and purchase music more than other age ranges. We spent a great deal of time searching and developing our understanding of other media concepts which link to our music video such as popular music magazines such as 'NME', advertising or other bands and their marketing, radio and what is current and has a tie with the genre we selected for example morning radio DJ's are more like to play more commercial and popular music, whereas a late night DJ will have a more selective listener and a more niche sound. We did this in order to create a successful music video which would suit our target audience.
Our choice in song was due to it being conventional and therefore targeting our audience. We spent many weeks researching popular music genres and discovered that genres such as Electro, Trance and House were not aimed at specific listeners as they once were, they were in fact being mixed and produced with a popular music influence, and because of this becoming far more mainstream. Statistically there has been a huge change in the audience purchasing genres such as Electro and the 2009 charts show that it is rapidly gaining in popularity. Due to these statistics we found that Soft Toy Emergency and their song Critical had the correct mix of genres, and would be enjoyable to use in our project.
Also tapping into recent trends in the music industry we noted that most popular artists are ones which have a Solo career. Artists which were once in a band such as Beyonce
who was once in Destinys Child
has created a far better name for herself since going solo, this is also apparent for Robbie Williams who after quitting Take That has a prospourus solo career. The group 'Soft Toy Emergency' are a band that consist of five members, their lead singer being a woman. we felt that it was important to follow the trend of the music charts and for our music video present the band as a solo female singer. Bands which consist of a female lead singer usually have more of a market scope than male bands as they appeal to differing ages. By chosing a young and attractive female to front the band in our video yet again taps into our target audience, she can be present as a woman that is to be admired by men and boys and someone that females can aspire to look and behave like.
Artists such as Cheryl Cole
are a prime example of this, men want to marry her and women want to be like her. Not only this but she is seen as a national treasure and someone that people will listen to and also attempt to steal the style of celebrities such as her. Madonna for example has her own fashion rang because music and fashion go hand in hand as media conventions. In Madonna's
music videos for example there is a huge amount of product placeement in order to promote and sell her style as it were, this can also been seen in artists such as
The Pussycat Dolls
who have their own fashion label, and also with artists such as Lady GaGa. These artists are frequently featured in media conventions selling or sporting the latest in fashion wear, and this look that they maintain is also in their music videos.By researching into this gave us some ideas of how to present our female singer. Our target audience also happens to be the target audience for many popular media conventions and this is due to the fact that our target audience are highly afftected by the hypodermic model. We link this model to our music video by believeing audiences see music as part of their identity and their aspiration to be like their idols.
Contiuing on with our research into the music genre we listened to the lyrics of Critical very closely. The plot of the song is about a strong woman who is bored of her love sick ex boyfriend and she wishes he would get 'positively over it', 'it' being thier dead relationship. This led us to look into songs with similar narratives such as Katy Perry's song Hot n Cold,
and after watching the video we decided that the cheesy and humourous narrative was what we wanted to achieve, this concept is best shown in Mariah Carey's video for her song Touch my Body.
Not only is Mariah's music video visually exciting and humours it also contained a very classic image of the 'nerdy' boy who wants the beautiful girl, this being a concept which an audience can relate to. This gave us the inspiration to have a 'nerdy' figure in our video who is besotted with our sassy lead singer. The use of a narrative like that is important as it keeps the audience engaged with the song and also enables them to compare themselves with the life of the singer which is being portrayed.
We as a group did not want to break or twist conventions, we kept our music video to the existing trends as it is easier that way to have a target audience and to keep to the conventions they expect.
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