Question 1B: Audience Essay:

Audience for Music Video:

The project which I am going to be referring to whereby I will be discussing how audience plays a role in my researching and planning stages is going to be for my music video project for ‘Hate This Part Right Here.’ The audience we believed to have gained for our music video is an ‘active audience’ – which is the idea that the audience have an active role to play in the understanding of, and creation of meaning within text. Clearly, we allowed audiences to become an active role in our music video as we wanted our audiences to sympathise and empathise with our protagonist as we heightened the emotions of sadness and heartbreak that the artist felt as she became aware of the fact that her relationship was about to come to an end. We wanted them to think about how a song of this nature creates a message that people connect with and the ‘reality’ of the story emphasises this. It is kind of song/video combination that people will stop and think, ‘yeah… I know how that feels.’

Both Khushel and I began our research process by analyzing and investigating real media texts, ensuring that we gained a better and wider knowledge of the conventions which are an essential for power ballads. The first thing I researched was Goodwin's theory where I used his ideas and put this into practice when analysing Keri Hilson's video "Knock You Down" ft Ne-Yo and Kanye West, as it portrayed a couples relationship breaking down. This was a narrative storyline that both Khushel and I were interested in using for our own music video so it was important for us to examine this in real media texts. Additionally, we wanted to create a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, especially after becoming aware that the music is merely and extension of the lyrics which is one of the key issues discussed as part of Goodwin’s theories.

The stylistic influences for our narrative story line have come from looking at scenes from films such as, "The Devil Wears Prada, The Break Up and The Holiday". As well as watching similar music videos which showcase a similar narrative device such as, "Taking Back My Love - Enrique Iglesias ft Ciara and Watcha Say - Jason Derulo." Additionally, we chose to incorporate intertextual references to our narrative which is identified in our first narrative scene, that is, the scene whereby the couple are depicted sitting apart from each other in the car. This shot was taken from Nicole Scherzinger's video "Don't Hold Your Breath". We chose to research and analyse this video due to the fact that not only does her music video match our genre, that is, R&B but it also matches our target audience as her music also reaches young teenagers to late 20’s especially so we realised that this would be a great real media text to analyse in terms of our research. The shot of Nicole – the protagonist sitting in back of a taxi alone draws attention to the vulnerability and emotion that is being heightened due to the artist reminiscing over how her relationship suddenly came to an end. This shot allowed the artist's fans to view the singer in a different light, seeing her at her more vulnerable state, allowing her fans to sympathise with her. This is predominantly the reason behind why I decided to create this shot based on the original used in Scherzinger's "Don't Hold Your Breath" video as I wanted my artist's fans and audiences to be able to empathise and sympathise with her and to be able to heighten the emotion that is being transferred through the scenes in the video. For instance, when the protagonist is singing to her boyfriend in the back of the car but he moves away from her or when she gazes towards him but he looks away entirely. 

Clearly, it is crucial for artists to have a defined target audience and our intended target audience were those aged between 13-29+ as the narrative and performance concept of this video relates to those of this age group due to the fact that the narrative story line might relate to the older teens and young adults, i.e 17-25 whilst the performance concept being a choreographed dance scene would appeal to the younger generation, i.e 13-17 as they will find this more enjoyable and fun to watch. Therefore we wanted to add a narrative and performance concept to our music video to ensure that we engaged both the younger and older generation and provide them with exactly what they would like to see in a music video aimed at their age group. What is more, is that throughout our advanced portfolio we paid close attention to McQuail’s Uses and Gratification Theory particularly focusing on ‘personal relationship’ and ‘personal identity’ which we believed specifically related to the genre of R&B since the ‘personal relationship’ allowed our audiences to view the intensity and build up of stress and grief from within the breakdown of the relationship especially when the artist was singing to her boyfriend for the last time ending their relationship, as well as personal identity whereby we were able to view the characters alone and isolated from one another, for instance where the protagonist was placed inside her bedroom whilst her boyfriend was left waiting outside in the corridor. Even these individual scenes showcased the couple’s personal identity as we were able to again view the couples isolation and grief, which is often a recurring theme in other R&B videos which showcase the breakdowns of relationships.

Critical theorist, Hall explained how most texts can be read in different ways but there is generally a preferred or dominant reading that the producers of a message, that is, myself intend when they create that message or storyline. Clearly, when creating our music video we intended for our narrative to be read in a preferred reading whereby our audience could feel as though they empathised with the couple and understood what they were going through, via the build up of sadness and grief and torment that they were suffering, knowing that there relationship was coming to an end.

We ensured that our video related and was entertaining for our target audience (13-29+) for the reason that this age range will most likely be familiar with the narrative storyline, having sympathy for the breakdown of a relationship as most people would have experienced this at some point during their lifetime. It will be mainly aimed at the female audiences not only because the main protagonist/singer is female but simply because girls are more caring and understanding to the sensitive and emotional storyline which the song narrates – a breakdown of a relationship and knowing it is coming to an end. Therefore it is more likely to engage a female audience. However, it is also likely to engage male audiences due to the fact that the singer is female and can often be seen wearing clothing which may accentuate her figure, however we were still moving away from sexualising the singer but nonetheless it could attract male audiences and encourage them to watch and listen to the singer.

Additionally, when researching videos which fit the same genre characteristic as our music video, that is, R&B I found out how woman are represented through the lyrics and main footage in their videos. Women are portrayed in a negative light - as sexual objects by dressing semi-naked and wearing minimal clothing as they move and dance in a circular motion around the artist seductively, flaunting their body to their audiences. This scene is a cliché convention which has been re-used over and over again to exploit woman’s sexuality in music videos and can be seen in Mohombi ft Nelly's video "Miss Me”, Rihanna’s “S&M" and Ne-Yo “Closer.” We decided that we didn’t want to be another group that exploits woman in music videos in order to draw in our audiences. We wanted to be able to take hold of audience’s attention by the talent and aptitude of the artist, as well as encouraging teenage girls and young adults to imitate and respect their idols. We wanted our artist to feel as though their fans and audiences know them for who they are as a respectable and highly regarded singer and not for the exploitation of their sexuality and being known as “the hot one.”

What is more, it that without realising it we kept with the heterosexual message which was encoded into our text, i.e the boy and girl norm. We depicted in our video how as the relationship wasn’t working out, the woman was powerful enough to leave the man and even though she was isolated from leaving her boyfriend she was comforted by the crowd. Nonetheless, feminist theorists may suggest that the artist is only happy when being with her boyfriend, whilst others could say that she is the strong one as she pushes her boyfriend away.

Julian McDougall quotes, “audiences still clearly make sense and give meaning to cultural products,” in other words our target audience is able to play an active role in the understanding and creation of meaning within a media text but as everyone is different they have a choice as to what believe and what not to believe when understanding media texts. I believe that for our media text, “Hate This Part” we have placed it into it’s own group providing it with an identity which can be recognised by a variety of audiences who can read it how they want as we have created the video with a clear and fluent narrative that Todorov argued was important to any genre by following an equilibrium at the start of the video which then follows with a problem which in our case was the bedroom scenes which showcased the couples emotion and intensity as they ignored each other, viewing them at their most vulnerable state as they were each aware that there relationship was coming to an end, which then lead to the resolution whereby the female protagonist made the hardest decision to end their relationship due to their constant confrontations, realising that this was the best thing to do for themselves. We deliberately left the ending open (where the protagonist is depicted walking off into a crowded area) to capture our audiences attention effectively allowing them to create their own understanding of what may happen to the protagonist in the future.