The Cultural Studies Approach Perspective on Audience

This was developed by David Morley and attempts to understand how the media might be powerful and influence audiences. There are three different readings an audience can take, a preferred (or dominant) reading meaning that the audience relates to the text and accepts them as natural and correct. There is the negotiated reading where the audience recognize the values in the text and acknowledge them and accept them in general however they change their reading of the text to fit in with their feelings and experiences. The last reading is the oppositional  reading whereby the audience fully understands the values of the text but disagrees with them and rejects them.

I think audiences will take a preferred reading towards my print work because I have used natural images and none that have connotations and represent anyone or anything in an inappropriate way. They will not cause offence. Most audiences will take a preferred reading towards my music video however there will be some shots of alcohol and cast possibly drinking it (we will actually use water!) so therefore some of the elder audience may take offence by this as they feel young people drinking is a bad idea as they binge drink and turn into yobs. Most audiences will view this as a normal thing and accept it.

Research and Planning: More Feedback

I have had some more feedback regarding my advert and digipack.

Advert feedback:

Digipack feedback:

Research and Planning: Focus Group

This is the focus group me and Jack did together. We collected a few people we thought were in our target audience and asked them a few questions. The answers we received were what we wanted to hear.

They guessed who our target audience is and thought that our print work all tied in well with the theme and genre we are going for. Our type of character/star image appeals to them and they also believe this fits in with the genre. When we showed our focus group the three videos which helped inspire us it was interesting that they thought the last video (Viva Brother - Buds of May) didn't fit in well with our theme and the other videos. However they did say it had good influences.


Overall the focus group has helped me and Jack determine that our ideas and genre all match together well and the target audience agree which is what we need. 

Research and Planning:Costume and Props

As you can see our costume is just laid back casual wear that a 16-24 year old would wear. We need to dress the performers in the way that the target audience will like and relate to. We will just get the actors to wear their own clothes as these will be suitable.

Stu will be shot playing the guitar in some parts of the video, he will provide and use his own guitar.

We would like to shoot some scenes outside on a sofa to give the video a different feel, Jack has sourced one we can use from a family member.

We wanted to do some tracking with the camera and thought a good way of doing this would be to use a shopping trolley. We will contact a local supermarket and seek permission to borrow one before we carry this out.

Research and Planning: Performers and Casting

We have contacted the artist we are using for our video. He has happily agreed to come down to Worcester for when we want to film and he will be the star of our video. We have decided that we don't need to have any other male performers as this will take attention off our star.


We may decide to use a female performer to relate to the name of the song, 'She Don't Know'. We still haven't completely decided on this but we have a performer in place just in case. See below.

Just in case the worst comes to the worst and due to travel and weather we can't get Stu to be our main performer we will use Laurie. See Below.

We have chosen reliable people that we know and have already arranged for them to be in our video so we know we won't be let down when it comes to performers.

Research and Planning: Audience Profile

Research and Planning: Locations, Permission, Health and Safety

We intend to film in 3 different locations. 

Location 1: Woods near college grounds

Location 2: Cripple gate park in Worcester

Location 3: The weir near Jack's house

Back up location: Mine and Jack's houses.

As all these locations are public places so we automatically get permission to film there.

Research and Planning: Time plan

Final Digipack & Advert

Deadline

Due to a strike our Digipack and Advert deadline was extended to today, the 6th of December. I have finished well ahead of the deadline and have made all the improvements I was advised to and also got some good quality feedback.

Research and Planning: Feedback

I have shared my digipacks front and back covers on my twitter.

One of my friends replied with this feedback:

Iam really pleased with this reply, as I wanted my digipack to be as professional as possible.