Section 1B - Media Language

''Analyse one of your media productions in relation to Media Language.'' 25 Marks

Andrew Goodwin believes there are 5 points that you should follow to ensure you make the best production possible. Using Thought Beats that move in time with the audio, for my video precisely I decided to use thought beats to add interest and tension to various scenes. Narrative and Performance this is important as viewers need to know exactly what roles each of the characters play and the story line must be easy to follow. The 'Star Image', this is when the 'main' character is focused on throughout the production as they bring the most to the table for example in my personal music video, the lead female character is a cannibal who doesn't feel like she can tell her secret to the world and spends the video trying to pluck up the coverage to reveal her true identity. This shows the Star Image is my main aspect of thought throughout the production process. Relation of visuals to the Song,  this means what ever is shown in the video is represented in some way by the audio. I believe I linked my visuals to the 'amplification' side of things which means some of my visuals did match up to the audio, however I was more focused on how the story line would flow, so I did take a risk when deciding which scenes would go where but it paid off when revealing the outcome. for example 'use your finger to stir my tea' the female points her finger to the camera in a swirling motion which links exactly. But then another scene may say 'then when I'm thirsty I drink there blood' it's a scene of her looking malicious, suggesting she is going to attack but not actually showing the blood in the scene.  Finally the Technical Aspects, this includes the camera work, editing, mise en scene e.t.c which I thought about prior to production. Camera work was mainly focusing on meat shots of the main character to keep up with usual conventions seen in a pop/dance video, I knew I wanted the editing to be fast paced in order to link well with audio with various transitions to keep the audience interested and the outfits and locations would link to usual conventions in some ways but challenge others.
I believe Goodwin gives these 5 points in the hope that people follow them correctly as they can result in creating a successful production if some of these points are used. I think I took influence from each of the 5 points in my own work and this hopefully influenced the 'media language used' throughout. The production I am going to discuss in this answer is my A2 Music Video. I chose a Kesha song named Cannibal, which is from the pop/dance genre. Although I have spoke in detail about Goodwin's theory I am going to compare and contrast the ideas of how I showed a successful amount of media language through my work by analysing the ideas of'; Carol Vernallis, Stuart Hall, Barthes and Fiske & Hartley.
Carol Vernallis links to some of the points I have made above regarding Goodwin's theory. She talks about ideas regarding the narrative of the production, the editing, camera movement and framing and diegesis. The narrative is easy to follow and has a realistic story line that I believe any age or any gender could link too in some way, maybe they have identities regarding sexuality, likes and dislikes that they are afraid to share with the world and this story line could influence them to pluck up the courage and live their life to the full. Threw the editing stages I mainly conducted lots of jump cuts to make sure my scenes cut to the beat of the music and actually had some sort of relevance of being there, I also used juxtaposed shots during the overlapping of two scenes showing the male and female character and how their feelings would be the total opposite due to the current situation they were in (female - happy because she is attacking the males and getting her food) (male - upset/scared because he has already been attacked by the cannibal and doesn't know whats left in store). The camera techniques where thought about professionally and I mainly conducted meat shots to focus the whole video around my main character, but also use a mixture of others for example a running scene contained long shots to make sure the audience could feel and understand exactly what the male actor was doing. Diegesis is the idea of some frames/scenes in a production being more important than others depending on what's included in them. for example a scene that plays a main part in showing the revolving ideas of the narrative would have major importance to the whole video compared to some section showing my camera techniques just to fill in some duration of the video would not be as visually important to the audience  As I have discussed about Goodwin's theory I believe each one of these points Vernallis talks about are 'essentials' in the production stages of a music video so I have focused on each of them similarly and without them the outcomes of the video wouldn't be as professional.
Stuart Hall believes that all music videos have a 'encoded' message hidden inside that can be found by the audience easily. Our message was that the female character had a hidden identity that she wasn't comfortable sharing with the rest of the world and she used her confident and dominant ways to attack her prey (males) to satisfy her needs. However just because that was the meaning I have given to the audience doesn't mean everyone took it that way. I believe many of them will have got the 'oppositional' meaning from the video which means had some clue about what the original idea was but also having their own personal influences that they believed to be true. e.g they could think she has mental problems and is physiologically disturbed through the video, because of her jolted body movements and scary personality. I do believe Stuart Hall's theory can link to my own work regarding media language because viewers are bound to see the video in 1 of the 3 ways he talks about and I do believe that everyone would be different which is why this point is so interesting to talk about.
Barthes believes that the audience can get the connotative or denotative meanings behind what the producers are trying to show in their production. Connotative is the direct influence they have taken from what they can personally visualize from the screen, whereas denotative is thinking deeper into the story line and thinking of various other problems or ideas that could broaden the reasons why it's been used in a certain scene. For example linking to my own music video, the connotative idea would be that my female character who is seen a lot through the video is a cannibal and she likes to eat men. However a denotative meaning would be that she has mental problems that have caused her to attack these men, this could mean she is lonely and cant find love. Or she is acting in such a broad way because she likes the attention she would be receiving from the males in the video but the audience watching due to her confident personality and revealing clothing. Although some of these denotative ideas could be some valid exact reasons why I picked a certain character to look and act a certain way in specific scenes, there would only be one main reason which is signified through the connotative ideas. I believe a variety of sections in my video can relate to these two meanings and some interesting responses could come from them, as the denotative responses could link more to the realistic scenes I produced because I had tried to be more unique e.t.c each element would be a different meaning.
Finally Fiske and Hartley discuss the same connotative and denotative meanings however they see it as a 'third order of signification' this means that both meaning are thought about together to reveal an ideology. So basically the thing that is 'signified' is the outcome when the connotative and denotative meanings are put together. For example in my music video, the female would be seen as a cannibal type character (connotative) who could have personal problems that could make her emotionally and physically upset to deal with various day to day situations, which could mean she needs mental help and guidance as she is not stable enough to be alone (denotative). This result shows I have pulled two different types of ideas together about the same topic which sounds much more professional and actually brings together the whole narrative part of my music video. If this is the type of responses that would be collected and given I do think this theory could relate to my work personally, as there are so many different scenarios occuring throughout different people would have different ideas about what I am trying to explain and I do believe some of these detailed outcomes could be correct like what I have just created above.

Each of these theorists ideas play a big part in the media language section of my production of my music video, I believe each one of the areas being discussed links in some way to my own video personally because being able to deliver a product that will retrieve a variety of feedback is exactly what I had hoped for because it could help me develop my skills in the future but also inform me about what I had done well.