Theory - Roland Barthes

Narrative codes - how the audience views the text

Texts can be 'open' - unravelled in many different ways, or be 'closed' - one obvious thread to pull on. My animation is going to be open, I am going to do this by making reference to Lily Allen's double meaning of words.

Roland Barthes 5 codes

Action code - a action which means there is a further action, a person picks up a gun someone gets shot. This is relevant to all moving media as actions inevitable move onto another, so is therefore relevant to my music video.

Enigma code - an element which is not revealed, raising questions this is used to keep audience suspense. This code is not an aspect of my video.

Semantic code - connotations, impiles that there is never one meaning to a word such as mirror and the media mirror (newspaper)this is also shown in dress codes to work out the age or status of a character. This is mediation what the audience take from the text.

Cultural code - elements relying on sharded knowledge, santa is a old man with a beard, if the audience did not no this then a text about santa would not be relivant or make sense.

Symbolic code - The grey, what is unseen but the audience fills in due to personal experience, this results in different people taking different things and meanings from the text.

Theory - Audience theories

1 - Hypodermic needle model, 1920's
- first attempt to explain how mass audience reacts to mass media
- audiences passively receive information via media text, without realising or making effort to
- radio and cinema were new at the time
- government had discovered power of advertising to communicate messages, produced propaganda to sway thinking
- popular during 1st world war in Europe and aftermath
This suggests that information is passed into the mass consciousness of the audience unmediated. The experience, intelligence and option of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text. As an audience we are the creators of media texts, our behavior and thinking may easily be changed by media makers. This theory assumes audiences are passive and heterogeneous. This theory was also quoted during moral panic.

2 - Two step flow
- Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Bevelson and Hazel Gaudet analysed voters decision making processes during the 1940's presidential election campaign.
- information does not flow directly into minds of its audience unmediated, it is filtered through opinion leaders
- opinion leaders communicate to less active associates proving influence
- audience then mediate information received direct from media with ideas and thoughts expressed by opinion leaders.

In conclusion people are influenced by the two step flow and not directly this is referred to as limited effects paradigm.

3 - Uses and Gratifications, 1960's - 1974
- audiences were made up of activity consumed texts for different reasons, in different ways.
- 1948 Laswell suggested media texts had the following functions for individuals and society; surveillance
correlation
entertainment
culture transmission
- 1974 Blulmer and Katz stated individuals might chose a text for the following purpose;
diversion - escape from everyday problem
personal relationships - use media for emotion and other interactions
personal identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts
surveillance - information which could be useful for living (weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains)

- since 1974 uses and gratifications have been extended due to new media form such as music videos, video games and the Internet.

Reception theory, 1980's and 1990's
- Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model of relationships between audience and text
text encoded by producer
decoded by the viewer
- possible differences between reading of code due to peoples circumstances, for example gender, class, age and ethnicity
- by using recognised codes and conventions and drawing upon audience expectations relating to aspects such as stars and genre, produducers can position the audience and create a certain amount of agreement to what the code means (preffered reading)

Good images

I just found a wicked random image that inspire me so here it is;

Inspiration by baby_juicy featuring Calvin Klein

My faviourate images within the image are, the wooden heart tiles this idea could be used with letters for an important aspect of the song. The peace sign, which relates to Lily Allen as she is a goverment activist. The cigeratte, Lily Allen smokes and naughts and crosses game, a game of this sort could be an aspect of my stop motion animation.

Theory - Carol Vernallis

Carol Vernallis is a associate professor of Film and Media Studies at Arizona State University. She specialises in music videos and contemporary film soundtrack in relation to image. She has written two books, and produced many music videos.
Music videos have exploded due to music channels, and are highly influential to there viewers. They help to create an artist’s identity, to affect a song's mood, to determine chart success: the music video has changed our idea of the popular song.
Vernallis believes that music videos are another art form and different from television, films and the song singularly.

Vernallis describes in a book how verbal, musical, and visual codes combine in music videos to create defining representations of race, class, gender, sexuality, and performance. The book also explores complex interactions of narrative, settings, props, costumes and lyrics.

I agree with Carol Vernallis in the way that music videos have there own genre and how the music video can reflect the artisit and effect your feeling, or change the meaning of the song. Each great artists have there own style and this is portrayed not only through there sound but the there music video aswell.

Lily Allen The Fear

This is Lily Allen's acoustic version of the song The Fear. I prefer this version as it sounds rawer and my audience will be able to relate to this more than the perfect radio version. This gives me more freedom to create an animation stop motion as there is not a video to this version so I can make it more orginal.

Other Videos of Lily's

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The idea of the clips flicking back and forth is a idea which I find interesting as it plays around with the linear. The idea of two storys to one idea.


Alfie



This video incorporates a puppet, as her brother, this is the only Lily Allen video which uses anything different. I also really like the bright block colours of the walls, this is somthing to experiment with.

Idea

I have just had a great to experiment with paint splatters created using a toothbrush. I got this idea from some postcards that were on my table. I can experiment with different colours when I start drawing and creating for my video.

First of all I tried using red ink, the ink works well although I feel the red gives the impression of blood, so if I develop this further I will try using a different colour. I put on two splatter images onto flickr but it would not let me have the embedding code so I have put them on through the blog.





The second attempt with red was more successful as I used less ink;



Then I tried a green colour using acrylic paint and water, the colour splatter across the page is abstract and I like way you can see the hand applying the splatter using a paint brush I think it gives it a 'real' feel. Once I have experimented with other designs I will photocopy them and try splattering paint over the top to see what it looks like.