Audience Profiling

The target audience for my music video is 18-24 year old females, as that is the main demographic of Halsey's music, however my music video is mainly going to consist of dancing. Dance music videos draw major attraction to a younger audience (primarily female) who aspire to dance in their futures.

The original video for 'Castle' is a shortened version of the song that was featured in 'The Huntsman: Winter's War' (2016). It stars Halsey as the main performer and we see previews from scenes in the film, this video has 29,556,655 views, however the full audio track has 36,857,151 views. This shows that Halsey's audience prefer the full version of the song rather than the soundtrack version, which is why I chose to use the full version.

It appears that dance performance music videos attract a larger audience, Sia's 'Chandelier' music video currently has 1,695,497,919 views. The comments are filled with appreciation for the 11 year old dancer (Maddie Ziegler) and there are lots of theories for the narrative of the dance alongside the lyrics. This music video became an icon in the dance industry and piqued the interest of young dancers globally and influenced choreographers for quite some time.

My research colcudes that dance music videos attract a large amount of young people, so my music video would probably lie somewhere around 11-20 years old regardless on Halsey's 18-24 year old audience.

Music Video Pitch

Narrative Theory

Applying various narrative theories to my AS Production For my AS Media production, I made the opening of a horror film called ‘Play’. My production follows some patterns seen in Todorov’s stage narrative theory, Roland Barthes’ 5 Narrative code, Claude Levi Strauss’ binary opposition and Vladimir Propp’s character theory. Two sisters venture through to woods when one goes missing. Can Molly conquer her biggest fear to save her sister, or will sibling rivalry get the best of her? Todorov: The first stage in Todorov’s theory is a state of equilibrium, where everything is normal for the characters. In my production, the opening scene is a form of normality for my characters, they are simply walking through the woods whilst having a conversation, until they begin to feel uneasy and Emily goes missing, which is the second stage of Todorov’s theory. Rubi and Lily disrupt the equilibrium, leaving Molly to fend for herself. Due to the production being the opening, it leaves the next 3 stages unknown to the audience. The next stages entail the equilibrium being restored or renewed, which would happen towards the end of the film. My production follows a linear timeline, everything happens in order of the events occurring. Roland Barthes: Roland Barthes came up with codes that occur during films, my AS production follows some of these codes, but not all. Action code is essential for all films because without suspension, there is no way of interesting the audience. The suspense in my opening is Emily going missing because the action doesn’t tend to happen until midway through a film, it leaves the audience wondering what the main action of the film is going to be due to a main event happening early on. It is debateable that my film includes Barthes’ Referential code because it depends on whether the individual in the audience believes in ghosts or not, if they do then it requires their external knowledge about ghosts and what powers they have. My film also follows the Enigma code, it is made apparent during the opening that the woods are haunted, however it is unclear who it is haunted by. The ghosts that haunt the woods are an entire mystery in themselves; how did they die? When did they die? Who killed them? Why do they haunt the woods? Are they looking for someone? Claude Levi Strauss: Strauss’ theory is about binary oppositions. Binary opposition is a pair of related terms that are opposite in meaning and set off against one another. The binary opposites in my production are:  Alive vs Dead: Molly & Emily vs Rubi & Lilly  Old(er) vs Young: There is enough of an age gap to define old vs young, however Emily and Molly are not what people would class as ‘old’, they are just older than Rubi and Lilly.  Believer vs Non Believer: Molly believes in ghosts whereas Emily does not, this pins the sisters against each other slightly as they have contrasting views. Vladimir Propp: Vladimir Propp’s theory is to do with the types of characters in film. In the opening, there are a few clear matches to Propp’s theory. Molly is the Hero, she has to try and save Emily after she is taken. The Villain is Rubi and Lilly, although they are two characters, they come as a pair to pose as one villain. The Princess is Emily, she will be the reward for Molly because she is the main object of Rubi and Lilly’s plot.

Genre Theory

For my AS Media coursework I made the opening sequence of a horror called: PLAY. Horror is a genre I understand well and I felt that I could expand and explore the typical codes and conventions. Two sisters venture through to woods when one goes missing. Can Molly conquer her biggest fear to save her sister, or will sibling rivalry get the best of her? Born in 1931, Christian Metz was a film theorist who was made famous for his semiotic approach to cinema studies. He stated that every film genre has four types of film: The Classic, The Experimental, The Parody and The Deconstruction. My production followed the basic outlines of Christian Metz’s ‘Experimental’ model because it did not contain the right types of characters to fit The Classic model. I wanted to try and challenge some of the usual codes in the genre, I used characters and a plot that would be more believable and get to people’s nerves due to the more realistic chances of it happening to them. Daniel Chandler’s theory was that all films within a genre follow similar narratives, characterisation, setting, filmic techniques and iconography. My production challenged quite a few of the stereotypes within these sections whilst still fitting the horror genre. The narrative of PLAY followed the dead vs. alive plot, which is a common occurrence between horror films. However, it is usual for all films to follow this good vs. evil stance. For my characters, I really wanted to push the stereotypes for a horror. Instead of having a white, middle aged man as my antagonist, I decided to go with the opposite: two white, young girls. This sort of fits the theme that has really started coming about recently with films such as Anabelle (2014) and The Doll (2016) of young children posing as the antagonists. My two main characters were white, teenage girls, in any other horror film they would be the target victims because of them being young and naïve. In PLAY, one of the sisters (Molly) is scared of the woods, which was rumoured to be haunted, whereas the other (Emily) thinks that Molly is stupid to believe in ghosts, Emily is the one to be taken away, leaving Molly to try and save her. Typically, you would find that the most naïve girl is the one to go missing and for some young male to save her, I wanted to challenge that convention to twist my story further, as the sibling rivalry could potentially halt Molly from saving Emily. Horror films are usually very dark, which adds to the suspense by not being able to see very clearly. It would have been difficult to try and film in the dark with my camera, so I filmed when the weather was slightly grey and then toned the brightness down in Adobe Premiere afterwards, I tried to put a slight blue tint on the final product, however the screen was a bit dark so the blue really stood out in the final product. The music I used for my opening followed some of the common features of horror soundtracks, normally you would find that it is orchestral and the pace and tempo would change. The music I used was a wind up box version of “It’s A Small World” from Disney, I then changed the pitch and the speed in Premiere by using the Audio Mixer. I thought the song was fitting because the two ghosts were small girls, and people associate young girls with Disney.