1B - Media Languages Essay Question UPDATED

Discuss how you used media languages in one of your coursework productions to create meaning for the audience...

Within our course work we produced a music video called ‘Vanilla’. To ensure our product was successful and effective we knew we had to use specific media languages, and combine them within the digipak and website.

Bartes taught us that to keep the audience interested we needed to include enigma codes – the questions people ask that keep them watching. In our video ‘vanilla’, we chose to include the questions; how are these girls happy? How can I make myself as happy as them? These questions made people try to seek happiness in their own lives as well as in our video. Then promoting their love for our band as we make them happy and confident.

Throughout the music video, the girls are all equally shown to represent equality and unity. This can be shown in the first shot which is a mid-shot head shot, of the three girls popping balloons to reveal their faces. The mid shot of all of the girls at equal high represents the same level of talent that they all have. We did this to allow the audience to understand right from the start they are a band straight away getting their media product out there. Instantly making the audience like our fun and friendly vibe. We also added a mid-shot, panning shot of one of the singers dancing on the logs. This added movement to the music video and broke up all of our static shots. This movement kept the audience intrigued into the music video as their eyes followed the artist.

The country pop theme is enhanced by the costumes that we chose to wear. The denim jeans gave connotations to the country side and subconsciously informs the audience what type of video they are about to view. The setting also helped us to project a different type of country music video as we used the English countryside as opposed to the stereotypical Nashville barn setting. It allowed us to subvert conventions and make sure our band was different to others in the industry, and that we stood out. This intensified our aim to promote difference between young teens and the idea that we should love everyone as they are. Empowering the audience to do and be better, and appreciating their strengths and differences.

To give us the professional finished look editing also played a crucial part in our production. We edited shots to produce a clone shot mid shot of us sliding down the slide into the video of the camera. Having each girl side by side again shows their equality but also introduces their full body to the audience. It shows their fun childish side, explaining why they all get on so well. Embracing life should be the main aim for all and the split screen allowed us to show all three girls doing so. In addition, we used ump cuts to increase the pace of the music video. The song had definite harsh beats and to make sure the video matched the music video we cut each shot on the beat so that the artist moved position in the shot. Doing so meant that the audience didn’t get bored of watching similar shots continuously and it gave us great transitions between each artist.

Obviously, it being a music video that we produced sound was included. We wanted to make sure that the visuals were parallel to the lyrics to guarantee that the order of narrative was understandable to the audience. We did so by including fun upbeat shots so that it matched the fun fast lyrics. At the end of the video we chose to cross fade the music from the song to the diegetic noise of us laughing. This again brought across our fun-loving vibe and meant that the audience relate to the atmosphere.

Overall, it is clear to see that we used a variety of media techniques to produce our music video and they most definitely helped us achieve our successful, professional product.