STATEMENT OF INTENT (FINALE?!?!?!?!?)

 Statement of intent

How will you use media language and media representations in order to create your product, meet the requirements of the brief and the needs of the target audience and reflect the appropriate media industries for your chosen brief?

Be specific about the ways in which you will use aspects of media language, media representations, target your audience and reflect the appropriate media industry for your chosen brief and exploit opportunities for digital convergence.

In order to meet the brief, my chosen song, “I’m Sleepin’ In'' by King Gizzard and The lizard Wizard is exactly three minutes long. The genre of music is Psychedelic rock, a genre that became popular during the 1960s and 70s and has gained traction back into the mainstream by contemporary artists such as Tame Impala. King Gizzard aims to follow in the expanding of the genre into the mainstream by appealing to younger audiences who would be unfamiliar with the genre, although will also connect with older fans who grew up with similar music such as The Beatles. Similarly, King Gizzard explores multiple genres and has a distinct sound that will appeal to a range of audiences.

My target audience will primarily be males aged 18-26, be a part of the ABC1 social class, and lean left politically. As for lifestyle, music is a large part of their life - they are bound to indulge in live concerts, collect records and enjoy experimenting in different musical genres. They will have a vast media literacy, using the internet and social media every day and will commonly interact on twitter with music artists. They are likely to read the NME online, as well as engage with independent music magazines. They best fit the "Explorer" psychographic group.

The headphone sponsorship will be purposefully on the nose, lamp-shading the product placement yet engaging with the audience's tastes in order to create a connection between the audience and the lead (our masked individual.) The use of a modern headphone brand sponsorship will help in both engaging mainstream audiences, as well as creating more juxtaposition including between the 70s aesthetic and the modern world. Specifically, "Marshall" headphones will appeal to the target demographic, a popular brand of headphones evoking a vintage rock feel.

The music magazine is named HAZE. Due to the rise of digital media, the music magazine engages with the target demographic primarily through its online presence, hosting a popular website that branches out into various genres of music and pop culture. Despite this, the magazine still circulates around 190,000 physical issues weekly, partly due to its aesthetic visual design appealing to psychedelic rock audiences. It’s design is modern yet quirky - the front covers are artistic and host hand-drawn stylisations reminiscent of psychedelic album covers from the 70s, managing to engage with the mainstream audience while appealing to a niche one. Similar to magazines like NME, HAZE is heading in the direction of becoming an online-only publication, and thus their social media presence is plentiful and influential.

The video will be uploaded to YouTube and be available for viewing on the band's website. Social media will also be a key aspect in promoting the video, where a link will be cross-posted to the band's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages and be repeatedly advertised coming up to it's debut. The magazine issue will be promoted alongside the music video on the band's website, as well as on all the band's social media platforms. HAZE will also feature exclusive articles promoting King Gizzard’s tour. Furthermore, building an audience on newer social media like Tik-Tok will result in reaching the largest audience possible, as well as creating more opportunities for a strong participatory culture.

In my music video, I will incorporate the concept of juxtaposition; employing media language through Levi Straus' binary opposition theory, with one location being within the confounds of a bedroom and then contrasting it with vast beaches, cliffs and wooded areas. The camera work will be steady and unmoving inside, which will contrast with many panning long shots of the scenery and utilisation of hand-held camerawork. My main idea is to convey the concept of descending into madness while yearning for an unattainable fantasy life: Portraying a fantasy world, akin to a dream-scape, and contrasting it with a world more mundane, which then concludes in the eventual merging of the two as our masked individual wakes up on a mattress outside.

Applying codes and conventions, psychedelic rock elements I will use are Kitsch costumes and intentionally tacky composition of props, such as items not being where they should be for brief shots. Our main actor will be wearing a cheap Halloween mask, obscuring his face. 

This will help enhance the psychedelic elements of the video, and make it more entertaining through its absurdity, thus marketable to a mainstream audience. My music video will also be heavily reliant on synchronisation between the music and sequencing of shots, and I will use a lower-quality, VHS styled camera or camera filter that can enhance the mood of the video and liken it to psychedelic music videos of the 70s-80s. 

Applying Blumler and Katz’s Uses and Gratifications theory, Personal Identity and Escapism are the two main audience pleasures for my media products. Due to the masked individual being faceless, I believe it will be easier for all audiences to relate to and project their similar feelings of frustration about the unattainable outside world onto them (feelings that will be common amidst the Covid 19 pandemic.) This also plays into representation, as this masked individual represents more than just one gender or one race or one age. No women will be objectified or sexualised, as is common in the modern music industry, and the video will have no focus on gender dynamics or power. This perpetuates Butler's idea that gender is "performed", as disengaging with specific gendered acts in my media product will create unique gender representations. In doing this I will be challenging traditional gender conventions, preventing stereotypes and going against the patriarchy.