Analyse a chosen product you've created against audience theories
For my AS coursework I worked with a group of two others in creating a film opening which was no longer than 3 minutes for our chosen genre, we chose to create a thriller opening. After recieving the brief we had to conduct some market research in order for us to create a thriller which our target audience would enjoy and recognise to be a thriller.
When creating our product we had to make sure it would be a recognisable and a stereotypical thriller so our audience would recognise the codes and conventions. Blumlers and Katz audience gratification theory lists four key factors that a film should provide. When creating our film opening we wanted to include these factors, our film was a form of escapism as when n audience are watching it they could put themselevs in the protaganist's shoes and escape from their personal lives and take on the characters persona. It could provide an audience with personal identity and personal relationships as the narrative is realistic and many people would have experienced a break up of a relationship of some sort and when watching an audience can side with a certain character because they perhaps idenitfy with them.
We also studied Abraham Maslow's hieriachy of needs which is similar in some ways to the audience gratificication theory as it explains what the audience want to gain from watching a film. It has many layers to the triangle, for our film opening as it was about a relationship gone wrong our film gives the audience a sense of love and belonging and perhaps self-actulization becuase they may see themselves reflected in our text.
Hans Robert Jauss's reception theory can be related to our product as when creating our film opening we had to look at existing products and analyse the exsiting conventions in order for us to create a stereotypical thriller which our audience would recognise. We realised that in thrillers the protaganist was mainly female and blonde, the lighting was low key and there were many long shots, over the shoulder shots and closeups. We had to use these conventions as the reception theory states that the audience recognise these and come to a general agreement to what the genre is. Similar to recognising the codes and conventions of a genre, John Fiskes genre structure theory suggests that genre attempts to structure some order into the wide range of texts we as an audience recieve to convince us and the producers that it is a particular genre. This again relates to us looking at exsiting products to recongise what the typical features of a thriller were so we could include these to make our product recongisable and for the audience to be gratified when watching it.
A final theory which can be related to our product is Stuart Hall's Encoding/Decoding theory. He argued that meaning was not fixed and as an audience we are active and negotiate readings in order to mediate them. Although our film opening was a thriller which followed a relatively easy narrative the protaganist was seen to have a sinister side and in the end creating a unknown mixture and walking out of the door. The audience know they are coming to watch a thriller and in relation to the theory that would not assume that everybody who suffered a breakup acts in this way as when creating a film which you want to be successful there is a level of exaggaration to make it interesting.
We also studied Abraham Maslow's hieriachy of needs which is similar in some ways to the audience gratificication theory as it explains what the audience want to gain from watching a film. It has many layers to the triangle, for our film opening as it was about a relationship gone wrong our film gives the audience a sense of love and belonging and perhaps self-actulization becuase they may see themselves reflected in our text.
Hans Robert Jauss's reception theory can be related to our product as when creating our film opening we had to look at existing products and analyse the exsiting conventions in order for us to create a stereotypical thriller which our audience would recognise. We realised that in thrillers the protaganist was mainly female and blonde, the lighting was low key and there were many long shots, over the shoulder shots and closeups. We had to use these conventions as the reception theory states that the audience recognise these and come to a general agreement to what the genre is. Similar to recognising the codes and conventions of a genre, John Fiskes genre structure theory suggests that genre attempts to structure some order into the wide range of texts we as an audience recieve to convince us and the producers that it is a particular genre. This again relates to us looking at exsiting products to recongise what the typical features of a thriller were so we could include these to make our product recongisable and for the audience to be gratified when watching it.
A final theory which can be related to our product is Stuart Hall's Encoding/Decoding theory. He argued that meaning was not fixed and as an audience we are active and negotiate readings in order to mediate them. Although our film opening was a thriller which followed a relatively easy narrative the protaganist was seen to have a sinister side and in the end creating a unknown mixture and walking out of the door. The audience know they are coming to watch a thriller and in relation to the theory that would not assume that everybody who suffered a breakup acts in this way as when creating a film which you want to be successful there is a level of exaggaration to make it interesting.
Bethany - your level of audience theories is good but it is a little descriptive so be careful not just bullet pointing information! Overall, great use of theories but referencing needs to be tighter.
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