• How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
• How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
• How do your products represent social groups or issues?
• How do your products engage with the audience?

It is important to ensure that each element of production works together to create a sense of  branding. It ensures that the audience are able to fully engage and recognise the brand. To achieve this it is essential to ensure each product comes from the same family and is seen as part of a group of similarity. My mission statement included the following: Woody is a bold and charismatic individual, he is daring and independent and is ready to take his spot in the music industry. Woody is proud to be from generation z and is ready to voice his opinions and inspire others to be heard. He hides no part of himself and he is completely authentic. Across all of my products I have made sure to stick to my mission statement and present these key characteristics and selling points to my audience to help develop Woody’s star image and give my audience what they are expecting to see. Firstly, the music video represents my stars edgy nature as he is dressed in vintage clothing, the edit with my star sat in the classroom is slow paced and relaxed. This helps to present his care-free vibe, however the video changes to a more faced pace as he explores the depths of his mind remembering when he was once a child. The scenes change to Woody playing with toys and lip syncing in a spaceman costume, this symbolises him as unpredictable and excites the audience as they explore all the different sides to him. As seen on my social media page, I revealed Woody’s bold and charismatic personality through witty captions and opinions towards social issues- further presenting his desire to speak on such topics as a member of generation z and inspire others to do the same with the option for others to share the posts.

Furthermore, as seen on the digipak there is a subtle contrast which is shown symbolically, revealing to the audience and representing his authentic self as he is sat surrounded by nature looking thoughtfully into the distance. This helps the paradox of his star image as being seen as both ordinary and extraordinary.  The semic and cultural codes on the digipak help the audience to decode meanings for themselves based on Woody’s star image/personality, and it is clear to see he is both conventional yet different to other Britpop artists as he is thoughtful and more down to earth.

I researched many popular brit-pop music videos and recognized from my observations that they were conventionally performance videos with live, and uniquely edited footage and also used conventional MES of vintage sports fleeces (Reebok, Adidas, Fila etc), scruffy hair, and no makeup. In particular I watched one by Blur called ‘Girls and Boys. The generic conventions of MES that I discovered and decided to use in my own music video included in terms of acting, seriousness while performing and stern facial expression. This represents the performer as grumpy and reinforces the conventional star image of Brit-pop performers as arrogant and sarcastic. As Lacey would say these are the repertoire of elements- the expected ingredients that my audience would expect to see, these elements according to Altman are the blueprint for a successful and conventional Brit-Pop music video. I also noticed that many Brit-pop performers act in an eccentric and rebellious way, this further reinforces the star image of youth and reaches the target audience’s age group by making it relatable to the audience. In my production I decided to both challenge and develop these conventions which I discovered during my research. I made my research inform my products by ensuring our artist wore the conventional costume (as stated before sport fleeces, scruffy hair, no makeup, and sports trainers). This has an impact on the success of my music video as I aimed to include the expected ingredients that my audience expected to see, thus appealing to Lacey’s theory of the repertoire of elements. This ensured my music video was successful (according to Altman) and satisfied the needs of my target audience making it more likely to be encoded.

To make my music video stand out more in the competition, and support the subject of the song, I also used another costume. This costume was a spaceman costume relating to my chosen song ‘d’yer wanna be a spaceman’. I further challenged the conventions of music videos which we analysed in my music video.  For example, I took on a more modern approach to my Brit-pop music video. I achieved this by using a modern camera (DSLR), modern props and more high key lighting than other Brit Pop music videos. This made sure that I made our music video more personal to us and achieved our own aims. The impact this has on the audience is that it will ensure the audience remembers the music video and make it stand out amongst other Brit-Pop music videos.

Representing our star in our digipack was an important part of the package of creating the right star image. As Hall states a star’s meta-narrative impacts on the consumption of the audience. He argues that a star must be represented as both relatable yet special at the same time. On examination of our star’s image, he is known for his socially aware and political nature due to being a member of Generation Z. This makes him relatable to his target audience as they are also members of the same generation, this can be seen as his ‘ordinary side’. Woody however is also extraordinary and parts of him also stand out amongst his ordinary for instance  Woody is respectful yet rebellious. He often speaks out bravely about controversial topics and has a playful nature. He also adopts traits which some may see as deviant; smoking and partying. I really wanted to display Woody’s many characteristics in the digipack. Therefore, I made sure to capture images which represented these traits and encoded this meaning in my media text using signs and symbols . Barthes, an influential theorist, says that in order for the audience to consider the meaning of the media text the text must remain open. In order for the audience to explore the meaning fully there must be signs and symbols guiding the audience to the narrative.The vespa seen in my digipack is a clear cultural code, it is heavily relevant to the Brit-pop genre but only understandable with some cultural competence as Barthes would argue. The red, white and blue colour code also presents the audience with signs and symbols to aid them in interpreting and discovering meanings. The use of the red, white and blue are a definite cultural code once again this is obviously due to the colours associated with Great Britain (due to the union jack). The colour scheme is also an example of a symbolic code as Barthes would also state because of the representation of an idea which one can see; a visual metaphor. In my digipack the semic we decided to use was one which we believe best represented Woody’s care-free and relaxed vibe. As you can see on the digipack Woody is sat with one leg up and one down whilst his hands are placed in a comfortable and relaxed way. Barthes would call this a semic code and therefore the audience will read this as a signal that he is relaxed and laid back. To add to this, there is another semic which is encoded in my media text.  Woody also looks intriguingly into the distance, this tells the audience that he is intuitive and also rather mysterious.  We also chose to photograph Woody in a natural surrounding, outside with greenery and nature around him to represent him as down to earth and at one with the world.

    In order to allow the audience to engage personally with the audience we created a social media page. We ensured that our posts encouraged social interaction from the audience, provided entertainment, passed on information and helped the audience to use media to find out about themselves. Blumer and Katz stated that including all of these elements in media texts fulfills the needs of the audience. Fulfilling the needs of your audience will have a positive impact on creating a fanbase and boosting sales and thus word of mouth (making sure your media is spread by those who favour it). We decided to create our social media page on instagram as we believed that instagram is the most interactive app out of Facebook and instagram. We believed that instagram makes the audience feel closer as instagram posts are mainly personal and include a lot of unfiltered and raw content (insta story posts). Especially in comparison to artist profiles on  Facebook which are generally just new release and tour updates. To make sure our media text made the audience’s experience fulfilling we included media in our social media page that made it possible for the audience to engage with the artist. We achieved this by creating polls on instagram, these polls asked personal questions and required the audience to share their own opinion. This covered the social interaction side of our media and contributed to making the audiences experience the best it could be. The poll also made the audience ask themselves questions and expand the knowledge they had on themselves and their personal identity.  In terms of entertainment we provided the audience with enough entertainment to fill their needs but also leave them on their toes and wanting more. We made sure to achieve this by offering teasers to the new music video, and offering exclusive content which wouldn’t be shown on other platforms e.g pictures of his hometown (London) and outfit of the day posts. Lastly, we made sure that we added posts to the social media page that would inform our audience. To do this we added a commentary after every post to inform our audience on the subject matter. One example of this can be seen on the post of the ‘Camden Calls’ concert poster. In the description section we informed the audience where to buy tickets and the poster itself informed the audience with all the other details they needed to know e.g times/dates/location etc.