Planning: Characters

Planning: Characters

Planning character representation is important as we have to make sure the characters follow the genre expectations, therefore allowing them to cater for and appeal towards an audience’s expectation.

Artist’s Representation

After great consideration the theories we have chosen to apply to our Artist is Mulvey’s Male Gaze, Dyer, Adorno and Goodwin.

·         Dyer theory will be applied in our music video as the artist will be represented in a certain manner in order to satisfy and appeal to a target audience.  This allows him to develop a bond with audience therefore allowing them to commercially appeal to their target audience.

·         Our female characters will not be represented in a voyeuristic manner in our music video as we don’t want to take the focus away from our artist and the lyrics. Furthermore, Mulvey’s Maze Gaze theory won’t be applied in our music video.

·         Goodwin’s theory will be applied in our music video as we plan to use different filming technique in order to promote our artist’s star image. This will allow them to visually appeal to the target audience while gaining recognition.

Genre representation

·         Young black boy which fits the traditional house music genre due to rap boys being associated with rapping more than a white boy would.

Costume

·         The costumes will vary depending on the person as the artist will be wearing casual clothing which you’d see on an everyday guy. This is because it allows us to emphasise his laid back and relaxed attitude which would allow the audience to relate to him due to he’s ‘cool’ style.

 Themes

• ·         Relax
• ·         Young & Wild

Audience expectation & understanding

·         Young teenage boy enjoying his life and this is portrayed through his relaxed and laid back attitude which he goes by. The audience will expect a young character in this representation as it fits in with the theme of being young, wild and free.

Character representation

Theories we have chosen to apply to our characters is Goodwin.

·         This is because he believes that there are specific elements which are implemented into a music video in order to make it successful. In this case, the use of cinematography can be used in order to capture the characters dance move in order to create a visually appealing music video which would complement the artist.

Genre representation

·         Both characters from the younger boy to the older version of him will be represented as just young, black boy trying to make a living. This is important as it is conventional to the house genre thus allowing it to appeal to a certain target audience.

·         Young athletic dancing characters will be chosen as allow them to perform the planned routine dance moves in order to visually appeal to the audience.

Costume

·         The characters such as the dancers will be wearing set colours between all red and black or yellow and black as this will allow the audience to distinguish between the two dance groups during the dance battle scenes.

Audience’s expectation & understanding

·         The audience expect athletic dancing characters in order to be able to perform the planned dance routine.

Little Boys representation

Theories we have chosen to apply to our characters is Goodwin & Dyer.

·         Dyer: Star image of the young characters will be like that of the actual star as they are the younger image of the star. They will follow the current trends, similar to that of the star but younger.

·         Goodwin: The use of close up to represent them as stars in the video. Will not have any aspect of the notion of looking because they are young and male.

Genre representation

·         Young, black characters who look good and are able to dance. This is seen as conventional to the house genre.

Themes

• ·         Dancing
• ·         Young and free
• ·         Competition
• ·         Battle

Audience expectations & understanding

·         Young and happy, enjoying their dancing.

Conclusion

Planning the characters representation has allowed me to work alongside Dyer’s theory and mould the characters and artist into my desired way in order to make them as conventional yet appealing as possible. In addition, this helps turn the artist into a commodity.