Preferred, Negotiated And Oppositional Reading Of My Media Package.

When creating my trailer, there were certain ideologies I had, that I wanted to put across. In all media, directors want to put across their own message. This may refer to their political stance, feelings about certain issues, or simply how they view the world. There's endless possibilites as to what a director wants to address when they create a piece of media, whether that be a film, a poster, website, maagazine, etc!

This in mind, I had my own ideologies that I wanted to put across when creating all of my media. The ideologies are all very similar, if not the same. They all address the same film, so naturally they're all going to give off the same message. This being said, my ideologies are likely to not be the same to everyone else, so people may read the media pieces differently to how I wanted to put them across. This is known as 'Negotiated' or possibly 'Oppositional' readings, depending on how different their thoughts are to mine. If a person saw my point, but perhaps saw things a little different, then that is negotiated, but if someone saw it completely different, that is oppositional.

So, onto my preferred reading!

In my trailer, poster and website, there was some definite issues that I wanted to put across. These are political and just plain issues. Without being too harsh, my piece does have quite an 'anti-conservative' feel to it, due to the issues involved with it. Due to the film looking at problems in working class life, it kind of takes an indirect stab at the upper classes, for not having to deal with this kind of thing. In fact, the conecept of a disabled person getting beaten up is completely alien to upper classes. But, in a small town full of lower and working classes, the idea is not so far from what happens, but maybe a little extreme. This is only a small ideology in the film, though. With me coming from a very working class background, I obviously have Labour/Liberal views, so an opportunity to expose neglect of Conservatives was a chance I couldn't not take, however this is not about my political viewpoint, it's merely a small ideology, embedded deep in codes that could be put forward very indirectly, as to not alienate audience.

There's much more of a meaning embedded into my media package. Perhaps the main message in my film, is the exposition of a certain type of Youth Culture in Britain. As everyone knows, there are certain youths in the country that you don't want to aggravate, as the consequences can be harmful, whether that be on a physical or emotional scale. So, this was a way to really exaggerate that, in a powerful way, under rather extreme conditions. However, the truthfulness in it is not far from the truth. I base this on personal experience. Whilst this is a very biased thing to do, if it's happened to one person, then the issue is very real. I doubt I am the only person that could experience an event such as is in the film trailer. Yes, it's an extreme case, but it highlights a lot of Youth Culture in Britain. Also, the part where they are actually beating the main character up, shows a struggle between those law abiding citizens and those that choose to disobey the law and have lack of respect for anyone. I put this in, as I feel that in modern day society, there is a constant struggle between good and evil.

Underlying this, is the ascension from underdog to hero. Whilst we don't see the 'hero' phase in the trailer, so nothing is given away, it's implied, so this shows how in society, there are those few that rise above everything and follow their hopes and dreams. Often, these are the people we least expect.

So, these are my ideologies behind my film package! Hopefully, this gives a lot of insight into why I did everything that I did, and everything that would be planned for if I ever made a full film!

However, in media, everything is not always as simple as this. As my film is quite controversial in the grand scheme of things, it leaves it open to a lot of negotiated and even oppositional reading...
With these, there are endless possibilities into how people could read my media, but for example, a negotiated reading of my piece would be that it simply shows how society is bad, there's no hope, etc. This is slightly what I was going for, but not completely, making it negotiated. However, there could be many slightly changed meanings of what I was going for, this is based on the audiences ideologies, to how they read my piece.

There's also some really harsh possibilities for how people could read my film, show they follow oppositional reading. If their ideologies are a certain way, then it could really open my film up to a lot of criticism and really spark a lot of controversy. This in a way could be good, or very bad.
The controversy would come from someone saying I'm glorifying disabled people being beaten up, or something like that. Saying how all we need in life is to have something bad happen to us before we can be any good, etc.
There's lots that can be said to put my film in a bad light. However, this is not what I was going for and it would be a minority that felt this way, I would hope.

So, there is it. Preferred, Negotiated and Oppositional reading of my film. It's good to show this, as it gives insight into everything about my media package!