Mental Health- Uses and Gratifications

Uses and gratifications theory (also known as UGT) explains why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. UGT is an audience-centered approach to understanding mass communication. Diverging from other media effect theories that ask "what does media do to people?", UGT center their importance around what do people do with media. 

Films are used by audiences to achieve specific needs that an audience may require. John Fiske once said 'a genre defines a moral and social world', which means that by looking to movies now and the past we can look into the needs of the audience of that time. Successful films answer a dominant theme in society, for example in the 60's most films wanted to depict the image of fun, rock n roll and rebelling. In Today's society young teens are pressured into conforming to what the media portray as 'cool' or 'normal'. However, it underplays the fact that many young teens experience feelings or emotions that they may feel ashamed to express. I wanted my film to portray someone who fits the stereotype of 'normal' but actually, he is experience something far from normal. Although I have taken it from a view point that could be seen as unrealistic, I wanted to share the importance of talking about mental health and destroy the social stigma associated with it. 

Films tend to have physical and emotional effects on the viewer, which leads to people liking certain genres more than others. For example, people when watching action films, as an audience we tend to relate with the hero of the story and aspire to be like them. When creating my short film I wanted to create something similar. I wanted to create a character that an audience could somehow relate too and aspire to be like. The protagonist is a 17 year old boy called Alex who eventually seeks help and explores his mental illness further. 

Contradictory, Rom-com's give an emotional effect of escapism, either through a romantic love story or a fatal tragedy. The sense of escapism is what draws the audience into watching the films. With short films this whole process is intensified because you have less time to create this impact. 

Also, Rom-coms have a 'wish-fulfillment' idea to them, that people wish something/someone was like something/someone in the short film. Although my film does not come under the Rom-com genre, there is a sense of wanting to defeat inner securities. The physical side to a movie would be the crying or laughter that comes from a tragedy or comedy. My film does not use comedy as such however the physical element would be empathy for the protagonist and possibly an insight of someone struggling. 

My film challenges certain conventions of a short film. I didn't want too create a super-hero esc character, but someone that an audience could relate too, therefore my film does not make the audience want to be like the protagonist and aspire to have similar qualities. Nonetheless I think this is what makes my film a niche genre and what people would be interested to watch. 

Applying 'Uses and Gratifications' to the internet will play a large part with my short film and my audience. The internet allows anyone to research different ideas and creativity whenever we want too. The internet is an on-going thing, it never sleeps, meaning creativity is uploaded every second. With the help of search engines, we come closer to finding what inspires us. Short films have benefitted from websites like Vimeo and YouTube as there is a global archive of short films at your fingertips with a diverse range of genres. I hope to upload my short film to YouTube to get the best coverage and to remain global for as long as it can be.