Rhiannon and Jemma final video

The End ...

Complete the blog

Everything should all be on all your blogs, not just on the blog of one group member. You might have other posts too – don’t take things off your blog just because they aren’t on this list.
Please title your posts very clearly. To rearrange your blog: go to view blog, click the pencil icon to edit post, click the post options button, change the date of publication.
1. Lip synch and Busted or Britney video – embedded and working. If you missed this for some reason, don’t worry.
2. Research and planning: it is too late to do anything else to this now - just make sure everything is arranged properly and clearly titled. EVERYTHING IN THIS SECTION SHOULD INCLUDE ‘RESEARCH AND PLANNING’ IN THE POST TITLE – E.G. ‘Research and Planning: Moodboard’; ‘Research and planning: Timeplan’
Research: this might include an intro, some audience research, an audience profile, a moodboard, some general music video research, some genre research, some discussions of relevant theories. This will include audience theories work.
Planning: this might include sketching, storyboards/animatics, casting, costume and props plans, arrangements for filming, health and safety plans, a time plan shotlists etc.
The pitch and response will also be in this section.
3. One or two posts on work in progress – posts on filming, editing etc., inc. risk assessments and shotlists for filming, perhaps also some audience responses to work in progress. EVERYTHING IN THIS SECTION SHOULD INCLUDE ‘WORK IN PROGRESS ’ IN THE POST TITLE.
4. Print work, clearly labelled as Final Digipak and Final Advert
5. Main coursework video, on blogs of all your group members, embedded and working AND NOT SET TO PRIVATE, clearly labelled as the Final Video Production.
5. Evaluation – 4 posts, all labelled as follows
Evaluation Question 1
Evaluation Question 2
Evaluation Question 3
Evaluation Question 4

6. A closing post, saying that your blog is now complete and ready for assessment. You could even put in a message for the moderator like this:
Here is my coursework blog, with research and planning spanning from (date) to (date), production work from (date) to (date), and evaluation of my production from (date) to (date). This blog is now complete and ready for assessment.
Thank you.

Finally, check that all Prezis, Powerpoints, videos etc. are working.




Now, congratulate yourself for finishing a major piece of independent creative work. Preliminary marks should be ready next Tuesday.

Evaluation deadline

The deadline is 4.10 p.m. on Friday March 9th.

Evaluation question 4

Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?


As you know, the examiners love new technology.


You might have used:

· Panasonic DV or HD DV cameras

· Nikon D60 DSLR cameras

· Adobe Photoshop

· Adobe OnLocation

· Adobe Premiere Pro

· Youtube

· Facebook

· Blogger

· Your i-phone


You can discuss all of this in this post.

Very importantly ….don't just tell us that you used the technology, or even how you used it, and what you used it for, but also tell us about how it was or was not useful

You can also discuss how your production would have improved if you had different technologies at your disposal... How would your production be better if you actually had a new iphone or access to the HD camera ...?

Theory:

You could refer to:

1. Technological determinism: Technological determinism is a theory that presumes that a society's technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values.

Do you think that new technology actually had too much of a say in your production work – did the technology available determine what you created? Or do you think you controlled the technology skilfully to do exactly what you wanted to do?

2. What is the relationship between creativity and new media technology? How did it help or hinder your creativity to use all this technology?

3. How have you used Media 2.0 technologies (that is, Youtube and Facebook or any other technology that allows you to interact with the audience) to push your work in new directions? Did you respond to audience suggestions and comments, for instance? Did you communicate with the artist using new technology?

Key Terms

Technological determinism

Interactivity

Media 2.0

Creativity

Globalisation

Activity

Passivity



Examples


http://ambersa2media.blogspot.com/2010/01/question-4-how-did-you-use-media.html

http://leanne-3127.blogspot.com/2010/01/question-4-how-did-you-use-media.html

Resources

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWNXg7Vt-ig

http://www.theory.org.uk/aboutweb2-0.htm

http://www.theory.org.uk/mediastudies2.htm (some interesting comments about how media studies might work in the new media 2.0 era)

Evaluation question 2

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The idea was to produce a coherent package that had a house style and worked together to attract audiences to the actual product... the album and the TV drama. Therefore, what you were producing was a marketing package.

You will need to explore how coherent you think the package was and more importantly how coherent you think the target audience thought your package was. (Coherent = how well did it all go together?)

Although you are asking the audience their opinion, you must not simply report this as 'fact', please interpret their opinions and explore your own ideas about the coherence of the 'package'.

You might also like to refer back to your research and planning and evaluate whether at this early stage you considered this aspect of the project in enough detail.

Here’s an example of a promotions package with a clear ‘house style’ (a set of visual conventions used across all the marketing materials for the artist)

The marketing of Mumford and Sons is pretty coherent – it has many features which are used throughout the marketing to establish a particular brand image. Have a quick go at answering the questions for Mumford and Sons, then do the same for your own work.

1) In what ways iss the branding ‘coherent’ – why does it all look like it’s for the same band?

You could refer to:

Colour (in the industry, colours are known by their CMYK code, (or RGB code/html code for web design For example,

white is C=0% M=0% Y =0% K=0% HTML code - ffffff

black is C=100% M=100% Y =100% K=100% HTML code - 000000

orange is C=10% M=68% Y =97% K=1% HTML code – dc6f2cd

The advantage of using these codes is that you are sure to get the same colours being used across all texts.)

Font type and size (Serif or sans-serif)

Posture and proxemics

Props and Costume

Lighting

Visual Themes

Now, in your blog post for this question:

1. Conduct a similar analysis of your work - find out the colour codes you have used, identify names of fonts, etc. – be as specific as you can.

Colour

Font type and size

Posture and proxemics

Props and costume

Lighting

Visual Themes

2. Say what your audience thought – could they see that all the products were for the same artist? Why/why not? You’ll need to refer to specific audience feedback here.

3. Get some theory in here by mentioning the importance of marketing and brand image. We covered this in our study of music industry last year, but there are some links below to remind you of what marketing is all about.

Key terms

House Style

Marketing

Price

Product

Place

Promotion

Branding

Coherence

Conventions

Media language – images, style, fonts, mode of address, linguistic style etc.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_guide

http://www.eyeon-newmedia.co.za/pages/style.html

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1073903636

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand

You’ll need plenty of images in this post – a Prezi or Powerpoint might be a good idea.

Evaluation question 1

Evaluation Question 1
Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


You will need to write about links to other texts, texts that have influenced you and texts that you have responded to.


You may also want to write about the texts you have actively NOT emulated in some way. Why have you actively chosen NOT to be like these texts?



This question is about creativity and genre.


You could think about these questions to create your blog post for question 1.


· Where have your ideas come from? How were you inspired to do what you did?

Refer back to your research, maybe show some images from texts you researched and pair them with images from your own video.


· How did your audience research direct your creativity? Did you respond to what audiences said about work in progress, mood boards and so on?


· How different are your products to 'real' media products? You could discuss whether the differences are down to budget and technology available, or because you wanted to be creative and original.


· To what extent have you been 'original'? No text can be completely original – but is there anything about yours that is different from a conventional music video in your genre?


· To what extent has entropy (unexpectedness) been used?

· To what extent has redundancy (predictability) been used?

· What is the overall effect of using these on the audience?



· Challenging forms and conventions can be risky as it might cause problems with audience response. They might not like it, they might not understand it, they might not recognise it as belonging to the genre you’re working in ... is there any evidence that this has happened? You could refer to your audience research here.



· Following forms and conventions can be risky as a very generic text can be dull, or too much like other texts so that audiences won’t remember and recognise your artist. Is there any evidence that this has happened? You could refer to your audience research here.


Try to use some theory – refer to auteur theory, ideas about creativity, quote and discuss one of the points in the box below.




Steve Neale - audiences take pleasure from genre because of ‘instances of repetition and difference’


Nicholas Abercrombie producers set out to exploit genre conventions... It... makes sound economic sense. Sets, properties and costumes can be used over and over again. Teams of stars, writers, directors and technicians can be built up, giving economies of scale


Walter Jon Williams Genre labels are useful only insofar as they help you find an audience.






Key terms


Entropy Redundancy Originality Creativity


Audience expectations Genre Auteur Theory


Intertextuality Inspiration Audience response




Always consider the effects of your textual influences upon the way an audience might 'read' your texts.


Resources

http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/genre.html


http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/creativity/define.htm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation question 3
Because it takes time to gather audience feedback, we're going to start with question 3.



Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order to do this question, you need to have already done some audience research and gained audience feedback!

Viable and appropriate audience research methods at this level... are always going to be qualitative (To undertake quantitative research would require vast amounts of time and money and still not be as useful or revealing as qualitative methods.) Therefore, questionnaires, whereby you ask ten of your friends whether they liked it or not and then provide the percentage of the number who thought it was good, is not an appropriate strategy.

So what can you do?

You could use Facebook, a discussion group, or even a face to face discussion with the target audience, or ideally more than one of these. You must always consider the questions you want to ask very carefully and be prepared to prompt your audience further than they want to go. Ideally you would have a conversation with the target audience about your work rather than mechanically writing down first responses. Don't just ask them if they like it. You could ask things like:

- what happens in the narrative?

- does the performance look convincing?

- does it remind you of any other music videos or other texts?

- would you like to be friends with the people in the video?

- what genre of music do you think the video is appropriate for?

- if you could change one thing, what would it be?

- you can think of some other questions too

However you do the research, you'll need to discuss what you learned from the feedback.

In your blog post, you'll need to:

1. Explain what you did for audience research, perhaps embedding a video of a focus group or print screening some responses from your Facebook group.

2. Summarise, discuss and analyse your feedback. These are some questions you might like to answer for this bit.

How have they been affected by the text? (In expected ways, or in unexpected ways?)
What uses do they appear to be making of the texts? (You will need to ask this one in a clever way – they won't understand this as a direct question)
How are the target audience reading the text?
What sort of cultural capital are they using to help make sense of text?
What sort of pleasures are being offered by your texts?
After this, you will need to consider how you might alter your work (hypothetically) as a result of this feedback.


A2 work needs to apply theory to get a good grade - so use some of the key terms here. You have some work on theories of audience on your blog from last term. Look again at this to remind yourself what all this means. If you can't find them, the relevant handouts are in Student Dept Files.

Key terms

Direct effect

Hypodermic needle theory

Cultural Studies Approach – negotiated, oppositional, preferred readings.

Pleasure – what kinds of pleasure does the text offer?

Cultural Capital

Quantitative and Qualitative feedback.


Some theory links

http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/audience.html

http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/Advertising/advertising.php?pageID=research

Qualitative versus Quantitative research - http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/aeo9702.html

Evaluation Introduction

A2 Evaluation - Introduction


The last part of your coursework is to construct an evaluation of your production work, including both the music video and the print pieces.

As with the first year, you are going to be using the blog technology (you should now be completely expert!), but this also means that you should incorporate video, images, links, powerpoints and prezis. These should be used judiciously, rather than technology for the sake of technology.

A2 work is not necessarily longer than AS work, but it does require greater depth, thought and engagement from you and therefore it is likely to be longer. Specifically, the examiner will be looking for evaluations that make excellent use of course terms, concepts and theories explored in previous classes, rather than highly personal discussions that reveal little about your knowledge of media studies.


As evaluative work is also going to be undertaken in the exam (questions 1a and 1b), you could treat the coursework evaluation as a dry run, a practice, using all of the useful terms and concepts that could be explored later in the exam hall. The coursework evaluation in many ways is the end of the coursework, but the beginning of the exam preparation.




As with the AS evaluation, you will be required to respond to a set of questions....

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

This booklet is designed to guide you through each of these questions and provide some suggestions for responses. You will be given a list of key terms to use, but beware.... these should only be used appropriately. It is not a list of essential terms but a list of possible key words and ideas. You will be rewarded for using them in thoughtful and engaged ways. Clearly, misuse of a term signals an inability to understand the concept at an appropriate level. In many ways, it would be better to be thoughtful and use few terms than to use all the terms incorrectly, or inappropriately.








The Assessment Criteria

Level 4 16–20 marks

There is excellent understanding of the forms and conventions used in the productions.
Do you make appropriate references to other texts – do you know how your work is being influenced by other texts? Are you knowledgeable about the texts that are similar to yours?

There is excellent understanding of the role and use of new media in various stages of the production.
Have you carefully considered the affects of new media on your work and the way in which the products that you produced might be produced, distributed and consumed? (refer back to our work on music industry)

There is excellent understanding of the combination of main product and ancillary texts.
You have revealed a detailed understanding of house style and how it is used to create, or even not create, a coherent package.

There is excellent understanding of the significance of audience feedback.
You have interpreted the audience feedback carefully, considered the ways it might be read and how it might have influenced the production of your work. Have you made use of relevant theory?

There is excellent skill in choice of form in which to present the evaluation.
Have you used appropriate ways of communicating? For example, have you used a video diary when a Powerpoint might be more appropriate?

There is excellent ability to communicate.
Your writing is clear, makes use of appropriate terms, doesn't waffle and uses correct spelling/grammar etc.

There is excellent use of digital technology or ICT in the evaluation.
How have you presented your work in the blog? Are you in control of the technology? Have you used a range of technologies?



To summarise...
• Make it thoughtful and interesting. Consider thoughtful and exciting ways to present ideas.
• Use key terms and concepts throughout. (after writing a paragraph...ask yourself how much of it will be rewarded by the examiner?)
• Don't just write essays...images, links, powerpoints, Youtube clips, video diary style discussions, director’s commentaries are all good.
• Refer to websites/other resources you have used to help you. (cite sources , surname, dates plus web addresses )
• Make lots of notes and really think about it before blogging anything
• Do one question per blog post.
• Don't plagiarise! This is your work!

Deadline approaching ...

The deadline for the music video is Friday 10th of Feb, and that means you'll need to finish editing before last lesson on Friday - we'll need that lesson for uploading your video to Youtube and embedding it on your blogs. By 4.10 on Friday it needs to be on the blog of every group member, and this will take a bit of time.

A couple of last reminders
- make sure your lip synch/guitar playing-synch/drumming-synch is spot on.
- aim for fifty shots per minute for a song with a medium pace - if you've gone for a very fast song, you might even have a few more. Even a slow song should have around thirty shots per minute.
- add a title at the star with this info: names of all group members, Worcester Sixth Form College, 24435

The videos are looking good, so well done.

Christmas

A couple of reminders:

Research and planning will be marked from Monday 19th December at 9 a.m., so you can't post any more after that time.

Don't forget to pick up your camera if you've booked one.

Remember the filming advice - lots of close ups, lots of unusual angles, plenty of camera movement, changes of location and costume, lots of cutaways to instruments, surroundings, audience, performer looking moody etc. All this will give you choices in the edit. Film the performance lots of times, make sure you take the music with you for your performer to lip synch to.

And also, have a good holiday. Here's a Christmas message for you.

Audience

Audience in your blog:

Audience profile – 1 post detailed, with visual illustration

Audience research – 1 post for now, updates as you produce more work in progress. Show the audience work in progress: this could include moodboards, storyboards, animatics, actor photos, costume ideas, location pictures … Give details of responses from your Facebook group, and for a high grade, at least one filmed focus group.On Facebook, ask specific questions, not ‘what do you think of this’ type questions. For example: ‘What genre of music do you think this moodboard suggests?’; ‘What one word would you use to describe this storyboard?’; ‘Would you like to be friends with this girl?’. In a focus group, your questions can be more open and you can use follow up questions if you need more information.

Later you should do regular blog posts updating on what your audience think of work in progress.

Audience theory – 1 post answering the following questions and mentioning Morley

Cultural Studies Approach to audience: according to Morley, audiences aren’t just passively affected by media texts – they take an active role in reading a text. How might audiences read the values expressed in your video and print work in a preferred, negotiated and oppositional way? What are you going to do to encourage the target audience to take a preferred reading? What kind of person might take an oppositional reading?

Reminder of cultural studies approach:


The Cultural Studies Approach Perspective on Audience:

• Developed within the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. BCCCS, principally by David Morley.

• Attempts to understand how the media might be powerful and influence audiences (effects research), but also encourages researchers to understand the active nature of certain audiences (uses and gratifications theory).


The approach tries to understand the intended effects of media texts, but also sees audiences as active, stating that different audiences adopt different standpoints in relation to the values expressed within a media text. These different standpoints are:


• Preferred (or dominant) reading (Morley) - the audience recognise the values being offered by the text and accepts them as natural and correct.

• Negotiated reading (Morley) - the audience recognisethe values in the text as legitimate and accept them in general, but adapt their reading of the text to fit in with their experiences and interest.

• Oppositional reading (Morley) - the audience understands the values in the text, but disagrees with them and rejects them.
For example, take a print advert which represents a sexually objectified women as a victim of violence.



• A preferred reading would be



• A negotiated reading might be .....



• An oppositional reading might be produced by someone concerned by violence against women who would completely reject the values offered by the advert, and would see it as degrading and offensive to women.

Filming your music video

Some good advice here. Remember to film the performance lots of times, from different angles, with some close ups and some long shots, and with plenty of camera movement.

Deadlines

More deadlines:

Research and planning: by the end of Sunday 18th Decmeber. Whatever is there when I start marking at 9 on Monday morning is what will be marked. There won't be a media lesson on the last day of term.

Draft music video: 27th January. Better get filming soon!

Final music video 10th Feb.

Excellent blog

A really good blog here, to help you see how it's done
http://millymorris1993.blogspot.com/

Print deadline is coming, don't forget

Print deadline

Just a reminder - the deadline is now on 5th December to make up for the day we'll miss this Wednesday.

You should be putting work in progress on your blog and on your Facebook group for audience responses. It all looks good so far, but don't forget the details that will help increase your marks.

Good luck.

Print research

Print research:

You need to look at 2 or 3 digipacks and 2 or 3 magazine adverts, in the genre you’re going to work in.

What are the significant elements in the digipacks and adverts? Comment on:

• Use of images – what is connoted by the angle, shot type, mise en scene, lighting etc.? How does this use or challenge the conventions of the genre? How does it contribute to the creation or reinforcement of a star image?

• Use of font and layout - how does this use or challenge the conventions of the genre? How does it contribute to the creation or reinforcement of a star image?


• Use of detail – e.g. copyright, thanks, critics quotes, release date, i-Tunes link .... make a list of important details you want to feature in your print work.

• Size of advert – quarter, half, full or double page? Why?

• Who are the target audience and what elements are likely to appeal to them?


You should also look at:

• Redundancy and entropy – how redundant or entropic is the advert/digipack? Is this appropriate for the genre and target audience?

You could also comment on this question:

• How useful are digipack covers and print adverts when most people download their music and do their reading online? Why is it still important to have appealing and appropriate print work, as well as a music video, as part of a marketing package




Key words: you should be using all these words in your print research

audience genre star redundant entropic


connotation anchorage font layout colour costume


make-up lighting props setting lighting shot type
angle detail

Print brief

A2 Media Studies

Print Research Deadline: 11/11/11
Print Production Deadline: 02/12/11

Print production work must be created individually.

You should now be in a position to start your print production work. This is worth 20% of the coursework mark (10% of the A2, 5% of your A-Level)

Prior to production you should have should have:
• Researched some existing print work (deadline – 11/11/11)
• Created a mock up of a digipack to practice your skills (last summer)
• Explored digipack templates
• Pitched your video idea and so have an idea of the visual style you’ll use.

There are two print tasks:
1. Cover for a digipack release of the music video you’ve made and CD track of the song you used. You will need to create a minimum of four ‘panes’: front of digipack, rear of digipack, inside cover front and inside cover rear. (A digipack is a CD release with special features such as a video clip – it usually has folded cardboard rather than plastic packaging).





2. A magazine advert for the digipack.

• You need to decide how big the advert is – full page,half page, or quarter. (You may need to consider the position of the artist in the marketplace and the target audience here – would an indie/folk artist be able to afford a full page advert?)
• Ideally you would not simply re-use the photo from the digipak, but rework the imagery and photography in some way. I

Along with your video, this will make up a promotions ‘package’, so all your work will need to be similar in visual theme and recognisable as promoting the same artist.



Good marks come from:
• Using a recognisable ‘house style’ which is appropriate for genre/audience
• Paying attention to detail – e.g. including credits and record label logos
• Taking a range of good quality photos and not repeatedly using the same one.


Some A and B grade examples from last year:

http://leahdennisona2mediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/12/finished-moodboard.html

http://jessmediaa2.blogspot.com/2010/12/print-production-final-digipak-full.html

http://staceya2media.blogspot.com/2010/12/final-digipak-for-tiffany-queen.html



C grade:

http://stefansmediaa2.blogspot.com/2010/01/cd-digipack.html

http://chloea2media.blogspot.com/2010/01/final-digipack-cover.html

http://chloea2media.blogspot.com/2010/01/final-magazine-advert.html



D and E grades:

http://3rffffhfhgg.blogspot.com/2010/01/digipak-cover-cd.html

http://3rffffhfhgg.blogspot.com/2010/01/cd-advert.html

http://emilyjane-a2.blogspot.com/2010/01/advert.html



Research

You will need a blog post analysing some existing products. Look at 2 or 3 CD covers and 2 or 3 magazine adverts, preferably from a similar genre to your own. How are these covers constructing/maintaining a brand image? How are they likely to appeal to their target audiences?
Look at your own CDs or go to these links.
http://www.stpaulsgallery.com/
http://rockpopgallery.com/items/cd-album-cover-art/list.htm?1=1
You can also go here: http://www.allcdcovers.com/ to look up specific artists – this site also has backs and insides.
Look at music magazines to find adverts, or try a google image search.


- Make use of the 'theories' of media language and genre in your analysis.

Blog Check for November

Blog check: 1st November
These should all be on all your blogs, not just on the blog of one group member. You might have other posts too – don’t take things off your blog just because they aren’t on this list.
Please title your posts very clearly. To rearrange your blog: go to view blog, click the pencil icon to edit post, click the post options button, change the date of publication.
At this stage, you get marks for: research and planning. Please make sure all your blog title posts so far include the word research, the word planning, or both.
1. Introductory post – briefly describe this year’s coursework – you could now add who you’re working with and which song you’re using.

2. Busted planning – storyboard, shot list, casting, health and safety etc.

3. Lip synch and Busted video – embedded and working.

4. Analysis of your own skills and weaknesses during the Busted and lip synch video – discuss what you have learned and what you need to improve on in terms of planning, organising, filming and editing.

5. NEW: quick intro to the ideas of Andrew Goodwin – you could paste some relevant bits from this presentation and introduce it briefly in your own words.
http://www.slideshare.net/katewolstenholme/andrew-goodwin-on-music-video


6. Video research
• analyse at least two music videos
• embed the videos
• make sure everything is arranged properly and clearly titled.
• refer to Andrew Goodwin by name
• apply Goodwin’s ideas to your examples
• refer to aspects of cinematography, editing and mise en scene
• do at least one of the research extension tasks

7. Creativity
• what is creativity?
• how do you rate your own creativity?
• examples of creative things you’ve done in the past.
• creative task(s) you’ve done in preparation for the music video
.
8. Copy of your pitch
9. Summary of feedback from your pitch and your responses to it. You should explain what positive feedback you had, and what criticisms you received. What will you do to address the criticisms? Can you solve the problems that the feedback raised?

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin on music video

View more presentations from Kate Wolstenholme