1A Essay

Describe how your analysis of the conventions of real media texts informed your own creative practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answers to show how these skills have been developed over time.

For my AS coursework I had to create a film opening working within a group for our chose genre which was a thriller. We had to create an opening which was no longer than 4 minutes and conform to the conventions of our chosen genre. In year 13 for the A2 coursework I worked with a different group and we had to create a music video within our chosen music type which we picked a less popular genre of alternative as we wanted to challenge ourselves.

For the AS coursework we firstly chose the genre of thriller then we had to watch some exisiting products to understand what the conventions of a stereotypical thriller were. We watched clips on YouTube from the films 'Obsessed' and 'Prom Night'. We focused on five main areas to analyse which were mise-en-scene, sound, editing, camera work and lighting. When watching clips from both films we firstly looked at mise-en-scene which included setting, character and costume. In both Obsessed and Prom Night the protaganists were young and female and blonde. We therefore chose the person to play the main character which was me to conform to this image as this is what an audience would typically see. The main character of Prom Night, Donna is a young teenage girl and most of the film is set in her home or her surroundings, we decided to film our opening in a suburban house in my bedroom which is pink but also messy to show the feminine side but also the 'messy' teenager view.

We then moved on to look at the sound in both films, throughout there was a soundtrack which when a significant event occured there would be a cresendo of some sort to emphaise what was happening. In Prom Night there is a scene where Donna is looking in the mirror, the camera pans away for a split second and when it comes back to the mirror the killer is standing behind her, the music then hits a cresendo creating fear but also suspense. We wanted to use diagetic sound to create a atmosphere as we were only creating an opening we couldn't show much in the four minutes but we used a continous soundtrack which created a somewhat tense mood as it followed the protaganist throughout and the actions she was taking.

The editing and camera work of both Prom Night and Obsessed was similar with the use of shots especially long shots and over the shoulder shots. We used an over the shoulder shot at the end of our opening showing the protaganist preparing to walk out the door with an unknown substance in her pocket. Long shots were used in Prom Night when showing the killer watching a potential victim we then used this when showing a flashback of the couple arguing as if somebody was filming it themselves. The lighting in both films was very low key and a lot of Prom Night was filmed in the evening or dark rooms. We used a lack of colour instead of low key lighting as this was hard to achieve in a house with artifical light and the sunlight from outside. We changed the colour to black and white to show flashbacks of the past and we used a sepia tone to show the state of distress the main character was having.

For the A2 coursework we created an alternative music video for the track 'Never Again' by Meaning in Masterpiece. We had to analyse the conventions of existing videos, we looked at 'Chasing Cars' by Snow Patrol and 'The Scientist' by Coldplay. We found that alternative songs contained a lot of emotion and this was consequently shown through the videos.

Looking at the mise-en-scene we found that the setting in Chasing Cars was mainly outdoors, we therefore used the setting of a park to film a majority of the scenes as this created a scene in which he was alone walking down a long path emphasising a lonely and melancholic mood. Also in the videos they were mainly male domianted although we only had one character he was male and the female in the video was the focus but of the lyrics. As for AS we only had to create one product in A2 we had to create ancillary texts which were a digipak and a website. For the website and digipak we had photos taken of our singer Jake Black in a park surrounding sitting alone by a lake looking out in the distance which is a simple idea similar to Coldplays Parachute album cover.

When editing our product we changed the whole video to black and white although both of the existing products were not in black and white we wanted to convey the emotions of loneliness and sadness and acheived this through the use of black and white. Also at the end of the video we used a rewind to show the protaganist having to choose a path to take, although this again wasn't seen in either Coldplay or Snow Patrols video we were influenced by the way they represent the lyrics in their video as going back to choosing the path reinforced his struggle. We used long shots and mid shots similar to the ones in Coldplays videos which we were influenced by it as we wanted to have a solid narrative throughout so the audience could identify with what was happening. We realised the importance of analysing these conventions more in A2 as in AS although were creating a thriller we ended up creating a hybrid of a thriller.

In conclusion throughout both AS and A2 the analysis of real existing media products was important when creating our own product because we had a brief that we had to keep too and by looking at exsiting products we could see what we needed to include in order for us to create a successful product.

Plan

1a)
AS:                                                                                                 
- Prom Night & Obsessed
- Analysed the key codes and conventions
- Mise-en-scene, lighting, sound, editing and camera work.
- Creative practise- Your own product
- Lighting- low key
  Sound- continious, cresendos at significant point
  Editing- colour saturation, black & white and sepia tone.
  Camera Work- over the shoulder shots, long shots.
- Influenced my product with these as we had to conform to these codes and conventions to create a stereotypical thriller.

A2:
-Snow Patrol 'Chasing Cars' and 'The Scientist' by Coldplay
- Alternative genre
- Took into consideration the factors and understood the importance of using these conventions to create an alternative video as for AS we were supposed to create a thriller but created a thriller drama hybrid.
- Similar things to analyse, mise-en-scene, sound, editing and lighting.
- Emotive songs used black and white to reinforce the emotion and melancholic mood.



1b)
- Last years thriller
- Audience theories- audience gratification, heirachy of needs-Maslow, Stuart Hall- Encoding and Decoding.
-

June 2011 Essay

Explain how far your understanding of the conventions of existing media texts influenced the way you created your own media products. Refer to a range of examples to show these skills have been developed over time.

For my AS coursework I worked within a group in which we created the opening to a thriller film. After receiving the brief we all decided to create a thriller as this was a popular genre with our target audience. We had to analyse existing products in order to see what the codes and conventions of a stereotypical thriller were. Firstly we narrowed down exactly what our thriller would be about and we chose Obsession and infatuation. We then used Google to search for existing products which focused on these. After looking through lists of films we decided to analyse Obsessed and Prom Night. Both were very different as Prom Night was a thriller but also could be classed as a thriller/horror hybrid and Obsessed was a typical thriller. We watched the trailers for these films and carefully analysed them. We made notes in key areas which were mise-en-scene, lighting, sound and editing. In order to create a successful thriller we had to keep to these codes and conventions as when an audience go to the cinema they know what to expect with a genre and that is what they want to see. In terms of lighting we found that it was very low key with dark colours and a lot of the scenes were either shot in darker rooms with low lights to create a mysterious and somewhat eerie atmosphere. We incorporated this with not so much the use of light as we were filming in a suburban house which only had artificial light but we used colour which comes into editing.  As we couldn’t work with the light as much when editing we decided to portray the flashbacks of the past in black and white to show bleakness and a melancholy mood and when the main character starts having sinister thoughts and we see her slowly decline we used a sepia tone which again portrayed there was a change. Also when editing we used fast cuts which was also seen in Prom Night when the protagonist is hiding from the man after her and it quickly cuts from her to him and this creates a tense atmosphere.

When looking at mise-en-scene we not only looked at props and backgrounds but also characters. We found in both Prom Night and Obsessed the main characters were both female. They were also what is seen as a typical ‘girly girl’ and blonde which we used in our thriller as our main character had blonde hair and wore typically girly clothes. The women in both were very different though as in Obsessed she was the one in control but in Prom Night she was being targeted and was a victim although they were both very emotional. We used this in our thriller as we made our main character very emotional, seen through crying and the sheer upset at the break up of her relationship. We filmed in my house which is a typical detached suburban house. This is similar to Prom Night as it is filmed in the main characters house and various locations to do with her life such as her school. We made sure we filmed in a location relevant to the story and my room was very girly with pink walls but messy to show what we consider to be a typical teenage room. Finally when analysing the sound in both Prom Night and Obsessed we found there was a constant sound track but when something was going to happen it got either louder or faster and when something was happening for example in Prom Night, Donna is looking in the mirror and the camera pans away when we see her looking in the mirror again the killer is standing behind her and the music crescendos which creates the fear factor and wanting to know what is going to happen next. We found a soundtrack of YouTube which we had to ask permission from the creator and used this as it was contemporary which would appeal to our target audience but also had an eerie twist which fitted in well with the thriller genre.

After finishing AS we went on to A2 in the second year where again I worked within a group and we had to create a music video with a song of our choice although it couldn’t be recent or have a video already. As for AS we chose a popular genre we decided for A2 we would choose a less popular genre of alternative music which was aimed more at an older audience. This challenged us and meant we had to analyse the codes and conventions carefully as they were specific and we had to make sure we included all of them to create a successful video. As our genre was specific we decide on three main artists to focus on who were James Blunt, James Morrison and Coldplay. For AS we only had to create the trailer whereas in A2 we had to create ancillary texts being a website and a digipak. For the website we looked at Will Young and Bruno Mars website and for the digipak we looked at existing album artwork for various artists. Firstly we watched a music video from each artist on YouTube and closely analysed these. We found that the lyrics of alternative songs are usually very emotive and deep and this is reflected in the video. We also found that there was again low key lighting and not a great use of colour. We did both these things in our video as we listened to the lyrics and made our video a narrative one following the story told through the lyrics but our personal take on what this could be seen as. In editing we used certain parts of the lyrics which contained powerful words and had them slowly appear on the bottom to emphasise the emotion in the video. Again in editing we changed the colour scale to black and white to again convey a sad depressive mood which reflected the song.

For the website we looked at Bruno Mar’s and Will Young’s website as although they didn’t quite fit in to our genre their websites were interesting to look at which is what we wanted. Bruno Mars used lots of different fonts and colour whereas Will Young’s was more simple which we decided to go for in terms of colour as we used photos of the artist which were black and white as the background and the only colour used was for the Twitter and Facebook links. This reinforces the brand and associations we have with this artist and song. We used a font which stood out on the page which we downloaded and we used this font on every page to again make sure the branding was kept the same. When looking at digipaks we looked at all different genres but especially Coldplay’s Parachutes album as this used a very simple image but was interesting and unique to look at and sold the band as well as the album well. We carried through the use of black and white colouring and similar fonts. We used professional photographs of the artist which Will Young used for his album.

In conclusion, my knowledge of existing products has influenced me vastly throughout both AS and A2 as we have had to remain within these codes and conventions to make sure our product was successful. In AS we only had the trailer to create which allowed us to only research in detail into two films which we analyse in depth and use these conventions and codes to create a thriller but in A2 we had the music video and ancillary texts which we had to analyse more products and make sure we stuck to a range of different codes and conventions for a video, website and digipak.

Collective Identity Essay

Looking at two media, describe the ways in which a particular group of people (youth) are collectively represented or provided for, using specific examples to support your response.

In the media, the representation of youth, past and present has been that of a negative one. Harrowing images of a generation who seem to be out of control and branded hooligans by some newspaper headlines. As a collective group the representation has always been negative and shows no sign of improvement with recent events such as The London Riots of 2011 and the tuition fee protests. The youth are provided for through such things as Web 2.0 and the easy access to internet sites especially social networking sites.

The press contribute highly to the negative images and messages we receive as a consumer about youth especially the tabloid papers such as The Sun and The Daily Mail. The press have covered the events surrounding youth including The London Riots in 2011 which a headline in The Sun newspaper read “British youths are 'the most unpleasant and violent in the world”. This was written by a retired prison doctor who reacted in light of the actions seen all over the news. Images printed in The Sun of masked youths setting police cars alight and smashing shop windows stealing goods were seen throughout this event. By publishing these images and headlines with words such as ‘hooligans’ and ‘animals’ to any older audience would create a sense of fear towards any youths even though this was only a media portrayal but due to the extent of the riots this can be seen to have been the real representation of youth. Another event which the press represented youth in a collectively negative way was the tuition fee protests of 2011. An image in The Sun newspaper of a youth wearing a riot policeman’s helmet swearing at the camera brandishing a makeshift weapon reached the front pages, again creating not just a negative image but a frightening one to any older consumer concerned about the recent events. Showing these images allows the press to sell more papers as our fright and fear creates money for them as we as consumers and onlookers want to know exactly what is going on at all times. Although this may seem to some a recent representation going back to the 1980’s when the Brixton Riots started the headlines read very similar to the ones we read today. In 1981 the BBC published a news release with the headline “The arrest of a black man has led to hundreds of youths rampaging through the streets of Brixton in south London”. The use of the words ‘hundreds’ and ‘rampaging’ gives an impression of somewhat animalistic qualities and a large quantity of youths which to a reader would again create fear as they press are collectively labelling youth as this representation. Throughout the riots social networking sites such as Twitter and Black Berry messenger were being monitored as the youth of today have an advantage of being a technologically savvy generation compared to that of the youths involved in the Brixton riots as word of mouth would have been the only source of spreading information whereas in 2011 Web 2.0 is widely used and these sites were used to spread messages and information between the rioters and the government made many attempts to shut them down to minimise the communication. Post-modernists would agree with the youth of today and their knowledge and use of web 2.0 as because time has moved on so has the technology available to us which allows there to be more ways for these representations to be spread virally and through press. The images and messages we are bombarded with by the press can be related to the idea of Marxism as it is argued the press especially tabloid papers merely construct news rather than reflect it allowing them to exaggerate as bad news sells and the images we are seeing, we as a passive audience do not choose to decode them and take them at face value which is why we see youth as collectively negative group.

Although press is not alone in the negative representation of youth, films also show these representations. Y2K films such as ‘Kidulthood’ show youths to be drinking and drug taking, sexually promiscuous and violent. Collectively as a group they are represented as there are boys and girls of a young age involved in these illegal or deviant activities which as a member of society watching this would be shocked. Noel Clarke who is the director of the film said he wanted to portray a real gritty and true portrayal of youths but this can be argued to not be as this is only a small minority and also for a film to be successful it has to be somewhat exaggerated and contain elements an audience wants to see such as violence. The representation of youth in Kidulthood was negative, this being released in 2006 but films from the past such as Rebel without a Cause released in 1955 starring James Dean as a rebellious teenager. Although the extent of violence is less and no real references to sex and explicit messages it still shows youth as rebellious which shows there has been no positive change in the representation only one that seems to have worsened. Although as argued earlier when films are being produced there are certain elements and expectations they must meet, according to the audience gratification theory that the audience must be able to identify with personal relationships or identity, a form of diversion or surveillance which if a film does not meet it will be unsuccessful so a producer or director will exaggerate certain things to be certain there film will sell.

In conclusion youth are collectively represented in a negative way through the various means available in media especially film and press. Newspapers are available daily and with online press now available it is hard to escape from and reading these headlines as Stuart Hall’s theory states that we will either take the messages at face value and believe all youths act in this manner or we will decode these messages. This negative representation may have been viewed as a recent one but as seen above in the past events such as The Brixton Riots and ‘Rebel without a cause’ has portrayed youth in a negative way and it can be seen to only have worsened. The hegemonic view in society has always been that of a negative one but with the advancements in technology such as Web 2.0 youths have a wider access to the internet including social networking allowing them to communicate and spread messages more easily. The idea of youths being provided for by media can relate to this idea of them being able to access the internet freely and post their thoughts and feelings through these sites. For example the use of online press allows people to read online and then comment which could be an opportunity for youths to get their views across and read but also through social networking as they can express their thoughts and feelings about current events.

1a Essay

Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making.

For my AS coursework we were given a brief to create an opening for a film of our chosen genre. Creativity refers to the use of imagination and original ideas in the production of an artistic piece.

I was able to demonstrate my creativity throughout the construction of our film through using different technologies and software’s in order to create the film. Using different software allowed me to create a new product and present information in different ways showing I used not only creativity but my innovative whilst also developing my digital technology skills. Editing the film took creativity, as a group we wanted to use interesting shots and make the narrative flow yet be exciting. To demonstrate creativity throughout the film, the software used to edit the footage was Final Cut which allowed us to use various transitions such as fades and also to cut footage exactly where we wanted and incorporate lyrics. As a group we used our collective creativity when coming up with an idea, deciding on the genre of thriller. We decided on a thriller because we all had a good knowledge of the codes and conventions and found it was a popular genre with our target audience.

Although there were obstacles in the way of our creativity such as staying in with the codes and conventions of already established films, taking risks and not knowing whether they would work and lack of confidence in using these new technologies. To overcome these obstacles I had to make sure I could find a way round them in order to retain and gain marks. When we started work on our film for the pre production tasks we had to look at existing products to gather what the codes and conventions were. We looked at films such as Obsessed and Prom Night. We listed what we found and knew we had to stick to these conventions in order for our video to be a thriller. To make sure we stayed within these boundaries we made a list and then whenever we had footage or were deciding on shot types we would refer back to this list to make sure it was suitable. Taking risks with using different technologies and software’s were an essential part of the process as we needed to represent our findings especially in the pre production stages in a exciting new way that isn’t the same as others. Finally a lack of confidence in using the new technologies had to be overcome because I needed to gain all the marks I could and make sure my work was of a very high standard.

My ability to be creative progressed into Year 13 for my A2   coursework. I was in a group of four and the brief was delivered which was that we had to create a music video for a song without a video of our chosen genre. As a group we chose the genre of indie alternative genre as we thought this was less popular than for example rap or pop. Using our creativity from the start we created a survey on Survey Monkey to determine what genres our target audience liked. In my A2 coursework my creativity and digital technology skills vastly improved as throughout my AS coursework I didn’t use many software’s and tended to stick to the ones I was comfortable with but through my A2 coursework we were given a list of different software’s and websites to use which allowed my creativity to be seen. Firstly I discovered slideshare which allowed me to upload my power point presentations and post them on my blog which people could look at and read through. This allowed me to create a power point with spider diagrams and pictures but upload it to my blog which before learning of slideshare I did not know you could do this. I also used throughout the process photo bucket which allowed me to upload my photos into a slideshow, this was a creative way to present them and was different to others work showing I was using my innovative.  I also discovered PhotoBucket which allowed me to present my photos into a slideshow which was an interesting way for people to look at my pictures.

For my AS coursework when answering my evaluation questions I used a video and powerpoint’s but for my A2 I used SlideShare, PhotoBucket and another software I discovered which was Xtranormal. This allowed me to input information to a website where you choose a character and the computer inputs your speech and the character says this aloud. It is an interesting and fun way to present information which keeps the audience interested in your answers. In the group I worked mainly on the website in which I used a website creating software called Wix. I had no previous knowledge on this software, therefore in order to create a high quality website I watched the online tutorials to learn about the certain aspects of the website and picked it up very quickly allowing me to make a high quality and informative website. 

In conclusion my digital technology skills have vastly improved from my AS course to my A2 course. I have discovered new technologies and software’s as well as improving my knowledge of ones I had previously used. Photoshop was one of my biggest improvements as I learnt to move layers, add layers and edit photos which aided the production of the website and the digi pack. Overall I believe my skills improved vastly which helped me used my creativity and innovative to present information in different and unique ways learning from my AS course to make sure I gain every mark possible and give myself skills in these technologies for future products.