Notes on qeation 1A

1a. 

i. To what extent have digital technologies helped develop your research and planning skills during your Media 'A' Level?

ii. Has using conventions from real media texts in your work enhanced or impeded your ability to be creative?

- The internet has helped research real media products
- Camera for still shots of locations to put in to planning
- Hd camera test shoots planning how the finle shots can look like
- you tube to study music videos and film trailers and openings
- Google to find directing skills and shot types
 

Section A. Question 1b.

1b:
(i) With reference to your study of genre, how useful is it to apply a critical framework to your production work?



(ii) What decisions did you make during the creation of representation in your production work?
The typical conventions for the type of thriller we aimed to produce - psychological thriller - are instead of, as you see in many horrors the way the antagonist tries to kill the protagonist is not through brute force but through cleverness and wit. Also, they protagonist is never just blindly killing the antagonist for no apparent reason, or just because he/she is a murderous psychopath, it is more that the antagonist has some emotional or physical attachment, or they gain something from the protagonists death. 

In our thriller, we did incorporate many of these elements, for instance, Thomas does have a emotional attachment to Emile, they are both friends. Additionaly, as Thomas is...


During our thriller project we tried to represent a number of things. Firstly, we attempted to represent the character Emile through the mood of the mise-en-scene. As his character seems to be 'troubled' we decided to set the thriller in a very rainy/damp climate. This also allowed us to keep in the typical conventions of a modern Thriller which are usually suspenseful. 

To what extent did your work challenge audience expectations?

Plan

Introduction
Introduce the music video and the genre, talk about the stereotypical elements of that genre. Explain who the target audience and why.

First Paragraph
Talk about the cinematography and how the camera angles used attract the audience and how they challenge the audience.

Second Paragraph
Talk about the editing and how the effects used attract the audience and how they challenge the audience.

Third Paragraph
Talk about the Mise en scene and how the props, costume and location are used and how it attracts the audience and how it challenges the audience. Also in the paragraph you could talk about the sound.

Conclusion
Do a small summary on why the music video is challenging the audience compared to similar music videos of the same genre.

Does your product conform to or challenge genre conventions?

Introduction:the conventions of the thriller genre are to do with sound and editing. eg quick cuts and camera angle changes, music that gives tension . it can be to do with lighting, especially the use of shadow. mirrors and stairs are also conventions of thriller movies.The fast pace shots and quick editing are key to our thriller because these excite and can slightly disturb the audience which thrillers are supposed to do and we tried to stick to the normal thriller conventions.  

2) Does your product conform to or challenge genre conventions?

I think that our music video made to the song "turn to gold" both uses the conventions of standard rock videos but also challenges them in the way narrative of the video is set out and shown, it conforms in ways that an audience would expect it to and doesn't really try to be anything other than a rock video that its particular audience would have a positive response to.
The ways that our video conforms to what would be expected in rock videos is mainly the way it has been edited and the overall energy of the video. We used a hand held style of filming the video which gave the video an action packed feel that matched the the style of the song, this created a mixture of high and low angles, and when the two artist in the video are running up the stair case, it makes it feel like a chase scene or a desperation to reach there destination. This frantic style of filming can be found in many rock videos such as slipknot's duality video, our chorus section in particular draws similarity from that style of rock video. 
The only aspect of the video that could be considered to challenge the conventions of rock videos is the narrative with in the video. The way that the story is all about the artist and has an non-linear story where it starts at the end which is the chorus section and uses cross cutting to show the gradual  progression of the band members to there final destination and where they find the instruments on there journey to perform on the roof top. The fact that the story of the video purely consists of the band members and that its about there performance is not done very often, usually a rock video would have sections of a story either with the band members or separate charters or a mixture of the two and then have separate sections with the band performing like Paramore's "Misery business" video or simple plan's "untitled" video.            

How useful is it to apply media language to your work?

    Alot of the time it is useful to use media language to analyse products. By using mise en scene, cinematography, sound and editing as categories to analyse the effectiveness of the product overall a good structure is acheived in relaying the information and it is easier to pinpoint areas which are effective or perhaps need improvement.
    One of the main reasons using media language is effective when analysing a product is the fact that it breaks the analysis down into four important parts. This therefore makes it easier to pinpoint which areas of the product are effective and which parts are lacking which is obviously the whole point of analysis and would definately make the process of improvement easier. It also gives a more structured approach to whichever way you choose to present the information you discover about your product.
    However the negative side to this way of analysis is that when you present the information in this format someone who dosent know media terminoligy will not understand, meaning they would not be able to use this

To What Extent Does Your Work Challenge Audience Expectations

Our year 13 production was a video to a song by the band 'Audioslave', entitled 'Turn to Gold'. The song's production values were typical of the band, with the vast majority of the rest of their three album library being composed of fast-paced, fairly heavy rock music. Our video had the intention of appealing to long-term fans of Audioslave, so it stands to reason that it conformed to many of the conventions they will have come to expect, both from the band themselves and, more generally speaking, the rock genre of which they are part.

• Section 1 - processing of creating our video, related to the question. For example: When creating our video, we looked at numerous examples of 'real' rock music videos, as well as specific examples of videos from Audioslave themselves as an attempt to understand current audience expectations. Naturally, we wanted to differentiate our piece from the rest of the content on the market, so we made a conscious effort to challenge certain conventions while utilising others. Challenging them in this way stopped our video from being stale to audiences.
•  Section 2 - genre conventions. The first paragraph mentioned genre conventions in a general sense, here we will say specifically what they are. Mention other rock videos we looked at, such as Foo Fighters - The Pretender and others (make the rest up).
• Section 3 -

Which groups did you represent in your work?

Introduction: The representation of groups such as Gender and Indie style music has changed and developed throughout time. For example in the Classic Hollywood Films Laura Mulvey suggests they show women to be an object of desire for men and from this suggests the film use a 'male gaze'. In our music video the representation of gender, shows a challenge against Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory as the mid to long shots do not portray an objectified view of the female character.

Gender paragraph:
-Women in our music video are not objectified through fragmented camera shots like close ups on the female anatomy. Our music video uses fixed mid to long shots which show the female character as an entirety.
- From this it shows a challenge against Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory as it shows how the representation of gender has changed over time, especially the representation of women. Through the costume, and camera shots the music video shows that women are not always objectified in all media texts.
- Another theorist, David Gauntlett, which shows a change from the traditional view of women as a housewife/low status worker that has been kicked out by a feisty successful 'girl power' icon. The music video we made shows the female character to portray a type of dominance over the male artist as she is shown to be more confident and the focus of the video is mainly on the female character, although not in an objectified way.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, our music video manages to represent gender and the indie style music in a more developed and changed view than what had been in previous music videos or classic hollywood films. Therefore our music video shows how Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory is slightly dated as the view of women has change through time as they have become more like 'girl power' icons, as suggested by David Gauntlett.

my thriller opening

our main goal for our thrillere opening was to keep it mysterious so the audience will keep focused to find out whats going on and will keep watching to find out. to keep the mystery we have fast pace shots and never reveal the identity of the characters to make sure we do not giving anything away. the fast pace shots and quick editing are key to our thriller because these excite and can slightly disturb the audience which thrillers are supposed to do and we tried to stick to the normal thriller conventions. are really like the split screen shots we put in. the split screens there to show the differences between the antagonist and protagonist it shows the different things happening at the same time which shows differences in their characteristics, for example she is working hard at work and he is slacking by sitting on a park with a coffee. the split screen shows they are different but it also shows they are connected, the link shown by the phone and the split screen. the girls screen shows order while the his screen shows the chaos that will ruin her order.

thriller opening analysis

Cinematography

- Camera Shots, time lapse shot, establishing shot, close up shot, zooming shot, match on action shot, over the shoulder shot, low angle shot, extreme close up. This variety of camera shots allowed us to give a number of different viewpoints and perspectives on both the build up and crucially the chase scene towards the end of the opening. They also help the viewer to establish what environment the opening was set in and how elements of the this environment assisted in setting the scene for this gritty urban kind of opening.

music video notes (turn to gold)

Our music video's  mise en scene consists of the stereotypical rocker social group rock outfits, black hoodies and checkered shirts, jeans and trainers this would make the audience who like rock music feel they might relate to the artist if they where similar clothes or make them feel in the fashion of there particular social group.
The editing was done to make the video have a good pace and to keep the video interesting. The use of jump cuts and the cinematography of hand held camera style of shooting makes the video feel rough and in the audience face and in its own way gives it a feeling of action. The way its shot to make the small  narrative that takes place with in the video about the band members traveling to there performance location, but showing the band performing at that location to begin with ( this is an nun-linear progression) this is done by using cross cutting to make it clear to the audience it also works by giving the audience a pay off at the end of that segment that will make them feel rewarded by watching the full video.
The sound of the song is a strong influence on editing and camera movement choices, this is because the audience like it when they see an moving image that flows well with the sound its being played along with.

 
   

Analysing our thriller from the point of view of Roland Barthes

Our thriller was a whirlwind tale of betrayals, hatred and fulfilling destiny. As such, there are many different levels of subtlety and imagery available to the viewer who seeks to unravel the threads of meaning within.

To demonstrate our skill as acclaimed filmmakers our piece features many elements that feature ambiguous meanings that must be evaluated by the viewer as to how they believe actions fit into the plot and what they may mean.

detailed notes on our music video.

Cinematography

The cinematography in our music video starts of with an establishing shot, of a car driving into the gates of the house, this is to show the audience where the video is set which then pans across to show off the 'flash' cars. The main shot through out the video was a mid-shot to show off the artists and the props through out the video. We also used extreme close ups on the 'booty shaking' this is because it links in with the title of the song, so by having an extreme shot it makes it stand out more. we also repeated that shot every time 'bootie music' came on. We also used close ups to show the background and the expressions of the lip-syncing by each artist. We also use zooms, to show off certain props and also using the speed up effect because R&B videos are typically about fast cars, so by having the footage speed up it attracts the audience more.

Editing


The editing in our music video was used to make the artists stand out and also the props used. We used a 'brightening' effect on the different shots such as the car shots, this effected the brightness of the lights on the car making the cars look more flash. We also used this effect on shots with the artist, this brightened up there clothing making it seem as if it had more 'bling'. We used many different transitions to go from scene to scene, such as fading, dissolving, wipes etc, this is to make the movement from scene to scene more smooth and makes the video look more 'flashy'.

Mise en Scene


The mise en scene in our music video contains backgrounds, clothes, props. The background which we used for this music video was similar to another 'git fresh'  R&B music video this was used to attract a similar audience type to the other music video as they are by the same people.

Coursework Analysis - Media Language

Our year 12 thriller video was entitled "The Mind Plays Tricks". Featuring stunning acting performances from Emile Cole and Tom "Stackhands" Phipps, it tells the opening to an epic tale of one boy's struggle to overcome adversity and the backstabs of his friends.

When creating our story, we put a vast amount of effort into the cinematography, mise en scene, sound and editing. What we dreaded was for our masterpiece to come across as poorly planned and thrown together at the last second.


When dealing with the cinematography, we stuck with mostly static, fairly long shots. In retrospect, moving the camera around in certain shots may have made the camerawork more interesting, as without every shot feels fairly standard, and by the end of the 2 minutes this gets fairly stale.

Other than the idea that the camera should have panned/moved a lot more during the piece, other aspects of the camerawork could have been improved as well. For example, a larger mixture of shot types could have added to the emotion of the piece. 90% of the shots are mid-angle mid-range well-framed shots; very predictable. The only experimentation

Roland Barthes theory to Thriller(R2 46) Disclosure

Roland Barthes theory suggests that an object placed in different contents exspress different meanings. For example in our thriller the main focus of communication is through phones which are usually used to make progression on situation such as something as simple as seeing where someone is, saving time, often resulting in a positive outcome. Through our opening we challenge this by inserting calls of distress, or problems in peoples lives. This moves onto the two main characters using phones to discuse the main problem in John's life which is left at a cliff hanger and the person at the call centre not knowing how to solve the situation when it should be the other way round.

Using roland barthes and semiotics to analyse "git fresh bootie music video'

Roland Barthes theory is the images used in various forms of media represent/ mean something in different forms of media.

We are using his theory in our 'git fresh bootie music video'. In this music video there is evidence of his theory for example chloe shaking her 'booty' to link with the title of the song used. We also used props such as expensive cars to represent real life r&b music videos as money is a key object in R&B music videos.