Monday, 28 March 2011
And let us finish with...
Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll. – Keith Richards. In our chimerical journey; many parts of the process seemed to slot together; creating equilibrium that is a working balance within the team…but alas, there were some problems, and the biggest problem of them all was the sudden loss of our third team member: Ross. During that stage of the process, even though I was formulating most of the themes and other brand creation and narrative events to appear in our video, Ross was the main working force and to loose him was a disaster. Something it instigated however, was that Tom and I were forced to ‘step up our game’, and we stepped high, we stepped high for Ross! Other problems included loosing actor’s last minute and some heated, if not helpful creative disputes. The truth is we did persevere, no matter what hiccups materialised and I, with the enduring help of my team-mate, created something here that we can be proud of. Looking back to the very beginning, to the preparation for my AS thriller and even the final product itself makes me nostalgic and proud. How fulfilling it is to see that improvement within oneself! And to have it documented so systematically is superb! We attempted to create a campaign highlighting a ‘dead’ genre. This required research spanning far further than the confines of our own experiences and knowledge. I believe our hypothetical campaign to be a successful one and I bid you goodnight. 
Exam example essay i wrote.
Narrative is the key to most media text. Discuss in relation to one of your pieces of coursework. Narrative is essentially a means to organising material; a configuration of incidents that make up the media text. My thriller sequence does have a coherent narrative structure but it’s also imperative that it depicts the rest of the film due to it being an ‘opening sequence’ and not a finalized chronicle. The piece entails two men abducting and torturing a young and generically beautiful girl for information. The information they’re attempting to acquire is ambiguous within the opening sequence yet it’s apparent that this quest is something that will become clearer as the film progresses. Theorist Todorov proposes the idea that a narrative has five distinct transformations through which the story proceeds. To impose this upon every film ever created would be sharp exaggeration but if looked at openly; it’s hard to argue that there is no trace of this theory within any media text. The five transformations are: a state of equilibrium which disrupted becomes a disequilibrium, which is the recognized; followed by an attempt to repair the damage of the disruption, followed by a return to some kind of equilibrium. My thriller sequence conforms to Todorovs theory due to the similarity of its structure and the indication within the media text of where the piece is going to go. An example would be that the film clearly starts within a state of tranquil equilibrium; i.e. the jogging sequence where the girl is going about on an early morning jog with no apparent idea of the monstrosities that are about to befall on her. She is then beaten and taken to the boot of a car, a clear cut case of a disrupting a state of equilibrium if there ever was one! Theorist Branigan believes that people tend to remember stories in terms of ‘categories of information’ and that narrative is an “activity that organises data into a special pattern which represents and explains experience”. This theory is similar to Todorovs if not slightly less vague, making it easier to apply to films everywhere and conform to with my own media text. Like Todorov; he has constructed a list of incidents that are likely to take place within a conventional narrative: introduction of setting and characters, explanation of state of affairs, initiating event, emotional response or statement of a goal by a protagonist, complicating actions, outcome and finally – reaction to outcome. My thriller sequence conforms to this idea because of its structure. The piece doesn’t set up the female as a character as much as it does for the antagonists, correlating with the original direction of the piece which was to focus on ‘anti-hero’ type characters instead of an overly generic protagonist. Another example of where my media text verifies Branigan’s theory is that there is most certainly an initiating event and though it’s not seen, one enough to instigate an emotional response from a hero. Theorist Propp believed that there were only thirty existing character types in any story who have a specific function within the narrative to cause events. Propps theory may seem to be based upon the ‘arci-typal’ but its fair to assume that these character types can be blended together to steer away from two dimensional characters and create depth. My piece imitates and subverts Propps theory because it focus’s on the roll of the ‘anti-hero’ a blend of Propps villain and hero. A clear imitation and conformation though is the appearance of the girl who fits perfectly into Propps description of a ‘heroine/princess’ character. Her function is to play the damsel in distress.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
BLOG TASK 3 - What I learnt from my audience feedback.
Audience can be seen as the group of people who consume, or might consume a media text (Price). In order to successfully appraise audience feedback we took data from an accumulation of sources, finalising with a focus group: a procedure commonly used in the industry. I constructed several open questions, designed and initiated to raise discussion while my partner took notes. Other areas included Youtube, friends and family.
The pop video is primarily aimed at young men and women aged 15 – 25. According to theorist Jictar, different media texts are always aimed at certain audience demographics within a spectrum – a spectrum existing as a divider between social classes; labelled from ‘A’ to E. ‘A’ being the highest in terms of economical contingency and E being the lowest. The pop video targets the whole spectrum due to the creatively versatile nature of its existing genre. “Rock and Roll has always attracted the masses.” – Roger Taylor.
A focus group differs from a questionnaire for many reasons; primarily it’s because a focus group instigates conversation and therefore subtracts as much fresh information as possible from the selected audience. Within the exercise we wanted to address 3 fundamental questions: did they enjoy it, did they understand the message, and how they thought it could be improved. The actual list of questions used was as:
Did you like the choice of song? Like that kind of music etc...
How do you think the band was represented?
What qualities (in terms of the band members as individuals) came through the most?
Did you locate any kind of message within the images and the narrative?
If you could compare their image, style and song choice to any band - who would it be?
Were there any blatant inspirations in terms of their image and style that you picked up on?
Do they seem like the kind of band you would be interested in? I.e. purchase cd, see in concert etc...
Through these, we hoped to address the fundamental questions and draw out as many vivacious quotes as possible. Once we had finished the exercise, we realised it was a small scale trial of the pop video and ancillary products.
Youtube proved a necessary tool in terms of exhibiting the video, but generate a mass of feedback on the web page – it did not. As of now we have received one comment which was ‘love it’ from a seemingly faceless viewer. Encouraging as the comment is; one comment is not enough to base anything on so we move forwards – to friends and family.
We attempted to use Blumler and Katz’s theory titled ‘Uses and Gratifications’ when assessing our audience response. The theory argues that audiences use and gain pleasure from media texts by looking for four things – personal identity, surveillance, diversion and personal relationships – in any media text they receive and consume. Two examples can illustrate this; firstly, the audience will identify with a group of young men of their own age and inclinations, who are living on the edge, finding comfort through their brotherhood, enjoying alcohol, drugs, music and implied sex. Close-ups of the band filmed documentary style stress how normal and down to earth they are – a notion that also conforms to Richard Dyers theory on stardom. Of our focus group of 14, 11, (7 male, 4 female) identified with that image. Niall, a down to earth 17 year old from Kilburn, said, “Living the dream, who would not want to be a pop star.” We posted the video on Facebook and received 491 views within 6 weeks and of 11 comments, 7 were favourable. James from Manchester said, “Great video.” All of our focus group agreed that the pop video was highly entertaining. Blumler and Katz say that a media text has to occupy the viewer for 70% of the video in order to be riveting. The 7 girls agreed that they lacked powers of concentration to last for 70% but that it was still diverting and acted as a form of escapism. The males were occupied for 100% of the pop video - Stats that enforce a notion stating that perhaps the video was more suited to males, even though we tried to attract both sexes. Hannah, an astute 16 year old from Surrey, said – “The band was brilliant. Quite sexy as well!”
Stuart Hall’s theory states that producers encode a preferred message which the audience decodes in one of three ways – where the audience accept the preferred meaning and message, rejects it by being oppositional, or negotiates their own interpretation. My pop video has two preferred meanings; that the band is a movement celebrating their own unashamed youth, freedom and bohemianism, and that life is a party. The latter is conveyed by the psychedelic nature of the lighting in the performance aspect along with short cutaways to the band partying, drunk out of their minds, with young beautiful women. The first is signified more through the editing because the video cuts to beat, subsuming rhythm with the image, demonstrating their energy and youthfulness. A most interesting ‘negotiated meaning’ was the views of a quirky and individual 17 year old from Hull who stated “while I do see that they’re creative, they also appear to be pretentious and platitudinous”.
In conclusion, the majority of our audience feedback was positive and highly encouraging. Friends and family (on the whole) understood the message but what delighted me the most was that everyone seemed to take something different from it also. Whether it be their own negotiated meaning or something positive we had not intended to portray at all. If their was one thing I could do differently, given a second chance; I would not randomly select students for the focus group like we did and instead select students who are reputed for loving music. This would have given us a bigger insight into how the niche audience would react to the video, instead of wasting our time with people who don’t like anything!
The pop video is primarily aimed at young men and women aged 15 – 25. According to theorist Jictar, different media texts are always aimed at certain audience demographics within a spectrum – a spectrum existing as a divider between social classes; labelled from ‘A’ to E. ‘A’ being the highest in terms of economical contingency and E being the lowest. The pop video targets the whole spectrum due to the creatively versatile nature of its existing genre. “Rock and Roll has always attracted the masses.” – Roger Taylor.
A focus group differs from a questionnaire for many reasons; primarily it’s because a focus group instigates conversation and therefore subtracts as much fresh information as possible from the selected audience. Within the exercise we wanted to address 3 fundamental questions: did they enjoy it, did they understand the message, and how they thought it could be improved. The actual list of questions used was as:
Did you like the choice of song? Like that kind of music etc...
How do you think the band was represented?
What qualities (in terms of the band members as individuals) came through the most?
Did you locate any kind of message within the images and the narrative?
If you could compare their image, style and song choice to any band - who would it be?
Were there any blatant inspirations in terms of their image and style that you picked up on?
Do they seem like the kind of band you would be interested in? I.e. purchase cd, see in concert etc...
Through these, we hoped to address the fundamental questions and draw out as many vivacious quotes as possible. Once we had finished the exercise, we realised it was a small scale trial of the pop video and ancillary products.
Youtube proved a necessary tool in terms of exhibiting the video, but generate a mass of feedback on the web page – it did not. As of now we have received one comment which was ‘love it’ from a seemingly faceless viewer. Encouraging as the comment is; one comment is not enough to base anything on so we move forwards – to friends and family.
We attempted to use Blumler and Katz’s theory titled ‘Uses and Gratifications’ when assessing our audience response. The theory argues that audiences use and gain pleasure from media texts by looking for four things – personal identity, surveillance, diversion and personal relationships – in any media text they receive and consume. Two examples can illustrate this; firstly, the audience will identify with a group of young men of their own age and inclinations, who are living on the edge, finding comfort through their brotherhood, enjoying alcohol, drugs, music and implied sex. Close-ups of the band filmed documentary style stress how normal and down to earth they are – a notion that also conforms to Richard Dyers theory on stardom. Of our focus group of 14, 11, (7 male, 4 female) identified with that image. Niall, a down to earth 17 year old from Kilburn, said, “Living the dream, who would not want to be a pop star.” We posted the video on Facebook and received 491 views within 6 weeks and of 11 comments, 7 were favourable. James from Manchester said, “Great video.” All of our focus group agreed that the pop video was highly entertaining. Blumler and Katz say that a media text has to occupy the viewer for 70% of the video in order to be riveting. The 7 girls agreed that they lacked powers of concentration to last for 70% but that it was still diverting and acted as a form of escapism. The males were occupied for 100% of the pop video - Stats that enforce a notion stating that perhaps the video was more suited to males, even though we tried to attract both sexes. Hannah, an astute 16 year old from Surrey, said – “The band was brilliant. Quite sexy as well!”
Stuart Hall’s theory states that producers encode a preferred message which the audience decodes in one of three ways – where the audience accept the preferred meaning and message, rejects it by being oppositional, or negotiates their own interpretation. My pop video has two preferred meanings; that the band is a movement celebrating their own unashamed youth, freedom and bohemianism, and that life is a party. The latter is conveyed by the psychedelic nature of the lighting in the performance aspect along with short cutaways to the band partying, drunk out of their minds, with young beautiful women. The first is signified more through the editing because the video cuts to beat, subsuming rhythm with the image, demonstrating their energy and youthfulness. A most interesting ‘negotiated meaning’ was the views of a quirky and individual 17 year old from Hull who stated “while I do see that they’re creative, they also appear to be pretentious and platitudinous”.
In conclusion, the majority of our audience feedback was positive and highly encouraging. Friends and family (on the whole) understood the message but what delighted me the most was that everyone seemed to take something different from it also. Whether it be their own negotiated meaning or something positive we had not intended to portray at all. If their was one thing I could do differently, given a second chance; I would not randomly select students for the focus group like we did and instead select students who are reputed for loving music. This would have given us a bigger insight into how the niche audience would react to the video, instead of wasting our time with people who don’t like anything!
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
TASK 2 - A power Point presentation to explore how effective the combination of my main product and ancillary is?
Presentation1
View more presentations from hurtwoodhousemedia5.
My slideshow explores four areas:
THE IDEAS OF CARLSSON, CONCERNING whether a pop star is one or more of commercial exhibitionist, electronic shaman or televised bard.
Our act was the first.
THE CONCEPT OF STARDOM THAT RICHARD DYER CREATED.
THE IDEA OF UNIVERSAL MYTHS THAT LEVI STRAUSS DEVELOPED.
SYNERGY and how the pop video, the advert and the digipack cover all worked together to sell the band and their brand.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Digipack.
The Digipack makes an essential part of the bands image and is the final frontier of the distribution process. The image and or literature situated on the media text are normally the consumers’ last contact before purchase. The front cover consists of an image of the band in front of a metal grid. They are rugged; they are tired; they are the imploding paradigm of the carefree, rebellious youth culture. Theorist Richard Dyer illustrates the fact that the bands ‘star image’ is sold through the creative elements in such articles as the Digipack. Here are the other elements that were carefully constructed to meet the supply and demand nature of the music business and elevate the band to stardom:
A page solely dedicated to absurdist artist Ralph Steadman and the father of Gonzo Journalism and key member of the creative and maddening thunderstorm that was ‘the Sixties’: Hunter S. Thompson. According to Richard Dyer, demonstrating the bands affinity for H.S.T and Ralph Steadman conveys not only their rebellious nature, but also their creative side; attracting audiences but also presenting themselves with star quality.
The track list page comprising of a still image taken from erratic party scene they were involved with and such song titles as ‘The whole of the law’ and ‘Language problem’. These factors help demonstrate the bands free spirit and rebellious nature.
And finally: On the biography page, a dark yet thoughtful image of the lead singer; his head almost bowed whilst he thrives with a microphone. This enhances the sensitive, creative and human nature of the lead singer, stating that past the oblivion of sex and drugs, still lives a human being, one with an urge to perform to the world.
A page solely dedicated to absurdist artist Ralph Steadman and the father of Gonzo Journalism and key member of the creative and maddening thunderstorm that was ‘the Sixties’: Hunter S. Thompson. According to Richard Dyer, demonstrating the bands affinity for H.S.T and Ralph Steadman conveys not only their rebellious nature, but also their creative side; attracting audiences but also presenting themselves with star quality.
The track list page comprising of a still image taken from erratic party scene they were involved with and such song titles as ‘The whole of the law’ and ‘Language problem’. These factors help demonstrate the bands free spirit and rebellious nature.
And finally: On the biography page, a dark yet thoughtful image of the lead singer; his head almost bowed whilst he thrives with a microphone. This enhances the sensitive, creative and human nature of the lead singer, stating that past the oblivion of sex and drugs, still lives a human being, one with an urge to perform to the world.
Magazine Advert.
The magazine ad is a vital landmark in our advertisement campaign that is constructed to establish the band within the industry as a young and boisterous group boasting ebullient creativity. Theorist Richard Dyer explains how the bands elements of the star image are sold through the creative choices made when building the media text; therefore stating that the creative aspects of the magazine ad must be innovative, exciting and aesthetically pleasing to ensure optimum interest and ‘buzz’.
Several aspects of this magazine ad portray the band as a rebellious, fun loving force to be reckoned with. The handguns placed bellow the band name are a symbol that convey a million messages but when correlating with the band name and image, they demonstrate passion, vision and fire, three key elements behind the bands arch-image.
The image of the band members portray a group that are “young, beautiful and stupid” – a quote taken directly from the cult mod film ‘Quadrophenia’, a piece that successfully captures the zeitgeist of a time and culture the band are attempting to reincarnate.
Several aspects of this magazine ad portray the band as a rebellious, fun loving force to be reckoned with. The handguns placed bellow the band name are a symbol that convey a million messages but when correlating with the band name and image, they demonstrate passion, vision and fire, three key elements behind the bands arch-image.
The image of the band members portray a group that are “young, beautiful and stupid” – a quote taken directly from the cult mod film ‘Quadrophenia’, a piece that successfully captures the zeitgeist of a time and culture the band are attempting to reincarnate.
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