Plan for Question 1a i.

1a. 

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

introduction: introduce how you used digital technology in research and planning eg using youtube for finding inspiration from similar genre videos

paragraph one: say how digital techonologies did help. The use of the internet helped majorly during the research stage of the A level. We used websites such as youtube to research videos which are of the same genre as ours. We also used the internet to find out about digipacks and magazine adverts. Cameras were used to film our products in HD. Editing programs on the computer were used to add better effects to our products.

paragraph two: say how they werent the only source that helped. We also used our own knowledge to find out about the genre of our product, we also used paper and other resources to plan our products, such as storyboards and filming scripts.

conclusion: say how over all digital technologies were very helpful. generally sum up.                                            

Section A 1a for our music video

After researching whose Beyonce's target audience is, we realised that our target audience should be extremely similar if not the same because the song is sung by Beyonce, there for meaning that the song it's self is already targeted at that audience. When listening to the lyrics of the song it is obvious that the song is about how women like to be "loved" and there for obviously targeted at women; taking this into acount we wanted to target our video at women. We want to do this by using some of the methods Beyonce uses to target women in her own videos such as showing her vulnerability and making her self not appear threatening to other women. We thought that we could do this by showing the female in the video to be very vulnerable to her feelings, using close up shots to show her emotion. We also thought that by using minimal makeup and natural looking hair the female used in the video would not appear threatening to any females but actually relatable.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product represents certain types of real media products as we conducted lots of information from other top video's from beyonce and other high profile artists such as nicole shwerzinger. For example we used the house as a the setting in which beyonce does to create a very normal feel to the video as like an everyday life situation. Doing this meant we could also reflect the genre as 'slow love' we emphasised this by using black and white as our background setting which is more a slow intimate colour just to focus on the meaning of the song. Also, we challenged the conventions of a real media product by introducing a few fading techniques to attract one shot to another which is most commonly used in the R&B genre industry. 

I believe that using genre and conventions has helped us with our final media product as we have been able to conform with a particular genre to match our music video with and also we have been able to fit our music video around different conventions, we were thus able to challenge conventions and conform to them. 

Our understanding of genre has developed greatly over the past two years as we are now able to understand why different products are totally different and fit into a seperate category to one another when they may seem similar to the normal eye.  

Post-production

For our music video, we wanted to edit our music video to make it more appealing and interesting to our audience.  We first decided to implement a black and white theme throughout the music video, where some of the scenes are in black and white. This added an effect which would keep the audience involved with the product and also give it a more intimate feel. We decided to conform to the genre conventions to have similar fading techniques such as other music videos e.g. Beyonce. 

Post-production is the function of editing the picture, adding visual special effects and to add sound effects to ultimately make the final product a lot better than just cramming all the filming together without any effects. 

Our post-production skills have developed greatly over the past 2 years, we have been unable to edit our products without even thinking and we are able to judge if a particular effect would suit our product or not.

(plan) how can the study of MEDIA LANGUAGE unlock meanings in your work?

(previous analysis of our media music video)


Our media product is fairly influenced by other real media products as the artist is portrayed in glamorous way and is the main focus of the video. lIke Beyonce, Cheryl Cole, Alexandra Burke e.t.c.


We were influenced by several similar artists and managed to use intertextuality with our video and Girls Aloud's 'Biology' music video, by using the same hand movement. - a clock hands or ferris wheel, alan key/rope pulling winding up device for water in unfortunate countries. 


By using one of Goodwins points we were able to create a more in depth video and it also relates the lyrics and visuals together, 
along with the "damsel in distress" written on the car 
and the "Mr Mechanic" calling on the phone. 


The lighting we have used is very typical of this genre of music.


 It emphasises the artist and looks very appealing and sophisticated. We originally found the idea on a Mcfly acoustic set from The Sun Biz Sessions and used the effect that appeared on this video of the bright light behind the artist performing. We then developed this idea and used the car headlights for extra lighting.

Thriller Media Language Analysis

1. Roland Barthes theory in our video:
Dark clothes of the antagonist suggest a meaning in our mise-en-scene of suspicious activity which is in fact true as in the triller he murders a protagonist.
The bright lights of the building standing out in the dark symbolise that there is a positive message during the dark story.



2. How camerawork, mise-en-scene, editing and sound create meaning:
Long shots are used in the bike chase which creates a meaning that the antagonist wants to escape his crimes and leave his past behind.
Through the use of transitions during editing a jump shot was created to create a meaning that the chase was prolonged therefore suggesting to the audience that the protagonist strongly believed in justice and identifying him as the protagonist.
The low angle shot of the antagonist once they've killed one of the protagonists shows them as powerful and dominant and superior to many characters.
At the beginning of the thriller video a dark and gloomy soundtrack is used to create a feeling of suspense, this is done as it meets the conventions of a typical thriller video.

Media Language

Roland Barthes Theory - Semiotics is the study of signification. Symbols have different meanings. Images in media can be interpreted in many different ways by various consumers. The creator may mean something but whoever watches it may see it as something else - Pluralism. E.g. A rose can be seen as romantic but are also used by mobs on dead bodies.

Applying Roland Barthes Theory to our Media Product- This image can be seen as vandalism, or a creative expression of emotion.















Essay Question- to what extent did you conform to or challenge narrative conventions in your product??
Typical Narrative Conventions:
- Meaning is constructed in order to promote audience understanding.
- Groups events into cause and effects

Essay plan

To what extent did you aim to meet target audiences expectations?




Plan:


Introduction


I aimed to meet target audience expectations by....
describe product and desired target audience


1st paragraph


how we tried to meet expectation (camerawork, mise en scene)


2nd paragraph


Did we accomplish what we tried to do?


3rd paragraph


make reference to a theory, and apply it to our work


4th paragraph/conclusion


decide on personal viewpoint, make own thesis and answer the initial question.

Essay plan - Section A 1B

Question: What meanings can be generated through studying genre elements in your work?

Introduction

Talk about the discussion of whether genre theory really exists
Say how you're going to discuss the different arguments associated with the genre

Point:
Micro elements such as mise-en-scene can create meaning by studying genre, as the characters can be recognised by audiences.

Point: Thriller genres have themes of identity - how have we created identity? - through mise-en-scene - forms meaning of the types of characters in our thriller


Theorist -

Robert stam believes that it could be argued that genres don't really exist and they are only a construction of analysts.
David Bordwell 

Conclusion

Genre has an influential impact on the audience and is needed to help audience choose their film.

Genre helps define audience choice and gives film makers a focus

Genres aren't as strict as they used to be, more modernly there are hybrid genres.