Final blog post

Dear Moderator,

I hope you are well, enclosed is my A2 coursework Blog, including my research, planning, production  and evaluation which spans throughout the academic year. It is now complete and ready for assessment.

Thankyou.

Evaluation Q2

When creating our print package and planning our music video, we recognized, that for it to be effective the ancillary texts and the final media product needed to be coordinated in certain ways such as colour scheme and mise en scene.

As we had problems with our artists and switched our cast we knew, to an extent, that this would not be possible and recognized these problems.

The creation of a 'house style' was critical to the project, even with the problems discussed above we feel we achieved this in a number of ways ...

We kept our video 'dark' as such and did the by filming at night, this matched the colour scheme on our print production which was black, and felt this offered some for consistency throughout our project and led to a good combination. Although the other main colour scheme on our print was red, yet there was no red what so ever included within the video so this indicates a lack of coherence between the media product and ancillary texts.

Portraying different connotations is also an important part of many media products and ancillary texts. The main connotations that we wanted to put across in both our print production and our video were ...

-A feeling of being trapped in the lower reached of society
-Anger
-Arrogance

Again in the print production we feel this was achieved partially through the colour scheme, black and red are colours that match these emotions. As well as this the images used on our print production use facial expressions and costume to put these feelings and ideas across.

Facial expression and mise en scene were also big parts of the video in terms of the connotations we wanted to achieve. The costume (tracksuits and hoodies) reinforced the idea of being working class/trapped in the lower reaches of society. And close up of the artists face really helped portray anger.

These are some other factors which have helped to form an effective combination between our video and ancillary texts.

Lighting played a big part in creating a certain 'mood' in the video which helped it to match the print production. The target audience feedback very much agreed with this observation ... This use of chiaroscuro lighting used in the video provides good coherence between the video and print production (colour black used)

In terms of lighting, we also found that the audience would have appreciated the use of un-natural lighting to add to the grime effect (filters etc) ...

One theme that was also consistent throughout the print and video, was the use of smoking and the theme of drugs, which goes some way to creating a brand image and house style, and would be a focus for marketing. Images of the artists smoking can be found on both the print and the video which helps to create a coherent package.

It became this is something that our target audience wanted to see in media products of of our genre, and we learned that they would have liked to see more of this theme within the video and print.

Overall, it appears that the combination of the main product an ancillary texts has been fairly effective. The development of a house style has been good by using different conventions of grime and keeping the products as coherent as possible. There are however key elements that lack coherence which means that the overall impact of the products was not as effective.

  

Key concepts - media language

Hoe media texts communicate through the use of editing, mise en scene, sound and cinematography.

Semiotics = the science of signs. (De Saussure)

Referent - The real thing presented to the audience (the actual object) which creates meaning.
Sign - How the object is presented (photo, film, animation etc.
Signifier - How the sign is 'composed.
Signified - Meaning created by the person looking at the sign.

Barthes...
Denotation - What is actually there.
Connotation - Meanings/concepts.
Anchorage - 'Polysenic'. Anchorage is reducing connotations.

Key concepts - Representation

Understanding representation is all about understanding the choices that are made when it comes to portraying something or someone in a mass media text.


Raymond Williams - Emergent, dominant and residual ideology - These ideas are imposed on us by the ruling classes. 

• Age
• Gender
• Race/Ethnicity
• Financial Status
• Job
• Culture/nationality

Key concepts - Audiences

'Audience' is a very important concept throughout media studies. All media texts are made with an audience in mind.


When a media text is being planned, perhaps the most important question the producers consider is "Does it have an audience?" If the answer to this is 'no', then there is no point in going any further.

• income bracket/status
• age
• gender
• race
• location

Dennis McQuail. Uses the gratification theory, audiences consume media text for surveillance, personal identity and relationships. 

Key concepts - Narrative

Narrative = the way events are put together to be presented to the audience.

Todorov argues that narratives always have a structure of equilibrium /disequilibrium

Strauss argues that human cultural understanding is based upon a system of binary opposites (eg black/white, god/bad). Due to this some argue that binary opposition forms a fundamental way of understanding narrative.

In Media Studies, it is important to tell the difference between narrative and story

Key concepts - Genre

Some key quotes are ...

David Buckingham "Genre is not simply given by the culture, rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change"

Steve Neale "One way of defining genres is as a set of expectations"

Genre's definition - A way of categorising a media text according to it's context and style

This is a working definition of genre in terms of media.
Genre is important because it gives media text identity and substance which makes the whole process much easier and systematic.

Costumes and props

 Real Recognise Real merchandise. Will be easily obtained because the artist have supplies of it.





Lighters. Many of the people involved in filming will have lighters on them at the time. If not they can be purchased from newsagents for around £1.

Cigarette/spliff will be rolled using tobacco, wrizzler and a filter/roach. All these can be purchased together from a newsagents for around £6.

Locations

All filming will take place with Droitwich town centre and suburbs.

This is an ideal location for a number of reasons ...

It is where the artists are based so is easy for them to access and be there when we need them (we will travel there by car).

Many areas of Droitwich match our desired mise en scene perfectly giving an urban, anti-establishment feel.

Much of our filming will take place in and around the housing estate of Westlands. This does not require permission.

Health and safety

Performers and casting

Chris Dayus (Crissy Dee). One of the front members of 'Real Recognise Real' and will be used a lot during the course of the video.

This performer is suitable because he is the actual artist who performs the song our video is based around.

This gives our video an edge because he will be very used to the track and the type of environment (comfortable with filming etc).

Paul Stokes (Stokezee) (pictured on the right) is the artist who feature with Chris on the track (sings the chorus and has a verse).

He is suitable for exactly the same reasons as Chris because he is used to this type of situation which will benefit us in terms of lip syncing quality etc.








We asked ourselves the question. 'Will these artists be reliable?' We have spoken to them on several occasions and told them we need to do filming towards the end of December and throughout January. They have both given us their word that they are not part of any other projects that may effect us and will be available for shooting when ever we need them.

Our video will also include a number of extras who are friends of the artist and may have cameos in our video.

Shot listing

Music video storyboard animatic

Audience focus group

We carried out an audience focus group online (Facebook) to gain important qualitative feedback which may cause us to adapt/change our ideas for the draft video. 

Focus group contents ...

-Showed the audience music videos which are similar in different way ie concept, shots etc to see how they reacted and what they liked about it.

-Gave the target audience the opportunity to listen to the track we are using in the project. Asked them to relate what they heard to viusals (Synaesthesia and imagery).This is good good way of generating ideas to aid production of our video.

Target audience research

Target audience profile - Predominantly males aged between 18-25, although some aspects will appeal to a female audience of around the same age.

A focus group on Facebook will be the ideal environment for qualitative research as it is full of online users who fit the audience profile.

Our music video pitch, performed in front of members of a target audience, gave us mixed feedback.

Whilst some said the concept for the video was very achievable and solid. The main criticism was that the idea was to generic and too much like other video which would not make it appealing.