All posts by Mrs C

Information

Home Page

Leave a comment

1 x Music Video – introduced

1 x Digipak – 4 panes on one A3 Indesign document jpeg, each pane clearly labelled with a pdf attached.  You can do this by using Control A (select all) Control G (group) Control C (copy) and Control V (paste) and cutting and pasting your panes onto one new document.

1 x Website – screen shot with the url linked in and clearly captioned that you are to click on it to go to the website.

Information, Year 13 Coursework, Year 13 Critical Reflections

CCR3 – Vlogging tips – before you start

Leave a comment

Before you start vlogging – just look at these tips and examples and check that:

  • Enough storage?
  • Film in landscape
  • Max 5 minutes all the clips
  • Editing can be rough and jump – seems to be the in thing
  • Don’t read from a script – speak from the heart!

This is a really funny BBC3 series – available on youtube (and will also be useful for Postmodern Media in the exam – parody, mockumentary, intertextual references, self referential) but have a look at it – might give you some ideas.

A vlog on vlogging.

You can use a DSLR but if you are doing this at home – use your phone.

Information, The Music Industry, Year 13 Coursework, Year 13 Critical Reflections

CCR3 – How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products? – Group Vlog

Leave a comment

How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?

After you have completed your reading and research and compiled some good ideas about audience engagement and distribution, respond directly to the following questions in your vlog:

Part 1 – Target Audience

    • Who are your target audience?
      • What are their ideologies? (demographics, psychographics, audience segmentation eg tribe wired etc)
    • What is your brand identity / missions statement? (genre, star image)
    • How does the design / content of your three products fulfil your audience’s uses and gratification (Blumler and Katz but you don’t need to reference them directly – just use the terms)?
    • How do the products speak to the audience and try to create a relationship with them? (AIDA, B + K, genre, star image, Hall)
    • What marketing techniques, tricks and campaigns will specifically help ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE AND WHY?

Theory / terminology: BUT DON’T DO VLOGS ON THE THEORISTS – USE THE TERMS

  • Hall (audience – encode, decode, ideology, demographics, psychographics, preferred reading, negotiated reading, oppositional reading)
  • Dyer (star image – metanarrative, ordinary, paradox of the star, extraordinary, present, absent)
  • Blumler + Katz (personal identity, social interaction, information, entertainment)
  • Lacey (predictable pleasure, repertoire of elements, contract, blueprint, label, conventions)

Part 2 – Distribution and Marketing

    • Which record label would suit your star / brand?
    • How would you distribute it – what structure and means?
    • What marketing strategies would you use to create buzz around your album launch?
    • How would you reach your target audience?
    • How are you likely to make your star / album profitable?

Theory / terminology: BUT DON’T DO VLOGS ON THE THEORISTS – USE THE TERMS

  • target audience, budget, distribution, marketing, social media, download, streaming, guerilla marketing, personal appearances, live performance, festivals, press releases, advertising, online, viral marketing, profile, independent, major record label. Read the blog posts to get some ideas.

USE THE FOLLOWING CLIPS TO INTRODUCE YOUR VLOG and edit the intro and outro around your submission.

Think about

Information

CCR3 – Background reading

Leave a comment

Read the attached articles:  re distribution and marketing.

  • Take some ideas from these articles and use them to respond to the questions.
  • Why not create your own ideas too?
  • We are presuming you have already found a record label who has taken the performer on to their books.
  • Now you adopt the identity of distributors & marketers, and have to get the record out to the target audience. How will you do this?

Distribution is the way that recorded music gets into the hands of consumers. Traditionally, distribution companies sign deals with record labels which give them the right to sell that label’s products. The distributor takes a cut of income from each unit sold and then pays the label the remaining balance.

Digital distribution is a service by which music and/or video content is being distributed via the Internet in digital format to various online music services (download stores and streaming services) which then exploit downloads and/or streams of this music for any sort of portable music devices and computer used by consumers. Where a traditional physical distributor would ship out your physical albums to stores, EPM Music distributes digital copies of your music to various music services such as iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, AmazonMP3, eMusic, Zune, LastFM, Spotify, etc.

Please note certain major online music services such as iTunes, Play.com and Spotify require artists and labels to use a digital distributor such as EPM Music to make their music and video available in their stores.

Remember, the real money now lies in live performance – the revenue in streaming is usually not sufficient to keep a band afloat – it needs to be performing to raise revenue from tickets sales and merchandise.

Some of the first avenues you should consider are:

  • Order CDs.
  • Distribute album to online stores and streaming services.
  • Sign up for any/all social media accounts.
  • Tell everyone you know and submit for airplay.

ARTICLES AND WEBSITES TO READ

Independent distributors who will get my music out there on Spotify?

How to find a record label?

What is music distribution and how has the traditional distribution model been disrupted by technology?

A new online technology that might disrupt music production (mastering)

Some surprising ways in which music is distributed in order to create buzz online

Free music distribution…?

 

Concepts, Exam Paper 2, Skills, Year 13 Coursework

Penultimate week on Coursework

Leave a comment

Well done. The blog is dead. The blog is done.  Wave it all goodbye!

CCRs

You will have 4 lessons this week to complete the first three CCRs already introduced.  These need to be complete by Monday 2nd December.

We will be spending 1 lessons at the end of the week introducing the final CCR and 1 at the beginning of the next week.  This will be completed in class during the following week.

All CCRs need to be completed by Monday 9 December.

Final Products – HOME PAGE

These have to be presented beautifully on your home page by the end of term. Make sure they are as good as they can be – you can tweak them all in your own time.  It would be wise to show them to your teacher one more time for some final feedback.

  • Video – Embed and introduce
  • Digipak x 4 panes with pdfs attached and clearly labelled (front, back etc)
  • Website – screen shot of page with link to the site and instructions to click on it to see more.

Exam

We will then spend the last two weeks revisiting Skills and Concepts.

ABSENCE

If you know you are leaving early before Christmas then you must speak to your teacher so that you can see what  you will be missing and what you will need to catch up on.

 

Information

CCR4 – How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online, in this product? – Individual

Leave a comment

REMEMBER TO USE THE TERM ‘CONVERGED TECHNOLOGY’  – ESSENTIAL for this question – it refers to devices that carry out multiple functions i.e. cameras, recording, online, software, storage etc

For this CCR, you will need to revisit your technology journey through Component 3 which comprises of your Music Video, Digipak and Website products.  You will be using your production skills reflection to help craft and populate this response.

Much of the work for this question has already been done in your Production Skills posts so use the screen shots and examples and use your reflection as the script.  Do not reinvent the wheel!  So collect the screen shots and images and the commentaries and collate/compile them into one place.  You will have to start some from scratch though.

TASK

You will create a max 5 minute Premiere Pro presentation using actual clips from your video, stills from your DP, Website and Music Video and screen shots of the skill/technology being used (the ones you used in your reflections will do).

You will record a voiceover to sync in to the various examples of how and where the technology was integrated/used/applied/implemented in the product .  The most important aspect of the commentary is that you specifically cite how the technology/skill impacted on the product – try and find a specific EXAMPLES: moments, shots, episodes, looks, scenes, edits, transitions, acting, costumes, looks that help evidence how, IF APPROPRIATE,  star image, representation, genre, narrative, audience were affected.  BUT ALSO HOW DID THE TECHNOLOGY HELP THE PROJECT?

Avoid:

  •  the skill made it more professional URRGGGGHHHH! 
  • It made it more attractive.  URRGGGGHHHH!
  • the skill helped make it more aesthetically pleasing.  URRGGGGHHHH!

Choose 3 examples of each (hardware, software and online) and organise it into these sections.

Make sure you include all stages of the production process i.e. research/planning, production, post production and evaluation/feedback. 

Hardware

1 x Music Video, 1 x Website, 1 x Digipak

  • Cameras (DLSR and Point and Shoot) – production
  • Lighting Equipment – production
  • Microphones – production
Software

1 x Music Video, 1 x website, 1 x digipak

  • Premiere – post production
  • Photoshop – post production
  • Indesign – post production
  • Bridge – post production
Websites & online technology could include:

1 x Music video, 1 x website, 1 x digipak

  • Edublogs (WordPress) – evaluation
  • Wix – production
  • YouTube – research, planning, feedback, evaluation
  • Twitter/Facebook/WhatsApp – production, feedback
  • Pintrest/Gomoodboard/Canva – research, planning
  • VoiceThread/Screen Castify/Prezi – research, planning, evaluation
  • Google Forms – research, evaluation
  • Online Tutorials – production, post production

  • You should be specific about how you employed the technology. Be specific in terms of what you were able to achieve creatively & organisationally with these various technologies, such as…

    • Researching conventions in professional media texts
    • Gathering inspiration & sharing ideas
    • Production planning / inspiration
    • Production organisation & group communication / collaboration
    • Production techniques (Framing, camera movement, backdrops, lighting…)
    • Cropping / timeline editing
    • Using filters & image control
    • Using brushes and filters
    • Transitions / Colour Correction
    • Using key frames
    • Layering images / using opacity / blending
    • Stop motion
    • Converting / compressing files for different use (DVD, Online, Print)
    • Uploading and embedding media
    • Audience feedback
    • Tracking & recording progress

List of media technologies used and useful buzz words to include in your analysis

Please do not simply use logos / generic images, rather use images of you actively using the technology from your coursework blog (look at your CCR production reflections).  The music video clips should be a great source of evidence?

You could organise it in a chronological fashion i.e. technology used in Research/Planning and then Production/Post Production and then Evaluation/Feedback.

THIS TEMPLATE IS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW YOU COULD ORGANISE YOUR IDEAS.

Buzz words: copy and paste and then delete as you use them.

  • Use: implemented, applied, engaged, used, tested, signed up, explored, investigated, analysed, planned, gauge, delegated, integrated
  • Progression:  improve, extend, develop, enhanced, exentuate, analyse
  • Create/creativity: develop, design, map out, collate, draft, experiment, aesthetics, design, layout, conventional, adapt, tweak, alter, amend
  • Achieve: succeed, result, deliver, appropriate, win

EXAMINER’S COMMENTS

SO BOTTOM LINE – CELEBRATE YOUR SKILLS JOURNEY AND THE IMPACT ON YOUR PRODUCTS

TEMPLATE

TECHNOLOGIES

  • HARDWARE X 3
  • SOFTWARE X 3
  • ONLINE X  3

PROCESS

  • RESEARCH/PLANNING
  • PRODUCTION/POST PRODUCTION
  • FEEDBACK/EVALUATION

 

 
Concepts, Exam Paper 2, Information, Year 13 Coursework, Year 13 Critical Reflections

CCR1 – How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do they represent social groups or issues? – Prezi – Individual

Leave a comment

Task: Prezi (Individual Task)

You should describe and analyse your three products with reference to specific examples and use terminology to describe how those conventional features have been used, developed, challenged (designed) by you to construct/represent a specific set of ideas, which is: your brand or mission statement! 

You must then go on to say how your representation (ideology) of your star and issues raised in video were shaped by you.

  • The conventional design features in your video, include examples such as lighting, framing & composition, camera movement  mise-en-scene, editing styles, filters, effects and rhythmic editing…
  • Conventional print design in your digipack: images, filters, adjustments, graphics, colour palette, typeface, stroke, fill, gradients, arrangement (Bring Forward, Back)…
  • Conventional web design: call to action, hero shot, social media tours, interactivity, merch links…

To ensure you are addressing the question – bold or highlight or underline every time you use:

  • the terms use, develop, challenge, copy, emulate, follow etc
  • the terms represent, portray, convey, infer, imply etc
  • every time you have an adjective in the analysis of how the groups/issues are represented

So what is the convention in a real media example….did you use, challenge etc and then what was the resulting representation of either the star, a character in the narrative or a theme/issue?

Do not reinvent the wheel…you already have several screen shots and examples from real media texts to use as your examples – revisit your conventions analysis of DP, Website and MV.  Don’t make work for yourself.

 

Example Prezi

Link to PSW

New presentation

 

Information

CCR2 – How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’? – Directors Commentary – Group

Leave a comment

How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

Task:

  • Video directors commentary on all three products with particular reference to star image & brand values.

You are working in your production group to prepare the video for this but you must contribute equally to the voice over and introduce yourself when speaking. You make some bullet point prompts together, but you must be able to verbalise and explain these concepts & how they apply yourself!

Preparing the video for the commentary.

  1. Create a new Premiere project and import the .mp4 file you exported as your final draft for your music video.
  2. Drop the video into ‘sequence one’ timeline, ‘Unlink’ the sound (A1) from the  video (V1)
    1. You will either delete the sound channel completely or…
    2. …fade the music in and out over the commentary.
  3. Record a commentary explaining the brand image you have communicated in your video, digipack and website.
    1. The emphasis in this voiceover should be how the three products are…visually, thematically, aesthetically, generically, institutionally & ideologically linked into your BRAND or STAR IMAGE!
  4. You must use media terminology to describe production techniques and you used and should also use some terms relevant theory / concepts that you have learnt during the course; e.g:
    • Theory of the Active Audience: preferred / negotiated / oppositional reading (Hall)
    • Stars Image, Ideology & the Metanarrative (Dyer)
    • Semiotics & Structuralism (Barthes)
    • Narrative: Structure, themes, chronology, positioning: (Propp / Todorov, Strauss)
    • Genre: conventions (blueprint), predictable pleasure (contract) & marketing (label) (Altman)
  5. Drop in a jpeg of each pane of your digipack and screen grabs from your web site in place of, (or over) the existing footage.
    1. This means you might have a full screen image or you might layer up the images over the video in V2. This is will be where you are discussing those the specific links between the products and what you were trying to achieve.

Guidance

Please answer the following questions in your voice-over:

  1. How do the products reflect the star image & ideology of the artist?
    • Theorist – Dyer
    • Terms: Star image, Brand, Meta-narrative.
  2. How are the products designed to create a coherent brand identity?
    • Theorist – Blumler & Katz
      • Terms: Social Interaction, Information, Personal Identity & Entertainment
    • Theorist – Hall 
      • Terms: Active audience, preferred reading, ideology
  3. How does design of the digipack and website fit with the video?
    • Theorist Barthes
      • Terms: Signifies, encode, decode, cultural, symbolic, semic…code
  4. What are the institutional/business purposes behind the 3 products?
    • Theorist – Altman
      • Terms: Predictable pleasure, contract. Similar different. Marketing. Fans. Call to Action.

You may, of course, discuss other links and relationships; you should however try to show how there is a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship between the three products and how this is achieved. 

Whilst your DP and WEBSITE will not be directly linked to the actual song in the music video, you must focus on the links between them regarding visual style, genre, star image, representation, ideology and brand packaging of the performer, which will be the same.

Notes for Directors Commentary

Structure of the commentary: Timeline Map

Essential theories – recap:

You will need to plan some bullet points for a script of this voiceover, but you must not read it out

 

Information

First Lesson back after half-term

Leave a comment

Unfortunately, Miss Hales and Mrs Cobb will not be here on the first Monday back.

Use the lesson usefully to ensure that:

  • The products are completed and done – music video, digipak and website.
  • The blog posts are complete and up to date.
  • If you have done all of this – redraft your narrative essay.

We will be marching on to the CCR’s this week which require a lot of preparation and research as well as production – so get the decks swept, the desk cleared and your mind free of the products so that you can crack on with the final section of your coursework.

There is no more lesson time for production work.

Good luck.