Author: Mr G

Setting the Project Cache

Standard

A feature of Premiere is that it likes all it’s project material in one place, in one folder in one drive.

After the recent upgrade Adobe has now reset the default location of the ‘Media Cache’. (A hidden folder which Premiere uses to write temporary files to when applying effects and transitions). Premiere now writes these files to your My Documents folder, which is on a network drive and so your project files are not in one place! This may cause Premiere to run badly, crash and burn.

To fix this you need to redirect Premiere to write the Media Cache to your project folder in the D Drive .

To do this open your project and go to Edit > Media Cache.

You then need to change the location by going to Browse, selecting your project folder in the D drive, create a new folder called ‘Cache’ and select it.

DSLR Menu Filming Settings

Standard

If you are going to use a DSLR to shoot your music video you are going to have to tackle the video settings.

The settings you choose will depend on:

  • Lighting and shadows
  • Motion or lack of
  • Depth of field

These are the settings that should work if you were to film outside on a sunny day.

Make sure the camera is switched to filming mode and then press the menu button on the back of the camera.

Page 1
  • Exposure
    • Auto will set a compromise between shutter speed, ISO and exposure
    • Manual if you want a very specific effect (bokeh or movement).
      • Only use this if you are confident & had experience with a DSLR.
  • Focus
    • Auto Focus (FlexizoneAF).
    • AF w/shutter button during filming (enable).
      • This will allow you to change focal length by pressing the camera shutter button whilst you are filming)
      • Ensure the lens is switched to AF
    • Manual Focus (for shallow DoF & pulling focus). This will give you control over the manual focus.
      • Ensure the lens is switched to MF & use the focus ring at the end of the lens to change focus
        • Only use if you are confident.
        • It might look in focus in camera but be blurred on a larger screen!
  • Contrast
    • High Light Tone Priority enable for filming in bright (sun)light to avoid light colours being washed out.
    • This will mean you cannot change other settings – these are done automatically
Page 2
  • Video System – NTSC
  • If you want to use slow motion in the edit.
    • Movie Rec Size: 1280×720 (60 fps)
  • If you want to get better quality colour & image definition
    • Movie Rec Size:  1920×1080 (30fps)

 

Updating your Blog

Standard

As we move into A2 production you will need to update your blog. This means:

  • A new brief on the home page, which you can access through ‘Pages’ rather than ‘Posts’.
  • New menu items for the new production tasks and Creative Critical Reflections.
  • A new menu system, which lists your production work under:
    • Component 1 (The Music Magazine)
    • Component 2 (The Cross Media Production)

Please carefully read and follow the instructions in  this document, which give a step by step guide to updating your blog.

This also means a new blog league, which you can find in the new menu at the top of this blog.

Nomination for The Gregsons 2018

Standard

As you know we will be holding our annual awards ceremony for AS & A2 Media Studies students on Tuesday 13th March at The Performing Arts Centre, starting at 7.00. You will all receive and invitation for yourself and a +1.

All the magazines will be entered for one category, such journalism, graphics & DTP…There will also be an overall Best Magazine of the Year, into which you will all be entered. We are really pleased that guests from Specsavers, Blue Diamond, Guernsey Press will be along to present some of the awards.

As we introduce the categories and nominees we would like to play an animated video of your magazine pages.

The winner in each category will have their magazine displayed in its entirety.

To this end, we need you to put your production work into the P Drive:

Year 12 Media Students

  1. Create your folder in ‘Year 12 Media’ . Folder name = ‘Your Name, Magazine Name’
  2. Copy in your final PDF and Jpeg of the three pages. File names:
    • Front Cover
    • Contents Page
    • DPS
  3. Highlight which one you want to be printed out for display in the Foyer at the Gregsons by adding DISPLAY to it.

WeVideo

Standard

You are going to edit your Dragon’s Den interview in WeVideo.

We have put together a template edit and also recorded some reaction shots and noddies, which you can drop into your video as you see fit.

To get on WeVideo:

  1. Sign up for a free account using your school Google account. You can click on the sign up with Google icon and confirm your school account.
  2. To upgrade to a full account you will need to follow this link. You will be prompted to link to an existing account and you should select the Google account you just signed up with.
    • This will link you to The States of Guernsey LEA.
  3. Finally, you need to join the project Mrs Cobb & Mr Gregson have set up, which include the template edit.
    • To do this, please follow this link.
    • You may need this code: M2VNBAj
    • You should then see a project called Creative Critical Reflection 2
  4. Please duplicate the edit called ‘CCR2 Template’ and rename it, using your name in the title.
  5. Then you will need to film your responses to the question set in the video and listed in the blog.
  6. Upload this video through the Media tab (use the + button in the bottom right).
  7. You will then use a mix of your media (which you have uploaded) and Shared media (which we uploaded and shared) to make your edit.
  8. Export it to your school YouTube account and embed it into your blog.

Creative Critical Reflection 2

Standard

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

There are a number of concepts that need to be addressed to answer this question fully.

  1. Who is you audience?
  2. How did you fulfil your audiences needs and expectations?
  3. What is meant by distribution?
  4. Who owns and controls magazine distribution
  5. How are real media texts distributed in the online age?

Audience

You must define and describe your audience in these ways.

  1. Demographics and Psychographics – audience segmentation
  2. You should also use your Yougov findings to explain what other media texts they consume as well as other information.

Uses & Gratification

  1. You should link specific elements of your magazine (contents, bands, representation, language, design (fonts / graphics) to specific uses and gratifications that you think your audience have.

Distribution

  1. Complete this work sheet in order to explore magazine ownership & distribution.
  2. Read the three articles below (also in the work sheet) in groups in order to research the business of magazine distribution and the challenges created by the internet & social media.

Research Articles

Institutional (Distribution) Issues

  • Quality (factual) journalism is expensive and so is traditional print and distribution.
  • However, it’s hard to make money out of online content. Most of it goes to FB & Google, leaving everyone else scrabbling for the scraps.
  • Exclusives remain ‘exclusive’ for about 10 seconds before it’s all over social media.
  • How do you square this circle?

TASK:

A Dragon’s Den style sales pitch to a distributor for your magazine:

You must address the following questions:

  • Describe your brand values / mission statement?
    • How will your magazine be distinct from or similar to others?
  • Who are your target audience?
    • Use Yougov, image and profile + other details.
  • Why would that audience buy your magazine?
  • Who would you want to work with to distribute your magazine?
    • Which of the big magazine groups would you hope to work with?
    • How does your magazine fit with their existing publications?
  • What sort of advertiser would you hope to attract?
    • Link to your two selected ads & explain.
  • What strategies do you have for distribution? How will you link your print content with online content?
    • How can a print magazine survive in digital world?
    • Some answers & thoughts 
      • Increasingly sensational celebrity gossip stories – Churnalism (cheap and easy)
      • Freebies.
      • Reduce cover price (free) & rely on ad sales.
      • Link to enhanced digital content on website.
      • Employ social media to promote our brand.
        • Audience participation & interaction (Uses and Gratification)
      • Link digital content back to print, whet the audience’s appetite, require the audience to buy print version to get full details.
      • Use a paywall for online content.

Creative Critical Reflection 1

Standard

How does my product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

This question is asking you to be a detective. There are two elements to this case:

  1. What are the clues in my magazine?
    • The clues are the conventions
  2. What meaning is suggested, implied or connoted through those clues?
    • The meaning is the representation.

We have done work on the conventions of magazine and you may need to revisit the lessons in the departmental blog blog and the important posts in your own. These will refresh you memory about the key concepts and terminology you need to use in the reflection.

The work we did on identifying conventions (clues) are in these posts:

The work we did on representation (values, attitudes & beliefs) are in these posts:

Task 1:

Identify all the (conventions) clues on your magazine pages.

Task 2:

Using your mission statement, your design ideas for your star & analysis of your own magazine pages, develop a list of 15-20 adjectives which can be used to describe the values, attitudes and beliefs of your magazine and stars.

Task 3:

Present your ideas using Prezi.

  1. Sign up to a free account
  2. Copy and rename this prezi

  1. Replace the images in the presentation with examples from your own magazine (use the snipping tool).
  2. Replace the words in the presentation with…
    • …description of your examples (used or developed) and
    • …analysis the representational meaning the examples communicate.

Some additional resources that may help:

Writing the Article

Standard

Task 1 – Enquiry – LANGUAGE ANALYSIS blog post.

Choose one of the double page spread articles below that is similar to the sort of article you wish to write.

Don’t worry if you end up changing your mind later.

  1. Biography 
  2. Intro to a long read.
  3. 10 Tips for Life
  4. Q&A
  5. New Band
  6. Album Reviews
  7. Interview

Use this document to help you unpick the article and explore how the journalist is using words to create a tone, an impact and communicate their ideas.

You analysis should be between 350-400 words and should be typed into your blog along with a link to the article you’re discussing.

Task 2 – ARTICLE IDEA DEVELOPMENT blog post.

Idea Development

Develop an idea for an article and think about your approach.

Your article will need to match your photographs, but you still have quite a lot of possible angles (see examples above).

‘A hook’ is a treatment for an article. It usually is part of the pitch that a writer or journalist will make to their editor before they are given permission to spend time writing the article. The hook should include:

  1. Who are you writing for?
  2. What is important to your audience?
  3. What news is currently trending?
  4. How are you going to start
    1. Remember you might not write the whole article!

Here is the full article on good hooks for magazine articles. Which includes some good ideas on how to start.

Write a blog post on your plans for the article called ‘Planning the Article’

Preparation for writing the article

Choose one of the following tasks:

  • If it’s an interview you should develop a range of questions (and answers), which you can build into your article.
  • If it’s a review of an album or a gig, you should develop some details of the event and elements to review
  • If it’s a general article about a genre of music (10 Best…) you should do some research into the music and famous artists/albums.
  • If it’s a biography piece you need to invent 5-10 interesting life events of your star / band that the audience want to know about.

If your article does not fit into one of these discuss your planning ideas with your teacher.

Article Planning

Draft

  • Write the first draft ready for feedback and redrafting
  • You can do this on classroom so that your peers can proof it and your teacher can give you some feedback too.

Image File Types

Standard

What you need to know about image file types:

This should not be an issue unless you keep saving your files as a Jpeg.

You should be doing all your photo manipulation in Photoshop and once it is complete placing the Photoshop file in Indesign. In other words, now that we are into the proper design stages, this is what you should be doing.

Contact Sheet

Standard

How To:

Make sure ALL of your photos are in your project folder in the D Drive.

  1. Open Photoshop & Your Blog
  2. Go to File>Automate
  3. Select Contact II
  4. Choose the Folder where the images are
  5. Select how many rows and columns for you contact sheet 4×6 is OK, but depends on the number of photos.
  6. Export as a PDF & Jpeg and upload to your blog.
  7. Below the contact sheet – put the image(s) that you are going to use in your design