How to write Question Two

The question may be about collective identity or mediation - be ready to explain both of these.

Collective identity - individuals sense of belonging to a group, which forms part of that persons personal identity through participating in social activities. 

Mediation - the process where you take something that is real, record it in some way and represent it back to an audience. Mediation is always present and cannot be any other way. 

It has three main effects..

1. Select/reject things from events and accounts, to leaving out of shots, to deleting viewpoint and lighting in the case of photography.
2. Organise things in to a logical order, reality tends to be a bit all over the place.
3. Focuses attention, it pretty much tells us what is important in a story about a person, by what it focuses on.

REMEMBER TO USE HISTORICAL TEXTS..

This is England, Quadrophenia,  Grange Hill, Harry Brown, Fish Tank.

AND CONTEMPORARY TEXTS IN AT LEAST TWO TYPES OF MEDIA..

Film and TV. Sket, Ill Manors, U Want Me To Kill Him, Attack the Block, The Young Apprentice, Sky Coverage of the London Riots, BBC News about the London Riots, Unsafe Sex In The City, Sia Chandelier Video, Blurred Lines Video.

THEORISTS

GIROUX 1997 - Argues that representations of youth becomes an ,empty category'  because the representations are created by adults and not the youths themselves.

DYER 1979 - 'Stereotypes are always about power. Those who have power stereotype those who don't. 

MULVEY 1975 - Women are represented as passive objects for the male gaze.

BUCKINGHAM - 'A focus on identity requires us to pay close attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequence for social groups'

GRAMSCI - His idea of hegemony that much of the media is controlled by the dominant group in society and the viewpoints associated with this group become embedded in the media products.

ACLAND 1995 - claims that representations of delinquent youth reinforces hegemony and because it establishes a 'normality' and this is shown as unacceptable. Also creates an ideology of protection.

COHEN 1972 - Who studied Mods and Rockers, argued that folk devils emerge in society which reflect the anxieties in the society. A 'moral panic; is created when folk devils become sensationalised so that politicians and the police become involved.

GERBNER 1986 - Says people that watch a lot of television over estimate the amount of crime in the real world, he called that 'mean world syndrome'. Because the news and TV drama and film contain a lot of representations of crime peoples perceptions are effected. This is 'CULTIVATION THEORY' which if applied to representations of youth as delinquents could, over time, influence how they are perceived.

JENKINS 1992 - We belong to a participatory culture rather than a spectatorial one.

GIDDENS 1991 - Claimed that mediated experiences makes people reflect and rethink their own self-narrative in relation to others. That although we are free we are also constrained on these activities. He stated that the self is not something we are born with, but rather it is constructed by the individual and is not fixed.

GAUNTLETT 2002 - 'Ideas about lifestyle and identity that appear in the media are resources which individuals think through their sense of self and modes if expression.

Exam Plan

Introduction - Explain what mediation or collective identity is. -

Collective identity - individuals sense of belonging to a group, which forms part of that persons personal identity through participating in social activities. 

Mediation - the process where you take something that is real, record it in some way and represent it back to an audience. Mediation is always present and cannot be any other way. 

Paragraph One (Historical) - Quadrophenia - Make a point about the scene where main character is looking at the naked woman. Make reference to the 'MALE GAZE THEORY' - LAURA MULVEY. Lastly talk about 'This Is England' creating 'Moral Panics' - COHEN.  Talk about the scene in 'Grange Hill' where the children are shown to respect elders - 'EMPTY CATEGORY' - GIROUX. 

Paragraph two (Contemporary)  - Talk about the representation shown in 'SKET' - RICHARD DYER - how you see people is how you treat people. This film is likely to effect the opinion of the audience because these youth are shown to be so volatile and unapproachable. 

Paragraph three (Contemporary) - Talk about Sky news, BBC News and Independent News. GERBNER - cultivation theory

Paragraph four (Contemporary) - Talk about Self representation, Selfies, Bloggers, Vloggers (youtube). JENKINS 

Paragraph five (Contemporary) - 'The Young Apprentice' and 'Unsafe Sex In The City'

Conclusion - Overall multiple representations of our collective identity group of youth are shown throughout all types and platforms of media...

How to write Question One B

Genre

'Kind' or 'Class'. Used as a way to group certain things.

Neale - Genres are instances of repetition and differences.
Toderov - Any instances of genre will be necessarily different.
Lacey - Repetior of elements, Setting, Character, Narrative, Iconography, Style.
Gledhill - Genre is not discrete systems, consisting of a fixed huber of listable times.

Opening Paragraph 

• What is genre?
• Steve Neale 
• A brief description of my opening. 

First Paragraph 

• From the research we found.. Toderov states that 'Any instances of genre will be necessarily different' this is shown in my work through...

Second Paragraph

• Make point
• Link theorist
• Summarise 

Third Paragraph

• Make point
• Link theorist (Lacey)
• Summarise 

Fourth Paragraph

• Make point
• Link theorist (Gledhill)
• Summarise 

Conclusion

• Summarise points aout genre

How to write Question One A

Conventions

Preliminary task - 

• 180 degree rule
• Action Match
• Flow naturally
• Continuity

Film Opening -  

Se7en - 

• Flickering white titles - Followed by using them in our own work.
• Fast pace editing - Followed and developed by having even faster cuts in our own work.
• Numeric substitution in the film title.
• Montage editing.

Woman in Black -

• Costume - Followed this by using old fashioned clothing
• Fear of the unknown - Followed this by having the storyline as an enigma code.
• Children as the object of fear - Followed and challenged in this film there was use of both innocent children and scary children. In our film opening their intentions were unknown.

Adverts - 

Th!nk adverts -

• Vulnerable character - Followed by using a female.
• Use of equilibrium - Positive start to the narrative
• Relatable main character - Young pretty, fashionable female.

Drug advert - 

• Some handheld filming for effect
• Dark lighting - negative feel.
• Fashionable clothing - relatable 

Rape Advert - 

• Vulnerable female character
• Threatening male character

Research and planning

Question 1 Section B

Talk about ONE of your media productions.
Use theorists.
USE EXAMPLES.

Structure…
Paragraph One - Introduction, which project is being written about and a brief description of it.

Paragraph Two - What are some of the key features of the concept you are being asked to apply? Maybe outline two of the ideas of particular theorists briefly. 

Paragraph Three - Start to apply the concept making close reference to your production to show how the concept is evident.

Paragraph Four - Try to show ways in which ideas work in relation to your production and also ways in which those ideas might not apply/challenged.

Paragraph Five - Conclusion.

REMEMBER THAT THIS QUESTION IS ONLY 30 MINUTES! 

Possible areas… 

Genre
- What piece you are working on and the genre.
- Genre pros and cons.
- Showing and following conventions.
- Theorist and how they used the theory.
- refer back to the audience
- Specific examples
- Examples of existing film.
- Theories and how they can be seen in your work.
- Why the production was successful.

Narrative


Representation
- How the media shows us things about society.
- Mediation - REpresentation.
- Shared recognition of people, situations, ideas.
- All representations about society have ideologies behind them. Certain paradigms are encoded into texts and others are left out in order to give a preferred representation.
- A hegemonic view of society - Fundamental inequalities in power between social groups. Groups in power exercise their influence culturally rather than by force.
Concept has origins in Marxist theory - ruling capitalist class are able to protease their economic interests.
Representations are encoded into mass media texts in order to do this - reinforce the dominant ideologies in society. 
Hyperreality - We inhabit a society that is no longer made up of any original thing for a sign to represent - it is the sign that is now the meaning.

Audience


Media Language- Media Language refers to the way in which media producers make meaning in ways that are specific to the medium which they are working and how audience come to be literate in 'reading' such meaning within the medium. For example, the 'language of film' print layout inventions, web design and navigation conventions and rule economies in gaming. 
- These medium specific languages will often be closely connected to other media concepts such as genre or narrative and candidates are at liberty to make such connections to a greater or lesser extent in their answer.
- Aims/Objectives - to reinforce the basic media language that create meaning in texts.
- To have basic understanding of how to evaluate your coursework against the media language that you used.
The importance of media language…
 - Every media has its own 'language' or combination of languages - that it uses to communicate meaning. Television, for example uses verbal and written language as well as the languages of moving images and sound. We call these languages because they use familiar codes and conventions that are generally recognised.

Relevant theorists… 

BARTHES (1977) 
- Argued that "in film connotation can be analytically distinguished from denotation."
- Myth - ideologies work through symbolic codes - mythic in the sense of having the appearance of being 'natural' or 'common sense'.
- "striptease is based on contradiction. Woman is desexualised at the very moment when she is naked" He is suggesting kit is clothes that sexualise her more - loads of evidence of this in pop videos. Can this be subverted in your texts by your representation?

FISKE (1982) - Puts it "'denotation' is what is filmed and 'connotation' is how it is filmed."

Richard Dyer (1983) posed a few questions when analysis media representations in general.
1. What sense of the world is it making?
2. What does imply? Is it typical of the world or deviant?
3. Who is it speaking to? For whom? To whom?
4.What does it represent to us and why? How do we respond to the representation?

Tim O'Sullivan et al (1998) Ideology - Refers to a set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality. Notion of ideology entails widely helped ideas or beliefs which are seen as 'common' sense and become naturalised.
- what is important is that, in Marxist terms the medias role may be seen as: 
- Circulating and reinforcing dominant ideologies
- (less frequently) undermining and challenging such ideologies.

Judith Williamson (1978) - Detailed that advertisements (Posters and adverts) draw heavily on myths. - They use cultural signifiers to represent qualities which can be realised through the consumption of the project.

Carl Rogers (1980) - in the case of magazine texts and adverts they are encoded specifically to represent an aspirational lifestyle offering audiences images of an ideal self and ideal partner.

Baudrillard - Hyperreality - We inhabi a society that is no longer made up of any original thing for a sign to represent - It is the sign that is now the meaning. He argues that we live in a society of simulacra - simulations of reality that replace the real. Think Disney.


Previous Questions…June 2012 - Explain how meaning is constructed through the use of media language in ONE of your media productions. 
Jan 2012 - Analyse media representation in ONE of your coursework productions. 
June 2011 -Analyse ONE of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of audience. 
Jan 2011 - Apply theories of narrative to ONE of your coursework productions.
June 2010 - Analyse ONE of your course work products in relation to genre.

Jan 2010 - Analyse media representation in ONE of your coursework productions. 

Question 1 Section A

Talk about BOTH Foundation and Advanced Portfolio.
Don't use theorists.
USE EXAMPLES.

Structure…
Paragraph One - Introduction explaining which of the projects I completed (Short Paragraph)

Paragraph Two - Should pick up on the skill area and perhaps suggest something about the starting point. Talk about the skills you have used and how this was shown in the work produced, use an example.

Paragraph Three - Talk through use of that skill in early projects and what you have learned and developed through these. Use examples.

Paragraph Four - Go on to demonstrate how the skill has developed in later projects, again back up with examples and reflecting back on how this representation moves forward.

Paragraph Five - Short conclusion.

REMEMBER THAT THIS QUESTION IS ONLY 30 MINUTES! 

Possible areas… 

Digital Technology
- What Software was used?
- What equipment was used?
- What were the technical pros and cons of the software and the hardware?
- In what ways were the technology used to create the production?
- In what ways id the technology constrain or enable the production to be developed?

Camera, Youtube, Web 2.0, Premier pro, Imovie, Photoshop, Blogger etc.

Creativity
- What was the intended outcome of the production?
- How were these outcomes achieved in terms of camera shot choices and editing decisions?
- What Stylistic techniques were used to appeal to the audience?

Post-production
- What editing decisions were made?
- How did they inform production?
- What particular editing tools were used and to what effect?
- How did the post-production process enhance the overall production? 
- What skills did you develop at the sage of post-production?

- Production at AS consisted of filming and making the preliminary task and title sequence/ taking photographs.

- Production at A2 consisted of filming for the adverts, photographs for pop up and audio for the radio advert.

- Post-production at AS consisted of editing the timelines and putting text and graphics together and using photoshop.

Post-production at A2 consisted of editing the footage and audio in premier pro and the pop up in photoshop.

Research and planning
- What primary and secondary research was undertaken?
- How did it inform the production? (existing adverts)
- How effective were planning methods such as story boards and practice edits? Were they followed?

A2 Research - More advanced, more direct, in more detail.
A2 Planning - More detailed and intricate.

Using conventions of real media products
- In what ways were conventions adhered to?
- Were the representations involved appropriate to the product?
- Audience?

Previous Questions…
June 2012 - Describe a range of creative decisions that you made in post-production and how these decisions made a difference to the final outcomes, refer to a range of examples in your answer.

Jan 2012 - Describe how your analysis of the conventions of real media texts informed your own creative media practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills develop over time. 

June 2011 - Explain how far your media understanding of the range of existing media productions influenced the way you created your own media products. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how this understanding developed over time.

Jan 2011 - Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making, refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how your skills have developed over time.

June 2010 - Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research developed over time.

Jan 2010 - Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answers to show how these skills have developed over time.

The way that mediation has formed the representation of youth

Discuss how one or more groups are represented through the media…

The way in which youth are represented in society depends entirely on how what is being shown has been mediated. Mediation is the process in which any piece of information or events go through before being presented in the media. What is being shown in the media is not real life it is just somebody's representation of real life. An example of this is the way that youth are often represented in a very negative light shown in the historic film 'Quadrophenia' and the contemporary documentary 'Unsafe sex in the city'. Giroux's theory however argues that this is an 'empty category' as this representation has been created by adults and therefore is not reflecting the reality. In other contemporary documentaries such as 'The young apprentice' youth are represented as hard working and respectful, showing how each representation is merely based on the opinion of the producer and is not reality.

Pluralism however, suggests that the media has a wide range of choices with regards to representation which are entirely mirrored on society and therefore if a certain representation is dominant it is purely due to that representation being popular with the audiences. This idea suggests that the audiences must be entertained by this negative representation of youth and this is why this has become dominant. 

Acland

Gerbner

Homework 5th feb

Describe the ways in which your project work was aided by your use of digital technology and how your ability to use digital technology developed over time.

Throughout my time studying media at As and A level, My skills have developed especially with regards to using digital technology. This is especially obvious when looking at the progress made from my foundation portfolio to my advanced portfolio. 

During my foundation portfolio I created was asked to create preliminary task. This required creating a short practice video including particular shots such as actions like walking through a door, shot reverse shot and over the shoulder shots filming a conversation. The digital technology I used in which to create this work started with the camera which was a Nikon D3200. Initially this taught me simply how to turn the camera on and how to use it to record video. It also helped with learning the different shots and how to hold the camera. After filming the required shots I then used a Mac computer upload and store the videos in order to edit them. The digital software I used to edit this video was I Movie which is a very simple from of editing software. This taught me how to cut videos and order them in a way best to suit the film. This software also taught me how to add music and simple titles to my video to achieve the desired affect. We then used the website youtube to distribute our preliminary task and uploaded it to our blog which is where we document the work that we have done.

For the main task in my foundation portfolio I was required to create a horror film opening. This once again required using the camera however since the preliminary task my camera skills had improved greatly allowing me to change the colour and light settings to achieve the desired look. In this I also used even more advanced shots and zooms to create a more realistic and complex film. This time the the digital technology used to edit the film was far more complex as it was Adobe Premier pro. This allowed me to cut the clips to even more precise points with the razor blade tool. I also learnt how to use the 'nest' tool to group different videos together in order to keep the required clips together once they had been cut to the right length. For the film opening I used the online website 'Royalty free music' to download the sounds and songs that I needed for my film opening. This program has a far more complex way of exporting the finished film however we learnt this quickly and uploaded our finished film to youtube once again. This form of editing software really helped stick to the conventions of horror films as it let us use fade to blacks and a fast pace to create an enigma code. 

For my advanced portfolio we were asked to make an advertisement for which I decided to create a public awareness campaign. For the ancillary part we had to create a pop-up for a website and a radio advert. To create the pop up i used all of the technology in the studio to get the photographs for my pop up. I then uploaded them to the mac and edited them using photoshop by changing the levels and curves and cutting round the body of the model and creating a transparent background. I then used the shape tool to create my pop up and then interred the photograph. I then used web 2.0 to upload the finished pop up to my blog. For the radio advert I used sound recording technology which allowed me to directly upload the sounds to the mac ready for editing on premier pro. 

Homework - 20th Jan

Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.

In my first year of media studies I created the opening of a horror film for my foundation portfolio. We chose horror as our genre because this genre comes with lots of common conventions that are easy and fun to produce. There is also a very wide range of narratives that we could use for our film opening. After consideration we decided that we would base the narrative of our horror around a reoccurring nightmare which has connections to the main characters life and the film would explain this nightmare through out.

We followed Toderov's narrative theory which includes having an equilibrium, then a disruption to the equilibrium, attempts to restore the equilibrium and then a slightly different equilibrium. Despite following the sections of this theory we did change the order in which each stage was shown due the genre of our film being horror. For our film we had to ensure that the opening showed an enigma code to keep the audience wondering and intrigued by what is happening. We showed our normal equilibrium by showing the woman asleep which shows her just to be an average normal person. We then had the short clips of the nightmare disrupting her sleep and therefore disrupting the equilibrium. This gave the audience a question to ask themselves of 'why is she seeing this' We showed how this nightmare had been continuous by having her write in her book which is suggesting that this is something that has happened before. As our film was only the opening we did not get to show the reparation of the equilibrium but had we made the whole film this would have been shown.

We followed Barthes theory of enigma code to help to show our narrative and once again maintain the focus and interest of the audience. By showing very restrictive short cuts of the nightmare in between shots of the main character writing and struggling to sleep this kept the audience wondering what was going on and who the main character is. By not having any dialogue in the opening this continued the enigma code as there was no evidence of any regional accents or anything therefore creating a slightly mysterious and enigmatic main character.

Propps theory states the different characters which should or would be included in each narrative. His theory states that there should be a hero, villain and a 'princess'. Despite our film not directly showing these characters they are represented in our film opening. For example the main character represents the 'princess' character or the 'damsel in distress' as she is the one who is seen in discomfort over the dream. The children who feature in the nightmare could be seen as the villain as they are the ones who are causing the discomfort for the women and if our film progressed would be the characters in which cause the trouble. We have not thought about other characters which would be introduced later on in the film however it is quite likely that a male character who acts as a sort of 'hero' would help show our narrative and fit the conventions of the horror genre.

Over all the narrative in our film took influence from Barthes, Propp and Toderovs theory's in order to maintain a realistic and continuous production.