Unit 8 - rationale

Client issues a commission brief to potentially interested parties

Media pros research and develop their ideas to respond to the commission. They then pitch their ideas  to the client presenting using: rationale, proposal and treatment (you'd use a storyboard to show how the product would work)

Client commissions the idea they feel meets what they're looking for.

Client feedbacks on progress.

Target audience (aims of the commission)
Platform - How to achieve said goal -
Theme
Message
Aim of the product
Additional features/content
Deadline
Budget

Rationale structure 
State how the overall product will meet the key features of the commission
Explain how the product will address the needs of the target audience
Explain how the product will address the themes of the commission
Explain how the product will meet the intended aims of the product
State how your creative ideas will produce a successful and effective product
Conclude with convincing justifications for why your proposals should be accepted

(Social grade, psychographics, demographics)

Part 1
Outline who the product is aimed at
Why are you targeting these groups
What is the aim of the product? Why do we need this product
How will this target audience influence your ideas for the product?

Part 2 - primary research
Create a questionnaire, minimum of 6 questions
Look at the exemplar for ideas on the sorts of questions to ask
Ask your target audience to complete your questionnaire
These responses will need to inform your ideas in some way, so make sure your questions are relevant/will help you come up with ideas that can be included in the product.
Before the assessment turn your results into pie charts and paste them onto your notes
Explain how this primary research will affect your ideas (Eg: However, no boys answered this questionnaire possibly suggesting that they need to become more aware. This has influenced decisions that will be made when making the final video to show that self-harming is not only carried out by girls but boys do it too)

Part 3 - secondary research
Existing products, what can you learn from them? How will your work follow 'repetition and difference' (Neale, Genre theory)
Explore further by sourcing at least 2 websites
The sort of information you are looking for - statistics, expert opinion, studies, individual stories etc
Make sure you explain how this research will influence your ideas, eg: this statistic heavily impacted my target audience as the commission needs to not only be fixated on girls but boys also, if not even more as boys are considered as more fearful to speak out about self-harm

Part 4 - understanding the client/commission 
Who are they?
What is their key message?
What do they hope to achieve from this product?

Part 5 - ideas generation
Come up with 3 suitable ideas for your product. In the exam you will need to describe a plot synopsis in detail. Eg: one of the exemplar idea is 15 lines long.
Then explain how these 3 ideas will measure against the client's criteria
Then choose one of your ideas to pitch. Justify your choice
Then develop your idea
Justify the developments of your idea

Unit 1 - Downtown Abbey clip analysis

Tracking shot and establishing shot.

Close up

One set of people are wearing work clothes whereas others wear suits/dresses, showing the difference in class with costumes (mise-en-scene) 

Non-Diagetic music implies that something negative has happened (in this case a ship has shunk) and people that the characters know have been affected. 

Unit 1 - Media representations - 23/1/19

Unit 1 – Media Representations. 23/1/19

Will be an onscreen examination, done in the media room under supervised conditions. 

The marks for the paper is out of 80. 

Will need headphones so you can hear video/audio clips in the exam.

They’ll give us a selection of resources. Eg: clips from TV shows, games, DVD cover, extracts 

from newspapers, etcetera. 

Theory based exam. Must be prepared to take notes, memorize theoretical concepts, and practice applying them over a range of media texts. 

Command words: analyze, compare, evaluate, explain, identify, to what extent. 

4 assessment outcomes: A01 – demonstrate knowledge and understanding of media terminology, semiotics, theories, concepts and messages. A02 – apply knowledge and understanding of media concepts, semiotics (signs), theories and formal techniques to constructed representations. A03 – analyze media texts to deconstruct representations and decode messages and evaluate their effectiveness and impact. A04 – make connections between polysemic (more than one) messages underpinning media representations and their related values and effects on wider society. 

Representation is the construction of aspect of identity and reality in the media. Audiences make assumptions on these based on the representations they see. 

The media chooses how to represent certain things in order to suggest to an audience how they should view them (and in turn how they should respond to them)

(My take on representation) How something/someone is represented (portrayed) in a form of media. Representation is created through people’s opinions/prejudices, for example older people may be prejudice against younger people as we’ve been portrayed to be scary/violent thugs by the media because of a few bad apples. 

Reality -> Mediated: Social media -> Representation -> Audience 

The areas of representation I may be asked on are: gender, age, social groups, ethnicity and places.

When analyzing media representations, ask yourself:

What is being represented? How is it being represented? What is it suggesting or implying? Who is it speaking to and why? Who produced it? Is it typical or unnatural? How do we 

respond to it?

Gender representations: male dominated. Females need a man/a man is always the love interest/savior/kidnapper. Males are supposedly the ‘hero’ whereas a woman is a ‘victim.’ Women have been often subject to sexualisation.  

Age: normally older men still get big roles whereas older women probably wouldn’t. Young people are stereotyped to be thugs, violent and out of control. Old people are seen as helpless, unable to look after themselves. Children are perceived as innocent, despite that sometimes not being the case, when a child goes missing it's seen as a bigger deal whereas if a older person goes missing. 

Social groups: upper class people are usually perceived to be snobby, distant from reality and they look down on people who are lower than them in terms of class. The upper class are portrayed to be the ones with power in society. Lower classes are often used as sources of amusement and portrayed to be in poverty and are perceived to be lazy people who don't do anything to change their situation.

Ethnicity: stereotypes. If you've experienced something you're going to take it more personally, if you've experienced racism you'll be more affected by any stories about racial abuse. Non-white people will be more stereotyped and have a negative portrayal in the media.

Places: in places there may exist regional stereotypes. With people in the South probably having a prejudiced opinion of people in the North and vice-versa.

Unit 6 - Completed: analyzing a media campaign: Toy Story 3.

https://www.slideshare.net/JamesGMedia/toy-story-3-media-campaign-analysis

Here is my completed analysis of the media campaign that was used to promote Toy Story 3.

https://www.slideshare.net/JamesGMedia/reviewing-the-success-of-the-media-campaign

Here is an analysis of the commercial and critical success of Toy Story 3.


https://www.slideshare.net/JamesGMedia/cohesion-135056047

Here is a quick analysis of the cohesion (link) between the three different advertising methods.

Unit 6 - analyzing Deadpool film campaign (practice)

The marketing budget for Deadpool was smaller than the average marketing budget, so Ryan Reynolds worked with Fox to use the internet to his advantage and he marketed the film in ways he felt that Deadpool would. This was quite unique for a single actor to do. Reynolds kept a single Deadpool costume for himself and throughout the campaign he himself appeared in it in the famous costume.

Social media
As the budget for marketing was lower than usual budgets social media would be very important to this advertising of this film. One method that was used was a 'fake' rivalry with Hugh Jackman, who plays fellow Marvel character Wolverine (For years it's been a running joke that they'll never do another film together). They would mock each others posts on social media with one example being when Hugh Jackman tweeted about visiting Beijing, Reynolds hilariously replied with 'pretty sure they're protesters', (a reference to the many protests that China has seen over the years) garnering 26,000 retweets and 122,000 likes which is quite a lot for Twitter even for celebrities.

Snapchat - they created a special lens for Deadpool (you could be a teddy bear that he held) and they also had the character 'twerk' to the music of Diplo.

Instagram - with many movies the Deadpool has its own Instagram page, with the page having 3 million followers, posting pictures ranging from critics reviews, posters that were used to advertise and many photos of Reynolds himself.

Twitter - they also had a Twitter account which done the same as the Instagram account, posting everything Deadpool related. However Twitter is a much better platform because you can interact more with the fans and spread the posts to a wider audience. Also on Twitter, in the lead up to the film release there was an average of 10/20,000 tweets per day about it, but after early screenings that number soared to 90,000 per day. Marc Weinstock who worked with Reynolds to promote film said "There's a lot of debate as to whether or not social media can really open a movie ... and this proves it can."