Unit 1 - advertising

What ways are you exposed to advertising?
Product placement - products are purposely placed in TV shows/films as a mini advert. Sometimes the characters of the shows/films use these products. Heineken's beer was featured in the James Bond film, Skyfall. It caused controversy though as people didn't think James Bond would drink Heineken. Source below:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/apr/17/bond-taste-for-beer-skyfall

Advertisements for new products/apps on television. And on big sporting events there's an advertising period, for example many new ads appeared during the Super Bowl (A massive event in the American Football calendar)

Content creators on YouTube are sponsored (and now on YouTube you might get ads on a video you watch), often doing collaborations with the certain company and on Instagram big accounts do sponsored posts. Mobile apps/software, some apps remove ads if you buy the 'premium' version, encouraging you to buy. Often these ads will come often and it will irritating, it's the apps way of getting you to purchase it.

Print based advertising, in the past you'd find ads in: newspapers, magazines (depending on the genre of magazine it'll affect what ads you'll get, if you get a football magazine there'll be more football related ads). Print advertising is limited as it's a 'right place, right time' moment, for example if you don't turn a page on a newspaper you may have missed an ad in it.

Billboards/bus stops/vehicles can advertise things as well, you can have those bus stops that flick through ads every few seconds.

Merchandising, for example football teams have sponsors on their shirts, for example Sunderland are sponsored by BETDAQ so each time you buy a Sunderland shirt you're advertising both the football team and the company that is on the front.

Conventions of advertising:
Brand logos McDonalds golden arches are recognized all over the world. Slogans - I'm Lovin It from McDonalds again is very recognizable too. Aim of being striking or memorable, emphasis on image over words, reliance on symbols and stereotypes.

Analysis of advertisements: https://www.slideshare.net/JamesGMedia/analysis-of-poster-video-and-merchandising-advertisement

Unit 10, Film Production - post production.

Editing: below is the screenshot of what Premiere Pro looked like for the finished film:
https://www.slideshare.net/JamesGMedia/editing-analysis-135872967

Also in this slide share document is an analysis of what I did while editing this film together.

Production Diary 5th March 2019 - this is the completed production diary, in this I went over the key dates in my production, from when I shot certain scenes and the equipment that I used.

Hotel Babylon - ethnicity

Hotel Babylon clip
Firstly we see the majority of the Caucasian cast are dressed smartly, in suits etcetera. (Although there is a black character in a suit so this point can't be used as a social class commentary)

We see the immigrants seem to be there illegally, as when the immigration service turn up the workers hurry all the other workers away, implying that they may not be in the country illegally. Almost stereotyping immigrants by saying they didn't come here legally.

The police seem to treat the immigrants like criminals, despite them not committing any violent crime, despite the fact they're there illegally (which is still wrong but the police are going over the top) they don't to be dragged away like they are criminals.

There seems to be a hidden message in this clip. What I believe the show is saying is that we treat immigrants too harshly, like I wrote above we seem to treat illegal immigrants like violent criminals yet companies are happy to exploit them for their cheaper labour, it shows the hypocrisy of the public, we don't like they're here illegally but we're happy to use them for our own benefit. The clip seems to use tense music, implying if they're caught then their life will change (and not in a good way), because most immigrants come to the UK for example to escape a horrible life back home. Lately in real life there's been a lot of immigrants from Syria escaping the civil war that is raging there.

The immigration service seem to have no care for the immigrants, they see trying to find illegals as a game almost.

We're on the immigrants' side in this clip: as the police have been portrayed as the antagonists and the performances from the actors make the police look like emotionless and cynical people. The immigration officer also flaunts his authority by tracking him and his 'goons'.

The shots show/imply that it's a race against of time, the workers are trying to hurry away the illegals before 'it's too late.' Too late meaning before the law gets you.

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.