Monday 5 December 2011

Pre Production

Shooting Schedule
Times
Mon
Tues
Wed
Thurs
Fri
Period 1+2
Media lesson
 -
 -
 -
Filming media video
Period 3+4
 -
 -
Media lesson
Filming media video
 -
Period 5+6
Filming media video
 -
 -
 -
 -

These were the hours that our group had free lessons and so we decided that these were the hours that we would shoot our music video. We will also need some extra hours for editing once our video is completed and therefore we may need to do this independently to be able to reach our full potential in our media coursework.

The roles and responsibilities of each member of the group:
Charlotte: Editing, actor, takes care of and prepares props.
Luke: Director, camera assistant, editing.
Marianna: Editing, actor, sound recordist.
Molly: Actor, editing, costume designer.

Shooting Questions



a) What is the videos theme?
As a group we have decided that we want to represent today’s youth society in our video; the song states a ‘messed up generation ‘therefore we want to show a realistic insight into today’s youths.We want the video to be fun an exciting and be something that youths can relate to, exploring different dimensions such as different perspectives from different types of people. We don’t want the video to be a cliché; we want to bring something unexpected and unique.We want the video to be fast moving, suggesting that young people’s lives are fast tempo and independent however we want our viewers to get a gritty insight into the lives of some that they would rather not see.

b) What are its mood progressions?
One of the aims of our video is to show the fast moving mood changes in the characters.We want the video in theory to be ‘messed up’ therefore there needs to be many highs and lows and changes of happy moods to depressing moods, one of the ways we are going to show this is by the use of colours and lighting, deep blues red and black obviously represent dark down times however bright natural greens and pastel colours can show a fresh organic attitude.

c) What kind of location should each sequence have?
Each location should be suited to the scene; one of our group’s aims is to incorporate as many different scenes into our video as this will show the fast moving tempo and the different stories we are trying to represent this will also portray the different cultures and unique styles that youths society has.

d) What statement should each location make towards the videos premise?
Our theme is to make the video as vibrant and loud as possible and each location should match the theme for example if we are trying to show fresh or new attitudes we may plan to film outside as this can be symbolic to the point we are trying to make.Our idea is to show different reflective moods therefore we may need to film in a number of different places, for example we want to show real aspects of youths lives; not everyone enjoys the same social things therefore we may need to film in schools, pubs clubs or even in a home location.

e) How should each set be lit?
Each set should be lit according to the mood we are trying to portray, for example if we want to show love then the colour reds may show this or if we want to show a ‘dark side’ to someone then black would show danger and being lost.

f) What kind of props goes with the set?
We will need to make a full schedule plan of what needs to be in every set, props play a major part in showing a scene and making it believable, therefore we need to think about what is being included. We are also working on a very tight budget therefore we may need to think about what is necessary to make our final piece to the standard it should be.

g) What kind of belongings do the characters need to keep around them?
We want to show diversity in our characters therefore each character will represent a different sort of person for example the ‘bad child’ may be carrying alcohol, cigarettes and maybe even drugs. We want to show the path that a child may be lead into. However some of the other characters may represent the good in today’s youth as in the media today’s youth are always seen as being bad rather than doing anything positive towards society.


h) What kind of clothes does each character wear and what do the clothes tell us?
Clothes play a major part in our video as it will be one of the things our audience will be looking at first, as our theme is pop we want to show popular clothes that people wear as these people will be our main target audience and want to relate to our video. High street brands will be included as we want our video to represent today’s youth society and show a normal society.


I) What colour palette and progression would promote the videos thematic development?
We want the whole of our video to be fast moving as the song itself is very fast tempo with scenes constantly changing, the theme is gritty British society therefore moods need to be up and down to show reality, colours need to be vibrant and loud.

Shooting Script Questions
What do you need to show to establish 
environment?
During our video we will need to establish the environment, not just the physical environment but also emotionally. The words ‘we found love’ shows that there is also an emotional environment that will need to be portrayed to the audience. In order to do this we will need certain props that symbolize love or affection. These may include, lockets, rings etc. The external environment will need to be quite dark and gloomy to represent the message of the song. The song lyrics say ‘We found love in a hopeless place’ so as a group we will need to establish our environment using scenery and scenarios that symbolize failure and gloom. Options that we thought of were
• Dark windy night
• Rain
• Girl walking home after a night out alone
• Alcohol
• Partying (to symbolize the waste of life)
When do you show establishing information?
As a group we believe that the establishing information should not be shown throughout because from the point of view of the audience it is a good method to leave the audience wondering. It is important to show the information enough so that the audience can establish a story line however too much could make the video tedious.
When do characters move and how to show movement?
When characters move we can use a wide range of camera angles, some of these are;
• Wide camera shots, wide shots give an outside POV, from somebody watching at a distance, if the camera angles then zoom in this can show somebody on the frontline of the shot but still from an outside perspective.
• Panning shots to get an outside perspective of the characters movements, this can follow the character to give an insight of the footsteps, it is as if the outsider is watching the character, so this enables the audience to really
• Over the shoulder shot, this gives the audience the perspective from the characters viewpoint; it allows the audience to be interactive with not only the music video but also the star.
• Let the character leave the frame, this shows that the character is moving as the camera is not following her, this movement is subtle and only really gives the POV to the audience that they are behind the camera filming the character, and that their movement was a quick glance.
• Let the camera move around, shows a substantial amount of movement as it gives a varied POV that show different shots.
• Fast shots show movement, as the different shots show that it is fast paced which often can represent movement but show the POV from behind the camera

What are significant eye lines and when do they change?
• Looking directly into the camera shows a connection between the viewer and the video itself, this form is often used during emotional scenes an typically your ‘love song’
• Looking up at a camera is often symbolizing a message
• Looking back at the camera can represent a goodbye
• No eye line at all, no eye contact can give an outside perspective

When and why does the camera move?
The camera can move for a number of different reasons, for example during a panning shot the camera would be following the character and would therefore need to move, by the camera moving –this shows movement through the camera use rather than editing. Camera movement can seem messy however often it is used during party scenes, to make it seem as if it is an amateur camera man.

G) Focals and composition can affect the narrative of the story, if a certain image is focused and another is not focused, this makes the audience look at the focused image, contrast can distort the background so really makes the audience view the image/shot up front. The framing of the shot can make the audience target the characters movements, these editing settings help the audience focus on certain images. If a certain character is less focused than another then the audience will focus on the focused character. If a character is in the centre of the frame then this is the character that will be most recognised.

H) If the shot is imperative for the narrative then it is important to not only spend more time on this shot but also include more editing techniques, however in certain situations it may be necessary to keep the shot simple rather than over edit and ruin the shot. Impact shots need to make a statement, and to do this the audience need to remember it, often this is done with memorable situations or something that creates a stir/buzz, this then ensures that the audience remember this particular shot and can then link this to the narrative.
Health + Safety issues 
We have had to take many steps into minimising the health and safety issues whilst planning the shooting our video. First of all, we wanted to shoot scenes of people dancing in a club, as this fitted our brief, but we realised that we may not be able to do so. This could also be a threat to us a group as we would be in an unreliable environment and the camera could become damaged or we could even end up injured. Another health and safety issue could be that if we posted on our blogs where and when we will be filming, we are broadcasting it worldwide and therefore this could become a danger to us. We need to keep the location and times to our group to minimise these issues.  There will be shots in our video where we need to use high angle shots. This would mean that someone will have to climb up on a ladder or chair for example, but these will arise the safety issues. Therefore we decided that we would tape the camera to a wall at the angle that we need to prevent anyone from being in danger. 
The costumes and props in which we intend to use:




 











Monday 28 November 2011

The slingbox!!!!!!

What is the Slingbox?

The Slingbox is a gizmo that connects to both your TV equipment and to a home broadband Internet connection, and lets you watch your home satellite, cable, digital or analogue TV, over the Internet, from anywhere in the world.
With Slingbox connected to a UK home TV setup, you can use SlingPlayer (the Slingbox software) to watch TV, change channels, take control and even record on your home TV recording equipment, over the Internet.

Who is on the forefront?

What is wink?

Search at Wink for free, the world's largest people search engine. Find people by name and get their phone number, address, Websites, photos, work, school, more.

What is Twitter?
'Instant updates from your friends, industry experts, favorite celebrities, and what’s happening around the world.'

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".
Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July. Twitter rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 300 million users as of 2011, generating over 300 million tweets and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day. It is sometimes described as "the SMS of the Internet."

What is Twine? And what has it got to do with WEB 3.0?

Twine is a hosted service that uses open semantic standards RDF, OWL, and SPARQL (Simple Protocol and RDF Query Language), but will probably become available for large organizations. It will be free, supported by personalized advertisements, but premium versions will become available that have storage and admin options.

I found this opinion on a website and i agree with it :)
I'm skeptical of the idea that machines can find the meaning in Web pages without the page's creator specifying the information, as is Twine's proposed goal. Say a Web page for a product contains this data: "This is a consumer electronics product. Here's the product name. It's a television. It's a widescreen television. It costs £999. This is the description." Without someone supplying the metadata for each of these pieces of information, how can an algorithm know where on the page the relevant data is? Maybe that's just where Radar's secret sauce comes in, and you have to give the company credit for tackling this challenge.

28th Novemenber

'once the point ohs' come out, theres no stopping them. What the heck. I say we should start Web 4.0'
Sonja Hyde Moyer- SHM project
Sonja may be suggesting that it may be becoming a joke with all the new verisons of the web coming out.

'Web 2.0 is a marketing term, and i think you'v just invented Web 3.0'
Eric Schmidt, CEO of google
Eric  is suggesting that the difference between 2.0 and 3.0 is not very big  therefore web 2.0 was just suggested to  make Web 3.0 sound even more productive.

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Cadburys case study!

In this blog post I will look at the messages and values encoded in Cadbury’s recent venture in to viral marketing.  I will consider the ways in which campaigns such as Gorilla (2007), Airport (2008) and Eyebrows (2009) subvert the traditional conventions of advertising to engage and sustain the interest of the viewer with fresh take on the Cadbury’s brand identity.

Defintions and explanations  
Viral marketing is like a chain letter or email, it is believed that if one message is recieved to one person they will pass it on to another 5 and then the 5 people will pass it on to another 5 each. Viral marketing can be an inexpensive way of promoting a company brand or product, the aim of it is to create a buzz about something.
With developments in technology and the Internet viral marketing has really started to become an effective way of gaining exposure for a relatively low cost for a company. Many people have begun using social networking sites to communicate with friends and family about their interests, work, hobbies and many other facets of life.  Companies who can create an advertisement which grabs the interest of the public can use this new phenomenon in social networking to boost their brand image, increase sales or achieve any objective they may have. Marketing techniques are ever changing due to the fact that consumers become fatigued with traditional marketing. Companies are looking for effective ways of marketing their products with a cost/exposure pay off. Viral marketing has become a good way for companies to gain exposure at a low cost this is because the message all depends on the audience and if messages are passed through friends its normally more trusted.
Institution
Cadburys is now a very known and well respected brand.
Just a quick look through Youtube.co.uk will show you that many of Cadbury’s previous adverts were portraying the message our chocolate tastes really good so buy some and eat it.  An example of this would be the Cadbury Flake adverts of the 70’s and early 80’s where by someone (usually a very attractive woman) would be filmed enjoying a Flake in a slow and suggestive manner with heavy sexual undertones.  The television adverts were product orientated with taste and feeling the main elements of the advert. Some of the adverts have a jingle or even a character that is associated with a particular product for example the – Cadbury Caramel Bunny and the Cadbury Mini Egg Parrot. In 1996 cadburys formed a sponsership deal with coronation street from then other companies have copied this.
Form and Conventions
Gorilla playing the drums:
The advert thrives on ambiguity: the first time you see it you can’t work out what the gorilla is doing. Then through the camera work pans out to the gorilla playing the drums when the song really kicks off. The advert does not mention a chocolate bar and it does not even show one. The only thing that has any relevance to Cadbury is the fact that the back drop behind the gorilla is in the famous Cadbury purple, this shows the strength of the brand: the chocolate bar does not ever have to be mentioned (although it is shown briefly at the end of the advert).  The filming of this advert is what makes it so successful, there is an ambiguity at the beginning with the close face shots create curiousness. This is then carried through with the realness of the gorilla in such a normal environment.
Airport Vehicles
The vehicles are all different colours with neon lights; the music is at the start of the song, building to fastest point. When it reaches this point the vehicles start to pull off, there is a fire jet from an exhaust and the race begins. It becomes apparent that the smallest vehicle is really battling through the pack of much larger vehicles; the larger vehicles are trying to stop the small one breaking through and the advert ends with the camera rising away from the race with the Cadburys bar coming into shot with the slogan “A glass and a half full of joy” beneath.
Eyebrows
The eyebrows advert starts in a very grey photo shot, brightened only by the young girl who is wearing a very distinctive purple dress. The scene depicts her and her brother being measured up for the dullest family photo ever. The phone rings and the man measuring the two children up is called away. The children look at each other, the boy reaches for his watch and then a computerised version of ‘Don’t Stop The Rock’ by Freestyle Express plays from his watch. The children then start to perform what can only be described as an unnerving jig with their eyebrows. This continues for roughly 45 seconds. During this time a pink balloon is added for effect. At the end of the advert the screen once again turns purple and the Cadbury bar is shown with the slogan “A glass and a half full of joy” beneath.
Representations
Gorilla playing the drums: this advert immediately grabs your attention because theres a gorilla on the screen.
The way in which the advert is shot using close ups of the gorillas face gives the advert an intense power and a feeling of dominance. As the camera pulls away from the gorilla we notice that he is sat behind a set of drums in a very human way. This is not a normal situation, it gives a surreal feeling which is very easy to remember. The use of Phil Collins, Something in the Air Tonight attracts an older audience who remember this song first time round.

Airport Vehicles: the airport is a place where everyone in the population will be familiar with. The next part of the advert shows different   airport vehicles in dark hangers being lit up and coming to life. The vehicles are very colourful (orange, lime green, blue, white and yellow) these colours are associated with fun. They look dressed up as if they were ready for a night of fun. The lyrics of the song start with “tonight I’m going to have myself a real good time” the film and the music fit perfectly. The race starts and the smallest vehicle zooms through the pack of larger vehicles who are floundering, this satisfies the British fascination and love for the underdog.

Eyebrows:  This advert portrays a very mixed message, looking at a still of the advert shows what seems to be a very middle class white family in a normal situation (having a family photo taken). The music that is used is an 80’s electro pop tune, which is completely out of sync with the rest of the advert. This is then followed by the strange eyebrow dance. The message that this advert is sending is one of expecting the unexpected flipping a normal, sedate situation on its head and creating an entertaining advertisement that people will want to talk about. 
Audience
These advertisements are obviously aimed at a youth market; aged from 15 to 25, their target audience is media literate and technology savvy. This age group has grown up with technology: computer games have been an important element of their life. They will be interested in new music, with a curious nature. The adverts thrive on people’s curiosity with people trying to analyse why the advert has been made and what the meaning behind the advert is.  Another sign of why these adverts are aimed at this market is the fact that the ‘gorilla playing the drums’ advert was first released during an episode of Big Brother – a program that has a massive youth following.  There are many reasons why Cadbury are aiming at this group. This group are young; they have many years of purchasing left in them. If Cadbury can develop a brand loyal customer then they will have this customer for the next 40-50 years if not more.  Another reason for aiming this marketing campaign at this group is the fact that they are so prominent in the great social networking revolution on the internet. With young people talking over the internet they are posting links about things that they have seen, promoting funning stories and discussing their feeling towards these things. These adverts have been spread all over the walls of Facebook. This has meant that the word has spread quickly, thus the buzz has started and the viral word is spreading.

Newspapers in online age

A summary of the key ideas...
Should be emphasis on:
Historial
Contemporay
Future

1995 the guardian had no website presence; they thought they should conisder getting one as there main business was print media.
It was largely one way communication from large media institutions to main audience.
What differenet types of media do the guardian use and now offer?
Print, video, mobile, online news, social networking, blogs/ live blogs and podcasts.

2011 guardian website:
36 million unique user per month and number one in the world for user interaction.
New media; first blog 2000- this allowed coments then live blogging came into action in 2009 then podcasting.
The use of social media is very productive, journalists encouraged to have social media presence.
So through media the guardian are inviting user comments and interaction in order reach and engage with an audience.

Thursday 10 November 2011

MP demands law to force internet providers to remove gang videos

Seen as my coursework group are doing a music video to show the youths of todays society, i thought this article by the evening standard was very interesting and maybe that my group need to take into consideration the reality of 'todays youths'.





Gang videos to be removed from youtube!

Wednesday 9 November 2011

Analyse Shirky’s theory of media development and audience transformations!

Clay Shirky believes that new technologies enabling loose ­collaboration — and taking advantage of “spare” brainpower — will change the way society works.
Clay Shirky's work focuses on the rising usefulness of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, wireless networks, social software and open-source development. New technologies are enabling new kinds of cooperative structures to flourish as a way of getting things done in business, science, the arts and elsewhere, as an alternative to centralized and institutional structures, which he sees as self-limiting. In his writings and speeches he has argued that "a group is its own worst enemy." His clients have included Nokia, the Library of Congress and the BBC.
According to Shirky the importance of technology and media products is very important, the internet is the first bit of media that you can have conversations and consume; every medium is next door to every other medium (on the internet). The importance of the internet is that media operators which are everyday people can now be consumers as well as producers for example this can be portrayed through social networking media you can post videos and watch videos however you have the comfort of talking and communicating to friends.
The impact on audiences and transformation of audience is becoming clearer as time goes on and more technology starts to develop that audience is playing a major part in society, the main thing that has changed is that anyone now can be a citizen reporter the government can access news now from normal citizens not the national news broadcasters. The reasons we have this advantage now is because of social media sites where people can be connected all the time and news has the advantage of being spread rapidly. For example the Chinese government found out about the earthquake in their own country via twitter rather than having it reported by news officials, this can be beneficial because pictures and videos can be uploaded and everyone can see the reality into what really happened. This caused people to set up donation sites any money was raised straight away. This fits in with Michael Wesch’s 2.0 theory where he stated the changes in the way we communicate however when there is a new story there is an overload in the information that gets posted which causes no way of filtering the stories being posted, this could lead to big social media sites such as twitter being shut down due to the overload of information being processed.
Clay Shirky  stated  in his speech that there are four periods in the history of media when there was a major change the first being print, then two way communications which was first introduced as text then followed by voice and the third was recorded media which was firstly photos, then sound and music. Lastly the fourth was radio and TV.

Web 2.0

Who is Michael Wesch?

Dubbed "the explainer" by Wired magazine, Michael Wesch is a cultural anthropologist exploring the effects of new media on society and culture. After two years studying the implications of writing on a remote indigenous culture in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, he has turned his attention to the effects of social media and digital technology on global society.  His videos on culture, technology, education, and information have been viewed by millions, translated in over 15 languages, and are frequently featured at international film festivals and major academic conferences worldwide.


What is he famous for?
Michael Wesch created a short video on youtube, called" Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us"on January 31 2007, it quickly became the most popular video in the blogosphere and has been viewed 11,491,361 million times SO FAR!!!
The picture above shows the converstion from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.


We watched this video in class and it really made me think about how fast technology is moving and how the world is drastically changing! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Pre- production


1. Shooting Schedule

Times
Mon
Tues
Wed
Thurs
Fri
Period 1+2
Media lesson
-
-
-
Filming media video
Period 3+4
-
-
Media lesson
Filming media video
-
Period 5+6
Filming media video
-
-
-
-


These were the hours that our group had free lessons and so we decided that these were the hours that we would shoot our music video. We will also need some extra hours for editing once our video is completed and therefore we may need to do this independently to be able to reach our full potential in our media coursework.

2. The roles and responsibilities of each member of the group:

Charlotte: Editing, actor, takes care of and prepares props.

Luke: Director, camera assistant, editing.

Marianna: Editing, actor, sound recordist.

Molly: Actor, editing, costume designer.

5a) What is the videos theme?

As a group we have decided that we want to represent today’s youth society in our video; the song states a ‘messed up generation ‘therefore we want to show a realistic insight into today’s youths.We want the video to be fun an exciting and be something that youths can relate to, exploring different dimensions such as different perspectives from different types of people. We don’t want the video to be a cliché; we want to bring something unexpected and unique.We want the video to be fast moving, suggesting that young people’s lives are fast tempo and independent however we want our viewers to get a gritty insight into the lives of some that they would rather not see.

b) What are its mood progressions?

One of the aims of our video is to show the fast moving mood changes in the characters.We want the video in theory to be ‘messed up’ therefore there needs to be many highs and lows and changes of happy moods to depressing moods, one of the ways we are going to show this is by the use of colours and lighting, deep blues red and black obviously represent dark down times however bright natural greens and pastel colours can show a fresh organic attitude.

c) What kind of location should each sequence have?

Each location should be suited to the scene; one of our group’s aims is to incorporate as many different scenes into our video as this will show the fast moving tempo and the different stories we are trying to represent this will also portray the different cultures and unique styles that youths society has.

d) What statement should each location make towards the videos premise?

Our theme is to make the video as vibrant and loud as possible and each location should match the theme for example if we are trying to show fresh or new attitudes we may plan to film outside as this can be symbolic to the point we are trying to make.Our idea is to show different reflective moods therefore we may need to film in a number of different places, for example we want to show real aspects of youths lives; not everyone enjoys the same social things therefore we may need to film in schools, pubs clubs or even in a home location.

e) How should each set be lit?

Each set should be lit according to the mood we are trying to portray, for example if we want to show love then the colour reds may show this or if we want to show a ‘dark side’ to someone then black would show danger and being lost.

f) What kind of props goes with the set?

We will need to make a full schedule plan of what needs to be in every set, props play a major part in showing a scene and making it believable, therefore we need to think about what is being included. We are also working on a very tight budget therefore we may need to think about what is necessary to make our final piece to the standard it should be.

g) What kind of belongings do the characters need to keep around them?

We want to show diversity in our characters therefore each character will represent a different sort of person for example the ‘bad child’ may be carrying alcohol, cigarettes and maybe even drugs. We want to show the path that a child may be lead into. However some of the other characters may represent the good in today’s youth as in the media today’s youth are always seen as being bad rather than doing anything positive towards society.


h) What kind of clothes does each character wear and what do the clothes tell us?

Clothes play a major part in our video as it will be one of the things our audience will be looking at first, as our theme is pop we want to show popular clothes that people wear as these people will be our main target audience and want to relate to our video. High street brands will be included as we want our video to represent today’s youth society and show a normal society.


I) What colour palette and progression would promote the videos thematic development?We want the whole of our video to be fast moving as the song itself is very fast tempo with scenes constantly changing, the theme is gritty British society therefore moods need to be up and down to show reality, colours need to be vibrant and loud.

6. The costumes and props in which we intend to use:


Bright, fast lighting as this represents the youth’s
social life.



Alcohol which is a bit part of most of the youth
subculture.




9. Health + Safety issues 

We have had to take many steps into minimising the health and safety issues whilst planning the shooting our video. First of all, we wanted to shoot scenes of people dancing in a club, as this fitted our brief, but we realised that we may not be able to do so. This could also be a threat to us a group as we would be in an unreliable environment and the camera could become damaged or we could even end up injured. Another health and safety issue could be that if we posted on our blogs where and when we will be filming, we are broadcasting it worldwide and therefore this could become a danger to us. We need to keep the location and times to our group to minimise these issues. There will be shots in our video where we need to use high angle shots. This would mean that someone will have to climb up on a ladder or chair for example, but these will arise the safety issues. Therefore we decided that we would tape the camera to a wall at the angle that we need to prevent anyone from being in danger.