Good local videos

All new videos from our good friends Smalltown America :)If anybody is interested in their Christmas all-ages show, tickets are available here http://www.wegottickets.com/event/245717

This is a new video from Sullivan and Gold, which is class!





New More Than Conquerors here:
  Jetplane Landing

 Our Krypton Son

 This is another local group, Gascan Ruckus, the video for this is really cool too.


Funny wee video from the Number 1's

Research and Planning

Now is time to begin your research and planning! You should post information, analysis and ideas to your own Blogs, then transfer materials to your group blog (would be worth your while checking the criteria for a Level 4 blog on the posts below).

Your first consideration has to be the AUDIENCE for your chosen GENRE of music/artist:
-Demographic, typical ages, location, social background, gender, spends, interests
-Do you have an idealised audience? It might be interesting to take a photo of some of your peers in school uniform, and then dressed as part of the "urban tribe" or social group identified with the music and conduct some interviews with them
-Similar artists, cultural interests
-Representation of these social groups in related media products- how have they been constructed and how to do they appeal to this demographic? How does the demographic respond to the product?
-How will you appeal to this demographic in your product? Will there be specific codes and conventions that have become evident that you will use or challenge in order to appeal to your audience?

*REMEMBER, I NEED TO SEE DETAILED EVIDENCE IN ORDER TO AWARD YOU MARKS, YOU GET WHAT YOU PUT INTO IT! :)

Album Cover Challenge

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and open Explore drop down menu and choose 'creative commons'. Under the first one "Attribution License" click see more. Or go click here: www.flickr.com/creativecommons/by-2.0/
Into the search box, enter the fictitious song title gained in step 2 and the first picture, no matter what, will be your album cover.

Try and create a back cover with a list of songs, label, barcode etc too.

4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together. Remember to manipulate the image in photoshop.

Photoshop Tutorials

With thanks to Jonny for these! (and if you are stuck, ask him!)

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/layers/layer-masks/



 

REPRESENTATION

Here is a really useful introduction to the overview of Media Representation theory:



It's really worth your while watching this lecture (all 4 parts) from leading theorist Stuart Hall. He has some really interesting ideas on the presentation/representation of the conflict in Northern Ireland. It is also interesting to think of who constructs representation of race, gender, politicians etc too.


This presentation is very useful as it gives a short synopsis of the dominant critics/theories. It is very important that you try and see if these theories apply to your own production work so far, or if not, how not. It is fine if a theory doesn't apply, but you must articulate and argue why you think it doesn't.



David Chandler's introduction to Representation
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14165439/Media-Representation-David-Chandler

Laura Mulvey: The Male Gaze
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/gaze/gaze09.html

Apply the theory of Representation to ONE of your coursework productions. 
25 Marks: 10 Explanation/Argument, 10 Examples, 5 Terminology
30 Mins

Examiner's Report:

Once again, marks for 1(b) were often the lowest awarded but there was a significant increase in the application of theories to the candidates’ own chosen text. A large number of candidates were able to access the question by focusing on the extent to which they had reinforced or

challenged gender stereotypes usually by applying Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ and Propp’s ‘spheres of action’ (other concepts are available). Representations of class and ethnicity were frequently discussed in terms of hegemony. There was also a sense of how active audiences might decode the representations that had been created using Hall’s dominant, oppositional and negotiated. All this was pleasing but there are two important points to make – firstly, candidates need to ‘switch register’ from 1(a) to 1(b) to move from talking about what they did to how the text can be analysed. Still only a small number of candidates manage to this, with the majority writing about how they applied the theory, as opposed to how the theory can be applied to the text. Much more disturbing was the overwhelming acceptance of the ‘male gaze’ as a neutral fact of life, something to be straightforwardly ‘applied’ in the production of a text, with the objectification of women accounted for as no more than a convention. Although candidates would not be penalised for describing their own text in these terms, if Mulvey’s theory was appropriately applied, centres are encouraged to support candidates in taking a rather more critical perspective on representation. 

Book Covers

This may be useful for inspiration:

http://bookcoverarchive.com/

Final Cut Basix

Another useful site for FCPX

http://finalcutbasix.com