Digipak Research - Monday

- Compare the 3 digipaks to previous digipaks from those same artists to get a feel for how they brandthemselves. 

Digipak Exercise 

You are going;

- to take a look at some example of slideshares of past students who researched them

- research some examples of Digipak designs and make notes about what they include (you should have at least 3 examples)

- comment on and make notes on the style and branding of the bands/ artists (also in relation to genre). 

- comment on your thoughts for your own Digipak ideas. How will you incorporate expected genre conventions of style and form, into your own work. Your artist / band already has a brand. How will you convey the same branding?? Think about colour, font size/ colour, layout, imagery etc. How might a Digipak 'look' of a metal band be different to that of a Katie Perry 'pop' Digipak? Is there animated imagery or do they use photos? What type of photos or artwork is included? 

- Compile your research into a blog tool (including lots of photos and imagery), explaining and presenting your findings. 

Example of Digipak 

Slideshare #1

Types of digipaks 

Slideshare #2

Digipak information

Slideshare #3

 

Classwork / Homework - Media Theory

 You guys,

This week you are going to read through this and create a blog-tool that sums up some audience theory, also applying this to your project. Your slideshare should answer the questions;

1. What is the 'gist' of the theory (state the theorist, too)

2. Give an example of how this theory is visable in a media text you've seen

2. How is it applicable to your project? 

Please note - you will have to research other sources. This is just a base document to use for what the theories are. 

Passive audience theories - sum up in 1 slideshare and comment why you think these are relevant or not (these are quite outdated now and not deemed as relevant. Say so) 

Active Audience theories - give them each their own slide (or 2) and explain WHAT they are

 UNDERSTANDING MEDIA AUDIENCES

Researchers investigating the effect of media on audiences have considered the audience in two distinct ways.

Passive Audiences

The earliest idea was that a mass audience is passive and inactive. The members of the audience are seen as couch potatoes just sitting there consuming media texts – particularly commercial television programmes. It was thought that this did not require the active use of the brain. The audience accepts and believes all messages in any media text that they receive. This is the passive audience model.

The Hypodermic Model

In this model the media is seen as powerful and able to inject ideas into an audience who are seen as weak and passive.

It was thought that a mass audience could be influenced by the same message. This appeared to be the case in Nazi Germany in the 1930s leading up to WWII. Powerful German films such as Triumph of the Will seemed to use propaganda methods to ‘inject’ ideas promoting the Nazi cause into the German audience. That is why this theory is known as the Hypodermic model.

It suggests that a media text can ‘inject’ ideas, values and attitudes into a passive audience who might then act upon them. This theory also suggests that a media text has only one message which the audience must pick up.

In 1957 an American theorist called Vance Packard working in advertising wrote an influential book called The Hidden Persuaders. This book suggested that advertisers were able to manipulate audiences, and persuade them to buy things they may not want to buy. This suggested advertisers had power over audiences. In fact this has since proved to be an unreliable model, as modern audiences are too sophisticated.

Basically this theory stems from a fear of the mass media, and gives the media much more power than it can ever have in a democracy. Also it ignores the obvious fact that not everyone in an audience behaves in the same way. How can an audience be passive – think of all the times you have disagreed with something on television or just not laughed at a new so called comedy, or thought a programme was awful.

Cultivation Theory

This theory also treats the audience as passive. It suggests that repeated exposure to the same message – such as an advertisement – will have an effect on the audience’s attitudes and values. A similar idea is known as densensitisation which suggests that long term exposure to violent media makes the audience less likely to be shocked by violence. Being less shocked by violence the audience may then be more likely to behave violently.

The criticism of this theory is that screen violence is not the same as real violence. Many people have been exposed to screen murder and violence, but there is no evidence at all that this has lead audiences to be less shocked by real killings and violence. Also this theory treats the audience as passive which is an outdated concept.

Two Step Flow Theory

Katz and Lazarsfeld assumes a slightly more active audience. It suggests messages from the media move in two distinct ways. First, individuals who are opinion leaders, receive messages from the media and pass on their own interpretations in addition to the actual media content.

The information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience, but is filtered through the opinion leaders who then pass it on to a more passive audience. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow.

This theory appeared to reduce the power of the media, and some researchers concluded that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpret texts. This led to the idea of active audiences.

Active Audiences

This newer model sees the audience not as couch potatoes, but as individuals who are active and interact with the communication process and use media texts for their own purposes. We behave differently because we are different people from different backgrounds with many different attitudes, values, experiences and ideas.

This is the active audience model, and is now generally considered to be a better and more realistic way to talk about audiences.

Uses and Gratifications Model

This model stems from the idea that audiences are a complex mixture of individuals who select media texts that best suits their needs – this goes back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

The users and gratifications model suggests that media audiences are active and make active decisions about what they consume in relation to their social and cultural setting and their needs.

This was summed up by theorists Blumier and Katz in 1974;
‘Media usage can be explained in that it provides gratifications (meaning it satisfies needs) related to the satisfaction of social and psychological needs’.

Put simply this means that audiences choose to watch programmes that make them feel good (gratifications) e.g. soaps and sitcoms, or that give them information that they can use (uses) e.g. news or information about new products or the world about them.

Blumier and Katz (1975) went into greater detail and identified four main uses:

Surveillance – our need to know what is going on in the world. This relates to Maslow’s need for security. By keeping up to date with news about local and international events we feel we have the knowledge to avoid or deal with dangers.

Personal relationships – our need for to interact with other people. This is provided by forming virtual relationships with characters in soaps, films and all kinds of drama, and other programmes and other media texts.

Personal identity – our need to define our identity and sense of self. Part of our sense of self is informed by making judgments about all sorts of people and things. This is also true of judgments we make about TV and film characters, and celebrities. Our choice of music, the shows we watch, the stars we like can be an expression of our identities. One aspect of this type of gratification is known as value reinforcement. This is where we choose television programmes or newspapers that have similar beliefs to those we hold.

Diversion – the need for escape, entertainment and relaxation. All types of television programmes can be ‘used’ to wind down and offer diversion, as well as satisfying some of the other needs at the same time.

Reception Analysis

Reception analysis is an active audience theory that looks at how audiences interact with a media text taking into account their ‘situated culture’ – this is their daily life. The theory suggests that social and daily experiences can affect the way an audience reads a media text and reacts to it.

This theory about how audiences read a text was put forward by Professor Stuart Hall in ‘The television discourse – encoding/decoding’ in 1974 with later research by David Morley in 1980 and Charlotte Brunsden.

He suggests that an audience has a significant role in the process of reading a text, and this can be discussed in three different ways:

1 The dominant or preferred reading. The audience shares the code of the text and fully accepts and understands its preferred meaning as intended by the producers (This can be seen as a hegemonic reading).

2 The negotiated reading. The audience partly shares the code of the text and broadly accepts the preferred meaning, but will change the meaning in some way according to their own experiences, culture and values EG These audience members might argue that some representations – ethnic minorities perhaps – appear to them to be inaccurate.

3 The oppositional reading. The audience understands the preferred meaning but does not share the text’s code and rejects this intended meaning and constructs an alternative meaning. EG This could be a radical reading by a Marxist or feminist who rejects the values and ideology of the preferred reading.

Monday Classwork - why music videos are still important

 Click here to read the Pulse article on music videos, "Why Music Videos Are Still So Important: Views from inside the industry"

- Create a short slideshare that highlight key points and examples (more specifically, where audiences are accessing music video content).

( 3 - 6 slides)

- Upload this to your blog

Friday Classwork - Branding Exercise

 Hi guys,

Today you guys are going to focus on BRANDING.

This is going to come in useful with your whole project, including the digipak and social media page.

I want you to Create a new blog post called 'Artist  and branding research'

A. 

Read this article and make notes on 7 MUSICIANS WHO NAILED THEIR BRANDING CAMPAIGNS

Read this Forbes article and make notes on BRANDING POWER of music artists and how this is relevant to your project. 

B 

 - Look up digipaks for previous CD's from your artist. Embed them into your post

-  Find other forms of branding (whether it's advertising for shows / articles in magazines or newspapers / instagram pages / facebook - get screen grabs of all of these!)

-  What are your observations for how the artist brands themselves? (go in depth here! Not just surface observations. Fonts / colour / is the artist always dominant in images? Are they always in front of a crowd? Are they always power-dressed and in power positions / stances in the photos? Do they try and appeal to a certain group of people with anything they do?)

- How are they represented to their audience?

- What would their target audience be?

- How are you taking this into consideration based on your own representation of this artist's branding in your project?

SOME GREAT LINKS 

Article 1

Article 2

Article 3

Wednesday Classwork - Digipack imagery

It is crucial that for your digipack, you have some imagery that links to and branding-wise, is associated with the music video. 

This means that you need to PLAN for what photos you will get on your shoot.

1. Create a post with examples of the types of photos you are wanting to get, to gather for use in your digipack / social media page

2. Organise who will take these photos on the day and include in your blog post, whose camera you are using and who is responsible for this. 

Note - this is not your final planning for your digipack, this will happen later. This is just to make sure that you have enough images to work with for both your social media page and your digipack with the branding you want to implement across all platforms. 

Classwork - Tuesday Filming Prep

 Preparing to film;

1.Organise your talent for filming NEXT WEEK (upload a blog post to your blog if this is your role, explaining this process)

2.  Create a shooting schedule / call sheet for filming days 

- get relevant permission for locations

- get relevant premission from parents / teachers if missing school / leaving site

- record all practical planning

- create a 'check-list' for props / costumes that you need to source and start bringing them in.

3. Organise practise shots THIS WEEK, before next week's final shoot 

- choose a few shots from your storyboard and practise getting them 

- all upload to blog with comments on how you think it works / what you like / what you'll change

Monday Classwork - A2 Music Video Exemplars

Have a look at these examples of A2 Music Videos and write a short blog post (embedding the video into your post) with what you liked or disliked from the video.

 

Website that has continuation of branding 

https://hollyjconnell.wixsite.com/nova

Digipak Branding 

http://gbhsa2faithteader.blogspot.com/2017/12/digipak-update.html

Another example video: 

https://vimeo.com/250279962

Website for the above video:

https://vanillaprs.wixsite.com/vanilla

Week 7 & 8 - Filming

 Hi team!

This is it! It's filming time :) 

Here's a handy article explaining some tips from the music industry on how to film a music video...

Here's what you need to do in the next 2 weeks BEFORE YOU FILM:

1. Confirm talent 

2. Book out equipment

3. Script finalised (all versions saved and labelled on blog) and printed out for talent 

3. Confirm location / book locations

4. Shot list up on blog  

5. Storyboard on blog and copies printed to take to location

6. Get cutaways 

7. Build sets if necessary

8. Source costume / make-up and props (bring these into school)

9. Organise logistics (rides if necessary / parent permission if offsite during class time)

Then, do your film shoot. You have week 7 & 8 to film!

All the best! Praying it will be AWESOME!

T- Bianca 

Week 6 - mise-en-scene planning and practise editing

  Hi A2 class!

Super exciting to see your ideas coming together. 

**** NOTE  - ORGANISE TALENT FOR FILMING IN WEEK 7 & 8 ****

Here's your brief for the week...

1. Mise-en-scene planning 

- create a mood board / vision board for your Overall feel (include things like colour schemes, significant or symbolic colours , iconography, props you want to include, hair and make-up looks, costume ideas, pictures that capture the style you are trying to recreate. 

2. Write a rationale for your mise-en-scene choices (mainly make-up, costume and props). Why have you made these choices? What meaning are you trying to convey? Include specific pictures of what you're wanting to do/ use.

3. Practise your make-up look on a volunteer (preferably your actual actor / actress) and get some shots of the process and the whole look.

4. Lighting 

- write a brief with inspiration for your lighting choices (what have you chosen to do and why? How will you achieve this lighting?)

- Get some practise shots, using the lighting. If you want golden lighting, sunset shots, shadows etc, get photos as well as practise video footage of the effects you're trying to achieve. Upload these to your blog and comment on your effectiveness and whether you envision any changes at filming time. 

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT - Lip Syncing practise - Due week 7 FRIDAY 

In this assignment, you will choose the first 30 seconds of an appropriate song. Work in teams of 2 to shoot someone singing to this song in as close to the music video style as possible. Each create your own edit of the footage, practising your lip-syncing techniques. 

Include in this post, your Youtube tutorials and any other research you did in learning how to do this effectively. 

Comment on how successful you felt your first attempt was.

Include the original music video embedded into your post. 

(some examples of Youtube tutorials you can look at;

https://helpx.adobe.com/nz/premiere-pro/how-to/edit-music-video.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUYLukTCXY4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN5ROg2ljtM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BudR3R4MCmk

Week 5 - storyboard, script and theory presentation

*** UPDATED INFORMATION BELOW 

  Hi guys,

What a crazy old time. I assume you'll both be working from home this week :) No problem. If you're well, please keep on top of tasks so we can stay on top of what we need to do.

It's ALL GO! Planning is well underway and by now you have a very focused, clear vision of what you're wanting to achieve.

Here's your brief for the week! 

Task list:

1. Research 

- Research Goodwin and Archer's theory on music videos.

-  Here is a link to a Slideshare that breaks down the key aspects to their theories in relation to music videos they studied.

-  Your turn now is to create a blog post that has a blog tool presentation showing the key aspects to Goodwin and Archer's theory. 

- You are then going to choose 2 music videos to analyse (like in the link) in the light of the theories and applying them to the videos.

- You are then going to write some brief points on how you will apply this theory to your own music video and in what ways. 

- Upload this to your blog under a 'research' label

2. Script (one of you to do the script)

- You are going to use the scriptwriting tool from last year to create a script for your music video. Do some research on how to do this for a music video, although remember that your storyboard will have more visual instruction of what you're wanting to achieve.

- Upload this to your blog under a 'planning' label

***HERE'S THE SCRIPT 'HOW TO' FOR A MUSIC VIDEO

3. Storyboard (one of you to do the storyboard) 

- Create a storyboard for your music video.

- Upload this to your blog under a 'planning' label

Total blog posts required by Friday = 3