HOUSE COMPETITION

As we enter our third lockdown, this is all starting to feel like a terrible film sequel that no one asked for! This got us thinking – if Lockdown 3 were a movie, what features of lockdown would make it onto its movie poster? We want to get your creative juices flowing! What would your film be called and what would your star character be faced with during this third period indoors?

 

Would your film be a horror, such as Lockdown 3: The Revenge of the Dreaded Zoom Quiz, where our poor lead character lives through the relentless terror of back-to-back quizzes every evening? Or would it be a thriller like “Lockdown 3: The Fast and the Furious”, where one person furiously tries to turn their mic on, after realising they’ve been on mute for the past 5 minutes of the call?

 

Or would your movie instead be full of positivity, like ‘Lockdown 3: The Oven-gers” focusing on a brave set of superheroes, who finally set out to save the world from banana bread baking fails?

 

Once you’ve got your ideas, create your own movie poster full of dazzling imagery and vibrant colours and upload to the google classroom (code mgcqqm6)!

FILM ANALYSIS & SEMIOTICS

Something special to celebrate Burns Night - this year, marked on Monday. Burns is a beloved Scottish poet.
(PREP tonight is at the bottom of this post)

This extract is actually the opening five minutes of a film OPEN THIS LINK ON THE LEFT! called Ae Fond Kiss (dir, ken Loach 2004), but it works very well for the purposes of analysing the representation of people, places and issues. It is set in Glasgow and the title means 'one sweet kiss'. 

These words are also the title of Burns' famous Scottish poem set to music: 'ae fond kiss, and then we sever / ae farewell and then forever'. The song plays over the end of the dramatic opening to this extract.

Need to know facts:

Place: Glasgow

Characters: Casim Khan, brother to rebellious Tahara, who struggles to find herself between the bullying of some Scottish schoolmates and her Pakistani relatives.

Roisin, music teacher

PREP WATCH now:  this presentation that will help you with terms relating to representation like connotation and denotation. It takes 9 minutes.

Semiotics analysis for beginners! | How to read signs in film | Roland Barthes Media Theory

02 MUSIC & NEWS

 MOJO magazine - we study the media language and the ways in which representations are created. The easy way to remember the difference between the two types of exam questions here is that media language is to do with what it looks like (layout, images, fonts, colours etc) whereas representation is to do with who is featured and how they are presented to us.

Questions about representation involve:

• what version of reality is constructed on the cover (reverence for rock musicians as heroic, as striving for excellence? young women as focussed on social media, romance and appearance?)
• are stereotypes or counter-stereotypes used (young white males as rock stars? anti-stereotypical portrayal of older men as rock musicians? stereotypical female teens loving pink?)
• what social groups are not represented or under-represented (male/female; young/old bias)
• what messages and values are conveyed
• the social and cultural contexts, like celebrity culture, attitudes to gender, to sexuality

Here is where you find OCR revision materials on music magazines (open the pdf link on the left). I have summarised it above.

Task 1: Copy / paste the top MOJO - the March 2021 - issue into a Word document. Use the vocabulary in the guide below to label it. This task is to revise your vocabulary. Think of a way to label it - perhaps add arrows and text in your Word document. Upload to your own blog.

PREP is Task 2:  Copy /paste the John Lennon edition into your blog. Write about how musicians are represented on this MOJO cover.

Possible Answers for this PREP Music magazines offer aspirational role models – musical stars – with whom their readers may identify. MOJO magazine features a ‘legendary’ musician on the cover every month.

On MOJO's cover, stereotypes have been used. The image of John Lennon is typical of  MOJO cover musician: a young, white male may be to fit the stereotype of rock musicians – this will enable instant recognition by audiences.

 

MOJO wishes to attract a target audience that shares its reverence for ‘classic rock’ so constructs a version of reality that represents musicians as authentic heroes, striving for excellence, e.g. in the photo of John Lennon forty years after his death, looking serious, gazing intently into the camera in close-up, with beautiful lighting shading his face, and a reverent comment about saying goodbye respectfully.

MOJO’s representations reflect the continuing significance of a 1960s generation who developed popular music in a period of social upheaval.  MOJO's representations celebrate the ‘classic rock’ values of authenticity and passion. Tommy Iommi is described as 'getting heavy', that is, talking about dark times for Black Sabbath. The Stone Roses' resurgence is described as a 'resurrection' which is a religious word, lending connotations of someone holy coming back to life in a miraculous way.

MOJO’s front cover associates musicians with quest, danger and struggle, celebrating the values associated with rock music of ‘living fast and dying young’. For example, Pink Floyd are represented as engaged in hostilities and The Stone Roses as fighting for survival.

Some social groups are under-represented. MOJO’s front cover mostly represents white male musicians in photographs, under-representing female musicians and musicians of colour, with Madonna top right as the only female photo.

 

MOJO’s anti-stereotypical positive representation of older people as popular musicians, e.g. Pink Floyd, Nancy Sinatra on the cover on the front cover. This may reflect the anti-ageism of an older audience. 

 

The covermount CD represents Garageband musicians as 'psychedelic'.  

LAYOUT
House style: consistent visual codes and written rules / conventions that define the particular brand image (for instance, a  busy cluttered / streamlined look, a header with a drop shadow, a recognizable style /font for the brand name)

Symmetrical and asymmetrical: evenly balanced / mirror images or unequal in layout; made up of exactly similar parts facing each other or around an axis; showing symmetry; regular and consistent / irregular; uniform / uneven.

Ratio of copy, photography and space: how cluttered, busy is the layout? Is there much negative space?
Masthead / banner: The title of the magazine or newspaper. It is usually placed at the top of the front cover for display purposes
Overline /running header: introductory headline in smaller text size above the main headline 
Caption: anchors the meaning of an image
Splash: main front page story. 
Cover lines : information about major articles given on the front page of a magazine   
Strapline: a subsidiary heading or caption in a newspaper or magazine. As in

"the strapline on the front page promised '13 pages of dramatic pictures and eye-witness accounts." A strapline can summarise what a brand stands for in just a few words.

It doesn’t have to be descriptive (although some are, like eBay’s “The world’s online market place”), but it should support the brand positioning and communicate what it is about.

Puff: words or phrases on the cover of a magazine used to boost status
Plug: Information about the contents of a magazine or newspaper given on the front cover 
Feature: A longer, more in-depth article.
Tag line: a short memorable line of cover text that sums up information
Pull quote: A brief phrase (not necessarily an actual quotation) from the body text to add emphasis and interest. A quote or excerpt that is used as display text on the same page to entice the reader, highlight a topic or break up linearity.
Talkie headline: a quote from one of the people in the story used as a headline 
Left-side third: A lot of important information designed to attract potential readers is placed in the left-hand side vertical third of the front cover page. This is in case the magazine is displayed in a horizontal shelving system rather than a vertical one.
Flush left: copy aligned along the left margin. Flush right: copy aligned along the right margin.  

IMAGES
Centre of visual interest (CVI): The prominent item on a page usually a headline, picture or graphic.
Choice of colour
Noise: A noisy image  is one where there are random or extra pixels that have degraded the image quality. 

Camerawork and mise-en-scène: positioning of the central image (mid shot, close-up, two shot), clothing codes, lighting and so on

03 CREATING MEDIA

Design the front cover of an original music magazine featuring your rapper (you).

Work from the interactive template that I email you.

In your own original magazine FRONT COVER: 

You need an original masthead (title)

You need a strapline (see below).

At least 3 cover lines on the front cover 

as well as cover price, bar code, edition number.

 

01 TV & PROMOTING MEDIA

This week has thrown up some interesting articles about the BBC's funding models and its failure to attract young audiences - you - the 16-34 year old demographic. By contrast, online subscription services such as Netflix are both spending and earning more, successfully recruiting younger and older subscribers. What will happen to the BBC's licence fee model if fewer people sign up and revenues + audiences shrink? 

See these articles from The Times this week.

Matthew Moore, Media Correspondent

Wednesday January 20 2021, 12.01am, The Times

BBC ‘complacent’ about exodus of young viewers

 

 

02 NEWSPAPERS

 Read the OCR guide here - open the pdf link

Today you are going to work off-line on your own once you have downloaded the PDF guide above.

Your CLASSWORK is to read certain sections of this OCR fact sheet and for PREP you answer the questions below. Copy / paste the green text below into your own blog along with the questions and your answers.

Newspaper industries –ownership and control question: who controls The Observer / Guardian and what are its values?

Press freedom and regulation question: What is meant by 'a free press'? When The Guardian newspaper investigated (and revealed) what The News of The World newspaper had done to get stories, what big changes in press regulation resulted?

Convergence question: "When newspapers operate online there is technological and cultural convergence." What does this mean in The Observer?

Newspaper audiences question: The Observer has different sections designed to appeal to different types of readers. Explain this with examples.

Uses and gratification question: how does The Observer meet readers' needs for personal identity and social integration?

Active/passive audiences question: in what way can The Observer's audience be 'active' ?

 

02 NEWSPAPERS: THE OBSERVER

You have worked on The Observer: print, online and Twitter. Let's go a bit further into the online features offered when the paper is accessed via PressReader (top) rather than just by the print copy (second). Look closely at the Twitter feed (third).

• Comment on how the 'media language' of The Observer print version positions it as a serious newspaper - layout, columns, proportion of image to text, use of serif font, extended articles
• Comment on the ways in which The Observer print version (like other 'broadsheets') has adopted some tabloid features to attract audiences. Start with the content and layout of the skybox.
  
• When you look at the most recent Observer Twitter page, comment on the many ways in which it is interactive. Notice what it offers in terms of audience gratification: how does it make the reader feel part of a community of like-minded people?
• PREP Read through BBC Bitesize on newspapers. Page 4 is particularly helpful in showing that news doesn't 'happen' - it is 'made', by editors, who decide what to publish. This list explains what lies behind their decisions.
  

VISUAL RHETORIC: CHARITY ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS

PREP for year 10 Design a poster about Covid 19. We have seen in class today straightforward informative ones, from the Cambridge Health Trust site, as well as imaginative ones mimicking the codes and conventions of disaster movies, film noir movies and war recruitment campaigns. Whatever you manage in your 30 minutes, put it on your blog (it may be work in progress).

Our house competition involves making a poster about COVID 19. I will be sent the details soon. 

Many ad campaigns use shock tactics. The Barnado's campaign 'Silver Spoons' received many complaints and was eventually pulled. What do you think?

COVID 19 Video and print poster campaigns targeting younger viewers

Lego campaign Watch here

Examples of other posters to look at here

 

02 NEWSPAPERS

Today we revisit what we have learned about our newspaper text The Observer. In the exam, there will be an extract from either the print edition or an online edition of the newspaper. There may even be a screenshot of the newspaper's Twitter platform.

PREP Aim to write about 5 sentences in answer to the next 2 questions.

If you access The Observer print edition online, you can access added features. What are they?
 

This is The Observer's Twitter page. What do you notice?

Observer readers who access the newspaper online can benefit from the interactive features.

01 PROMOTING MEDIA: LEGO MOVIE VIDEO GAME

The main focus today is 01 PROMOTING MEDIA: LEGO. We look at how Warner created a synergetic release of the trailer ad break, video game and posters in order to promote The Lego Movie (2014). We have to know these three elements (rather than the movie itself) and answer questions on how they promote the movie and engage / attract / address audiences.

At each stage, we study the sample exam question and the examiner's report (how to answer the question). There are links to open in most of the points below.

1. PEGI: who are they and what do they do?
2. Why do film studios such as Warner and others of the Big Six release a portfolio of related products? What is cross-promotion?
3. We view a walk-through of the video game
4. We apply Blumler and Katz's uses and gratifications model of audience needs and behaviour to the Lego video game. This is explained simply in the article Why People Watch Television.
5. See also MediaKnowall 
   

 

WHAT DO AUDIENCES ENJOY IN THE LEGO VIDEO GAME?

Today we watch the Lego Movie Video Game walk through.

 • As we know, media practices are widely connected to Blumler and Katz’s Uses and Gratifications theory, in terms of the audience’s sense of identity. The sense of actual identity and aspirational identity can be seen in the use of a first-person protagonist (to associate directly with the gamer) and the ‘quest’ to explore new worlds in The Lego Movie Video game. The theme of good versus evil is often a key social value in video games and is at the heart of this game too. 

• Arguably the target audience for the video game is younger than the film. This can be seen through its level of difficulty, which provides a younger audience with an entry point to the franchise, without needing to watch the film. Criticism was mixed for the game and its narrative as it takes elements of the film’s narrative but lacks the cohesion and humour of the film. Critics recommended seeing the actual movie and seeing the gameplay as a stand-alone. 

• The Lego Movie Video Game is a cross-media promotional product as it advertises a range of Lego characters and icons, like the superheroes and ‘Benny the Spaceman’. Both the movie and the video game are part of a larger Lego video game franchise that existed before The Lego Movie resulting in intertextuality for the audience and a deeper relationship with the Lego brand. The superheroes featured (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman) are also part of the larger Warner Bros./DC superhero franchise so the video game also acts as an introduction point to those characters and helps to cross-promote this superhero franchise in terms of other Lego video game products (e.g. Lego Batman) and films (e.g. Justice League). Purchasing the game provided childhood nostalgia for parents (a brand they might have played with when young themselves) and allowed them to play with their children. This also illustrates how the audience for video games might interpret the same product differently, e.g. young and old getting different pleasures from the product. 

• The Lego Movie Video game was number 1 in the All Formats Chart, the sixth Lego video game to do this. It was released available across a wide range of popular console, PC and Mac platforms. • The Lego Movie Game for mobile devices included in-app purchases but required a larger memory (over a Gigabyte of space) which met to further mixed responses. 

• In the same week (Feb 17th 2014) there were five Lego video games in the top 40 All Formats Chart meaning that Lego games made up one eighth of the total chart. 

• The game was released onto mobile devices due to the market being worth around $21 billion in revenues. As the game appealed to families and children alike the hope was they would attract a mixed-age audience. 

• the game sets challenges (missions) involving collecting studs (yellow Lego circular pieces), building scores and completing levels
• There are different adventures, such as "Escape from Bricksberg' and players can become different characters, like Emmet or Wyldstyle
• There are familiar characters, voiced by familiar names, like Liam Neeson, Chris Pratt, etc
• Emmet's aim is to fulfil the prophecy, thwart Lord Business, save the realm

PREP

The Uses and Gratifications audience framework offered by Blumler and Katz suggests that audiences use media to gratify needs for:

• escapism, entertainment, diversion
• surveillance (finding out what's going on in the world) 
• forming relationships (both with on-screen figures and in real life through sharing pleasures with friends & family)
• shared values and beliefs (we identify with certain people as heroes, hope that villains will be defeated, want a particular set of values to be restored and so on)

 

03 CREATING MEDIA

The first part of today's session is planning how to take forwards our hiphop music videos under lockdown at home. We came to these decisions:

• We each make a blog post (with this title) with bullet points listing how we can continue developing our brief
• We approach family members to act as cameraman and discuss suitable filming times outdoors, indoors, in the garden
• Montage sequences: we start today by making a practice photo in Powerpoint using 'remove background', featuring yourself as performer against a suitable backdrop. Think of using the right body language. Think of yourself within the frame so that there is variety for visual interest.
• A series of such images could be cut to the beat. Therefore, is the montage sequence likely to go with a 'quiet' (slow) bit of your lyrics or a 'busy' (fast) bit? That decision will affect what you shoot.
• Ollie had already planned to bring a still image to life, with his over-the-shoulder shot of the singer looking at the superhero comic, then seeing the image, then making it spring alive.
• Greenscreen: if you have this possibility at home, the OCR board will allow found images in the circumstances.
• I will go into school to collect your footage, clothes and props. You suggested leaving them at the post section of Facilities in labelled bags. Matt, I am told that your clothes are in Asa'a bag, so I will add another plastic bag with a blank label, so the first of either you or Asa to collect will divide & label the other's clothes.

OCR J200 NOTIFICATION

 

01 TV & PROMOTING MEDIA: THE LEGO MOVIE TRAILER

Welcome back. Today we look at how Warner promoted The Lego Movie 1 (2014). 

Let's start with this here

Open the link for  the trailer here

PREP Watch the Lego Movie Ad break again and answer the following 3 questions on your blog: