Audience Essay - 1

For my A2 production, i created a cross-media promotional package for an upcoming artist.  We named our artist Tori Lorente with the genre of her being pop/urban.  Our target audience we selected were 16-25 year old as we thought this age is very similar to our own and they are most likely to listen to this genre of music, therefore it will be easier for us to relate and act as part of the audience for our video.
As mentioned above the age of our audience is 16025 year old, both female and male.  We did not chose a specific class for our audience as we wanted to send the message that anyone can listen to her music, regardless of their financial situation.  For our artist we created a music video, website and a digipak alongside four social media accounts; Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.
A major part of our product was to make sure our target audience could relate to Tori's lyrics of her song.  Therefore, we chose a song which conveyed meaning of love and heartbreak which is a common occurrence for young adults.  The setting of our video was in SOHO in London, which is where Tori grew up.  Not only was this her hometown, SOHO is famous for attracting young, hipster like teens who aren't afraid to be themselves which is one of the messages we wanted to send to our audience.  From this, we decided to subvert the genre of pop and make Tori look stereo typically 'normal'.  Therefore, we dressed her in black jeans, a red hoodie and trainers, however she had her hair layed elegantly and her make up look was subtle but slick.  From gaining audience feedback, 75% of people claimed Tori's image was different to what they expected.  This is because people often see pop artists dressed in wham outfits like Katy Perry and Lady Gaga etc.  This is where we incorporated Levi Strauss' theory of binary opposites.  Tori came from a lower class family but her music is set in the middle/upper class of London.  Again, her genre is pop yet her look was more of a casual, urban type costume.
When creating the website for Tori Lorente, I tried to present it simply but eye-catching at the same time.  I wanted to use the idea of a hypodermic syringe so the audience's would get an instant affect/idea of what Tori is like as an artist.  Therefore, i kept the synergy of her colour red continuous throughout the website and i also added vibrant and bold fonts here and there in order to keep the flow of the website intriguing.  On the website, I made sure i linked her social media accounts to the page and kept updating the news website as this is the most common way our target audience can be linked to Tori.
For the digipak, again we used the main colour to be red as this kept the synergy going.  We used the same font as on the website so we make it recognisable by the audience.  In one of the sides of the digipak, we added a personal message written by Tori to her fans thanking them for buying her album.  We saw this as a clever way of getting close with her fans and making sure she obtained a strong fan base right from the very start.
Our audience is an active audience, therefore they get themselves actively involved with Tori which meant they would be buying tickets to her concert and buying her album at the shops etc.  Not only this but due to creating social media accounts, the audience can see when and where it is being released.  Social media is crucial to use as part of engaging with the audience as they are at the peak age of using these accounts so they are more likely to see links on their than they are off a billboard or a poster etc.
To conclude, i believe my group and I were successful in attracting our audience especially as they were at a similar age to us.  Therefore, by using our own experiences with the media and artists we love, we were able to use our own knowledge and research beyond this in order to create a cross media promotional package suitable for our audience.

Genre Essay - 1

In my A2 production, I along my three classmates created a music video branding a new artist.  The genre of our music was electro pop mixed with an urban twist.  We decided that our target audience was people ages 16-25 years old as this would be easier for us to relate with their taste of music.  We were inspired by other pop artists such as; Bebe Rexa and Dua Lipa.  By watching existing media products, this helped us to create a music video which we had planned.

The setting of our music video was based in Soho in London.  This area is known to attracting unique, urban, different people.  Therefore, it strongly fits the genre of our music video which is why we captured distinctive shots.  These shots included pan shots of the city landscape and our artist (Tori Lorente) herself in the same shot.  We also included (flip shot, two areas looking like one) which was effective after editing as it was noticed by others when we received feedback of the first draft.  Another area we specifically chose to incorporate was the theme across our cross media promotional package.  We wanted to maintain the colours of red, grey and black throughout each product; especially red as it is a bold, illuminating colour which stood out and continued the synergy through the website, digipak and music video.  From this idea, we noticed other pop artists like Ariana Grande kept to baby pink through all her albums and on her website.  We found this an intelligent way of creating a star image for our artist and emphasizing the genre.

Goodwin claims there are five aspects needed to complete a music video.  These include; thought beats, narrative performance, star image, relation of visuals and technical aspects of the video.  as the genre of our music video was pop/urban, it is known that thought beats are often used in videos with the pop genre.  One example is Calvin Harris' Bounce.  We used this as an inspiration for our video; when the chorus dropped, the camera shot shoots to the right and back again in time with the music which was shown from our audience feedback to be very effective.
Another theorist we took inspiration from was Vernallis' theory.  He believed there are four concepts that manufacture a video including; narrative, editing, camera movement and diegesis.  From this we decided to edit our music video completely subverting the usual effects and transitions a mainstream pop video would entail.  Therefore, we took more of a slow approach by editing many of our shots in slow motion in order to create a star image for our artist.  Therefore, we linked the editing effect with the camera movement, we decided to move the camera in a slow, flowing motion so we could end up with a fluent, smooth final product.  However, we did add flashing cuts and sharp transitions during the video to make it interesting to the audience yet we made sure it fitted.
From my A2 production, i learnt that to make sure our genre is obvious to the audience, it is important to research existing media artists to get a similar idea.  However, once we retrieved these ideas we managed to add a twist to the product in order to make it our own.

Narrative Essay - 1

In my AS production, I produced a film opening based on a mix of both a thriller and romance genre.  I constructed the plot to make the audience realise that a person’s class does not defeat the object of being in love, whoever they may fall for.  Tez was a lower class 18-year-old boy, a stereotypical character of someone who was brought up from a more unfortunate environment.  Alicia was an upper-class, upcoming businesswoman who worked in the city.

Levi Strauss created a theory in which films are stocked with several binary opposites.  This is immediately effective for the audience without them subconsciously knowing about it.  An example of this is my film opening was that Tez came from a lower-class foundation and Alicia, an upper class surrounding.  I decided to go through with this theory as when watching existing media texts such as; Twilight, it is not predictable and this is what makes an opening of a film so gripping.

Todorov’s theory involved the idea of having an equilibrium.  This was the idea of the plot starting calm, disruption interrupting in the middle, causing a complete different outcome in comparison to the beginning.  Due to our production being a film opening.  I decided not to apply this as it would look like a short film instead.  Therefore, we decided to challenge the theory by making our film original, creating enigma at the end.  An example of this is we used our camera shots and editing skills to create tension about Tez, to make the audience question his personality.  Is he dangerous? Why does this music implement fear towards Alicia?

For Propp’s theory, we created Alicia’s character to be portrayed as sweet and innocent.  Whereas, with Tez we created him to cause enigma for the audience, by making him look like a villain.  Yet, we challenged this theory and subverted the audience’s expectations as Tez is not a dangerous character but his stereotypical view of the way he dresses, walks and acts causes him to be portrayed as this type of character.  Also, as mentioned before, we wanted to make our film opening as original as we could by not having these type of characters in the film as it then becomes predictable and repetitive especially for the audience we have.

As mentioned before, Barthes enigma coding theory was exactly the theory we were inspired by.  As a massive fan of loving being left on a cliff hanger, we decided to use this theory to grip our audience.  We made the audience question why Tez sat next to Alicia on the train, why is Alicia oblivious to Tez and many more.  Because of this, this causes the audience to want to watch more and find out the answers to their questions.

To conclude, narrative was a crucial consideration when constructing my film opening.  However, for me, the most influential theorist is Barthes.  This is due to how much his theory inspired the narrative of our opening.  If it wasn’t for this enigma coding invention, films today would not be half as gripping today.

Media Language Essay - 1

For my a-level productions our cross media promotional package had an urban/electro pop genre.  Our aim was to create consistent synergy throughout the music video, website and digipak.  Therefore, we decided to maintain a continuing red colour scheme.  Not only this, we then chose to stick to the same fashion costume as the audience would then recognise our artist by her casual attire of black jeans and red hoodie.

Within our music video, we chose to include a range of camera shots for different reasons.  We used close-up shots to create a brand image for our artist.  This was because we had to consider that she was new and upcoming.  Therefore, we also used long body shots to establish ‘Tori Lorente’s’ star image for the same reason.  Our aim was to create a recognizable face for our artist so the audience to get to know this new urban teen.  Again, because of these chosen camera angles, this gave us the chance to maintain the synergy as Tori wore the famous red hoodie.  We wanted to make sure the audience could relate with Tori as she is a young girl, in the age range of our target audience.  Therefore, the mid shots were used on Tori as it makes her not intimidating and so the audience are on the ‘same level’ as her.

Our mise-en-scene had many different aspects such as; costume, lighting, props and the setting which were altered to suit our artist.  Our setting we used was in Soho in London.  This was because it is an urban, different location and reflects Tori’s genre.  It was also where she grew up, which initially makes the video personal to our artist which is a huge attraction for the audience.  We choose to film everything in daylight to give the video a bright, successful feel to it.  This was consistent across the whole package which kept the synergy.

With the editing of our video, we used an effect called ‘leave colour’ which graduated the red colour on certain objects.  This was edited on the heart, as a sign of love, on the hoodie, to enhance brand image and on the post box, to symbolise Tori’s fan base across the country.  Most shots were made in slow motion so the audience would focus on Tori’s face to make it recognizable.  The cuts ion the video was sharp but had flowing transitions which was effective and made the video smooth.

As our genre was urban/electro pop, we decided to locate our video in Soho as it was original and subverted the typical location of a pop artist.  Tori was fully clothed wearing a red hoodie and black jeans, which is almost masculine.  This conformed Laura Mulvey’s theory of not selling women sexually.  Also, there is only Tori in her video, one woman, which shows women are powerful enough on their own, our chosen song ‘Hold Me Down’ had lyrics which our target audience would relate too.  Therefore, this enhances the attraction to Tori.

As part of the cross media promotional package; we created Tori her own website and digipak.  For both, we kept a similar layout, the same text, format and colour scheme to continue the synergy.  These we created to talk to the audience in a different way than the music video.  This included; social media sites constantly being updated.  We used the same images and consistent theme throughout.  It was a way of communicating with Tori’s fans as the target audience is aged from 16-25 years old, which is the most popular age to use social media sites.

To conclude, as a group to create media language, we used this to communicated with Tori’s audience and enhance her brand image as a fresh, upcoming, successful artist.

Post Production

• After Effects
• Photoshop
• Premiere Pro - leave colour, speed, duration etc.
• wix

Building Blocks

Gradually learnt new skills and software from AS to A2

AS
Dancing Bears
Juno
Prelim - you for you
Post Production - film opening

Text Image Layout Font = Digipak

A2
Prelim
Steal-O-Matic
Website, Digipak
Music Video

*Cross media promotional package for new artist*

Digital Technologies

• Hardware
• Software
• Online Technology
• Digital Cameras
• Computers
• Programmes

Example Question 1A

In Q1A, write about your work for the Foundation Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units.

Explain how your skills in the creative use of digital technology developed over time.
Refer to a range of examples from your media productions in your answer.

Exam Overview

A2 Exam Blog: gbhsa2exam.blogspot.com

OCRG325

Question 1A: 25 Marks
Question 1B: 25 Marks
Question 2: 50 Marks

Question 1A

Talk about both productions; Year 12 Film Opening and Year 13 Music Video
Show progress from year 12 to year 13 in the chosen aspect
Question will be related to one of the follow aspects of our production:

1. Research and Planning
2. Post Production
3. Digital Technologies
4. Forms and Conventions
5. Creativity

Evaluate skills development in a specific area (film opening or music video)
Justify reason behind production process
Describe, evaluate skills development over the course of your Production work
Compare AS to A2

• What did you do?
• How did you do it?
• How did your skills develop?
• Support with examples
• Relate to the Question

Question 1B

Narrative, Choose one production to talk about
Talk about the process of the production and what it entails.
Evaluate one of your own media products in relation to a key media concept

Question 2

Contemporary Media Issues
British Teenage representations
Factual Question, include Quotes, Knowledge based
Collective Identity: Representation of UK Teenagers