1b - Narrative

Applying narrative to your text

Revision Guide A2 Media OCR G325

 

Media Language

I have seen this on Eleanor Watson's blog from the other A2 class & believe it is useful.

Media Language.

Medium has its own language - they use familiar codes and conventions

Denotation - literal meaning, the signifier

Connotation - infered meaning, the signified

Barthes argud that in film connotation can be analytically distinguished from denotation


Fiske "denotation is what is filmed, connotation is how it is filmed"

Charles Sanders Pierce - "we only think in signs" Signs only represents anything when society attributes meaning to them.


Micro-ElementsHow they have created meaning to inform us about genre, narrative, representations/ideology, targeting of audiencesHall - there is a preferred meaning that the film makers want the audience to decode.



Seminotic Terminology


Mise-en-scene creates the diegetic world:

• Location

• Character

• Cinemography

• Layout/ Page Design

Camerawork:

• Shot types

• Camera composition

• Camera movement

• Camera angles

Continuity:

• Establishing/re-establishing shot

• Transitions

• 180 degree tule

• Action match

• Cross-cutting

• Cutaway

• Insert shots

• Shot-reverse shot structures

• Eyeline match

Non-continuity:

• Montage sequence

• Flash back/forward

• Ellipsis

• Graphic match

3 types of signs:

• Icon/iconic - it looks like what it is

• Index/indexical - infered sign

• Symbol/symoblic - signifier doesn't resemble the signified - arbitary or convential

Stuart Hall - texts can be encoded by producers and meaning is decoded by the audience

Genre

Media Language

A2 Media Exam

Creativity - 1A

One of the possible areas you could be asked about in the exam is creativity. The projects you have undertaken will hopefully have felt like an opportunity to display your creativity, but you will need the chance to discuss what you understand by creativity and what it might mean to be creative.

The assignment options at AS and A2 all offer constraints for your work, whether it be making pages for a music magazine, the opening of a film or the packaging for an album; one of the reasons why you aren't offered total free choice is because people often find that working within constraints gives them something to exercise their creativity, whereas total freedom can sometimes make it really difficult to know where to start. It's why genre can be interesting- how has something been created which fits with certain structures and rules but plays around with them to give us something a little bit different?

The word 'creative' has many meanings- the most democratic meaning would really suggest that any act of making something (even making an idea) might be seen as a creative act. In more elitist versions of the term, it is reserved for those who are seen as highly skilled or original (famous artists, musicians, film-makers etc). an interesting third alternative is to think about how creativity can be an unconscious, random or collaborative act that becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Research & Planning - 1A

Here is a write up of how I believe I faired at Research in Planning, not only in my AS but as in my A2 work. 

Post Production - 1A

Digital Technology - 1A

Conventions From Real Texts - 1A

G325 Exam

Just been looking about and found this slideshare. although it's 36 slides, it covers near enough everything for the G325 A2 exam and is definitely worth having a look at! 

January 2011

In question 1 (a) you need to write about your work for the Foundation Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media production work you have undertaken.

1 (a) Describe how you developed skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creativity and decision making. (25)


In question 1 (b) you must write about one of your media productions only.

1 (b) Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions. (25)

Section A Total [50]

These questions match the exemplar you were given yesterday.

Past Questions section 1a and 1b

1a

Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. 
Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.

Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making.
Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.


Explain how far your understanding of the conventions of existing media influenced the way you created your own media products. 
Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how this understanding developed over time.



1b

Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.

Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre.

Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.


Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of audience.

How To Answer Question 1b

In Sunday’s post, I listed all questions which have been set in previous sessions:

Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.
Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre
Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.

You will notice that each of these questions is quite short and fits a common formula. You can be assured that the same thing will apply this summer. You will be asked to apply ONE concept to one of your productions. This is a quite different task from question 1a, where you write about all of your work and your skills, as this one involves some reference to theory and only the one piece of work, as well as asking you to step back from it and think about it almost as if someone else had made it- what is known as ‘critical distance’.

There are five possible concepts which can come up

Representation
Genre
Narrative
Audience
Media Language

If you look through those questions above, you will see that the first three have all already come up, but don’t be fooled into thinking that means that it must be one of the other two this time- exams don’t always work that predictably! It would be far too risky just to bank on that happening and not prepare for the others! In any case, preparing for them all will help you understand things better and there are areas of overlap which you can use across the concepts.

So, how do you get started preparing and revising this stuff? First of all, you need to decide which project you would be most confident analysing in the exam. I believe that any of the five can be applied to moving image work, so if you did a film opening at AS, a music video, short film or trailer at A2, that would be the safest choice. Print work is more tricky to write about in relation to narrative, but the other four areas would all work well for it, so it is up to you, but to be honest, I’d prepare in advance of the exam as you don’t want to be deciding what to use during your precious half hour! What you certainly need is a copy of the project itself to look at as part of your revision, to remind yourself in detail of how it works.

Representation

If you take a video you have made for your coursework, you will almost certainly have people in it. If the topic is representation, then your task is to look at how those representations work in your video. You could apply some of the ideas used in the AS TV Drama exam here- how does your video construct a representation of gender, ethnicity or age for example? You need also to refer to some critics who have written about representation or theories of media representation and attempt to apply those (or argue with them). So who could you use? Interesting writers on representation and identity include Richard Dyer, Angela McRobbie and David Gauntlett. See what they say...

Genre

If you’ve made a music magazine at AS level, an analysis of the magazine would need to set it in relation to the forms and conventions shown in such magazines, particularly for specific types of music. But it would not simply comprise a list of those conventions. There are a whole host of theories of genre and writers with different approaches. Some of it could be used to inform your writing about your production piece. Some you could try are: Altman, Grant and Neale- all are cited in the wikipedia page here

Narrative

A film opening or trailer will be ideal for this, as they both depend upon ideas about narrative in order to function. An opening must set up some of the issues that the rest of the film’s narrative will deal with, but must not give too much away, since it is only an opening and you would want the audience to carry on watching! Likewise a trailer must draw upon some elements of the film’s imaginary complete narrative in order to entice the viewer to watch it, again without giving too much away. If you made a short film, you will have been capturing a complete narrative, which gives you something complete to analyse. If you did a music video, the chances are that it was more performance based, maybe interspersed with some fragments of narrative. In all these cases, there is enough about narrative in the product to make it worth analysis. The chances are you have been introduced to a number of theories about narrative, but just in case, here’s a link to a PDF by Andrea Joyce, which summarises four of them, including Propp and Todorov.

Audience

Every media product has to have an audience, otherwise in both a business sense and probably an artistic sense too it would be judged a failure. In your projects, you will undoubtedly have been looking at the idea of a target audience- who you are aiming it at and why; you should also have taken feedback from a real audience in some way at the end of the project for your digital evaluation, which involves finding out how the audience really ‘read’ what you had made. You were also asked at AS to consider how your product addressed your audience- what was it about it that particularly worked to ‘speak’ to them? All this is effectively linked to audience theory which you then need to reference and apply.

Media Language

A lot of people have assumed this is going to be the most difficult concept to apply, but I don’t think it need be. If you think back to the AS TV Drama exam, when you had to look at the technical codes and how they operate, that was an exercise in applying media language analysis, so for the A2 exam if this one comes up, I’d see it as pretty similar. For moving image, the language of film and television is defined by how camera, editing, sound and mise-en-scene create meaning. Likewise an analysis of print work would involve looking at how fonts, layout, combinations of text and image as well as the actual words chosen creates meaning. Useful theory here might be Roland Barthes on semiotics- denotation and connotation and for moving image work Bordwelland Thompson

So what do you do in the exam?

You need to state which project you are using and briefly describe it
You then need to analyse it using whichever concept appears in the question, making reference to relevant theory throughout
Keep being specific in your use of examples from the project

Tips for Question 1a

As you saw in yesterday's post, these are the previous questions which came up for this part of the exam:

Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.

Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

You will notice that each of these begins by asking you to 'describe' and then goes on to ask you to reflect in some way: "evaluate", "how you used" "how your skills developed". herein lies the key to this part of the exam! You only have half an hour for the question and you really need to make the most of that time by quickly moving from description (so the reader knows what you did) to analysis/evaluation/reflection, so he/she starts to understand what you learnt from it.

there are five possible areas which can come up

Digital technology
Research and Planning
Conventions of Real Media
Post-Production
Creativity.

If you look through those questions above, you will see that they all contain at least two of the five- creativity is mentioned (as 'creative decision making') in two of them alongside the main area (digital technology on one, research and planning skills in the other). In the third of those past questions , research is combined with conventions of real media. So as you can see, the question is likely to mix and match the five, so you HAVE to be able to think on your feet and answer the question that is there.

So, how do you get started preparing and revising this stuff? I would suggest that you begin by setting out, on cards or post-its, a list of answers to these questions:

What production activities have you done? 

This should include both the main task and preliminary task from AS and the main and ancillaries at A2 plus any non-assessed activities you have done as practice, and additionally anything you have done outside the course which you might want to refer to, such as films made for other courses or skateboard videos made with your mates if you think you can make them relevant to your answer.

What digital technology have you used? 

This should not be too hard- include hardware (cameras, phones for pictures/audio, computers and anything else you used) software (on your computer) and online programs, such as blogger, youtube etc

In what ways can the work you have done be described as creative? 

This is a difficult question and one that does not have a correct answer as such, but ought to give you food for thought.

What different forms of research did you do? 

Again you will need to include a variety of examples- institutional research (such as on how titles work in film openings), audience research (before you made your products and after you finished for feedback), research into conventions of media texts (layout, fonts, camera shots, soundtracks, everything!) and finally logistical research- recce shots of your locations, research into costume, actors, etc


What conventions of real media did you need to know about? 

For this, it is worth making a list for each project you have worked on and categorising them by medium so that you don’t repeat yourself

What do you understand by ‘post-production’ in your work? 

This one, I’ll answer for you- for the purpose of this exam, it is defined as everything after planning and shooting or live recording. In other words, the stage of your work where you manipulated your raw material on the computer, maybe using photoshop, a video editing program or desktop publishing.


For each of these lists, your next stage is to produce a set of examples- so that when you make the point in the exam, you can then back it up with a concrete example. You need to be able to talk about specific things you did in post-production and why they were significant, just as you need to do more than just say ‘I looked on youtube’ for conventions of real media, but actually name specific videos you looked at, what you gained from them and how they influenced your work.

This question will be very much about looking at your skills development over time, the process which brought about this progress, most if not all the projects you worked on from that list above, and about reflection on how how you as a media student have developed. Unusually, this is an exam which rewards you for talking about yourself and the work you have done!

Final tips: you need some practice- this is very hard to do without it! I’d have a crack at trying to write an essay on each of the areas, or at the very least doing a detailed plan with lots of examples. The fact that it is a 30 minute essay makes it very unusual, so you need to be able to tailor your writing to that length- a tough task!

OCR Exam Questions 1a and 1b Tips and Advice

 

Flight Of The Conchords

How to answer the pomo question!

THIS is how you answer a PoMo question

Postmodernism exam questions

These are the previous questions set for this topic:

What is meant by ‘postmodern media’?
Why are some media products described as ‘postmodern’?
Explain how certain kinds of media can be defined as postmodern.
Explain why the idea of ‘postmodern media’ might be considered controversial
“Postmodern media blur the boundary between reality and representation.” Discuss this idea with reference to media texts that you have studied.
Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of postmodern media.

So as you will notice, the questions may focus on what postmodernism is and how you apply ideas about it to examples, but also to why there is an argument about the term itself. I suspect if you have studied this topic, you will have been introduced to the debates around it and have the ability to apply definitions to examples, but I'll point you in the direction of some useful material here too.

If we look at the bullet points in the Specification, which defines what should be studied, we should be able to relate them to the questions set so far:

• What are the different versions of post-modernism (historical period, style, theoretical approach)? (first and fourth questions above)
• What are the arguments for and against understanding some forms of media as post-modern? (possibly all six questions!)
• How do post-modern media texts challenge traditional text-reader relations and the concept of representation? (first, second, third and fifth questions)
• In what ways do media audiences and industries operate differently in a post-modern world? (quite a hard one, maybe a bit of the third and fifth ones) 


The kinds of thing you might use as case studies include:

How post-modern media relate to genre and narrative
computer / video games, virtual worlds, augmented reality and and new forms of representation,
post-modern cinema,
interactive media,
social media and social networking,
reality TV,
music video,
advertising,
post-modern audience theories,
aspects of globalisation,
parody and pastiche in media texts or a range of other applications of post-modern media theory.

It is pretty open in terms of what you might have studied, so I would expect answers to draw upon very different case study material.

This part of the exam asks you to do three more specific things, whatever topic you answer on:

1. You MUST refer to at least TWO different media
2. You MUST refer to past, present and future (with the emphasis on the present- contemporary examples from the past five years)
3. refer to critical/theoretical positions

So for 1. you might compare and contrast examples from film and TV or from games and the web.

For 2. the main thing is to ensure you have a majority of material from the past five years. There were a number of answers last year which were dominated by older examples, so beware of this if you are writing about games or the web, you can be pretty up to date, but the same is true of examples from TV, music video or cinema. This is not to stop you referring to historical examples, just encouraging an emphasis on recent ones. For the point about the future, you could say something about how as we all live more of our lives online, more and more texts take on elements of postmodernism.

For 3. You will hopefully have been introduced to some theory and your teachers will have tried to make it accessible- some key names are Baudrillard and Lyotard and their ideas are summarised quite neatly here

Hobo With A Shotgun

Hobo with a Shotgun, directed by Jason Eisener, was initially a fake trailer made for an international contest to promote the release of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's double feature Grindhouse. It won the contest, and was screened in some areas of Canada as part of the actual release of Grindhouse. A feature-length version of Hobo With a Shotgun began principal photography in Halifax on April 19, 2010.
A teaser trailer was released on April 26, 2010.

It was the second of Grindhouse's fake trailers to be turned into a feature film, the first being Rodriguez's Machete. David Brunt, who played the homeless man in the trailer, has a cameo appearance in the film as a cop

Hot Chip

Today another band that, in my opinion, are postmodern released their new single - Night & Day. Once again linking in with the same reasons I believe that this latest song from Hot Chip is a postmodern piece of music, and it's very good too. Check it out here or like i've just done buy it on iTunes here! 

Baudrillard

Think back 9/11 'it was like a Movie', Baudrillard gives this phenomenon a name, Simulacra Simulation. 
Baudrillard claims that our current society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that human experience is of a simulation of reality. 


He believes we cannot separate the image from the 'reality', for example when we drink coke we drink more than brown coloured water flavoured with sugar, we drink the marketing and lifestyle associated with it.

Jai Paul - Jasmine

Jai Paul 

here is Jai Paul's brand new track, definitely a piece of music I consider to be post modern. It fits in with Jonathan Kramer's theory, in particular the way that Kramer stated that technology had now become a way to actually produce music through laptops etc, rather than people using actual instruments all the time. The track uses lots of different layers & loops that are played over each other.

Here is the mediafire link to the track; http://www.mediafire.com/?kfkv3x9h8eoa49x

Plan B - Ill Manors

over the past week, Plan B has released the video for his new single 'ill manors'. In my opinion the video/song itself is definitely a post modern one. The song itself owes heavily to the London riots that took place last summer.

The video itself could be seen as a parody, including clips of various politicians being mocked, with one image of a dog actually having an image of David Cameron in his poo. Plan B has tried to show how Britain is seeing the youths of today, and also how exactly we stereotype people, for example with the line 'he's got a hoodie on give him a hug, on second thoughts don't you wanna get mugged'. The song continues to carry on the theme of how Britain is blaming all of the 'chavs' for the ongoings of last year's riots, with Plan B highlighting the fact he believes that the typical assumption for the word 'chav' in today's society means that someone is 'Council Housed And Violent'. The list of references goes on and on 'do what Boris does & rob everyone blind'  - obviously referring to Boris Johnson. On top of all of this obviously the video could be seen as intertextuality with the way they have shown the London Riots.

The guardian have actually written a piece on the video/song itself as well, claiming that it is the 'greatest British protest song in years'.

Here it is;

Furthermore, I have also listened to the full interview that he did on BBC 1Xtra, he speaks all about the influences of his song. He is speaks about how we wants to try and set up a charity/foundation to try and solve this issues.  Here the interview is aswell, pretty interesting. 

Gorillaz

here is my presentation on Gorillaz, a band that I personally believe are extremely post modern. 

Examples of Jonathan Kramer

At 1:37 in this song, the music stops with band members telling each other to calm down. One member tells another to just remember Gandhi. The song then carries on a few seconds later. This is an example of no.13 - fragmentation.

This is DJ Moneyshot live at Bestival last year. This shows how technoology can be used in terms of lighting, all his sound equipment, including his laptop but also the way that he more than likely will of created this mix at home on his laptop usuing synthesised instruments etc. This is an example of no.10 considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music

Research & Planning

For my A2 work in  terms of primary research, I analysed current music videos from the genre of music we wanted to create a video for, looking at bands such as The Maccabees, Arctic Monkeys and Bombay Bicycle Club. I also looked at past and present examples of digi-packs, ranging from various genres to get a good idea of all of the options that were available to us to try and create something of a similar standard. I looked at not only examples from a similar genre, but also ranging to Hip-Hop looking at artists such as Jay Z and Kanye West's digi-packs. I also completed analysis of various posters and magazine adverts used by artists

I believe that I can take a lot out of my primary research as it has helped me break down music video from a similar genre to see what is typically common in a music video of this genre, and if it worked and why. Looking at examples of artists' digipacks also really helped me get a good feel as to what the commonly used idea is [having on image spread across all 3 page].

For my secondary research for my A2 work I looked through all of the current charts to see what was popular and we also had a look at the indie charts as well, being more specific to our genre. I read various reviews of music videos to see what kind of video was accepted as being a good video, and if so why, furthermore I also took notes in class from my teacher where he would show us previous examples of some good work.
I scanned through a lot of music magazines to try and get a better feel for the poster/magazine advert that I needed to create, spending a long time watching music video channels in an attempt to gain a good feel for what is currently out there, and what in my opinion works and what doesn't. I believe that my secondary research helped me more than my primary as I had a much more wider range of sources to look at. I personally felt that my research looking through the magazines was the most beneficial for me as it enabled me to get a good idea of what kind of look I wanted to go for my own magazine advert.

For my AS primary research, I analysed current magazines from the genre of music we wanted to create a video for, looking at bands such as The Maccabees, Klaxons' etc. Lastly, I also completed analysis of various posters and magazine adverts used by artists who fall within our specific genre. This shows that my primary research for my AS coursework was lacking slightly, despite me still getting a really good grade. In terms of my secondary research, I looked at various fonts from websites and organisations. I furthered this in terms of actually looking at some clothing brands that I felt looked really good such as 'Supreme' using futura, a font that I went on to use a lot for my AS work. I also had a good look at the style of writing in magazines such as NME. I believe that this really helped me with my article, with that getting some excellent feedback from my AS teacher, which I was really happy with.

I believe that my research for my A2 coursework was a lot better overall. This is due to a lot of work being put in terms of my primary research, with me analysing in depth various music videos such as When The Sun Goes Down by Arctic Monkeys. For me, creating a music video was much more an interesting idea alongside the digipack and the magazine advert than the AS coursework of the magazine front cover, contents and DPS. Therefore I believe that this also inspired me to do a lot more research as I wanted the video to be something that not only I thought was good, but also something that really did fit our genre well and also a video that I enjoyed watching.

Obviously to achieve this it was crucial that in terms of secondary research with me having a look at videos from ranging genres on the Internet, that I could pick which bits I like and believed worked well and what I felt would work well within our music video. With my digipack research, I found this rather quite easy. Despite not buying too many CD's these days, I still have a decent collection, and when I do tend to buy an album, it will often be the special edition with all of the inserts in the fold out digipack style. This helped me as obviously I could just look through my personal collection, and also my Dad's as combined we had some really interesting pieces ranging from all different genres which helped to give me some really good ideas. Furthermore, in terms of the front cover in particular, obviously in iTunes you have all the album artwork. Therefore in terms of research for me this was really easy as I went on my iMac and could literally scroll through all of my music library looking at the different front covers. This once again meant that I could have a widespread field of inspiration and really helped me.

My research literally cost me nothing. As I have spoken about, my research consisted of things that in today's world are fairly basic. For example, looking through my mac for different album artwork's, searching the Internet for all different videos and other inspirations for my digipack. In addition to all of this, I also watched several music channels in an attempt to get a good feel for what exactly worked well in the latest videos and what I didn't think worked as well. Therefore, my research cost me nothing really.

At times my research was hard to conduct. This was obviously due to things such as trying to search the Internet for different ideas and where I could take something from another piece of work and let it inspire me in terms of my own personal work. As you can imagine, this therefore was very time consuming, however with it being in a field that I have genuine interest for, I didn't really find it too much of a chore. The research that I conducted was taken from mainly other pieces of work, not really students as I didn't want to take anything into my video that maybe wasn't as professional and as well thought out as a professional piece of work. Therefore it generally came from established artists, looking at things like album artworks, their musics videos and watching interviews with the band for an insight into their ideas.

I believe that the research that I conducted really did influence my work. For example, we took a lot of inspiration from the original video from Bombay Bicycle Club. There was a couple of shots that really did have an impact on our final piece, this can be seen with a shot where we had a band member waving at a passing train. This was also used by Bombay Bicycle Club, however we used it in a different way to them, using it to close our video off showing. We aimed to achieve this feel with having the band member waving at the train to try and give the viewers the sense that he was almost waving good bye to them as an audience. My research heavily influenced my digi-pack, in particular my front cover. After going through so many different front covers, I decided that I was really interested in re-creating something like the Klaxons' 'Surfing The Void', which was a collage with several images within images. Despite knowing that this would be a very time consuming task, I took the challenge on and feel that when you compare the two front covers [mine & the Klaxons'] you can really see how they are so heavily linked, whilst at the same time using totally different images with a different theme to the pictures. In terms of my research having a strong influence on the rest of my digi-pack, I had a strong feeling that after looking at so many varying ideas for the 3 page spread, that I wanted to actually follow the usual convention of having one image spread across all 3 pages. I achieved this by getting a panoramic shot of a local woodland, therefore not really having to stretch and therefore distort the image itself. I decided that I wanted to actually change things rather a lot and provide a contrast to my work in terms of the colour. I decided to give a black and white to the initial image, however then taking into consideration my theme, to actually get some patterned colours in there as well to brighten things up slightly, which also helped my digi-pack to fit well into the alternative/indie genre.

I found all of my research really helpful as it gave me a clear image of what exactly is out there in terms of what's been done before and what stands out from the crowd. It appeared to me that in order to stand out and make your digipack seen in terms of the front cover was to either have something really basic, such as Arctic Monkeys' cover for Suck It & See or to go all out there and have an extremely busy front cover such as the one I created. I'm glad that I did so much research and spent a lot of time looking through all different pieces from different genres as it meant that I could be influenced by images and ideas that weren't just from my genre, but from elsewhere such as Hip-Hop etc.

I personally believe that my organisation skills in terms of referencing my work, labelling it on blogger etc drastically improved in my A2 work compared to at the start of the AS course. At first, with me not actually keeping my own personal blog I was fairly useless in terms of blogger, I understood the basics, however generally my work was a bit 'all over the shop' with me not realising that I could actually manually select what time I wanted each post to be actually posted, therefore meaning that I could have certain pieces following work that is also relating to the same subject. I feel that in my A2 course, my blog is a lot more organised, I aimed to actually label every single post in order for me to be able to quickly locate it if I ever needed to get it back up. This really helped me in terms of going back to look at things such as written analysis's etc.

In terms of draft versions of my work, I created draft versions of all of my final products, the magazine advert, the digipack as a whole, and also the music video. These mock ups really helped me as it highlighted the areas of each part of my work that worked and also obviously what needed improvement and changing. It also helped to give me some ideas on how I could change things for the better. My mock ups were all created using the exact software that I would be using for my final pieces. This helped me not only get familiar in depth of how the software worked, but it also meant that it was also then easier to get my final piece done, as I already had a starting point on my mac.

When you're creating something like a Magazine front cover, a digipack or a music video, it is obviously vital that you obtain some audience feedback. The bottom line of it is that you want to know if your specific target audience actually likes what you're doing or what you've done and if it would appeal to them. It can obviously influence your work tremendously, as you may find that several people don't like/don't really understand a part of your video. This would make you think about that particular part and see how you could adapt/change it so that it would appeal to the audience.

When you're completing a coursework project such as this, obviously the volume of work that is required to be completed in a set amount of time can often be rather daunting, which is something that we found. However, I know that individually in my AS coursework that I met all deadlines, including even my draft deadlines. Furthermore, collectively as a pair me & Ed also met all of the deadlines for our draft videos, draft digipacks and also the final pieces of all the work. Obviously in terms of photo shoots, video shoots etc it can be really hard to get everyone together, especially as the models I used for my work were ranging in terms of age and also what type of education were in, with some actually being at work full time. I learnt that it can be a really stressful process when you need to get everyone together, as it requires planning weeks in advance, so this really tested our organisation skills, however I'm pleased to say we really did manage to get this done well. I would say that my knowledge about production schedules has developed significantly since I drew my first one up for my AS coursework photo-shoots. I have learnt that if my production schedules are in more detail it allows me to get things done a lot faster when it comes to actually videoing or taking the pictures as I know exactly what I want in terms of angles, personnel etc. I overall believe that organisation & meeting deadlines was therefore a strength of mine.

For me, the AS coursework was a lot more 'convienient' in the sense that I had photoshop on my laptop and could literally get it out whenever I fancied and get on with my work, due to me individually having my own ideas and plans for exactly how I wanted the work to turn out. Also with me doing it individually it meant that I didn't have to consult anyone in terms of what I should do next, I could just get on with it. However, I learnt that in the A2 coursework that having someone alongside you in a pair like I did for my video really does help out at times. For example, if you are really busy and cannot get some work done, if you explain to your partner your thoughts and how you want that particular shot to work they can get on with the work whilst you're busy which is definitely a positive. For me, I believe that there were however a lot of negatives to working in a pair. It was at times really hard to ensure that we were both available at the same time due to us both having work commitments, however with us both attending the same college it obviously meant that we saw each other a lot so that made the issue a lot easier to get around. I believe that the coursework was made easier by the fact that both me and Ed shared very similar ideas in terms of how we wanted the video to look, so we never really had to argue that we preferred a different shot etc. In reference to the planning stage, it meant that me & Ed spent a lot of time together simply discussing and researching any potential ideas that we had, and also that together we would research different videos from different genres giving us a really wide range of sources when we came together to discuss progress.

In terms of technology for both AS and A2, I used a wide range of different technologies to present my ideas on my blog and also to my class. Examples of this would be my use of things like Prezi, Animoto, Photoshop, SlideShare, Blogger etc. At first, in my AS year, most of these technologies were new to me, however by the time it came to my A2 year,  I was now finding them much easier to use and they allowed me to be more creative. 

Coming back to my organisation, I believe that in terms of AS coursework I kept a 'diary' of my progress. I did this by posting updates on my blog, which would also help jog my memory if I ever thought 'what needs doing next'. In terms of the A2 work, this was once again very similar, with us both noting what we had got done and also what we aimed to get done in the coming weeks. However, we also arranged times where together as a pair we would sit down and discuss any issues, but most generally just the progress we had made since the last chat.

Overall, when I look back to my research and planning from my AS coursework compared to my A2 I can really see some amazing differences. I demonstrate some really good depth of research and planning with my A2 work, which were perhaps lacking slightly in my AS work. I have also learnt that the more detail I go into in terms of planning, using things such as storyboards etc that I can make things a lot less time consuming and also generally a lot easier to do that if I just turn up without a thorough plan. My research was, in my opinion, really well detailed for my A2 work, and I believe that is reflected in the outcomes of all of my work with them all being of a reasonably high standard. My overall skills since my AS work have come on leaps and bounds in terms of using new technology, and using it well and confidently. I have also now demonstrated that I can work alongside someone and we can still together produce really good pieces of work.

Lady Gaga

Obviously, I know this isn't my work, however after having a good look at Steph's presentation on Lady Gaga, thought it would be silly to not include it on my blog. I found it very interesting, despite not listening to Lady Gaga. 

Steph's presentation gives some great examples of just how Gaga is actually a post modern artist and therefore I wanted to include it on my blog. 

Jonathan Kramer: postmodern music theory

Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices." 
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist. 

Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.

Post Modernism & Music

Research based task:

The focus of your task will be postmodernism in relation to music. You will need to have an understanding of music that includes the following:

The postmodern sensibility that anything can be considered cool in an ironic 'I know it's bad,but it's so bad it's good' way. For example, this could be someone's guilty pleasure. This isn't anything I would normally listen to, however I definitely find this to be one of my few guilty pleasures.

In terms of sampling there is many artists that use samples of music from not only similar genres, but also where for example a hip-hop artist will use samples from a song from the alternative genre. For example, Frank Ocean of OFWGKTA has released a solo mix tape which came under acclaim from Kanye West and this then lead to him getting the opportunity to work with Kanye & Jay-Z on their album ‘Watch The Throne’. Frank Ocean samples many songs throughout his mixtape, including Radiohead, Coldplay & MGMT.

Audiences that are both niche and mainstream. E.g.: Radio 1, 1xtra, BBC6, XFM

The best example for this would be Radio 1. Throughout the day time many people will have Radio 1 playing in the office, on the building site etc. However, come the later parts of the day the playlists change with more emphasis on more under the radar music being played with people like Zane Lowe having his ‘hottest record in the world right now’.

The ways in which people engage and listen to music e.g. iPod, DAB, mobile phones etc.  This is still very much the same for me. Everywhere I go I will have a 64GB iPhone with me, with every single track in my iTunes library & all my playlists along side me. For my car I have an 80GB iPod classic with everything on, so I never listen to the radio. 

The legal issues surrounding sampling. For example Syl Johnson filed a lawsuit on Kanye West & Jay-Z when they released their joint piece 'Watch The Throne' claiming they had used an uncleared sample on 'their' track 'They Joy'. Johnson says that West originally wanted to use the sample for his own solo album entitled "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," but that the defendant was unable to obtain permission at the time of release. After failure to clear a license for the sample on one album, West's use of the sample on another album without permission is said to be an example of knowing and 

willful misappropriation. 

The state of the music industry incorporating any recent developments that change how we access/interact with music e.g. Spotify, X factor, iTunes, illegal downloading free cds with newspapers etc. 

The Matrix