Our coursework projects are really starting to take off with some brilliant preliminary exercises. Now it's time to update our Statements of Intent and plan the music video for real. The next stages of the project are critical - this is where the video project will stand or fall. The next tasks and deadlines are as follows: Statement of Intent second draft Submitted as a NEW blog post AND hard copy from Microsoft Word Deadline: Week commencing Monday 2 November Music video pre-production
Three blogposts with a final music video treatment, mise-en-scene plan and shot list.
Deadline: Week commencing Monday 9 November
Filming of music video
Filming window: Monday 19 October - Friday 20 November Deadline: Friday 20 November
Tutorials While you work on the above deadlines, you will have another tutorial with your coursework teacher looking at your latest Statement of Intent and checking pre-production planning. For those who film early in the filming window, it will also involve checking the 'rushes' (the film clips as they come in).
Mark scheme
A few of you have requested the mark scheme for the Statement of Intent. You can find it in the A Level Media specification document here - on pages 21-22 (if you keep scrolling you can also find the mark scheme for the remaining 50 marks for your productions). This is the moment you need to step up... we're demanding professional standards to match the incredible production work Greenford Media students have produced at A Level in the past. Good luck!
Pre-production is an essential part of the filmmaking process. You now need to plan your music videos in detail to ensure you capture everything you need when filming.
There are three key elements to pre-production: music video treatment, mise-en-scene planning and a comprehensive shot list.
Music video treatment
You may already have a finished music video treatment from your summer project.
Post your latest music video treatment to your blog in a blogpost called 'Music video treatment October 2020'.
Mise-en-scene planning
Plan everything that will appear in front of the camera in your music video.
Remember CLAMPS: Costume, Lighting, Actors (cast, placement and movement), Make-up, Props, Setting. Costume What will your characters wear? What is the costume supposed to communicate to the audience? How does this link to your Statement of Intent in terms of creating representations? Lighting How will you light your music video? Day or night? Interior or exterior? If outside, can you use streetlights, shadows, reflected sunlight or other creative techniques to achieve the lighting style you want? If inside, experiment with creative lighting techniques using windows, blinds, artificial lights, phone flashes and more. You may also want to use our professional lighting set-up with a white or greenscreen background. Actors/performers The first thing you need to plan is your cast - who will be in your production and which characters will they play? Try and cast people who are reasonably similar to the character or performer they are playing (both in age and personality). Next, plan their placement and movement in key scenes in your music video. Do you want them to appear trapped in a claustrophobic close-up? Or isolated as a tiny person in a wide shot? Make-up Plan any make-up you require - this can be very important for music video. Props What props will you require? Remember, you can't use anything that might resemble a weapon in a public or school location (this is VERY important). Well-planned props can help to communicate genre and narrative quickly - vital in a music video where you can't use dialogue. Setting This should already be largely planned using your music video treatment. However, now is the time to specify exact locations - if a classroom, which one? How will you arrange it with the teacher? When will you film there? For external locations, try and take pictures of settings or use Google Maps and Google Earth. Spending quality time planning your locations can make a huge difference to the professionalism of your film. AQA also seem to prefer external rather than school-based locations. Here's a video guide to Mise-en-scene at degree or film-school level: ...And here's Darius Britt on the top 15 mistakes new filmmakers make - there are a few key aspects of Mise-en-scene in there:
Post your detailed mise-en-scene planning to your blog in a blogpost called 'Mise-en-scene planning October 2020'.
Shot list
The final aspect of your pre-production planning is to write a comprehensive shot list for every single possible shot you plan to film for your music video. A shot list is a full list of all the shots in your music video with detailed information for each of them (shot type, action etc.) Creative shot choices aside, it’s easy to forget that a shot list is a strategic document. Creating a shot list is essentially like creating a shooting gameplan for the day. Here's our friend Darius with a reminder of the different shot types and angles: Here are some top tips for writing a shot list: Your a shot list needs to contain EVERY shot you plan to film for your music video AND additional shots to create flexibility when editing. These additional shots are often close-ups, cutaways, alternative angles or similar. Remember, music videos have fast-paced editing so you need a LOT of shots. We advise using a simple table on Microsoft Word to set out your shot list - you can find an example from a short film here. It makes sense to write your shot list by scene or location rather than a huge list of every shot in the music video in chronological order.
Post your detailed shot list to your blog in a blogpost called 'Shot list October 2020'. Optional pre-production: Storyboard Hollywood filmmakers and big-budget music video directors will also storyboard every shot they plan to film. They use storyboard artists to create a visual representation of the shots they wish to film - and use it to communicate a visual plan to the film crew. If you work well visually or are artistic you may wish to create storyboards for key shots in your trailer. If so, storyboard sheets are available in DF07 or online here.
Our second Online, Social and Participatory CSP is the Voice newspaper website - a niche publication targeting the black British community.
The Voice has a significant place in the social and historical context of race relations and representation in Britain, launching in 1982 in the wake of the Brixton race riots. It is also the perfect case study to further develop our understanding of Paul Gilroy's postcolonial theory we studied last lesson.
The Voice - background and notes The Voice, founded in 1982, is the only British national black weekly newspaper operating in the United Kingdom. It is owned by GV Media Group Limited, and is aimed at the British African-Caribbean community. The paper is based in London and is published every Thursday. The first issue of The Voice was printed to coincide with the Notting Hill Carnival in August 1982. Its cover price was 54 pence, and was only sold in London.
In 1981, the Brixton race riots shone a spotlight on race relations in Britain.
The Voice emerged in 1982 partly as a result of these riots – both due to the need to offer a voice and representation to black Britons and also due to a business loan from Barclays Bank. The bank was keen at the time to improve their reputation with the black community due to investments in Apartheid South Africa.
Social context - The Battle for Brixton documentary
The Voice analysis: production values The Voice offers a strong contrast to Teen Vogue with significantly lower production values across its digital operations – website design, video content and social media. However, the growth of digital technology means that the Voice can effectively compete on the same playing field as Teen Vogue, albeit targeting a niche audience. Watch this video on influential black women in business and compare it to Teen Vogue’s video content – similar in ideology but very different in production values (note the view count too):
The Voice: representation
The Voice was launched to cater for the interests of British-born black people. Applying Gilroy’s work on “double consciousness”, it could be argued that the Voice was launched to give black audiences an opportunity to see media through their own eyes rather than through the prism of white, often-biased (or even racist) mainstream British media. This also links to Hall's work on representation and the idea of individuals having their own 'conceptual map'.
The Voice: industries The Voice is owned by Jamaican media group the Gleaner company and published in Britain by GV Media Group. It is a significant contrast to Teen Vogue and the international giant Conde Nast. Recently, in a similar move to The Guardian's request for donations, The Voice asks its readers to support the publication by paying donations via PayPal. This raises interesting questions regarding the financial viability of online news media and particularly niche publications such as The Voice (or indeed Oh Comely).
1) What news website key conventions can you find on the Voice
homepage?
2) How does the page design differ from Teen Vogue?
3) What are some of the items in the top menu bar and what
does this tell you about the content, values and ideologies of the Voice?
4) Look at the news stories on the Voice homepage. Pick two stories and explain why they might appeal to the Voice's target audience.
5) How is narrative used to encourage audience engagement
with the Voice? Apply narrative theories (e.g. Todorov equilibrium or Barthes’
enigma codes) and make specific reference to stories on the homepage and how they encourage audiences to click through to them.
3) Read this Voice news story on Grenfell tower and Doreen Lawrence. How might this story reflect the Voice’s values and ideologies? What do the comments below suggest about how readers responded to the article? Can you link this to Gilroy’s work on the ‘Black Atlantic’ identity?
Audience
1) Who do you think is the target audience for the Voice
website? Consider demographics and psychographics.
2) What audience pleasures are provided by the Voice
website? Apply media theory here such as Blumler and Katz (Uses &
Gratifications).
3) Give examples of sections or content from the website that tells you
this is aimed at a specialised or niche audience.
4) Studying the themes of politics, history and racism that
feature in some of the Voice’s content, why might this resonate with the Voice’s
British target audience?
5) Can you find any examples of content on the Voice website
created or driven by the audience or citizen journalism? How does this reflect
Clay Shirky’s work on the ‘end of audience’ and the era of ‘mass amateurisation’?
Representations
1) How is the audience positioned to respond to
representations in the Voice website?
2) Are representations in the Voice an example of Gilroy’s
concept of “double consciousness” NOT applying?
3) What kind of black British identity is promoted on the Voice
website? Can you find any examples of Gilroy’s “liquidity of culture” or “unruly
multiculturalism” here?
4) Applying Stuart Hall’s constructivist approach to
representations, how might different audiences interpret the representations of
black Britons in the Voice?
5) Do you notice any other interesting representations in
the Voice website? For example, representations or people, places or groups
(e.g. gender, age, Britishness, other countries etc.)
3) The Voice is now published by GV Media Group, a
subsidiary of the Jamaican Gleaner company. What other media brands do the
Gleaner company own and why might they be interested in owning the Voice? You'll need to research this using Google/Wikipedia or look at this Guardian article when Gleaner first acquired The Voice.
4) How does the Voice website make money?
5) What adverts or promotions can you find on the Voice
website? Are the adverts based on the user’s ‘cookies’ or fixed adverts? What
do these adverts tell you about the level of technology and sophistication of
the Voice’s website?
6) Is there an element of public service to the Voice’s role
in British media or is it simply a vehicle to make profit?
7) What examples of technological convergence can you find
on the Voice website – e.g. video or audio content?
8) How has the growth of digital distribution through the
internet changed the potential for niche products like the Voice?
9) Analyse The Voice’s Twitter feed. How does this contrast
with other Twitter feeds you have studied (such as Teen Vogue)? Are
there examples of ‘clickbait’ or does the Voice have a different feel?
10) Study a selection of videos from The Voice’s YouTubechannel. How does this content differ from Teen Vogue? What are the production
values of their video content? Homework and deadlines There is plenty of work here - at least 3 to 4 hours - but this is the only blog task on the Voice and covers all four of the key concepts. Finish for homework - due date set on Google Classroom.
The preliminary exercise is a brilliant opportunity to learn or refresh the basics of filmmaking before creating your actual coursework project. After the screening of the preliminary exercises in class, you need to create a blogpost called 'Preliminary exercise learner response' and embed the video from YouTube. Then, complete the following tasks as your feedback and learner response: 1) Type up your teacher's feedback in full plus a summary of the comments you received from other students in the class. 2) Using a combination of your own reflection on the preliminary exercise and the feedback you were given, write three WWW bullet points and three EBI bullet points for your TV drama scene. 3) How effectively did you complete the objective you laid out in your mini preliminary exercise statement of intent? 4) What have you learned from the preliminary exercise that will help you in the actual coursework project? 5) Now you have completed the preliminary exercise, will you change anything in your actual music video? This could include the narrative or performance element or technical elements such as mise-en-scene, camerawork or editing. The deadline for these feedback and learner response tasks will be set by your coursework teacher and on Google Classroom.
There are several important theories we need to learn and apply to our Online, Social and Participatory media unit. These include Clay Shirky's End of Audience theories, Stuart Hall's work on representation and reality and Paul Gilroy's postcolonial theory of black diasporic identity. Notes from the lesson Stuart Hall: representation and reality
Stuart Hall suggests individuals each have their own conceptual map – effectively what we use to decode and understand media texts.
Building on this, Hall outlines three approaches to understanding the relationship between reality and representations:
Reflective approach: the media simply mirrors (or reflects) the real world. This is a limited approach that minimalises the power or complexity of the media. Intentional approach: the producer of the text constructs the world as they see it and the audience accepts those values encoded in the text. This is effectively the dominant or preferred reading (reception theory) and leaves no room for the negotiated or oppositional reading. The constructivist approach: this was Hall’s preferred approach and closely matches reception theory with preferred and oppositional readings. This suggests concepts and signs do have some shared meanings but they are not all inherent and can be interpreted by the audience in a number of ways (dependent on their own ‘conceptual map’).
Paul Gilroy: black diasporic identity
We first explored Paul Gilroy’s theories of black diasporic identity when studying music video.
This is the idea that black identity is informed by diaspora – literally the ‘scattering of people’ across the world. He suggests this creates a “liquidity of culture” that means black identity is formed by journeys across seas, not the solid ground of a home country or culture.
Importantly, Gilroy sees this identity as impossible to reverse – there can be no return to the place of origin as the experience of slavery and displacement can never be “rewound”.
Gilroy: black British identity
The Voice newspaper was formed in 1982 to create a voice for the black British community. Gilroy wrote of the dominant representation of black Britons at that time as “external and estranged from the imagined community that is the nation”.
Gilroy suggests diaspora challenges national ideologies and creates “cultural tension”. This tension helps to create the diasporic identity but often comes with negative experiences such as exclusion and marginalisation.
More succinctly, Gilroy sums this up as the white racist’s question to BAME people: “Why don’t you just go home?” BBC controversy Gilroy wrote about this in the 1970s and 1980s but it's been in the news much more recently with Brexit and Trump bringing debates about race and immigration to the fore. Last year, the BBC found itself embroiled in a controversy regarding BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty's response to Donald Trump suggesting congresswomen should 'go home' to the countries in which they or their parents were born. The original clip and full article can be found below: Paul Gilroy and Russell Brand In 2017, Paul Gilroy took part in Russell Brand’s Under The Skin podcast, exploring ideas and modern culture. Watch the following two extracts and consider how Gilroy’s ideas reflect recent events and media culture. Extract 1: 17.50 – 25.45 Extract 2: 44.30 – 48.08
Paul Gilroy - blog task
Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet 170: Gilroy – Ethnicity and Postcolonial Theory. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets or you can access it online here using your Greenford Google login. Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks: 1) How does Gilroy suggest racial identities are constructed? 2) What does Gilroy suggest regarding the causes and history of racism? 3) What is ethnic absolutism and why is Gilroy opposed to it? 4) How does Gilroy view diasporic identity? 5) What did Gilroy suggest was the dominant representation of black Britons in the 1980s (when the Voice newspaper was first launched)? 6) Gilroy argues diaspora challenges national ideologies. What are some of the negative effects of this? 7) Complete the first activity on page 3: How might diasporic communities use the media to stay connected to their cultural identity? E.g. digital media - offer specific examples. 8) Why does Gilroy suggest slavery is important in diasporic identity? 9) How might representations in the media reinforce the idea of ‘double consciousness’ for black people in the UK or US? 10) Finally, complete the second activity on page 3: Watch the trailer for Hidden Figures and discuss how the film attempts to challenge ‘double consciousness’ and the stereotypical representation of black American women.
Due date: confirmed by your exam class teacher and on Google Classroom. Make sure you've also got the last sections of your Teen Vogue case study complete:
The final aspect of our work on Teen Vogue involves an industry case study and textual analysis of the magazine's social media presence. Industry is the final key concept to address in this in-depth study. It's important to remember that the exam question could cover anything from how Teen Vogue makes money to what attracts audiences to their social media pages. This means we need comprehensive knowledge across the board. Notes from the lesson Industry: Conde Nast Teen Vogue is owned and published by Condé Nast, an American media organisation that publishes around 20 magazines including Vogue, GQ and Wired. The company targets a wide range of different audiences – 164 million consumers across its brands. In March 2018, Condé Nast announced the launch of Influencer Platform Next Gen, a digital campaign that links advertisers and content creation. The goal is to “connect to a new generation of audience”.
Income sources Teen Vogue’s main source of income is through selling advertising space online – adverts that are targeted using browsing history. However, they also monetise their customer data and loyalty, encouraging readers to register online for updates, offers and access to the ‘Insider’ area of the website. This data can then be sold to other companies or used to attract ‘advertorial’ or sponsored content. Teen Vogue also makes money through YouTube with plenty of 1m+ views on their video content. This is an example of digital convergence – a traditionally print-based product moving into multimedia and accessible on one device. Finally, they run events such as the Teen Vogue summit and US tour. Teen Vogue: fashion industry player Although Teen Vogue has been creating headlines for its political content in recent years, it is also an important part of the fashion industry. Both editorial content and advertising is designed to create a strong desire in their audience for products featured. This links to Condé Nast’s role as a major media company interested in maximising profit. Some argue that Teen Vogue’s more diverse coverage offers a form of public service through its political coverage. But are features criticising capitalism hypocritical when the brand is owned by a media giant like Condé Nast?
Teen Vogue: Industry and social media blog tasks
Create a new blogpost called 'Teen Vogue Industry and social media' and work through the following tasks to complete the final aspects of your Teen Vogue case study: Industry: Condé Nast 1) Research Teen Vogue publisher Condé Nast. What other magazines do they publish and how much money did they make last year? 2) What are Teen Vogue’s main sources of income? 3) How are traditionally print-based products like Teen Vogue diversifying to create new income streams? 4) Why is sponsored content and ‘advertorial’ particularly important in media linked to the fashion industry? 5) Do you view Teen Vogue’s content as a form of public service media or is Condé Nast simply interested in clicks and profit? Closure of print edition research Read the following short articles to learn the background to Condé Nast's decision to close the print edition of Teen Vogue in 2016 and then answer the questions below: BBC: Teen Vogue: How will going online-only affect readers? New York Times: Condé Nast Ends Teen Vogue’s Print Run Folio: Your Teen Vogue Hot Takes Are All Wrong 1) Why does the BBC suggest “Teen Vogue’s digital game is strong”? 2) What does the BBC suggest is responsible for the Teen Vogue website’s success? 3) How did Teen Vogue justify the closure of the print magazine? 4) In the BBC article, David Hepworth suggests there is a risk to going digital-only. What is it? 5) How do online-only publications make money? 6) What does Sarah Penny suggest regarding audience consumption for print and digital – and how might it be changing for Generation-Z? 7) What does the New York Times say Conde Nast is known for? 8) The New York Times states that Conde Nast expects to bring in less revenue in 2017 than 2016… by how much? 9) The Folio article also looks at the switch from print to digital. Pick out a statistic that justifies the digital-only approach. 10) Finally, Folio also highlights some of the aspects we have studied elsewhere. Pick out two quotes from the article that link to our work on the Teen Vogue audience, representation or design. Social media analysis Work through the following tasks to complete your textual analysis of Teen Vogue's social media presence: 1) Look at the Teen Vogue Twitter feed (you don’t need to sign up to Twitter to see it but may need to log in at home). How many followers does Teen Vogue have? 2) Now look at the content. Classify the first 20 tweets you can see using the sections on the Teen Vogue website: News & Politics, Fashion, Entertainment, Beauty, Lifestyle, Wellness and Homecoming. What does the Twitter feed focus on most? Does this differ to the website? 3) How are the tweets and headlines written? Can you find examples of clickbait? 4) How does the Twitter feed use videos and images? 5) Analyse the Teen Vogue Facebook page. How many ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ do they have? 6) Click on the Videos link on the left-hand menu. What type of content do the videos feature? Does this differ to the website or Twitter feed? 7) Now look at the Events tab to explore past events. What are these events and what do they tell us about how audiences interact with the Teen Vogue brand? 8) Go to the Teen Vogue Instagram page. How many followers do they have on Instagram? 9) How does the Instagram feed differ from other social media channels? 10) What examples of digital convergence and synergy can you find on Teen Vogue social media including the Teen Vogue YouTube channel? (E.g. opportunities to engage with the brand across different platforms).
This is your final set of blog tasks for Teen Vogue and will complete your comprehensive case study for this in-depth CSP. Complete for homework - due date set by exam class teacher and on Google Classroom.
