Explain how far 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.

In AS Media production in year 12 I had to create an opening to a Thriller movie as part of a group. For my A2 Media production I worked in a group to create an Alternative genre music video, a website and an album cover. This would be a challenge as my year 12 production had different key codes and conventions in comparison to my A2 production. Last year I found it helpful to analyse pre-existing products to help identify the codes and conventions I needed to make a thriller opening so I did the same for year 13.

For my year 12 production I used the Internet for Google and Youtube to help me with my research of my market analysis of similar products on the market. I used Google to find information about the synopsis of other Thriller films and used Youtube to find the opening sequences of Thriller films and analysed how the synopsis related to the opening. The codes and conventions I found for Thriller openings were that they were suspenseful and were enigmatic to keep the audience entertained. They involved first person camera views and stereotypical scenes with archetypal characters to fit so audiences could easily identify what was going on. Products that influenced our creation of our Thriller film opening were films such as Seven because of the enigmatic opening which had cryptic symbols around the opening credits. We used a similar effect and used purple smoke to present our credits. The choice of the involvement of a mysterious artefact in our production was due to the influence of films such as Angels and Demons and National Treasure and the use of flashbacks influenced by Slumdog Millionaire. Our opening was based around an interrogation scene which we took inspiration from The Silence Of The Lambs.

For my year 13 production I used the Internet also for Google and Youtube but for used Google for images of album covers and to analyse websites of Alternative artists and bands and Youtube for Alternative music videos. When watching the music videos we identified that Alternative music videos involve symbolism, enigma, slow edits and close-ups to show emotion. Music videos such as Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” influenced the type of video to be Illustration, a music video which represents the lyrics visually. We used this when the lyrics “Two paths to choose” were sung. At a certain point in the song, we used a rewind effect on the music video to take the video back to the two paths seen near the beginning of the video to conclude the artist’s decision. This effect was influenced by Coldplay’s “The Scientist” where one of the band members is seen walking backwards the entire time. Some of our shot types of the artist (Jake Black) playing his instrument were influenced by Audioslave’s “Be Yourself” song to show our artist playing the guitar properly and portray him in a professional way and keep with the convention of switching between the narrative and the artist/band playing instruments.

The album cover we created was to match the music video and to create a brand consistency between the main product and this ancillary text. The album cover was made to coincide with the key codes and conventions we identified when analysing Alternative album covers. Our album cover consists of pictures focussed on the artist and a simple layout which does not clutter the album. Looking at Coldplay’s “Parachutes” album cover, it’s very simple and symbolic and the title of the band and title of the album is clear. Oasis’s “Don’t believe the truth” album has a similar clear titled front and the back has the list tracks in a simple font. We used the same idea for our track lists at the back and used a simple font. These band’s albums influenced our creation of the layout of out album cover and we used a picture of the artist in black and white, sitting in front of a lake to symbolise the message of the album but as well as not giving too much away and giving off a sense of enigma for the audience. The album covers we evaluated also had the record label at the back and most of them had the barcode on the back too so as not to distract focus from the front of the album. A picture of the artist is used on each side of the album cover to create a sense of artist awareness and the creation of a star image (Richard Dyer).

The website was quite a new experience for me as I had never made one before or knew any codes and conventions. I used Google to search for Alternative band’s websites to find how they were designed and themed. When studying Snow Patrol’s website I noticed how they had a tab system at the top of their website to allow people to view information such as tour dates, news, photos, a community forum and a store. The background was also themed to their latest album. All around their website they made it clear you were visiting a Snow Patrol website. Similarly, we made ours based around our artist and album to let people know that this website was all about Jake Black. We used pictured similar to the album cover and used the same font used in the music video and front of the album cover to help with the bran promotion. Our website also included an artist bio, tour dates, social networking sites linked with the artist, a forum for fans to post messages and a store.

In conclusion, through thorough market analysis on similar pre-existing products, we were able to create an effective main product and ancillary texts which included a range of key codes and conventions which were influenced by bands such as Snow Patrol, Coldplay, Audioslave and others. Using these influence and these codes and conventions, our target audience would find it easy to identify what Jake Black and his music are all about.

Looking at two types of Media, describe the ways in which a particular group of people are collectively represented or provided for, using specific examples to support your response.

As time goes on it seems youths are being portrayed as more and more dangerous to society through media such as press and films.

Althusser’s interpellation theory says that “We become bombarded with messages and become a subject rather than an individual as soon as we engage them, they control us (post modernism)”. The mass media does use this to their advantage to sway the opinions of others. Messages can not only be in text by also in film. Watching Kidulthood, directed by Noel Clarke, it is easy to adopt the message that youths, as a collective identity are bad. Noel Clarke even said he was trying to give an accurate representation of youths in London and that he grew up like this. People may think that Noel Clarke portrays a more accurate experience of youths because if we look at the London 2011 Riots, youths were represented as violent and uncontrollable. So it is not surprising that people would believe this to be an accurate portrayal and therefore start to believe further information relating negativity to youth. Even looking back at older films such as 1950s Rebel Without A Cause, although not as explicitly violent as Kidulthood, there is still a representation as rebellious.

Some ways in which youths attempt to create and develop their collective identities is through the Web 2.0; social networking websites, such as Facebook and Twitter. With the ability to share information, pictures and update statuses, youths tend to use these features to begin to develop their collective identities. As Henri Jenkins said, teens are constantly updating and customising their profiles online to construct and experiment with their identities. Using these social networking sites also gives us a sense of belonging (Merlau Ponty). However, adults and people who don’t understand how these things work attempt to restrict youths by enforcing regulation and censorship on the things they do and use. It’s harder to do this on the Web 2.0 because it allows users to create and share content fast and easily so it is hard to censor. Now because youths have been using these websites, they have been labelled potentially dangerous to those who don’t know much about them.

During the London Riots, some riots were planned over social networking sites and Blackberry Messenger. The rioters used these tools to communicate with each other and even posted statuses and pictures of themselves with stolen goods as a ‘trophy’. The communication between rioters in London was much quicker which made it harder for regulators to stop them. Twitter was even asked to be shut down because it was being used as a catalyst to plan riots and Blackberry Messenger was taken down for a few days. These things were not around when the Brixton riots happened so it was harder for youths to riot in massive groups.

The press have a large hand in the view of youths, especially tabloids, which encode their own messages within the media texts for us, as an audience, to decode and deconstruct in our own way according to our own lives and situations. This supports Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding theory. Tabloids such as The Sun deliberately show youths in a negative light and exaggerate to generate moral panic amongst their readers because they know it sells and they can make a profit. Using buzz words and degrading words that stand out such as “yobs” and “thieves” in the articles just contribute to the hegemonic view that youths need to be avoided or heavily controlled or they’ll run riot. By grouping youths as one collective identity this overshadows youths having their individual identities. This will only aggravate youths further as they have no say in what the press prints and may provoke youths to react, some appropriately but some violently. On the other hand, broadsheets are representing youths more accurately by not exaggerating statistics and providing more realistic information in relation to youths.

As for the future of the view on the collective identity of youths, it may take a turn for the worse. Youths are already seen as dangerous, rebellious and uncontrollable and the room for youths having their say in society is becoming smaller and smaller to the point where youths are being ostracised because they have been grouped as one, with negative connotations. A film called Shank, directed by Mo Ali, is set in 2015 and shows youths left by society to fight amongst themselves for food and territory. Society may not get that far but youths will get worse if their voices are left unheard.

In conclusion, youths may use the Web 2.0  to create their collective identities and other ways but eventually they could be potentially labelled as bad by the mass media and until youths are not represented in the most part as negative, they will continue to rebel in any ways they can. We are supposed to be living in a democratic society but if youths are going to be ignored because they are ‘young’ and seen as inexperienced then it’s possible we may see some sort of repeat of the London 2011 Riots.

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.

In year 12, for my AS production, I was given the task of creating an opening for a Thriller film. In year 13, for my A2 production, I was given the task of creating a music video, website and an album cover. To start working on these productions I had to research similar pre-existing products that I could use as a reference and identify the codes and conventions of these pieces so I could use them and be creative when producing my own.

For my Thriller film opening, I used the Internet to browse websites such as Google and Youtube. I used Youtube to find the opening scenes of other Thriller movies and used Google to find the synopsis of the movie to see the correlation and how the opening would lead into the rest of the movie. Whilst watching these Thriller openings I was able to deconstruct them in terms of their key codes and conventions. The Thriller openings were enigmatic and revealed very little to keep the suspense high and their audiences entertained like Seven. Some used special effects to emphasise the mysteriousness like Charmed and Supernatural. Silence Of The Lambs used the idea of an interrogation theme which was similar to our initial idea. We decided on our film opening revolving around an artefact which added some sci-fi elements and there are not many films from the Thriller genre that involved some sci-fi elements and progressed the film through a series of flashbacks which gave our product a unique edge.

For my music video, website and album cover, I used the same websites as last year; Youtube to find examples of music videos from our chosen genre of Alternative and Google to find other artist’s official websites and album cover images. When researching pre-existing music videos from the Alternative genre, I found that their codes and conventions involved slow edits, close-ups of people expressions, cutaways to make the video more visually interesting, symbolism & enigma and the video went back and forth evenly between the artist/band playing their instruments and the narrative. Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” is an illustrative type music video and I used this idea of relating the lyrics to what you see in my music video when the lyrics “Two to choose” is sung, the video shows the artist attempting to make a choice between two paths which portray his mind-set. In Coldplay’s “Fix You” a member of the band is walking for half of the music video and in “The Scientist” they use a rewind effect and I thought it would be a good idea to combine the two and use them both in our video. This was also an interesting idea because my music video revolves around the artist choosing between two paths so I made the video rewind back to the paths to bring a conclusion to the video and closure for the audience so they know what happened. I feel I have developed my skills when working on this project because music videos have different codes and conventions to Thriller openings as so I got to use new camera angles and experiment with new shots allowing me to be creative with how an audience would view my music video. Instead of being creative with smoke effect credits last year, I got to fade in and out lyrics on-screen in my music video and experiment with different fonts to suit the video. I used filter effects which gave the video a black and white look and am better at synching clips with audio on Final Cut Pro.

For my album cover, I found that Alternative genre albums seem to have abstract pictures with symbolism or simple pictures that don’t crowd the front of the album cover. The album covers that were researched were all popular bands in the Alternative genre which meant they didn’t need to depend on brand and artists awareness but our artist would as he would be a new artist. For these reasons the artist for my music video was placed on the front, back and insides of the album cover. The Oasis “Don’t Believe the Truth cover” was black and white and the track listing on the back is in a simple black font and styled in a cinema title font. The font we used was a simple black font in the style of being written. I was able to be creative with my front cover and use Adobe Photoshop CS5 to edit the album and respond to audience feedback by editing certain parts.

I had never made a website to promote an artist so making a website for this purpose was quite a new experience for me. I had to use the Internet to find official websites of artists from the Alternative genre. James Blunt’s official website had a variety of different components and elements on his webpage but could be confusing for some people, especially people who don’t use computers often and may not be used to navigating such pages. It did have links to Twitter and FB and other social networking pages to keep his fans keep up-to-date with him. The colour scheme was quite plain which I noticed with other websites of artists in the same genre like Coldplay’s website which is black. I wanted to keep my website plain and simple also and to make it link in with the music video and album cover so the homepage had a small introduction and links to Twitter and Facebook and each section has spaced out information. The creativity in the website showed through the different sections of the websites users were able to browse around such as the ‘Store’, ‘Live Events and ‘About Jake Black’ sections.

Throughout the two years of working on these individual production pieces, I feel my editing skills and ability to utilise digital technologies such as Adobe Photoshop and After Effects and Final Cut Pro to get my desired effects. Last year planning was a problem and the product felt rushed. However, this year everything was better planned and things were done efficiently. Research always plays a massive part when working on something where there is already similar pre-existing products because it gives you a foundation to begin from and you can incorporate similar things into your product but at the same time, being creative to make it unique and sellable to your target audience. Audience is very important too when creating a product, as you need to make sure that your product receives good reception from your target audience but also constructive criticism. Without audience feedback, I wouldn’t have known what to change for the better.