Arthouse film screening: It Follows

The first screening in our arthouse film programme is the 2014 acclaimed horror film It Follows.



Described as "one of the most striking American horror films in years", the film brilliantly creates a timeless, creepy atmosphere of American suburbia. It's worth paying particular attention to the cinematography and use of sound in the film when looking for inspiration for our own arthouse films.

More details on It Follows can be found on IMDB.

The screening will start promptly at 3.10pm on Wednesday in DF07. It is open to all post-16 students and compulsory for Year 12 Media students!

MIGRAIN unit: index of work so far

We are over halfway through our MIGRAIN Introduction to Media unit and need to create an index to ensure we are up-to-date on all work so far.  

You will have a MEST1 Section A assessment in January and therefore it is important we are revising previous work and making sure there are no gaps before we reach the Christmas break. 

MIGRAIN index

Keeping an index of all your work is extremely good practice from a revision perspective. Not only does this keep the concepts and media terminology fresh in your mind but it will also highlight if you've missed anything through absence or trips. Your index should currently include the following:

1) Media consumption audit
2) Language and Genre: Reading an image - advert analyses
3) Institution: major media institution research, presentation and feedback/LR
4) Institution: brand values
5) Narrative: narrative theory YouTube clip analysis
6) Genre: Factsheet questions and Chandler genre analysis task
7) Audience: psychographics
8) Audience: audience theory blog tasks/questions
9) Audience: Effects theory - factsheet and questions
10) Audience Pleasures: The battle of the Christmas adverts
11) Representation: clip analysis - dominant and alternative representations

For your index, the text should link to YOUR corresponding blogpost so you can access your work on each key concept quickly and easily. This also means you if you have missed anything you can now catch up with the work/notes and won't underperform in the assessment due to gaps in your knowledge.

Important: your index needs to be completed during the lesson.

MIGRAIN: Representation

Representation is a crucial key concept in A Level Media. Here we explore how the media represents different people and groups and discuss the impact on society and individuals.

The key notes on our new key concept - representation:

• Representation is the process by which the media presents the ‘real world’ to an audience.
• Media texts are artificial versions of reality
• Even factual media – such as news – goes through processes of selection, organisation and editing that shapes its content
• How are particular people and groups represented in the media? How and why are stereotypes created?
• Is anything true? Or is it simply a representation of the facts from a particular point of view?

Mediation

Media texts are a construction of reality, and play an important role in the way we view the world. 

Reality is therefore subject to mediation which is the process that takes place when a media text’s meaning is created.

When mediation takes place, an institution, individual or even technology comes between the actual event and the audience.

Stereotypes

Media messages have to be communicated quickly which often means relying on stereotypes. Stereotypes work as a kind of shorthand where a word, image or sound will stand for a lot more.

A stereotype is a standardised, usually oversimplified mental picture or attitude towards a person, group, place or event.

Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people—usually relating to their gender, class, ethnicity or race, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.

Representation: dominant or alternative?

A representation in the media will either reinforce or challenge the stereotype.

If it reinforces the stereotype, it is a dominant representation.

If it challenges the stereotype, it is an alternative representation.

Representation: Blog task

Find a YouTube clip from film or TV and complete the same activity we have just done in class:

1) List the different people/groups represented in the trailer (men/women/Americans etc.)

2) For each group, decide whether the representation is a dominant or alternative portrayal.

3) What stereotypes can you identify in the trailer?

Complete for homework if you don't complete it in the lesson - due next double lesson.

Preliminary exercise: Evaluation

The preliminary exercise is a brilliant opportunity to learn the basics of DSLR filmmaking before starting your MEST2 arthouse films.

After the screening of the preliminary exercises in class, you need to write an individual evaluation of your preliminary exercise on your blog. As with the actual MEST2 coursework, you cannot work with others on your evaluation although you may wish to discuss strengths and weaknesses with other students (either within your group or beyond). 

Your evaluation needs to include the following:

• Your preliminary exercise video embedded from YouTube.
• Clear reference to the preliminary exercise brief, your planning process, how your script/storyboard/shot list helped create the final product and what you would do differently next time in terms of pre-production.
• Detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of your film. This is a good opportunity to demonstrate your close-textual analysis skills - breaking down the clip shot-by-shot to discuss the impact on the audience.
• Confident use of media language, particularly film language, showing clear understanding of the key concepts of Media Studies (MIGRAIN).

Here's a good example from a previous preliminary exercise to help you.

Your evaluation needs to be a minimum of 500 words and the due date will be set by your MEST2 teacher.

Good luck!

Audience Pleasures: The Battle of the Christmas Advert

The John Lewis Christmas Ad

We have read and talked about how the John Lewis Christmas advert has become a marketing phenomenon over the last few years, with much anticipation of a newly released advert each year.
Last year, the audience reaction seemed to suggest that people had had enough of sentimentality and found the Man in the Moon advert too hard to relate to; possibly the message of old people being alone at Christmas was too bleak for some. Cynical audiences suggested that John Lewis had gone too far in their emotive music and childish innocence combination that had been a winning formula with the Monty the Penguin offering of 2014 (so successful that 'Monty' and 'Mable' toys were selling for hundreds of pounds on eBay.)

MAN IN THE MOON 2015

MONTY THE PENGUIN 2014




So what are the gratifications offered by their latest offering, Buster the Boxer?

Watch the advert again and consider the questions below:

1) What audience gratifications / pleasures are offered by the John Lewis brand? Consider all three adverts from 2014-2016. How are they similar in the pleasures they offer? How are they different?

Other media platforms have been reacting to the new John Lewis advert, and not all the feedback has been positive. Twitter users who are parents have been tweeting their outrage about the destruction of the Santa myth, and wildlife conservation groups have pointed out the irresponsibility of encouraging children to treat wild animals as pets and play with them in net-covered objects.

Now read the criticism about the new advert:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/john-lewis-2016-christmas-ad-12154739
The Manchester Evening News

https://www.theguardian.com/media/shortcuts/2016/nov/14/wildlife-charities-react-john-lewis-christmas-ad
The Guardian

2) What are the objections of some members of the audience? Do you agree or disagree with these viewpoints? Why?

The Battle of the Christmas Ads 2016

Many brands have jumped on the 'Christmas Ad' bandwagon in the past but 2016 seems to be the year where the advertising industry has really outdone itself, with many large industrial names fighting for recognition on social media through hash tags and the development of narrative arcs that involve the audience. Huge amounts of revenue have been spent on developing and making these adverts, including getting celebrity voice-overs; recording cover versions of new songs that can then be sold in connection with iTunes and downloaded on Spotify; producing merchandise connected to the ads and entering running times comparable with some short films.

Watch the most popular 2016 offerings and then answer the questions below in a new blog post:

Sainsburys

Heathrow airport

Very.co.uk

Aldi

Marks & Spencers (tissues out!)



1) Which do you think is the most appealing and why? Try to use some of our audience theory in your answer.

2) Are there any audience pleasures that two or more of the adverts have in common? Choose two examples to illustrate your point.

3) Choose a different advert and identify the target audience for the advert. Answer in terms of demography and psychography. What tells you this?

4) Why do you think Christmas adverts, in particular, often use emotive language and narratives to appeal to a wide audience?

5) Choose an advert with a narrative and, just for fun, apply one of our narrative theories to it. Why does a narrative have a place in an advert?

Answer the 5 questions (each question represents another week until Christmas...eek!)

Ho Ho Ho!

Miss Fowler

12C Media: Thursday lessons cancelled!

Apologies - we will have to cancel lessons for 12C on Thursday afternoon as we're out on a Year 13 trip to a BFI screening and workshop.

Normally Mr Qureshi would be able to cover but he is out at a conference too. You do not need to attend the lessons or register but you do need to complete the following work:

P5 Mr Bush: preliminary exercise
You need to continue your work on your preliminary exercise - exactly what this involves will depend on your group and what stage you are at. You must meet the approaching deadline!

P6 Mr Halsey: Audience theory work
Your MEST1 work requires you to work through the following:

1) Finish Tuesday's work on audience theory.

2) Complete this Media Factsheet task on audience theories and media debates.

This audience theory work is all due on Tuesday so make sure you find the time to complete the tasks.

This should give you plenty to get on with - good luck and keep up the good work!

Audience: Effects theories

The media effects debate is a crucial aspect of A Level Media Studies.

Do media texts have a negative effect or influence on their audience? Should we be worried by violent videogames or movies? Do we need to give audiences more credit for their ability to distinguish between fiction and reality? 

Audience - blog tasks

Firstly, make sure you have completed the blog tasks from your double lesson on audience theory. This post also contains the key notes if you missed the lesson for any reason.

Then, complete the following tasks using the Media Factsheets available on the Media Shared drive. 

You'll find them in our Media Factsheet archive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets

Read Media Factsheet 030 - Media and Audiences -The Effects Debate and answer the following questions:

1) Complete the questions in the first activity box (beginning with 'Do you play violent games? Are you violent in real life?')

2) What are the four categories for different effects theories?

3) What are the examples provided for the hypodermic needle theory - where media texts have been blamed for certain events? 

4) What was the 1999 Columbine massacre? You may need to research this online in addition to the information on the factsheet.

5) What are the reasons listed on the factsheet to possibly explain the Columbine High School massacre?

6) What does Gerbner's Cultivation theory suggest?

7) How does this front page of the Daily Mail (from this week - Wednesday 16 November) link to Cultivation theory? The Mail Online version of the story is here.




8) What does the factsheet suggest about action films and the values and ideologies that are reinforced with regards to violence?

9) What criticisms of direct effect theories are suggested in the factsheet?

10) Why might the 1970s sitcom Love Thy Neighbour be considered so controversial today? What does this tell us about Reception theory and how audiences create meanings?

11) What examples are provided for Hall's theory of preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings?

12) Which audience theory do you think is most convincing? Why? It is important that you develop critical autonomy in judging the arguments for and against different theories and form your own opinion on these issues.

Finish for homework: due next week.