News Task

Explain your role/responsibility within the team and the task. What were you required to do?  
I was part of the team that took care of the website for our Daily Telegraph newspaper. I worked in a group of three, working together with Derek and Dara. Our task was to create a front page design and layout for our newspaper, using a template that was given to us. We had to find and resize different adverts for the page. The main task for this page was to create headlines for some select stories that we were given, ordering them on the page, and pairing them with the appropriate images, to capture the audience's attention. We also had to coordinate with the other groups, to make our different elements synegise, and make the newspaper feel realistic overall.


For one media form, describe the codes and conventions you chose to follow and explain their intended impact.
To make our webpage seem like it was produced by The Telegraph, we had to identify and apply the typical codes and conventions usually used by The Telegraph. For example, The Telegraph is a newspaper that writes its headlines in a non-bias way, only ever quoting the opinions of  those featured in their stories. Therefore, we only ever structured our headlines to grab our readers' attetention, and never to convey an opinion (eg 'Terror attack in Baghdad, 543 dead'- stat grabs audience attantion, whilst not conveying any stance in the issue) such as a paper like the Mirror would. We also included premium stories, as the Telegraph's website has a paywall, that restricts users from viewing certain stories without a digital subscription.

Explain how your choices reflect the real newspaper's values and target audience.
Our choices reflect the newspaper's values and their audience pretty well, in my opinion. For example, the Telegraph's readership enjoys stories about Brexit, as connoted from the prescence of several Brexit headlines and a Brexit tracker on the Telegraph website. So we used a Brexit story as our main story, as to well represent the Telegraph newspaper, and grab the audience's attention. We also noticed that demographics for the Telegraph readership saw most reader to be middle/upper middle class, so we included high class adverts, such as the Tiffany's jewellery ad at the top of the page.

Explain how your team adapted the news across the three different media forms and the reasons behind your decisions.
Our team used three different forms of media: print, digital and social media. We had to communicate between each other to keep things like headlines and featured stories consistant (the print couldn't have a different main story to the digital for example), whilst also changing things around (the images used for each story would be different across all three platforms, as not to be repetitive).

In hindsight, is there anything about your team's outcomes that you would adapt or improve?
I think that our team could have adapted the fonts to represent the Telegraph more, and I think collabiration between groups could have been better, as our team put in the wrong headlines at times. Overall though, I think the team did a good job adapting to represent the Telegraph, and that the end product would seem pretty realistic if it was ever produced.

Minecraft Youtube Video

1. How you did it- What videos did you look at, what technology did you use and how?

I looked at some of the content produced by Minecraft youtubers such as DanTDM, in order to get a feel for how a traditional Minecraft videos are produced, and how they attract their large audiences online. The videos online all showed a few similarities; have a loud, bubbly personality, keep your jokes kid friendly, and scream into the microphone as loud as you can. However, I felt some of these trends weren't necessary to produce a Minecraft video, so I left them out.

Producing the video involved using already exsisting footage from a youtuber online, and overlapping it with a facial recording, which was recorded on an iPad. Filmmaker Pro was then used to combine the footage into the video.

2.How your video might attract the attention of Mojang and/or Microsoft, and how it might influence them.

If my video attracted the attention of the community, the channel would gain a following, and attract Mojang/Microsoft's attention. As a result, I would become a prosumer, and be asked to test and review new and exclusive content for the community, and deem it suitable to play, like many prosumers do in the gaming industry.

Billboard Magazine Cover

1.   Summarise the music celebrity you have created.  Include name, music genre, personality and how they are being used to comment on contemporary celebrity. The celebrity I have created is called Rahul Jaipindi. He is an Indian jazz artist that enjoys combining other music forms with jazz. He has received media attention for breaking stereotypical boundairies and promoting old forms of music like jazz.

2.   Evaluate how you have constructed the representation of your celebrity through your cover image and cover headline/text (denotation/connotation of text and image). Rahul is a modest man, and does not wear flashy clothes or accessories. He does follow the stereotypical jazz outlook though, waering a black suit and tie, as well as a fedora. The white text helps contrast with his choice of clothing, and brings back the jazz era vibe through use of black and white only.

3.   Analyse how far you have used and/or challenged stereotypes of gender/race/age/sexuality in your cover. I have challenge a racial stereotype on my cover, as it is not usual to associate Asian people with jazz. The name 'Rahul Jaipindi' is blatant and large, to spell out to the audience in bold letters that my celebrity is not one to attune to stereotypes.

4.   Reflect on the production/editing process.  Are you pleased with the end result?

Identify what is successful about your shot?  What would you have done differently in hindsight? The model shot is a medium long shot, and I like the way it blends in nicely with the background, and contrasts well with the text. The model's pose also fits in, as it is not to flashy or showing-off, keeping the audience's eyes on the celebrity's face, and helping them to notice the fact that my celebrity is challenging racil stereotypes. I feel that the cover looks bare. however, and the text alignment could be better, as to put audience focus on the text as well.