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.

Video games and me

I would consider myself to be a gamer, as a regularly play a variety of games on the PS4. I usually stick to playing on the weekends only though, because I do not have much time to play. I am largely into online games, including shooters, such as Doom, and story-based games, such as Uncharted and Resident Evil. I used to own a Wii though, making mme a large fan of the Mario and Zelda franchises. I play to releive the stress of constant workloads, and because games offer a sense of escapism, with possibly an enjoyable story. I play either with friends or by myself. I play most games on the PS4.

Minecraft mission

I have played Minecraft before, but, seeing as how I hadn't picked up the game for years, struggled to work out the basics of crafting and building. In the end, I was able to build a wooden house. I played the game's pocket edition on a tablet, which may have made the game harder to play than on the PC due to the controls. Minecraft is an open-world sandbox game, where anyone can build anything they want, or simply choose to survive monster attacks and such.

Did you fulfill all the content requirements; both in terms of including all the correct features and as well as the actual choices made.

I beleive that we were sucessful in fololowing the requirements; we included three jingles and two tracks throughout the recording, along with an introduction, celebrity gamble game, and a news section. Our tracks were Forget You, by Cee Lo Green, and Our House, by Madness. Our introduction featured the host welcoming the audience to the show, and previewing the events that would occur throughout the show. The game of Celebrity Gamble involved the introduction of a phone-in viewer, Derek, and his journey to school. The news segment contained two short news segments reported by our news presenter.

Have you nailed the conventions and styles of Nick Grimshaw and the Radio 1 Breakfast Show?

 I feel that we were able to replicate Nick Grimshaw's style of radio broadcasting to an extent. We were able to copy his upbeat style of presenting, with a lively and energetic tone used by our host, in our show. However, we were unable to include consistant witty banter, a common feature of Nick Grimshaw's presenting.


How did you manage your running order/timings?

Timings were a large problem for us, with our first viable recording being 6 minutes long. This was shortened by fast talking and cutting out dialogue, whilst also shortening jingles and tracks. The second section was our lengthiest, and originally included a lot of unecessary dialogue, which we were able to cut out, and shorten our recording to just over 3 minutes.

Analysis of current music video

Chosen video: Papaoutai, by Stromae

Basic settings- Many plain and basic settings are used throughout the video. This is so that the audience is able to focus on the story being told through the characters. This also links to the fact that the characters are all wearing brightly coloured clothes, most likely to draw attention towards the characters, and help the audience to acknowledge the dancing and story being told.

Sychronisation (dance and soundtrack)- The dancing scences only ever appear when the soundtrack is building up. This helps build suspense and anticipation up to the point where the music becomes more dramatic, and puts emphasis on the mies-en-scene throughout the video.

Mies-en-scene- The video tells the story of a boy and the father he grew up without.It does this through two different narratives: a street where we see a few pairs of parent and child performing their slick dance moves in sychronisation, and the boy without a dad frustratingly attempting to interact with a model of his father, with no results. The two narratives play out nicely, and eventually combine at the end of the video, when the model comes to life and starts to dance with the boy, giving the boy's ending a happier ending than one would have thought.

Fast-paced editing- Shots are often around 2 seconds long, and are changed frequently as the music speeds up. This sets up a pace for the video, and makes the unusual ending of the video all the more dramatic, as the ending slows down greatly.

Unconventional ending- The boy becomes a lifeless mannequin, like the one of his father at the end of the video. The ending doesn't make sense, and it doesn't need to, because it is in a music video, which are uncoventional, and don't need to make sense, unlike Hollywood. It is used to create a dramatic ending to the story, not exactly a happy ending, but not a sad one either. The story is about the artist, Stromae's missing father, after he was killed in the Rwandan genocide.

Continuity task- Our story is about two boys playing football, with one clumsly falling over a bystander at the end. The main plot was simple, and there wasn't much going on, so it wsa easier to create a narrative flow. However, creating a narrative flow was still extremly hard (especially without editing), with the ball having to be thrown and kicked at several different angles and heights to make create continuity between shots.

Several shots were retaken, in an effort to acheive full continuity. However, the transition between shots 2 and 3 was not continuous, as the ball is kicked low off the ground in shot 2, whereas it appears high in the air in shot 3. This transition could be better. For example, the ball could have been kicked higher off the ground in shot 2, which would have improved the narrative flow between shots 2 and 3. Because of this, we did not acheive full continuity.

Improvements could be made to the video to improve the narrative flow, apart from the poor continuity between shots 2 and 3. For example, the shots could be cut quicker, like at the end of shot 2, where the shot could be cut immediatly after the ball was kicked, instead of showing character 2's legs for a few more seconds. Character 3 could also be more involved in the video, as he is randomly introduced, and it is not apparent to the audience what he is doing when character 1 trips over him.

Trailer analysis- 'Logan' was realesed February 2017, and follows the final chapter of Marvel hero Wolverine's life. The film took a largely different approach to most other Marvel films, as reflected by the trailer. The trailer contains graphic violence, showing the  girl hacking mercineries to bits, suggesting that the trailer is meant to appeal to older audiences. The return of Wolverine largely appeals to Marvel fans, especially those who are also fans of the actor Hugh Jackman (who plays Logan).

The genre for the film is action/adventure, as reflected by the consitant explosions and fight scences throughout the trailer. The genre is another source of audience appeal, as Marvel audiences are familiar with fight scences and villains. The villain is another typical action genre signifier, this time being a mercenary seeking to oversee the extinction of mutants, including the girl.

The film has been branded as a Marvel movie, so the public is able to associate 'Logan' with other Marvel movies. This is shown by the Marvel ident at the beginnning of the trailer. Since many Marvel movies in the past have been successful, potentials viewers are more likely to go and watch 'Logan', as they can associate it with previous successes, making them belwive it will be a good film. Although Marvel is owned by Disney, the trailer doesn't contain any Disney ident, because Disney is associated with kid-friendly, family movies, while this movie is a violent action/adventure movie for older audiences. Therefore, it would not have been a good idea to put the Disney ident into the trailer, because potential audiences may have been put off by Disney's kid-friendly vibe.

Character representation is varied greatly in this trailer. The character Laura is presented as a sweet, friendly child, when in reality she is a fighter/anti-hero. She has been included as a strong female character, so that she may come across as represenatative of women and femanism, which will attract female audiences to watch 'Logan'. On the other hand, there is Logan, a sterotypical male character that has proven popular in previous Marvel films, representaive of heroism and strength. He has been represnted as his old, quick-to-temper self, because it's a characteristic that has proven popular with Marvel fans in the past.