1B exemplar analysis

Allocate marks as follows

14/25

Explanation, analysis argument  (max 10) 7

Examples (Max 10) 5

Terminology (Max 5) 2

What would you award for the analysis

In question 1(b) you must write about one of your media productions.
(b) Apply the concept of representation to one of your coursework productions [25]

The issue of representation refers to the portrayal of people, actions and events through the medium’ of the media’. The issue often surrounds itself with topics involving; Race, Age and gender.
The main task set out to us through the A2 period of my course was the production of a music video, to accompany a song of our choice. The song I chose was ‘Evening/Morning’ by ‘Bomay Cycle Club’, with the chosen genre being Indie. Following the conventions of my genre, I chose to portray a narrative based music video with the narrative basing itself around the story of a boy and a girl going on a date. The narrative centres itself on how the pair prepare themselves, and the issue of gender representation is clear throughout.
One theorist that can be applied to my music video is Laura Mulvey and her theory of the Male Gaze. This theory surrounds itself with the voyeuristic nature of the media, with regards to the objectification of females, and the pleasure that a male viewer may get when watching the video.
This theory can be applied to my video in a number of different ways. Firstly, the inclusion of the female character
in itself immediately applies that the Male Gaze may be relevant. The very presence of a female character is likely to lead some males into watching the video purely to see the female presence. Furthermore, the idea that the camera has been placed by the director in her house suggests that the society is quite intimate. The camera trails the female around her house, which impedes on her personal space are suggests the idea of voyeurism, to watch for pleasure, within the video. Furthermore, the practice of cutting back and forth between her as she changes clothes is very invasive of her privacy. This stage is considered quite a personal aspect of a girls life, and the fact that the male audience is able to see this firmly suggests that the female character is being represented as a visual object. Comparatively, the male temari in the sake outfit as the temari still. The camera remains stationary and as a result personal space is not really intruded on with regards to the male. The constant presentation of long shots onto the male, compared to close ups on the female highlights this further, suggesting a much more provocative and involving view of the female, representing her clearly as a sexual object.
A second theory that can be applied to my music video was suggested by Antonio Gramsci. His theory is centred around the lack of dominant ideololgies within society, and the presence of hegemonic norms.
This theory is relevent to my video in a number of ways. Firstly with regards to the male character, he is represented as an uncaring and as a result, quite macho manly figure. He remains stationary and playing video games, making little effort to prepare for the date. Comparatively, the female character spends the majority of the video rushing around preparing for the date, clearly with a look of stress and excitement. This represents a dominant ideology heartfelt, loving caring figures, whereas male characters are often much less romantically involved and are much more focused on other things. As mentioned, the representation of women as voyeuristic sex objects is also considered a dominant ideology within society, a trait often played on by the media.

In conclusion, as suggested, my video included a number of features which can be discussed in terms of representational issues, perhaps note more so then the representation of women as an object of men’s sexual pleasure.

I gave this essay 14/25 as the candidate coherently explains their points but sadly only focuses on one area of representation limiting themselves to the amount of theory available for them to use. The candidate also doesn't give many different examples only referencing their own video not comparing with other media texts to show how they have reinforced or challenged the modes of representation. 

Revision for 1B

·      Genre - a style of art, music or literature. 

·    Narrative - a spoken or written account of connected events; a story.

·    Representation-the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way.

·    Audience - the assembled spectators or listeners at a public event such as a play, film, concert, or meeting.

·    Media language - Media language refers to the ways in which media producers make meaning in ways that are specific to the medium in which they are working and how audiences come to be literate in ‘reading’ such meaning within the medium.    

•Camera work

Close up of hanging phone links to barthes enigma code, as it shows the relationship is over the phone line is dead.

ECU of the dead flies, todorovs disequilibrium she's returning to a place where she's felt a lot of pain its been left how it was ( Ms.Havisham esc). 

•Sound

Hello from the other side, when she is on the phone links to todorovs narrative theory about the recognition that there has disruption of the equilibrium because she is trying to reach out. 

The faint sound of the dialogue behind the music Semantic code allows us to understand the strength of the relationship 

•Editing

B&W overlay to show she is going to be reminiscing about the past. Barthes symbolic code as B&W usually symbolises flashbacks or past events. 

•Mis en scene

use of closing cell phone, barthes action code as the closing of the phone is there to show the man is done with trying. Cultural codes to an extent. 

•Additionally identify aspects of narrative using theory Todorov and Barthes

(2014) (b) Apply the concept of genre to one of your coursework productions. [25]

Make sure you have a line of argument and plenty of examples to back them up.

Genre

The music video belongs to the indie genre but within this genre exist other sub genres

which our video can be associated with i.e. pop, folk rock and rock as a

generalisation. Seeing as the song for our video belongs to a genre where the sub

genres have many overlapping conventions it was easy to apply them to our 

production. One of the conventions for folk music is that is it quite religious and seeing

that song itself is based of a biblical story bout the affair between Bathshba and David

we included repeated close ups of candles within our video as they have a symbolic link

to religion in their use during prayers. The candles can also be seen within Jeff

Buckley's video for 'Hallelujah'. The candles have a metaphysical link as well as within

the song Buckley references the 'light' which connote the light from the gates of

heaven. This links to Barthes symbolic code. We also appeal to the pop genre

convention of having a love based narrative, or example in Robbie William's 'Angels'

where he compares his lover to angel. Within our video however, the narrative links 

more to a broken love as established by the story of an affair within the lyrics. In our 

video we break the stereotypical conventions of a typical romance stories as we have 

included an LGBTQ couple within our video to challenge the heterosexual norms, as 

well as this, we have also challenge the conventions within a stereotypical heterosexual 

relationship with the female having more of the power as seen in the wide shot of Laura 

throwing the ring across the stream. This links to Queer theory as we have challenged the norms
of heterosexual relationships and expanded the representation of those who do not conform to
traditional gender roles. 

With the narrative story being about love and tragedy it links heavily to todorovs narrative 

theory. For example there is an equilibrium at the beginning with the characters being

initially engaged, we then have the disequilbrium as their loan is declined so the

marriage is called off resulting in the two falling apart. This part of the narrative links to

Barthes semantic code as it informs the audience of the state of the relationship. There

is then the recognition of the issue as young Will tries to find Laura to resolve the issue

but instead catches her cheating. The resolution comes when older Will can finally put

the memories of his ex fiancé to rest alongside her grave and this leads back to an

equilibrium but things are no longer the same. The way we have edited our video by

using a B&W overly for the flash backs also has helped us establish the genre. The

overlay gives our video a retro feel which is a code linked with the indie genre as B&W

often has connotations of the past and looking back at what was, which is precisely

what we have used it for in our video as Will is looking back on his past relationship.

This links to Barthes symbolic code as Will reminiscing on the past which shows he is

not over the relationship. We also used unsaturated colours within our music video as

this is a convention of the indie and rock genre, it is seen within Sundara Karma's

'young understanding' music video and sets this serious tone and this is something that

we felt we needed to include as it helps the audience understand we are dealing with

some difficult themes. Themes such as affairs and abuse within the relationship which

are prominent in pop songs about love for example Kelly Clarksons 'Because of you'.      

We have established the genre through our used of costumes, usually denim, borg 

Jackets and ripped jeans heavily feature in the costumes for indie music videos and so

we have incorporated this style into the video so the audience recognise the genre. We filmed in a
rural area away from a big town and this helped reinforce this theme of love as it makes the
couple seem like the world revolves around them. This was similar to what was seen in Adele's
'Hello' video  as the the locations is completely isolated. 

When we asked our focus group what they expected from a romance video they spoke of their
being a break up involved. As the video is based on Will looking back on his past relationship we
were able to use Barthe's open ended narrative as on the one hand we have the story of the young
couple and then as well as this we have the elderly mans story and how he's coping with the scars
of the relationship. This will appeal to our audience as they will be seeing something that they
expected from the genre. 

1a)

1a) To begin with we chose a song and watched the music video to the track. This was the influenced us in terms of the types of materials we researched for example, textual analysis's had to be

Creativity:
What was the intended outcome of the production?
The intention of our production was to follow the conventions of a indie music video but challenge the the stereotypes of heterosexual relationship's. We also wanted to make a video that transcended age boundaries by casting people of different ages.

How were these outcomes achieved in terms of page layout and camera shot choices?
For the page layout I will be taking a simple but stylistic approach as influenced by the Cult Records and Ed Sheeran's Website.  This will include a header with title links, as well as limited content on the homepage to make it easily navigable for all ages. In terms of shot types, to keep our audience interested and to challenge the stereotypical boundaries we used a variety of shot types for example: having a high angle over the male walking to make him seem vulnerable this shot could lead into a match on action shot of him opening a cupboard and then having a POV shot from his perspective.

What Stylistic Techniques were used to appeal to the audience?
The website has further been influenced by the fact that the song inquestion transcends age boundaries and so my website needs to be accessible to all. Some of the stylistic elements will be within the font used and the way my images are shot and presented. As well as this, the colour scheme will represent those seen in Jeff Buckley's video for "hallelujah" as I am looking to target a specific audience.

Digital Technology:

·       What software was used?

   The software used for creating the website was wix a simple and easy to use website designer. Where editing the footage was concerned we used Adobe premier which was a software used to produce the film openings last year. This allowed us to develop our skills and produce better projects than what were seen last year. When producing the digipaks we were introduced to a new software indesign. 

·       What equipment was used?

   From working with my group last year we found out that the equipment we were provided with by the college was substandard and so this year I purchased a camera (Canon 1300D) that we were able to shoot some of the footage with. We tried to use a dolly for the tripod to stand on to film the tacking shots but we found it increased the shakiness of the camera.

·       What were the technical pros and cons of the software and hardware?
To edit the initial photos I used photoshop which was easy and user friendly. The tools such as, the magnetic lasso and then the masking tools were really simple to use when try to select and the cut things from the image. The only issue was that photoshop could be very sensitive and responsive to even the slightest action and so on occasion I would have to go back and redo/change the edit I had applied to the photo. 

·       In what ways was technology used to create the production?
Well initially I used a Canon 1300D to take the images I was going to use for ancillary tasks. The camera allowed me to shoot in manual mode with a wider range of aperture and shutter speed settings than the college cameras could offer.  
We used the technology to produce a test footage which was shot using a DSLR camera as it gave us a better quality of image. 

·       In what ways did the technology constrain or enable the production to be developed?


Research and Planning:

·       What primary and secondary research was undertaken? How did it inform the production?

·       What quantitative and qualitative analysis methods were employed? How did the results from these inform the production?

·       How effectively were storyboards and magazine flat plans followed?  

   

Post-Production??????

·       What editing decisions were made? How did they inform the production?

·       What particular editing tools were used and to what effect?

·       How did the post production process enhance the overall production?

 

Generic Media Conventions 

·       In what ways were media conventions adhered to? For example did a music video have fast paced editing? Did the performers act to the camera?

·       What media theories were utilized? Were the representations involved appropriate to the product?