Bloggers of the Week

Well done, everyone, for working on the Snow Day. It was a tight competition this time, between Emily, Lily and Jazmin, but this week the winnings are shared between Lily and Jazmin, with Emily being a close runner-up. Blog on over the Christmas holidays. I can't wait to see your videos!

Blogger of the Week

Well done again to Jemima, who has blogged a plan for her Christmas holiday music video homework. The prize is up for grabs next week - last one of the year! Get blogging, everyone!

Blogger of the Week

Well done this week to Jemima, who has kept up to date with blogging this week including her post on David Guetta's 'Titanium'!

Engineering Video Competition - win £9,000!

Film It Win It with Loughborough Uni

Blogger of the Week

HUGE congrats to the whole class who worked so, so hard over the half term holidays to produce amazing music videos. Can't wait to see the last three soon. Very hard to choose a Blogger of the Week this time, but the prize goes to Zamzam. Well done, everyone!

Electropop Coursework Research

One of the coursework options is to make a music video. The sample task is in the electropop genre. Here is a handy playlist of electropop tracks to study:

Blogger of the Week

Well done for the second week running to Phillipa, who has found a really interesting and informative website on Disney marketing: http://thejohncarterfiles.com/2016/04/disneys-savvy-marketing-of-jungle-book-adds-to-the-mystery-of-its-inexplicably-lame-marketing-of-john-carter/

Research on 'The Jungle Book' 2016

Marketing:

Research specific examples of the way the 2016 'Jungle Book' was promoted. Look at http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/02/26/the-jungle-book-is-jon-favreaus-avatar-and-gravity and The New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/business/media/disneys-savvy-marketing-jungle-book.html

We're looking for marketing techniques on social media such as:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Snapchat
Website
YouTube

Then, look at the way the movie has been distributed.
When was it first released in cinemas and in how many, where?
Then when was it released on other platforms - DVD, Bluray, streaming online - Netflix, Sky, Disney Channel for example?
Think about media convergence and synergy.

Jungle Book 1967 Research

Some Media Industries points you could research on 'The Jungle Book' 1967

How many cinemas was the film originally released in on its opening box office weekend?
What was the budget for the film?
What was its opening weekend gross?
How many animated films had Disney made before this?
Did the film win any awards? What were they?
How many countries has the film been shown in?
In which country was it most popular (made the most money)?
How long is the film? Why do you think films are longer now?
Who is the director? What other films has he/she directed?

Can you find out anything about how Disney first promoted and marketed the film?

How has Disney prolonged the life of this film?
Has it been re-released in cinemas since 1967?
When was it first released on video?
When was it first released on DVD?
How else has it been available to see? On Sky? The Disney Channel? Netflix? Amazon Prime?

Why do you think Disney made the 2016 Live Action  version?

Blogger of the Week

Star Award from the BFI London Film Festival on this week

Well done this week to Phillipa and Jemima for blogging well about Disney and our Harry Potter experience. Keep up the great work, everyone!

Harry Potter Tour

Enjoy!

Blogger of the Week

Well done to Lauren and Jazmin for editing the superb school Languages Week video to play to the whole school. The more videos the better!

Emmy Awards 2017

The Emmy Awards are presented by The Television Academy, the only major organization devoted to the television and broadband screen entertainment industry. The Emmy Awards, telecast prior to the fall television premiere season, is the flagship event for which the Television Academy is best known.

The award is named after the image-orthicon camera tube, which was instrumental in the development of television. "Immy" was feminized as "Emmy" to complement the design chosen for the statuette, which depicted a winged, idealized woman holding an atom.

The 69th annual Primetime Emmy Awards took place in Los Angeles on Sunday. This year's awards were dominated by digital television. 'The Handmaid's Tale' and 'Big Little Lies' were the main winners. 'The Handmaid's Tale' won five awards including best drama series, best actress for Elisabeth Moss and best supporting actress for Ann Dowd. 'The Handmaid's Tale's' win for best drama series means Hulu has become the first streaming service to win that award, beating the likes of big hitters Netflix and Amazon.

Big Little Lies took five prizes in the limited series categories, including wins for Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern.

'Stranger Things' stars at The Emmys 2017

Blogger of the Week

A difficult decision this time as everyone has worked really hard filming and uploading preliminary tasks. But Lily gets an Emmy statuette (as it was the Emmys this weekend) this time for her additional post on her camera shots and evaluating how they were effective. Well done, everyone!

Blogger of the Week

Well done to our first blogger of the week #jazziemonkey16 (aka Jazmin) who made a superb video to illustrate 'me and the online age':

Week 2: Me and the Online Age

Tasks To Complete on Representation

Representation: thinking points

1. Firstly, think about how you represent yourself! Make a list of all the different identities you have in your life: school pupil, daughter, sister, friend, babysitter, Tesco worker, dog walker... Then draw up a pie chart with each chunk representing how much you think of yourself as that identity.

To make a pie chart that represents your identity, follow these steps:

• Complete the sentence ‘I am…” ten times. 
• Put those in to a basic order of importance. 
• Give each ‘identity’ a score, relative to the others, based on how import this label is to your overall identity. 
• Use this information to make a pie chart. 

You can use the attached Excel sheet to help you make your chart – just put in the details and the numbers and the chart will do the rest.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=122759157

Here's one drawn up for a media studies teacher:






2. Make a collage (either digitally or cutting and pasting pictures) of all the things that represent you as an individual. It might be pictures of hobbies, clothing, activities you enjoy, possessions that mean a lot to you, TV programmes that are important to you, people you admire (such as celebrities or bands)...


3. Think about the way you represent yourself to other people. Make a list of the different ways you communicate with people, particularly online: facebook, twitter, email (school and home), mobile phone - texts, bbm, Skype, letters, Youtube, MySpace, online games... Watch

The Onion's Lost Friendster Video



http://tinyurl.com/y939xk8.

How has communication changed since your parents' generation? Now watch Obama's advice about facebook.

Now watch James Cordon's reaction to Obama's new facebook page:


TASK: Make a presentation on the history of YOUR communications from the time you were a baby, entitled 'Me and the Online Age'. You can include found images and music, with captions.

PRODUCTION TASK:
Make a video which shows one person entering a room through the door, walking across the room, sitting down opposite another person and exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue.

In this video you should demonstrate three key concepts:

• match-on-action
• shot-reverse shot
• the 180 degree rule

Week 1: Introduction to the Media

How much do you know about 'the media'. As a digital native, probably more than you think! See this brief history of the media to gain a broad understanding of how you got to being the media-savvy student you are today:

Media evolution from Sara Afonso

So how do YOU fit in to all this? Compile a list of how you interact with the media on a day-to-day basis.

Theorists of the week:
Power and Media Industries – Curran and Seaton 

A political economy approach to the media – arguing that patterns of ownership and control are the most significant factors in how the media operate.

Media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer and fewer hands. This leads to a narrowing of the range of opinions represented and a pursuit of profit at the expense of quality or creativity.

The internet does not represent a rupture with the past in that it does not offer a level playing field for diverse voices to be heard. It is constrained by nationalism and state censorship. News is still controlled by powerful news organisations, who have successfully defended their oligarchy.

Read their book 'Power Without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain' (1997)

Key quotation: "The press and broadcasting exercise a massive power, but it is more than ever a power without responsibility."

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_puttnam_what_happens_when_the_media_s_priority_is_profit

See this TED Talk on Media power and responsibility.

Welcome!

Welcome to St Mary's GX Media Studies, following the OCR A Level Media Studies course http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/beta/as-a-level-gce-media-studies-h009-h409-from-2017/.

You can read the Specification for this A Level course here.

Basically, the course is assessed as follows:
TWO exams at the end of Y13
1: Media Messages (35% of total A Level)
Section A: News - Two linked in-depth contemporary news studies
Section B: Media Language and Representation - magazines, advertising & marketing, music videos

2: Media Industries and Audiences (35% of total A Level)
Section A: Media Industries and Audiences - radio, video games and film
Section B: Long Form Television Drama

3: NEA (Non-exam assessment) (30% of total A Level)
You will create a cross-media product from a set brief

You'll be able to find all the resources you need for the course on this blog. Good luck and enjoy the course!