Week 1:
Assessment & Exam Practice Q1B (Head)
1. Write up 4 x essay plans 250 words each (Genre, Narrative, Audience, Representation).
1. Write up 4 x essay plans 250 words each (Genre, Narrative, Audience, Representation).
- Include an Introduction (50 words) - what coursework production are you writing about? (the examiner won't know!!!)
- Each essay should have 4-5 theorists (reference the Name)
- Main Body (150 words): Structure the essay so you have 1 theorist per paragraph and examples from your Music Video or your Thriller
- Conclusion (50 words) how
successfully does your work meet this structural theory or challenge it -
remember that's what Post-Modernism suggests & you can use any of
those Theorists here)
Important to include:
- Explanation/Analysis/Argument
- Use of examples
- Use of terminology
My essay
plan structure for Q1B:
*Introduction: What is (Genre/narrative/audience/representation)? How my coursework production (Film opening/music video) uses/challenges the topic
*Main Body: Talk about production, in relation to the topic. Make sure to include the theories in relation to the work.
*Conclusion: successful? Does it challenge? Relate to question.
*Introduction: What is (Genre/narrative/audience/representation)? How my coursework production (Film opening/music video) uses/challenges the topic
*Main Body: Talk about production, in relation to the topic. Make sure to include the theories in relation to the work.
*Conclusion: successful? Does it challenge? Relate to question.
Genre (Thriller film opening):
Introduction (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
Genre is a way to distinct one style from another; genre is effective to help the audience to choose what they’d like to consume and experience. In relation to my thriller opening, I have achieved genre by following genre conventions by using research, editing, mis-en-scene, costume…etc (Talk about thriller film opening – its style – how I followed genric conventions) When constructing my film opening, it was important for me to ensure the film opening related to the thriller genre by looking into generic conventions and how I could best reflect the thriller genre.
Chandler (2001) The word genre comes from the French word ‘Type’. When making my film opening, I had to ensure I made sure to follow the type of genre known as a ‘thriller’, by following typical generic conventions of a thriller.
Within industry, genre is useful to sell products to audiences and genre allows audience to make choices. Jason Mittell (2001) – ‘genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and operate within industry, audience and cultural practices as well. For my coursework production, I was able to use the thriller genre to construct a successful thriller opening to promote the style of film and to successfully operate in industry and sell to audiences who may be interested in watching this particular style of film.
Rick Altman (1999) ‘genre offers audiences a set of pleasures’ – emotional, visceral and intellectual pleasures. Genre is a powerful way to reach to an audience emotionally, physically and intellectually, which is why to my advantage I wanted to ensure within my thriller film opening I was able to take advantage of the genre to elicit these ‘pleasures’. For example, from the beginning to the end of my opening production I tried to include visceral pleasures by including effective sounds and imagery to interest and have the audience feel involved.
Nicolas Abercrombie (1996) ‘the boundaries between genre are shifting and becoming more permeable’ I agree to some extent with Abercrombies theory because many media texts are shifting and tend to meld, as with my thriller opening production I believe to have mixed different aspects of sci-fi and action within my film opening to make it more interesting and applicable to today’s interests.
Conclusion (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
I believe my work has met well to these theories and believe I have used and understood genre well in terms of my own media production for a film opening, as I have used my knowledge from the course to ensure I created a successful thriller. In relation to the theories mentioned above, I believe to have a connection with what has been said about genre.
Narrative (Thriller film opening):
Introduction (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
Narrative can relate to the structure of how a media text can be organised and structured, what the media text may entail and what the storyline is. For my AS coursework production of a thriller film opening, it was important to plan and structure what would be the narrative and how I would set out the beginning, middle and end of the film opening. Branagan ‘Narrative as a way of organising spatial and temporal data into cause/effect chain of events’ When making the thriller film opening, it was extremely important to come up with the narrative of the opening, by coming up with a successful beginning, middle and end to the production. By being able to organise my thriller opening in this way helped me to make the gradual opening of my mysterious character walking, to then the second unknown mysterious character being gradually introduced into the picture, being the cause, and then the effect being the sum up/end of how the film opening creates the summary of what the film entails. I agree with Brannagan’s theory, in relation to my production, of organisation with the spatial and temporal data because it does lead to explaining the cause and effect of the events which the production entails.
Cameron discussed about the types of narratives involved in media texts, including ‘Anachronic’ - ‘flashback/flash-forward’. In relation to my production, Cameron’s narrative type ‘Anachronic’ fits well with my own media production of my thriller opening as my film opening involves the concept of flashbacks and flash-forward’s to add a twist to my narrative.
Kate Domaille (2001) discussed about the ‘eight narrative types’ including ‘Circe: The chase’. My thriller film opening would fit in with the ‘Circe’ narrative type as it involves the aspect of the chase, which in turn supports Domailles theory of the main eight narrative types. Within my thriller, it is all about the chase / assassination of one character trying to find someone but in turn is also the one being chased! My production would probably fall into the action and enigma categories as both codes involves aspects of where the audience can create meaning from the texts which are identified within these categories, such as the gun and violence which could fall in action and the mystery and un-explained happenings of the enigma category.
Vladimir Propp (1928) talked about the seven character types from the historical fairy tales he analysed, Including the villain, the hero, the princess, the dispatcher… etc. However, in my production my characters aren’t as clear as this because it is not as clear or identifiable to make out whom is the hero and who is the villain, or have the same structure as what prop suggested. It can be argued that one character can be a hero and villain but not one or the other.
Conclusion (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
To conclude, I believe my work meets most of these theories however for the some that were mentioned I believe to have challenged them for my own reasons into creating a successful narrative for my thriller film opening.
Audience (Music Video):
Introduction (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
Audience is important to the media world. Without it., there wouldn’t be a reason to product. Having an audience to consume and view the media texts. Audience helps to pick out target audiences to help create media to direct and be preferred by a particular audience. In relation to audience, I will be discussing my music video which I created in my A2 level for my media coursework. Audience was an extremely important factor in the making of this production because the audience is key for consumption and interest of the music video. Finding out the target audience and their preferences/interests was extremely helpful for the construction of a successful video.
Ang (1991) ‘audience hood is becoming an ever more multifaceted, fragmented and diversified repertoire of practices and experiences’. Trying to select or understand an audience is said to have become more and more diverse. When trying to go into detail of the target audience, I went into detail with gender, age, ethnicity and social class but did find it a struggle in some way to have a precise idea on an audience because it is so vast and diverse.
Hartley (1987) institutions must product ‘invisible fictions of the audience which allow the institutions to get a sense of who they must enter into relations with’ In my understanding, I view this as how people in industry have to have an understanding of the audience to create a successful product/media text.I agree with this particular theory because I myself found I was trying to have an understanding with the audience to have a sense/idea on what I needed to create in order to have success with the product I was making. For example, I did some research into the audience in terms of their general likes, preferences, style and dress in order to have some idea on what how I can make the music video a success to the targeted audience.
McQuail – ‘uses of gratifications theory - Surveillance, personal identity, personal relationships, escapism/diversion’ McQuail went into depth about the understanding of how an audience can connect with media texts. I can relate to this theory because when making the music video, I wanted to achieve what other music videos can achieve in relation to McQuail’s theory of the things such as escapism and making the music video visually appealing with the location of London and Hyperreal looking lights, becoming absorbed with the media text and use it as a way of escaping reality.
Hypodermic Theory – passive audiences, consumption of media texts, the media has a direct and powerful effect on its audience. In relation to this, as most media texts aim to do is to engage the audience with the content in which it is trying to display. With my music video, I aimed to try and make a direct and powerful effect on the audience with the visual content so that it ends up being interesting and engaging to watch.
Conclusion (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
I believe that to a great extent that I have a familiarity with the theories mentioned in relation to audience and my own music video coursework. The theories based around audience helps to make sense of media texts such as my music video coursework and how audience makes certain media texts successful.
Representation (Music Video):
Introduction (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
Within my musaic video, it was important for me to make sure I included either meaningful or subtle messages in the media text in order to speak out or relate to the audience; engaging interest. In relation to representation in media texts, I will be talking about my music video and how it relates to representation.
Marxism and dominant ideologies:
Dominant ideologies can create a huge impact on media texts, such as social norms or capitalist ideas. A hegemonic view of this can be the inequalities between social groups, such as the capitalist class and working class. Marxism refers to the reinforcement of dominant ideologies in society – capitalist class. David Gauntlett (2002) ‘ideas are not given but are constructed/negotiated’ To some extent, Gauntlett’s theory can be argued correct because most ideas are based around what is considered as social norms or ideal. In relation to my music video…………………………………………..
Feminism: social constructions
Laura Mulvey (1975) put across the theory of women being in media texts for the ‘male gaze’ – Voyeurism. In relation to my music video, I believe this is applicable because part of the intention for the video is for the female music artist/actress to be portrayed as someone to be attractive and pleasing to the eye to be appreciated by male audience but someone to be looked at as a role model by the female audience, to hopefully make the music video more appealing to watch and be successful.
Postmodernism:
Hyperreality – lights, movements, editing, representation of character…
McDougall (2009) ‘in a media saturated world, the distinction between reality and media representations becomes blurred or invisible to us’ …………………………..
Stereotypes:
O’Sullivan et al (1998) ‘a stereotype is a label that involves a process of categorisation and evaluation. ……………………………………………….
Lippmann (1956) the word stereotype wasn’t meant to be negative and was simply meant as a shortcut or ordering process.
Conclusion (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
Introduction (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
Genre is a way to distinct one style from another; genre is effective to help the audience to choose what they’d like to consume and experience. In relation to my thriller opening, I have achieved genre by following genre conventions by using research, editing, mis-en-scene, costume…etc (Talk about thriller film opening – its style – how I followed genric conventions) When constructing my film opening, it was important for me to ensure the film opening related to the thriller genre by looking into generic conventions and how I could best reflect the thriller genre.
Chandler (2001) The word genre comes from the French word ‘Type’. When making my film opening, I had to ensure I made sure to follow the type of genre known as a ‘thriller’, by following typical generic conventions of a thriller.
Within industry, genre is useful to sell products to audiences and genre allows audience to make choices. Jason Mittell (2001) – ‘genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and operate within industry, audience and cultural practices as well. For my coursework production, I was able to use the thriller genre to construct a successful thriller opening to promote the style of film and to successfully operate in industry and sell to audiences who may be interested in watching this particular style of film.
Rick Altman (1999) ‘genre offers audiences a set of pleasures’ – emotional, visceral and intellectual pleasures. Genre is a powerful way to reach to an audience emotionally, physically and intellectually, which is why to my advantage I wanted to ensure within my thriller film opening I was able to take advantage of the genre to elicit these ‘pleasures’. For example, from the beginning to the end of my opening production I tried to include visceral pleasures by including effective sounds and imagery to interest and have the audience feel involved.
Nicolas Abercrombie (1996) ‘the boundaries between genre are shifting and becoming more permeable’ I agree to some extent with Abercrombies theory because many media texts are shifting and tend to meld, as with my thriller opening production I believe to have mixed different aspects of sci-fi and action within my film opening to make it more interesting and applicable to today’s interests.
Conclusion (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
I believe my work has met well to these theories and believe I have used and understood genre well in terms of my own media production for a film opening, as I have used my knowledge from the course to ensure I created a successful thriller. In relation to the theories mentioned above, I believe to have a connection with what has been said about genre.
Narrative (Thriller film opening):
Introduction (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
Narrative can relate to the structure of how a media text can be organised and structured, what the media text may entail and what the storyline is. For my AS coursework production of a thriller film opening, it was important to plan and structure what would be the narrative and how I would set out the beginning, middle and end of the film opening. Branagan ‘Narrative as a way of organising spatial and temporal data into cause/effect chain of events’ When making the thriller film opening, it was extremely important to come up with the narrative of the opening, by coming up with a successful beginning, middle and end to the production. By being able to organise my thriller opening in this way helped me to make the gradual opening of my mysterious character walking, to then the second unknown mysterious character being gradually introduced into the picture, being the cause, and then the effect being the sum up/end of how the film opening creates the summary of what the film entails. I agree with Brannagan’s theory, in relation to my production, of organisation with the spatial and temporal data because it does lead to explaining the cause and effect of the events which the production entails.
Cameron discussed about the types of narratives involved in media texts, including ‘Anachronic’ - ‘flashback/flash-forward’. In relation to my production, Cameron’s narrative type ‘Anachronic’ fits well with my own media production of my thriller opening as my film opening involves the concept of flashbacks and flash-forward’s to add a twist to my narrative.
Kate Domaille (2001) discussed about the ‘eight narrative types’ including ‘Circe: The chase’. My thriller film opening would fit in with the ‘Circe’ narrative type as it involves the aspect of the chase, which in turn supports Domailles theory of the main eight narrative types. Within my thriller, it is all about the chase / assassination of one character trying to find someone but in turn is also the one being chased! My production would probably fall into the action and enigma categories as both codes involves aspects of where the audience can create meaning from the texts which are identified within these categories, such as the gun and violence which could fall in action and the mystery and un-explained happenings of the enigma category.
Vladimir Propp (1928) talked about the seven character types from the historical fairy tales he analysed, Including the villain, the hero, the princess, the dispatcher… etc. However, in my production my characters aren’t as clear as this because it is not as clear or identifiable to make out whom is the hero and who is the villain, or have the same structure as what prop suggested. It can be argued that one character can be a hero and villain but not one or the other.
Conclusion (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
To conclude, I believe my work meets most of these theories however for the some that were mentioned I believe to have challenged them for my own reasons into creating a successful narrative for my thriller film opening.
Audience (Music Video):
Introduction (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
Audience is important to the media world. Without it., there wouldn’t be a reason to product. Having an audience to consume and view the media texts. Audience helps to pick out target audiences to help create media to direct and be preferred by a particular audience. In relation to audience, I will be discussing my music video which I created in my A2 level for my media coursework. Audience was an extremely important factor in the making of this production because the audience is key for consumption and interest of the music video. Finding out the target audience and their preferences/interests was extremely helpful for the construction of a successful video.
Ang (1991) ‘audience hood is becoming an ever more multifaceted, fragmented and diversified repertoire of practices and experiences’. Trying to select or understand an audience is said to have become more and more diverse. When trying to go into detail of the target audience, I went into detail with gender, age, ethnicity and social class but did find it a struggle in some way to have a precise idea on an audience because it is so vast and diverse.
Hartley (1987) institutions must product ‘invisible fictions of the audience which allow the institutions to get a sense of who they must enter into relations with’ In my understanding, I view this as how people in industry have to have an understanding of the audience to create a successful product/media text.I agree with this particular theory because I myself found I was trying to have an understanding with the audience to have a sense/idea on what I needed to create in order to have success with the product I was making. For example, I did some research into the audience in terms of their general likes, preferences, style and dress in order to have some idea on what how I can make the music video a success to the targeted audience.
McQuail – ‘uses of gratifications theory - Surveillance, personal identity, personal relationships, escapism/diversion’ McQuail went into depth about the understanding of how an audience can connect with media texts. I can relate to this theory because when making the music video, I wanted to achieve what other music videos can achieve in relation to McQuail’s theory of the things such as escapism and making the music video visually appealing with the location of London and Hyperreal looking lights, becoming absorbed with the media text and use it as a way of escaping reality.
Hypodermic Theory – passive audiences, consumption of media texts, the media has a direct and powerful effect on its audience. In relation to this, as most media texts aim to do is to engage the audience with the content in which it is trying to display. With my music video, I aimed to try and make a direct and powerful effect on the audience with the visual content so that it ends up being interesting and engaging to watch.
Conclusion (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
I believe that to a great extent that I have a familiarity with the theories mentioned in relation to audience and my own music video coursework. The theories based around audience helps to make sense of media texts such as my music video coursework and how audience makes certain media texts successful.
Representation (Music Video):
Introduction (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
Within my musaic video, it was important for me to make sure I included either meaningful or subtle messages in the media text in order to speak out or relate to the audience; engaging interest. In relation to representation in media texts, I will be talking about my music video and how it relates to representation.
Marxism and dominant ideologies:
Dominant ideologies can create a huge impact on media texts, such as social norms or capitalist ideas. A hegemonic view of this can be the inequalities between social groups, such as the capitalist class and working class. Marxism refers to the reinforcement of dominant ideologies in society – capitalist class. David Gauntlett (2002) ‘ideas are not given but are constructed/negotiated’ To some extent, Gauntlett’s theory can be argued correct because most ideas are based around what is considered as social norms or ideal. In relation to my music video…………………………………………..
Feminism: social constructions
Laura Mulvey (1975) put across the theory of women being in media texts for the ‘male gaze’ – Voyeurism. In relation to my music video, I believe this is applicable because part of the intention for the video is for the female music artist/actress to be portrayed as someone to be attractive and pleasing to the eye to be appreciated by male audience but someone to be looked at as a role model by the female audience, to hopefully make the music video more appealing to watch and be successful.
Postmodernism:
Hyperreality – lights, movements, editing, representation of character…
McDougall (2009) ‘in a media saturated world, the distinction between reality and media representations becomes blurred or invisible to us’ …………………………..
Stereotypes:
O’Sullivan et al (1998) ‘a stereotype is a label that involves a process of categorisation and evaluation. ……………………………………………….
Lippmann (1956) the word stereotype wasn’t meant to be negative and was simply meant as a shortcut or ordering process.
Conclusion (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
2. Look over the students examples of 1b Head that we started looking at in class for examples of how & what to write about - see the photo of the wipeboard.
3. Pick the concept you are most confident with and write a timed essay 30 min essay using your essay structure - i will use this to assess and feedback improvements
(need to insert when marked.)
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