Essay title for Homework

Hi all,

Your essay title is as follows. If you missed the lesson, or need to view the film again, you need to come and see me this week to arrange a viewing.

Present a detailed reading of the climax of Hot Fuzz. Explain its appeal to you and the pleasures it offers audiences.

(You may wish to consider some of the following: narrative devices and structures, film or broadcast fiction techniques, the appeal of characters or stars, identification with themes or issues, escapism.)

I would advise you to look carefully at your targets from previous assessments, as well as planning your work in detail. Use the following links to get access to the technical websites we looked at in class:

http://www.mediacollege.com/lighting/three-point/

http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/

http://filmsound.org/

Have fun,

Mr Boulter

Lesson on 7th December

Hi all,

Just to let you know that Friday's lesson will involve a close analysis of key scenes from Hot Fuzz, focusing on the key concepts of media language and narrative. I haven't set you any homework this week, but do hope that some of you have taken the opportunity to do some independent work, especially by familiarising yourself with the course outline for this unit. If not, do so please, by following the link to AllisonMedia.net on the post prior to this one.
See you on Fri!
Mr Boulter

Film and Broadcast Fiction

Hi,

Today's lesson will begin our unit on Film and Broadcast fiction. This is preparation for our Med 2 exam, and we'll begin by analysing the media language used in the opening scenes of the film 'Hot Fuzz' (2007). A comprehensive introduction to and overview of this part of the course can be found on http://www.allisonmedia.net/Media/film&bf.htm ; please make sure you have a good look at this in the next few days.

Ta

Mr Boulter

Ideas for Self-supported study lesson

Hi all,
In today's SSS lesson, here are a couple of activities that you might consider:
1) Build on the work we've done recently on Advertising, by watching and analysing some more ads from www.tellyads.com
2) Use Media Magazine: www.mediamagazine.org.uk
Username: mediamagazine5
Password: dh43qi
Browse the archive, find an article that you are interested in, or that is relevant to the study we've been doing recently. Read carefully and take notes / mind map what you think are the most important points from the article.
Otherwise, you are free to set your own agenda for this lesson- consider what interests you, what you'd like to learn more about, where you'd like to take your study next.
Approach this with resilience, energy and independence to get the most out of it...

TBo

Lesson review and Homework from 9/11/07

Hi all,
Friday's lesson involved a marathon advert analysis session, using http://www.tellyads.com/ . We considered a range of ads in detail, thinking about key issues such as:

• Target Audience


• Media Language (camera work, sound etc)


• Advertising techniques and lines of appeal

You then went on to try to apply these ideas to your own (imaginary) campaigns, which we'll review during the next lesson.

Homework for this week is a reading activity. You need to read the article from Media Magazine called 'Analyse this – how to survive AQA's MED1 exam and still come out smiling ...'. It's in the Examiners' Perspectives section. If you can't remember how to access this, go to the post on this blog from Wednesday, 29th August, and this will explain it to you (this involves scrolling down to the bottom of this page, and clocking on 'Older Posts').

When you get to the article, print it out and bring it to the lesson (you can use the library printer for this, or come to myself or PHa). I then want you to read it carefully- it's a bit complicated in places, but not too bad if you concentrate and are persistent. You need to make some notes, in the form of picking out what you think are the 10 most helpful tips from the article. Bring this list with you to class on Friday.

As an extension, it would be well worth you having a look at some of the other articles on this site- there are some interesting ones- as they make excellent wider reading for the course.

Have a good week,
Mr Boulter

Tbo Email address

Hi all,
If anyone is intending to email me your homework, the address is tbo@cheney.oxon.sch.uk .
ta
Mr Boulter

Review of 2nd November and HW

Hi everyone,

Well done on your focus and concentration in Friday's lesson- we had a lot to cover and you listened well. Also, the soap operas were excellent- this bodes very well for the coursework unit. The main areas we covered were:

• What are the requirements of the Med 1 Exam?


• What are the principles of good quality analytical writing at AS level?


• How do we go about structuring and planining a response?

We then looked at the J17 front cover, and considered what aspects of the text we could comment on. Here is the sample paragraph that we looked at in class:

"Images are a striking and significant feature of the text. For example, the central image on the front cover is of a teenage girl against a plain blue background. She is wearing a plain, simple red top and the shot is cropped to show the top half of her body. Her head is tilted to one side and she is smiling. The effect of this image might be to construct a role-model for the young teenage audience of J17. The girl is slightly older than the target audience, which might attract an audience of aspirational teenage girls who want to associate themselves with an older lifestyle. It is also significant that, whilst the shot is stylised, the girl’s pose is not sexual in the way that images from magazines aimed at older audiences might be (eg FHM, Vogue etc). Instead, her pose, clothes and expression- all emphasised by the summery, natural lighting- connote innocence, fun and freedom. This is more likely to appeal to the young target audience, and also be more acceptable to parents, many of whom will have a major influence on whether or not the teenager is allowed to buy / read the magazine. "

and here is the same paragraph broken up to show the Point, Evidence, Explanation, Development sections that we discussed:

"Images are a striking and significant feature of the text. For example, the central image on the front cover is of a teenage girl against a plain blue background. She is wearing a plain, simple red top and the shot is cropped to show the top half of her body. Her head is tilted to one side and she is smiling. The effect of this image might be to construct a role-model for the young teenage audience of J17. The girl is slightly older than the target audience, which might attract an audience of aspirational teenage girls who want to associate themselves with an older lifestyle. It is also significant that, whilst the shot is stylised, the girl’s pose is not sexual in the way that images from magazines aimed at older audiences might be (eg FHM, Vogue etc). Instead, her pose, clothes and expression- all emphasised by the summery, natural lighting- connote innocence, fun and freedom. This is more likely to appeal to the young target audience, and also be more acceptable to parents, many of whom will have a major influence on whether or not the teenager is allowed to buy / read the magazine. "

For extension purposes, this link will take you to all the past papers from the last few years : http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/gceasa/med_assess.php , although some of the texts for Med 1 aren't reproduced for copywrite reasons.

Homework is to write up your response, following the targets from your last essay, and considering the content of Friday's lesson carefully.

Have a good week,

Mr Boulter

Today's task

Hi all,
Aims:

• To understand and explore the conventions and narrative structures of soap opera
• To experiment with using digital cameras and Windows Movie Maker to tell a story

It's been 2 weeks since last we met, and your task today is going to be a practical one. You are to use the notes and ideas you got on the conventions of soap operas for homework, to construct your own soap opera this morning, telling the story or stories in one of the episodes through a series of still images, which you will put onto Windows Movie Maker and create a short stills film.

Lesson 1:
Planning, setting up the shots and storylines, taking the photos

Lesson 2:
Working in the Library ICT suite to get the photos online, then put them onto WMM. You can then add text / sound etc.

It's very important that you work well as a group here, organising yourselves so that you use the time efficiently- we've only got this lesson and homework to get it complete and ready to show next lesson.

I'll be in C5 lesson 1, and the Library lesson 2, so come to see me if you need batteries or anything.

Mr Boulter

Cover work from Monday 8th lesson

Hi chaps,
sorry I missed your lesson on Monday. I just want to clarify the work you should be doing which was set as cover work. You should have collected a handout of the Structuralism lecture notes, which you need to read through, and do all tasks. Feel free to work in pairs/groups to provide support to one another. You also need to have a go at the Binary Oppositions task - picking a Branded product and stating what that product is NOT in order to work out what it IS. There are two examples on the sheet to help you understand the task better.

Next week we will recap on this work, finish off the Postmodernism stuff, and launch into either Narrative or Genre (haven't decided yet!). Keep looking on here in case I have any brainstorms of things you need to prepare for the lesson!

Please note - if you were not in Monday's lesson you still need to pick up the worksheets and do the work - as always.

Review of 5th October and HW

Hi all,
This week's session was based initially on the Uses and Gratifications theory, and we saw 4 presentations on different aspects of the theory. We considered how the audience might be considered to use the media for one or more of the following:

Surveillance
Personal Relationships
Personal Identity
Diversion

We then went on the consider the role of parody and satire in representing TV news. We discussed the conventions of TV news, before reading an episode of the parody 'The Day Today' (1994).

Your homework is to continue to explore the important notion of texts being defined by conventions. You need to:

• Check your understanding of what is meant by 'Conventions' when referring to media texts (a dictionary / te internet will help you here).
• Watch an episode of a popular soap opera, and make a list of the features of it that could be counted as 'conventions'.
• Read and make notes on this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1087193 to add to your understanding
• Bring to the lesson an idea for a new soap, which shows the conventions from the article- you'll need to use your imagination here, and I need to see some written notes to support your idea- it's not enough to have the idea 'in your head'!

Thanks, and remember to contact me if you have any difficulties with this,

Mr Boulter

Review of Fri 28th and HW

Well done to all for a productive lesson on Friday- myself adn Mrs Harte are impressed with the level of commitment and attention this group is bringing to the course so far- keep it up.

To review what was covered:

• We 'read' and analysed a couple of extracts from the text 'Soccer AM', considering the representation of women each contained.
• We complemented this with a close deconstruction, exploring how these representations were formed.
• Next, we considered the question of whether or not these sexist representations were important
• We looked at and discussed three examples of Audience theory: The Effects model, the Uses and Gratifications Model, and Reception Analysis

Homework:

Homework this week is to further our understanding of theUses and Gratifications model by reading an article and making notes on it. The article is from the BBC and can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A770951

As with last week, I'd like you to choose the form that you want to take notes in (this can be visually, written, recorded etc) and bring to the lesson.

Extension reading on this can be found at the Media Magazine site, and I strongly advise you to collect an article from there and have a read. In particular, the article entitled 'How to Make Sense of Audience Theory' from the TheoryZone section is excellent for extension reading. If you want to get an A in this subject, read it and make some extra notes.

Have fun!

Mr Boulter

Homework from 21 / 9

Hi,
Homework this week is two tasks.

Firstly, you are to complete a short essay (min 600 words) answering the following question:

Discuss the representation of women in one or more texts that you've studied recently.

This is a deliberately open question, which gives you the freedom to choose your own text, and structure your response in your own way. However, you may want to use the '3 Step Plan' method of writing an essay. In this method:

Step 1: Addresses the key words of the question in the first sentence, eg 'In the text ...... , the representation of women is striking'.

Step 2: Consists of a list of the points you want to make: 'I will focus on the ways that the text considers women to be located in the domestic sphere, the focus on physical rather than intellectual features, and the focus on women in a nurturing role rather than a professional context.'

Step 3: At this point, take each of the (in this case three) points you've made in step two, and turn them into a paragraph of detailed discussion, based around specific examples and evidence from the text.

This is due in on Friday.

Your second task this week is to read and make notes on this article on the representation of gender: http://www.mediaknowall.com/gender.html It is a very useful overview of the topic, and I'd like you to bring your notes to the lesson on Friday. You need to choose the method you use to make notes, but one recommended way is through drawing a mind map- find out the details of how to do this on : http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm . Alternatively, feel free to record your notes on a podcast or vodcast, and bring in the file on a memory stick.

Have a great week,

Mr Boulter

Today's Task

Well done for reaching the blog! Your task to day is as follows:
Go on the the Media Guardian website (follow link at the bottom of this blog). You will then need to register and your task is as follows:

Read through some of the articles in the archive. Then choose one Media issue, and prepare a short presentation to give to the class. For example, you might look at violence in the media, the regulation of YouTube, or whatever is topical.

Remember- this will be your Supported Independent Study lesson, so make sure you approach this task with some vigour!

Media Magazine Subscription

An exciting development- we have subscribed to the online version of Media Magazine, which is specifically aimed at A level students. There are loads of very useful articles on there, and it's particularly helpful if you're trying to research your practical project. Our logon details are as follows:

Go to http://www.mediamagazine.org.uk/ (or use link on this blog)

Username: mediamagazine5
Password: dh43qi

Have a look!

Welcome to the Year 12 Cheney Media Blog for 2007 / 8! This blog is designed to support you wih Media Studies this year, in the following ways:

*Reviewing learning and lessons, including providing homework tasks
*Providing links and resources
*Providing a forum for debate, questioning and discussion

You will be required to check your blog regularly, from home or school, and feel free to join in and comment- remember the importance of becoming active, engaged learners, who show initiative and resilience. If you don't understand something, here is the place to ask and discuss with your teachers and fellow students.