Beth Allen Advanced A2 Portfolio

One of the projects we have to do to contribute to our music video is we have to produce an album cover to go with our song. I decided to analyse different album covers by some of my favourite bands to see how they differ and are similar so we have some initial ideas.  The first album cover is 'Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.' the cove is quite plain, there's not much going on, however, you can tell the type of music because of the way Noel is dressed and the fact there is a rustic overcoat to the cover, making the background seems quite rough. Also the black strips running down one side makes the album quite eye catching so people are more likely to look at it because it is different.   The next cover is 'Adele 21' by looking at the photo of her you can see she is quite relaxed and calm so you can infer that the music is going to be that way too. The fact that the effect is black and white shows that man of the songs may be a little glum or sad. By fi...

In lesson we focused on some main tips to make a good textual analysis because everyone was struggling to understand the concepts of what to do and what to look for. I got loads of useful notes and hope to put them to use in my textual analysis' over the year. Here is a copy of all the notes I hope to use: Media language – Refers to the technical elements media producers use to communicate meaning to the reader/audience. Textual analysis:   ·          Analyses how the star is portrayed ·          Camera shots ·          Mise en scene   ·          Does the mood fit? ·          Editing suiting the song ·          Audio and visual relationship ·          Special – does it feel...

We were asked to write a response to a question regarding the summer work and how we found we accessed the media. This was my response:   Reflecting on the research I did over the summer the way my generation accesses news content has been made a lot easier over the years due to advances in technology. Now you can download a app to your phone and all the content is in front of you, this links in with what Dan Gillmor predicted in 2004 when he said ‘The spreading of an item of news, or of something much larger, will occur – much more so than today- without any help from mass media as we know it. The people who’ll understand this the best are probably just being born. In the meantime, even the beginnings of this ‘shift’ are forcing all of us to adjust our assumptions and behaviour.’ Also, big media organisations have now opted for using social media as a form of spreading news around the world. As many people now use social media and the percentage of people who go out to ...

Rick Altman(1999) Film theorist Rick Altman argued that there is no such thing as 'pure' genre anymore. Genre is progressive in that it will always change. He says that generic conventions are a thing of the past. The theory suggests the audience, in general have become tired of the same thing over and over and need a lot more different stuff to keep them entertained and to create appeal.  He says genre is only surviving and keeping its name due to Hybridisation - or genres "borrowing" conventions from each other and then by doing this it makes it a lot more harder to sort into categories. Key Words: Intertextuality - direct link to another form of media. Pastiche -  when they pull elements from other music video's and bring them together to create a new piece. Parody- When someone is having a joke about something else, sometimes only slight but sometimes the can do it a lot. Music videos play on our suspension of disbelief.     In my opinion,...

In lesson we discussed how there are genre's of music and then they have sub-genres, we were then all assigned a sub-genre to research and as a group we make a PowerPoint presentation and all added our individual knowledge. Combined media powerpoint from beth allen

Starting a A2 Media Course is something I'm really looking forward to starting as I did really enjoy last year. Although my attendance wasn't the best it could have been last year I still learnt a lot from the production and my group.  Through the A2 course I will be working towards producing a full high-quality music video and whilst doing this I would like to improve my knowledge of the software's and use them a lot more to edit our video and make it the best it can be. Through the year I want to work harder on getting to know the software's and the back knowledge needed to understand exam questions and how to write answers to a high standard. By improving my knowledge and vocabulary in media it will help me answer questions and write better blog posts.