Term 2

Term 2 introduction

This term I was excited to get straight back into it because in all honesty I was bored without anything to really do without uni as sad as that sounds. Specifically, I was looking forward to the practical project for this term, but ill leave all that for the appropriate section below.

This term for the learning diary I decided for the sake of ease to just put everything under this one page and just clearly label each section (class) as I go. It’s easier for me and as it’s my blog, I can do what I want!

I’m also aware that due to family occasions and holidays etc, I’m going to be missing a few lessons here and there which is a pain but its unavoidable so this term I’m going to have to play catch up a little bit here and there which won’t be too much of a problem as long as I stay on top of everything in between. But due to me missing classes and sessions, there is going to be some sessions and classes that won’t appear on this blog page because I wasn’t present for them. So instead of writing a blog post per class, I’m only going to write about key sessions, individual projects and other bits and pieces that if I feel are important enough to include then I will.

 

MED3002  Week 1: Lemonade

It was our first class back from break so just like any other first session we’ve had, I thought it would be mostly an outline of what we would be doing this module, learning more about our assignments and general upkeep. However, Ellie threw us right in and got us going straight away. Today was learning what is meant by media contexts and production and how we can analyse it, to do this we looked at Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade. The 45-minute short film is a celebration of black history and an expression of the whirlwind of emotions that she went through after finding out her husband had cheated, from sadness to anger to acceptance to forgiveness.

First, we learnt about the different contexts from which to analyse a media text; cultural, political, technological, historical and industrial. From there we learnt production which links heavily with context, for example in Lemonade there is a lot of imagery linked to black history and slavery, so that’s media production influenced by a historical and cultural context. Shortly after we then learnt about some of the key concepts that we would be covering alongside our studies, those being; ideology, narrative, representation and semiotics.

After the break as a class, we then went through some of the key things that we picked up from watching Lemonade, these include the ideas and narratives, the celebrities that featured, concepts and political theories. It was helpful to discuss this as a class because we all noticed different aspects that we might not have found on our own.

This session was helpful as it introduced a lot of the key concepts that we’re going to be looking at over and over again throughout the upcoming module, representation and ideology specifically I am interested in for my research project.

 

MED3002 Week 2: Word and Image

‘Whenever we produce an interpretation of something’s meaning –a book, television programme, film, magazine, T-Shirt or kilt, piece of furniture or ornament –we treat it as a text. A text is something we make meaning from.’ (McKee, 2003: 9)

This is a quote that was on the slides at the start of the session today that I really liked because it shows that just about anything can be a text that you can analyse and get meaning from.

We first looked at semiotics and a Swiss linguist named Ferdinand De Saussure (FDS), he was focused on signifier and the signified, I interpreted this as the literal and the implied, it’s an oversimplification however it helped me remember it a little easier so each to their own. The example given was the concept or word ‘Dog’ (signifier) A four-legged canine creature (signified) And when we make this connection we are using or ‘reading’ a sign. Something I didn’t consider though was that the relationship between the two is a cultural thing, not everyone is thinking of the same dog so the sign is going to be slightly different for different people. The relationship between signifier and signified is going to be an important one going forward in the course as there is going to be a lot of analytical work, especially when it comes to the research project later on in the course.

 

MED3002 Week 7 – Genre and Narrative

Narrative and genre are two things that I have an interest in as its what is more than likely going to be looking at in more detail when I start my research project, genre especially as it’s great for analytical purposes. Narrative first though, we discussed a few different topics this session however the bit the stuck out the most was Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson’s The Classical Hollywood Cinema and their causality theories. The relationship between cause and effect is an interesting one to me anyway because I really like physics in school, so to apply it to media was exciting to me, which now that I read this sounds incredibly nerdy. Anyway, the three theorists linked cause and effect to three factors; ‘Character-centered’ (Personal or psychological), ‘Natural Causes’ (natural disaster like floods or earthquakes) and ‘Social Causes’(for the needs of a group or institution). I’m pointing out these specific points from the class due to their relevance to analysing a narrative structure in a media text, something that has come up and lot and I’m sure will come up again in the future, something to remember.

The second thing this session that I was interested in was genre. Genre is always something I was interested in when looking at media as it means so much to any media text and can come with so many different connotations and expectations. For example, the expectations and stereotypes of the horror genre are so well known and expected and yet directors and filmmakers are always finding ways to subvert the genre and audience expectations to make something new and exciting. Genre is arguably one of the filmmakers greatest tools of the trade if they know how to use it. So to actually study genre in a way I hadn’t before was an exciting concept to me. First of all, “Genre is a French word for ‘kind’, ‘category’ or ‘type’ […]. Categorisations are meaningful to both producers and consumers of texts.” (Long and Wall, 2013: 72). This is the actual definition of genre so I thought that would be useful to put in here as well as my own understanding of it. Something I hadn’t considered before was the advantages that the ‘genre’ provides marketing agents, it’s a way of connecting ‘what it sounds like’ with ‘who is going to buy it’. Genres of music are so defined that its spread to peoples attitudes, clothing and personality. The perfect examples are things like punk rock in the mid-70s, disco also in the ’70s and indie rock kids nowadays. Music genres have a huge influence on the people that listen to it. This influence that genre has is something that I am definitely going to reference again as its something you could apply to a lot of different things in the media world, you could very easily apply this to film and TV. Depending on what direction I decide to take with my research project, this is definitely something I’m going to revisit.

 

MED3004 Week 7 – DSLR Training

This will only be a short one as the session itself was only just about an hour and a half long, but regardless I was excited about it! So excited in fact that I arrived 15 minutes late and embarrassed myself somewhat on the way in but other than that the session went fine. I’ll be honest and say that I didn’t really expect that much from this class, I mean how hard is it to work a DSLR? Just point and shoot right? Turns out no, there is a whole world of different settings, modes, views and buttons to really get the perfect photo for your project or Instagram or whatever you’re talking a photo for. Even the briefest of introductions to the cameras that we got from one of the technicians was enough to really spark my interest in trying my hand in some photography further down the line. Learning about the ISO setting, the shooting modes and exposure compensation was genuinely interesting and something I’m definitely going to try and do properly the next opportunity I get.

 

MED3002 Research Project

The research project posed an interesting challenge to me as I had never done anything of the sort before. I’d obviously done essays and assignments in Sixth Form before, but nothing to the degree of writing and academic quality of the research project. Even just choosing the question was difficult for me as I had a freedom that I had never really had before with any previous writing project. I went through enough ideas that I’m sure I annoyed Ellie enough that when I finally did pick one, she was visually relieved. I decided upon something that reflected my own interests and also allowed me to explore something that I had previously considered. Why are the villains in movies always English? Or British? Growing up its not something I really noticed being British myself, but the older I got and the more into movies I got, the more obvious it was. And although I know we’re not actually doing a full research report, it was enough of one that whatever I did write would be from somewhere of genuine interest, which I hoped would make it somewhat interesting. As I said earlier, the whole process of writing this report was new to me, so the layout of the literature review and the methodology was something quite alien to me, so after a lot of help from Ellie and no small amount of annoying my friends into helping me, I eventually got started with the report. I found the introduction easy enough as it was just a brief summary of what the overall project was about. The literary review was difficult, however. I had never had to attempt this before other then the session Ellie went over it with us, so I found it quite challenging. Finding the academic journals and books wasn’t the hard part because of the library and Google Scholar, actually writing about them in a way that made sense though, that was a challenge. What we had to do was basically acknowledge what we thought would influence us throughout our project. I thought the best way to do this was to find articles and journals that would link to some of the themes I would be researching. For example, I was studying language, film and characterisation, so I found books by Steve Neale (film and genre), Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan Characterisation) and Chi Luu (Language analysis). Along with some others, these academics and their work somehow seemed to really fit along with my work so that when I was writing the literature review, I was able to make a cohesive point as to why I included them and how it made sense along with my work

The methodology section provided its own trials and tribulations as I wasn’t actually present for that class that Ellie led. So I had to play catch up a little and get some extra help but in the end, it was Hannah who came to rescue, she sat me down and really clearly laid out what I need to include in it and how I should go about it. After her impromptu lesson on methodology sections, I was able to finish up writing the summary statement and get my project checked out, proofread and finally submitted.

Missing a few lessons throughout the term proved an issue but after a little extracurricular help, I was able to catch up enough to turn in the project on time. Something I would do differently next time, however, is start it early enough that I can annoy Ellie with some drafts for her to look at well before the submission date as I was unable to properly so that this time. I would also perhaps look for an easier subject to ‘research’ because as much as I liked my question, I fear I made it a little harder on myself then I really should have considering it was my first real attempt at something like this.

 

MED3004 Practice Project

Out of everything available to me on the course, this project was the thing I was most excited about since finding out about it in the first term. Because while the practical projects last term were fun, this one was bigger, better, and we could do more with it. I knew pretty early on that I wanted to do something radio/audio related. Eventually, I settled on a podcast, Rosie and I were initially going to do one together before eventually deciding that because we were going to be marked on our own merits, it would be easier to work on our own. This was so that we could show off our individual skills without having to rely on someone else to either hinder or boost us up and get a grade we perhaps didn’t deserve.

After deciding on a podcast, I then had to think of what I actually wanted to make the podcast about. I wanted to do something I was actually interested in as that was the whole point of me coming to uni so that I could finally do something I was interested in and passionate about. And so to that end, I wanted to talk about movies and comic books because of that’s what interests me and its something I’m passionate about. And like all the best podcasts, it had to feature two or people, after all, it would be weird to have a talk-show-like podcast with only one person. Ellie told us that with this project, context would be so so so important because it had to make sense in the little bubble in which it exists. So with context to think about, I had to refer everything to that. For example, I chose to do it with two of my childhood friends because we already had a friendly banter established and because they are equally as interested in movies and comics as me. So contextually, they would know what they were talking about, and we all knew each other, so it wouldn’t be deathly boring.

In order to do this project in full and properly, we had to actually put it somewhere, and by that I mean the podcast actually had to exist somewhere. So in case you weren’t aware already, most podcasts are part of a company, whether it’s the BBC or ITV or an independent company like the ‘Planet Broadcasting Network’ (which is the one I’m going to be using). So part of what I had to do was pretend that my podcast is part of that network and is already established in the world. To do this I made it seem a little more real, in the podcast I made references to past episodes that didn’t exist, I did adverts for fake companies that I’ve invented and talked about current events (well, current at the time of recording). All of this was done so that it was ‘real’.

I won’t bore you with the details of what we talked about and all those sorts of details as you’ll be able to listen to it as soon as I get around to uploading it to this site and some point.

The editing process was and continues to be, a nightmare. Having to edit out sections that perhaps weren’t really entertaining or didn’t seem relevant, making sure the audio quality was consistent throughout and didn’t blow out at any point and just the overall TLC that you have to give it so that it works is a long and arduous process. I was stuck between two options; one long podcast around an hour to an hour and a half long, or split it up into around 3 shorted 20-minute episodes (when recording the podcast, I made sure I featured multiple parts specifically so I could do this later on if I decided on it). In an effort to make it seem more natural and so that I would flow better, I decided to do a longer episode. This decision came pretty much because all the podcasts that I listen to that follow a similar layout to my own (multiple different sections within the podcast) all kept it all in the same long episode rather than split them up into different episodes.

Overall I’m happy with how the podcast ending up and the end result. As of the time of writing this, I still have a few finishing touches to do before I submit it next week, however, it’s looking good and I’m quite proud of it if I don’t say so myself.