Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Friday, 14 January 2011

Photography tuition/mentoring

Some of you have drafted full digipak designs, which is great to see; others aren't quite as far advanced!
In 13D we've spent some time discussing the digipak drafts produced by the Joy Division group, and it was evident that fine, small details can make all the difference for this media format.
The art of still photography has many, many parallels with moving image cinematography, but needs to be appreciated as a considerable challenge in its own right. To help with this I've got two Yr13 Art students with a specialism in photography to volunteer to advise and mentor you all through the process of defining and refining your plans for digipak imagery (ditto shots for mag cover etc for the teaser trailer productions).
Beth Cooper will be coming in period 5 today to talk to each group in 13D and discuss when to meet again to look at sample shots; Gina Cawley will be in next Tues (18th, wkA) period 4 to help out the remaining 2 groups in 13B.
To make best use of this opportunity for help you need to be able to:
  1. provide a clear synopsis of your project, with detail on target audience and any other pertinent considerations ('brand', mood etc)
  2. have specific ideas for your digipak design
  3. if you're influenced by, or seeking to reference, existing texts, provide a video/stills to enable Gina/Beth (also needs to be blogged in any case!) to understand whats going on inside your head!
  4. provide a range of sample stills, ideally worked into a digipak template
  5. have discussed yourselves what is missing/needs developing from your sample shots

Quite simply, this is a great opportunity to get specific advice on how using certain manual settings of a quality SLR camera (which, with a signed + returned permission to be arranged through Art can be loaned out), and tweaking aspects of your composition, can lead to great images for you ancillary texts! Gina and Beth are volunteering their own time, and Art are being kind enough to give us access to quality cameras - its up to you to make best use of this.

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