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Individual Evaluation

What was effective working in a group was how we could both split the roles, and play to each other's strengths accordingly. We could both give ideas to each other and build from them adding more variety to our planning for the video/website/poster and giving us more options to work from.

We also had our key roles assigned to us, so the workload was evenly split and we could create the best possible product. My role was the filming of the video and being behind the camera, as well as deciding the basic narrative of the video and how it should be played out. I feel I did succeed in this role and did it well, with the camera shots used being of a proper standard and fitting the conventions of the Nu Metal genre, which I see as a bigger success considering I wasn't too familiar with the genre prior to this coursework.
I had also been familiar with using cameras before and behind mainly behind them in both my GCSE and AS Media coursework.

I also personally feel if I had been working as an individual it would have been inferior to the work produced due to the lack of another person with different artistic vision to form an understanding with and create more ideas. This being evident in the group work has helped the video become more appealing to both me and Anthony and hopefully to our target audience.

 If I had been working as an individual I most likely would have chosen a different genre to centre my work around, one I'm more familiar with. While I can follow the codes and conventions better this way, by doing something different it created a new experience in my journey through A Level media and now I feel competent working with the genre I have done and would keep this improved standard if I was to make another video from the genre. I would have also had the full creative control over the project which could have both strengthened and weakened the final outcome, reflecting what I do well on (creativity, vision) and what I lack (technical side, editing).

 As a result of working in a group I missed out on familiarising myself with technologies such as editing software, which was left purely to Anthony. This would have been a worthwhile skill to pick up and one regret of my time doing this project.

I am on the whole proud of the work me and Anthony have produced, and glad I took up this project as it has gave better insight into the difficulties involved in making a video as well as the payoff of having a finished video for others to enjoy.

Band Website

Our band website is finally live and can be found here:

http://flineband.wix.com/falllineband

Group Reflection

Here is an update on how my group is getting on:

All our research and planning is done, and we are currently in the middle of filming our music video with the group, with mainly the performance left to film. We have some small extra bits to film for the narrative portion of our production to finish it up which we will get done over the next week. We have had a lot of fun during the filming, especially with the supporting roles provided by other people we know and working with them. With hard work we should have our video finished and edited over the next three weeks.

Our Twitter account is up and running and fairly active, with a sufficient amount of followers and often updates.
I will try to update this blog more as we progress further, as well as on the group blog.

Blumler and Katz (Uses and Gratifications)

Blumler and Katz' theory concerns what the audience does with the media as opposed to what it does to the audience and the influences it has on them. They present the use of media in terms of the gratification of social and psychological needs of the individual themselves.
They argue people's needs influence how they use and respond to a medium, such as the mood of someone influencing their choice of media for example someone with stress choosing more relaxing content and those with boredom choosing exciting content. The same TV programme can also gratify different needs for different people. Different needs can be associated with different personalities, backgrounds, stage of maturation and social roles. There are four different reasons for media use:

Information - Finding out about relevant events and learning, gaining a sense of security through knowledge.

Personal Identity - Finding reinforcement for personal values, finding models of behaviour

Integration and Social Interaction - Identifying with others, empathy, fnding a basis for social interaction and conversation, enabling one to connect with family/friends

Entertainment - Escapism, emotional release, relaxing, sexual arousal

Effects Debate

The effects debate concerns what effect media has itself on the audience. It is highly likely that some texts can have a largely negative effect on it's audience, particularly younger minds which is why regulations have been brought in to prevent this. There have been three sides of the debate, which are:

- Those who articulate their concerns about the effects of the media without any actual evidence.
- Those who have conducted research into media effects and whether the effects are positive and negative.
- Those who are subject to the debate, usually children or teenagers consuming new forms of media which the 'adult culture' are worrying about.

The most notable form of regulation for this is age ratings which are applied to media products such as video games and films in the UK by the BBFC.

Hypodermic Needle Theory

The hypodermic needle theory is based on the idea that us as the audience are passive, and we are 'injected' by the media with content. The meanings and signals behind each text are delivered to us all as equals, but the level of effect they have on us differs as we all respond differently. We (the audience) have no choice in how we interpret text and the media is always correct, which can lead to disbelief when faced with opposing information.

This theory mostly concerns negative effects having media injected into us, despite seeing it as good. This can be applied to the video we watched in class, Madonna's 'What It Feels Like For a Girl'. She is portrayed as a 'criminal' as she mugs someone at a cash machine as well as running over men. The passive audience, particularly young people, will be influenced by the media to interpret this as positive and even attempt to imitate the actions.