Storyboard and Brainstorms

Today we had another listen to the two audio extracts. We brainstormed some ideas for each of the two pieces. Our individual brainstorms had similar ideas and looked at themes such as self-battle and psychological mentality. We then considered what type of footage would be relevant to these issues and if we they were accessible to us. As a pair we started listing some shots in sequence order and then photographed our ideas and placed them into our storyboard with relevant detail. Below is an image of one storyboard and examples of our brainstorming (click on images for a larger view).

Second Ancillary Task: Audio-Visual Moving Image Sequences

We were set our second preliminary task today which involved us as a pair to produce two audio-visual moving image sequences. Both sequences will be 45 seconds long and edited to a fast piece of music and secondly to a slow piece of music. The visual must consist of a series of shots of a single, static human. The person must not move in the frame, but can change position out of frame. We must be creative and innovative with the camera in order to capture interesting footage. We must decide on location, costume, props, positioning etc. Before this all we must produce an animatic storyboard of what we plan to shoot.

Presentation Day!

Today we presented our research on the genre of Rock. We successfully completed all the tasks required and presented them to the class. We self-evaluated ourselves in the following categories with the following marks:

Quality of research: 9
Professional skills: 9
Teamwork and meeting deadlines: 9

The reason why all categories are one mark off is that we as a group believe we can work towards something if we have something to work towards therefore the one mark that makes 10, for us, defines excellent work after the long-time experience process and effort. Below is a clip of our power-point based presentation.

Meeting Two: Tuesday 23rd June

Today was our last, out of schedule, meeting to discuss our presentation and see over the final product. We focused a lot on designing the slide and make the presentation eye-catching to watch with the use of colour and images. We will continue this process in our scheduled lesson tomorrow and practice the presentation so we can become confident with the information we will provide to our fellow classmates.

Meeting One: Monday 22nd June

It was our first meeting today and we successfully met our deadline of composing all the necessary information for the presentation commencing on Thursday 25th. As a group we put all our information together, read it out loud and noted any improvements to be made. although we were never faced with any major problems one minor challenge we overcame was the length of our information as it appeared too much to put on a presentation. As a group we made a decision not to overload the slide and just make points off which we can elaborate.

Planning and Production for Popular Music - Research and Presentation: Rock

Today as a group we brainstormed on a few ideas of how we would like to present our given task. We decided on a vertical poster for the timeline of Rock and a PowerPoint Presentation for all the other requirements of the task. As we have split the responsibilities we have organised a number of deadlines and meetings we should meet at and brief each other on what we have done so far and any improvements we can make together. The deadlines are listed below for reference:

Monday 22nd June 2009 - Library
Tuesday 23rd June 2009 - Library

First Ancillary Task: Popular Music - Research and Presentation: Rock

Today we were introduced to our first preliminary task in the Advanced Portfolio. The Popular Music Research and Presentation task aims to develop our knowledge and understanding of the role of generic codes within the popular music industry, engage us in wider reading and application of theory and develop research skills and practice critical thinking. The task required us to form a lively, informative and dynamic presentation on a specific genre of popular music. Our presentation must have included a chronology/timeline of our genre, a presentation of the historical, social and economic context of our genre, the influence the genre has had on other media texts, a presentation on contemporary music and youth culture and its relationship with the music industry and finally two case studies, classic an contemporary, defining the specific genre. Our given genre was Rock. As a pair we had one member join us to form a group of three for this presentation. Our roles were as following:
Anna Chaudhry: The 50s and 80s on the timeline, Historical, Social and Economic Context.
Natasha Khaleeq: The 70s and the "Naughties"(2000 and onwards) on the timeline, the influence the genre has had on other media texts and contemporary music and youth culture and its relationship with the music industry.
Jenny Price (added group member for this task): The 60s and the 90s on the timeline, analysis of classic and contemporary case studies.

Media Studies Advanced Portfolio Unit G324 Introduction

Today we was briefed upon Unit G324: Coursework Advanced Portfolio in Media Studies. In this unit we will have to produce a Media Portfolio, compromising a main task, a debut pop promo and three ancillary tasks including a presentation of our Research, Planning and an Evaluation. For our Research and Planning tasks we will do two compulsory practical tasks and complete a group presentation on the history and developments of a specific music genre. For this unit we are also able to adapt or follow the suggested brief which is:

A promotion package for a new, debut artist that includes the debut pop promo and album CD or DVD cover.