Creative Media Sector

CREATIVE MEDIA SECTOR


TASK ONE


The creative media sector has been explored today in lesson. Some of the areas discussed were:

Internet

Newspapers

Publishing

Tv 

Film

Radio

Internet

The main part of the discussion expanded from talking about the internet, search engines in particular. Search engines such as google that have expanded immensely through the years. Google now is in partnership with a lot of other companies and through advertising and bidding this is how google earned it's name and the amount of net worth they own. There revenue is now worth about $38 billion. 

The internet is also in relation to the social media world. Social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook are the main influential websites that celebrities use to spread there views, opinions and gossip. These websites are the main sites that gather more fans and more popularity. It is known that certain celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher have more followers on their twitter accounts, then some countries have as population. 

Newspapers/Publishing

Newspapers have a massive part to play in the media industry. The thing with newspaper media, is whether it can be 100% truth. A lot of the "news" about celebrities, is more than likely exaggerated and taken out of context to make more juicy and better news. Newspapers are used as a way for people to keep updated with what is going on in the world. It has many different coverage of news included in one newspaper. 

The publishing industry itself covers newspapers but also: Books, Directories and Mailing Lists, Journals, Magazines and Business Media. There are situations like News Of The World that a scandal takes place, that ends up being serious and ending in the newspaper ending. Regardless of whether it was a popular newspaper or not. Crimes got made, it got shut down.


News Corporations (TV and News Broadcasts)
British Sky Broadcasting, known as Sky, is one of the worlds largest multi-media conglomerates. Sky produces books, magazines, newspapers, music, radio and films.  Rupert Murdoch is the man responsible for news corporations. He owned the News of the World, The Sun and The Times which is his first British Broadsheet. He is currently being investigated by the police and the FBI for the phone hacking scandal between celebrities for his newspaper. 

Television

Television is one of the biggest industries where many choices of careers can be followed. Television has many different stations and channels that have to be run by a variety of people. 

The people on screen then become recognised and popular, and the people behind the screen get their work acknowledged by the amount of ratings and showings the audience give. 

Also including the many other area's that have to be covered in order for television to be a success. Such as: Camera Technician, Editing, Sound and Lighting, Hair and Make up, Staging, Performers and the general production team. Television being as influential as it is, plays a large part in people's lives. It creates programmes that people connect with, it sells products to people, audiences take pleasure in watching the television and its a source of entertainment. 

There is over 480 channels for people to watch on demand and they are provided by 6 main television providers: BT Vision, Freesat, Freesat from Sky, Sky TV, Top Up TV and Virgin TV. 


The BBC
The BBC is one of oldest broadcasting companies in the UK. It is known as a cross-media which means that it is not just based on one media sector. The BBC started off firstly on the radio before later moving onto the television. 

If you have ever noticed,The BBC does not show adverts, as no companys sponsor them, The BBC is funded by Television Licenses but it also makes money from other areas in the media sector such as:  

• Merchandise
• Books and Magazines
• CDs and DVDs
• Selling programmes to other companies/networks

Like The BBC, Virgin are also another cross media company, they are not known for television on it's own. Virgin is also a record label, where they are able to sign and own artists and bands. 

Film

Like the television industry, the film industry is global. From Hollywood to Bollywood. Creating new 'stars' by the minute. Film, also known as a movie, is a source of entertainment in the media sector, that covers every emotion possible to the consumers. There are a variety of genre's, such as: Comedy, Rom-Com, Horror, Thriller, Drama, Musical, Action, Animation, Biography, Sci-Fi, Sport and many others. 

The production side of film entails a lot, the main job roles include director, producer, editor, assistants, runners, camera crew, set design. 

Post Production:  In a typical production circle in the Hollywood Style Film, Main stages consist of...

1. Development
2. Pre-production
3. Production
4. Post-production
5. Distribution

When the availability for film to be watched at home came to life, Video Tapes where the first, how quickly and how advanced the picture is from home now is unreal. The crystal clear HD quality makes the film more enjoyable. When a film goes from cinema to disc, it is now called DVD's that you buy. You can also purchase Blu-Ray which is an even better imagery than normal DVD's.

American Corporations 
In 1983, 90% of American Media was owned by 50 different companies. The latest figures have changed immensly, in 2011, figures show that the same 90% of American Media is now owned by just 6 companies. 


The 6 companies include:


GE: Comcast, NBC,  Universal Pictures, Focus Features.
News Corp: Fox, Wall Street Journey, New York Post

Disney: ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Miramax, Marvel Studios.
Viacom: MTV,  Nick JR, BET, CMT, Paramount Pictures. 
Time Warner: CNN, HBO, Time, Warner Bros.
CBS: Showtime,  Smithsonian Channel, NFL.Com, Jeoparady, 60 Minutes.

The total revenue in 2010 for the 6 companies was $275.9 Billion Dollars.


Radio

Radio Production has different sectors in this industry available for people to work in. It depends on the type of person you are as to what section you would suit best, if your more of a team leader person, you would be a Radio Producer Material, which means being able to watch over the show and come up with ideas to include. If you have a bubbly and infectious personality and enjoy music and talking, being a Radio Broadcaster seems most appropriate. Or if you enjoy the work behind the scenes in the editing area, this is a talent that would not go a miss. Its intensive work putting the show together, remembering to include certain details about the station itself as a marketing aspect. 

The radio industry is expanding daily, and producing more and more radio stations to suit everyone's different taste in music or discussions. 

For younger audiences, there are more radio stations to listen to, such as: radio 1, kiss, smash hits, capital fm, choice. 

Older audiences would listen to radio stations such as smooth, heart, magic etc. 

BBC are more known for their role in the television and film industry, but they have just as an important role in the radio. They have now produced many different radio shows to suit different groups in the public today. for example: BBC Radio 1, is more chart based and for younger audiences, with presenters such as Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates. BBC Radio 1xtra, is more of a urban radio station, involving music such as grime, dub, house and old skool R'n'B. BBC Radio 2 is for older audiences, this station is more of a discussion based one. Local BBC stations such as BBC Three Counties, is for around our area which covers a bit of everything, but mainly more chat and interviews with local people/local celebrities. 

Other radio stations have made it just as successful, but television helped. Television music stations such as Kiss, Smash Hits and KERRANG! have also been bought to the radio playing the same type of music their television programme creates. 

Summary

All of the media sectors I have involved in this post, explain the type of role they have in people's lives. I have aimed to cover the type of career possibilities that evolve from them and also what people gain from them also. I've mentioned how liable some of the media aspects can be or not to be. How much people can really believe in them, or why they should. I aimed to cover what I believe makes the media industry so large in this generation, and why it can be so fascinating. 

Addition Number 2 and Progress

ADDITION NUMBER 2 AND THE PROGRESS

Allstar Productions expanded this week by the addition of Maria Richardson. For the final major project, she was originally suppose to work on her own, but then we saw she had a lot to offer for our final major project, and she liked our idea, in which she joined our group. Our group now consists of 4 members. 


Since Shannon and Maria joined the group, putting our action plans and intentions for the FMP in place, has greatly progressed. Shannon and Joanna created the contact list for potential interviewee's, they also went to Hitchin town to take images of the club/bars. Maria completed the synopsis and the treatment for our paper work side of the project, and I completed the story board, explaining our intentions from beginning to end of the documentary. 


Our next process is us having an interview with a local event organiser called Stephen James. 
He is due to come in today 2nd of May 2012. 


Some of the questions we have planned on asking him is:


What is your role in the night life business?


Take us through a normal organised night for yourself?


How did you get in to event organising?


Is it only local places you organise or where else?


What kinds of crowds do you attract?


How do you advertise your events?


Do you do any specific deals that get the young adults in?


What is one of the best events you have organised?


What is the worst thing that has ever happened at one of your gigs?


How is it handled? Does it ruin the event completely?


In your opinion, where is the best night to host an event?

Action Plan

Action Plan

18th April   Create the website. Get up and running.

19th April   Talk to sources. Potential people involved. i.e. Josh. Think of more contacts.

24th April   Joanna to complete the pitch board, Shannon to complete the visuals for the pitch  

                    and Ellie complete the proposal and treatment.

25th April  College trip to bradford.

26th April  College trip to bradford.

30th April  Pre Production Paperwork. Hazard sheets.

1st   May    Go to the police station and ask permission or rules on filming. If time on this day, 

                    ask club owners permission to film outside the club.

2nd May    Plan out the questions to ask for interviewing the public/DJ's/police officers.

3rd May     If permission accepted, take the camera out to film outside near Chicagos. 

4th-6th May  Ellie to film josh before and after a gig, whilst getting ready at home. Interview.

8th  May     Allow this day for more potential interview filming. Also, download music for doc.

9th  May     Contact Ivory to film the DJ (Joanna's Contact) need permission for thursday.

10th May    Film in ivory if permission is given. 

11th-12th May  Weekend use to film extra footage for back up. Weekends in Town.

15th May   Begin putting all the footage onto the Macs. Looking through, begin editing.

16th-17th May  Editing

22nd May  Ellie does marketing production stuff, posters.

23rd-24th May Editing.

29-31st May  Final Edit, Deadline Date.


Through the weekends of these dates, we will be updating our blogs and doing excess work that needs to be completed.

New Addition

New Addition: Shannon White

Our group; Allstar Productions involved Joanna and I in the group from the beginning, we now have a new addition in our group: Shannon White. Shannon joined the group and we have discussed our idea and she has given suggestions as to what she believes will work and will not work. We worked together to put together an action plan for the Final Major Project. 

(video blog to be added)


The action plan (a new post will be added to describe the action plan) was put together judging   timings and giving each of us tasks to complete towards the final major project. 

Further Research

Further Research

The further researched involved topics such as location choice, and people to possibly follow or interview. 

For the narration of the documentary, we decided using myself would be a more personal touch for the final major project. Through certain bits, I will be involved in the documentary, Me before a night out and me the morning after, as a one to one basis, like a diary entry. 

The plan is to try and get a fly on the wall type documentary with someone like a DJ. 

For this whole documentary being a local one, using a local DJ who often does sets in town seems appropriate, my brother is a local DJ who would be willing to participate. 

The location plan is to be around Chicagos on a thursday night and Hitchin on a friday - saturday. these are the local places which will get the busiest at these times. We would know familiar faces so we know people would be up for an interview. 

Documentary Workshop

Documentary Workshop

Our teacher set up a workshop for the people doing their FMP on a documentary. We got given task sheets that involved group work of mind mapping different types of documentaries we see every day. In our mind map, we involved programmes such as Big Brother, Sun sex and suspicious parents, My big fat gypsy wedding and party paramedics. We had to put them in what type of documentary we believed they were, such as fly-on-the wall, observational etc. 

After this task, we were briefly informed of a very popular documentary that had been made and recognised a few years ago called Bowling for Columbine. It was based around gun crime in america and focusing on the columbine high school shootings that happened in 1998. He informally researches and discovers how easy it is for people to purchase guns around america. He interviews families that own their own guns to protect themselves, He asks how is to blame; TV, Film, Toy Guns, Police, Rock and Metal music. There is no answer,  there is multiple things that people could blame for the huge amount of gun crime in the united states of america. 

The Trailer for Bowling for Columbine

Some techniques I picked up on through watching this documentary was various things. One of which was like a video vox pop. The narrator would ask someone a question, show their answer and then somewhere else, somebody with the opposite answer or opinion would be played. It gave more than one persons insight into the questions asked. The documentary also used animation, characters to show a humorous side and although for my own documentary research, somebody said animation would take the seriousness away from the documentary, I did not feel this happened for this documentary, it was a very serious documentary which covered upsetting and emotional stuff, but the animation did not take that emotion away, it just made it a little more light hearted in some places.


I really liked the use of CCTV footage, that was a very personal touch. It made you feel involved. I like the way he used himself to discover the information everyone is trying to seek, such as; finding out how to purchase a gun etc. 


At one point during the documentary, he points out that there are more important stories in the world, not just gun crime. For instance; pollution. At this time, he was around police officers and camera crew, asked them about the pollution but they were not interested, all they were interested in was the potential gun crime use at that moment. It showed us what people's intentions are and their priorities. 

Development Process

Development Process

This video blog includes us talking about the decision that we made on using the teenage based documentary. We both briefly explained our own ideas and our feedback forms, then we decided which would work best and which we could work towards to make a very impressive documentary. We were giving ideas about different camera angles we could use and the general structure of the documentary. We said that the next stage was completing another questionnaire for the audience to give us an opinion on our ideas. 
We aim to complete this questionnaires and results by the middle of april (this works best because our target audience are going to be on easter holidays, available to interview) After half term to then do another video entry to conclude the results and the next stage in the development process. 

Research

RESEARCH

Sun, sex and suspicious parents is one of the programmes I used for research.

It is a documentary on teenagers going on their very first group holiday. This clip shows the type of lifestyle that the teen generation live on a summer holiday. My intentions are to show this, but more locally. More interviews and more of a video narration from myself throughout. 

16 and pregnant is a documentary on american teenage girls that document their pregnancy, the due dates, the actual birth and the life after the birth. You see arguments, break-ups, crying, screaming and eventually you see happy families. In this particular trailer/clip, you see the hand drawn animation title pages which is the style I am aiming on using in my own documentary/animation. It relates more to people my age.

The Only Way is Essex. This was a popular reality television programme based on a group of people living in Essex. At the beginning it was watching them every day, watching them doing normal things, but lately it has turned more scripted. 

Pitch board and Feedback Forms

PITCH BORD AND FEEDBACK FORMS

Above is an image of the pitch board I created to gather feedback of my ideas from various people. 


The content:
Synopsis: Documentary mix with animation of a local night out. Interviewing and analysing the behaviour of drunk teenagers. Getting an insight from inside a night club or bar, possibly having discussions with pub owners or bouncers. The main peg is for the audience to see what teenagers get up to when unleashed off a weekend.


Linked research I showed the programme title images for programmes on channel 4 and BBC 3 that relate to my concept. Channel 4 programme "The Family" and BBC 3 programme "Sun Sex and Suspicious Parents" I wrote a conclusion of what each programme offered on the pitch board to give an aspect of what I wanted to involve in mine. 


Under further links and comments; I added an example of the twist I wanted to involve in my documentary. I done a screen shot of the title sequence for 16 and pregnant to show the drawn animation style I intend on using. Also I put an image of a drawn character on there, in the style of character animations. 
I mentioned clips of teenagers on a night out like they do on a night out in another country but this time it is more local. The only way is essex was also involved, I used this as an example of a reality television popular programme of this current generation, mentioned how at the beginning it was about a group of people living their every day lives, but it did later on turn a bit more scripted and pretentious. 


Target Audience: 16-24, I explained why I put this as the target audience, mainly because they are the ones that would be more interested in a documentary like this.


Feedback Forms: I had overall 13 completed feedback forms...

. 
Questions asked and an average answer:


1. Would you agree to the target audience for this documentary?
every person who filled out my feedback form agreed to the target audience of 16-24 yr olds.


2. Do you believe this works better as a documentary, or creating a film in the eyes of a teenager?
the majority answered that a documentary would be better, in the eyes of a teenager. Its more real if it is a documentary, whereas a film can be fictional.


3. Are you familiar with the programmes I have linked to this as research?
Yes they were.


4. If answered yes, do you think by adding an animation twist would work?
Mixed answers for this question. Some people believed that it would work, and it would make it unique. Some people were worried that if it is not completed properly, it would not look great. Some of the audience made a point of saying that with the animation, it may not be as serious. But then others disagreed and said that a funny side to the documentary.


5. If you were on a night out and you saw someone with a camera, do you reckon you would be willing to participate?
Tricky question, because some people said they would prefer not to. Others said that it depended on how "drunk" they were and someone advised me to be careful with my camera equipment around drunk people!


6. For a final major project, this camera use and the content involved needs to be correct, is there anything you would change or add?
Most answered No. There was a few people that did mention the seriousness of a documentary, and how the animation twist may not work well with it. Some other answers said that it overall was a good concept for a final major project. 


7. Would you watch this documentary?
12 out of 13 participants answered yes, they would watch this. The one that answered no, said it was simply because they are to "shallow" to be interested in a documentary like this, which is fair enough :)


The next stage is changing some pieces of my idea, taking in consideration what people gave me back through the feedback forms...

First Stages: Mind-Mapping Ideas.

FIRST STAGES: MIND MAPPING IDEAS

The first stages of starting the final major project, consisted of creating mind maps and research of potential ideas to use. 


I researched animation at the very beginning, because I figured that animation is one of the mediums that I have rarely used. I researched Muto Wall Animations, this artists work is unreal, it's very creative and it's inventive as well. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4 - a link to one of Muto's Wall Animations.


After exploring animation, I wanted to expand my concepts and research, which I began looking at documentaries. 


I thought about relating it to people near my age (16-24) I wanted to think about something that would interest them, or would have some kind of relevance to them. This is when I thought about drinking and nights out. As soon as a teenager hits 18, there weekends consist of pubs, clubs and booze and there summers consist of that one mental summer holiday to one of the party islands. 


So, I researched television programmes like Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents, which gave us a documentary insight to the lives of teenagers with there parents reactions. I thought about other channels that have covered documentaries, which is when I thought of Channel 4, when they had there documentary, "The Family". This programme consisted of cameras put up around a families home where we saw what an average family got up to day in and day out. 


Programmes like this interest me, knowing what other people do of there normal day, intrigues me. 


My idea was to do a documentary based local version of these two programmes mixed. I thought about aiming to go out on a thursday, friday and saturday night over the course of about 2 weeks, and film teenagers, on a night out, having interviews, filming there good to bad state of the generation itself, and potential fights breaking out and people passing out. 


I wanted to make it unique, this is when I thought about adding the animation twist. As an example, I used the programme "teen mom", the style of this programme is laid out how I intended my documentary to be laid out. The beginning bit is hand drawn animation, and in some scenes they used hand drawn animated characters, it makes the programme more related to teenagers and gives it a personal touch. This could make the skill level higher for my FMP. 


Creating the pitch board with all these ideas, was the next stage...