Top Ten Inspirational British Teens

1. Lewis - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1lXQjNqBFW2XllSZzHKLl4Z/radio-1-teen-hero-lewis



2. Niamh- http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/MT0CBTZb41dPGnF2f9rZPY/radio-1-teen-hero-niamh



3. Emma Watson



4. Maisie Williams



5. Zoella



6. Tom Daley



7. Ellie Simmonds



8. Ed Sheeran



9. Cara Delevingne



10. Betsy - http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/mum-proud-daughters-response-after-9980502

British youth reports

Bad-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-24749/Britain-tops-teen-drugs-league.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19786264
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/29/tens-of-thousands-of-uk-teenagers-neglected-at-home-report-says
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37223063
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37562259
Good-
https://www.nutrition.org.uk/healthyliving/lifestages/teenagers.html

70'S Presentation

1B Genre

My music video is an Indie genre called 'Devil Side' We chose to create the Indie genre as we felt that the originality of it would help outline our artist. The story focusses on an abusive relationship and no matter how hard it gets, you can leave. This song is a light pitched female song, allowing us to create a relaxing atmosphere which will be slightly contrasted with the narrative.

When researching similar genres for my music video I looked up ones such as Ellie Goulding's 'Still falling for you' I particularly liked this one as it had a narrative story to it as well as having the artist standing their on her own singing. As Ellie is well known for her genre being Indie Pop I found that using her videos and products to look at were a great help and helped to inspire me for what I will do for my products. After this I was particularly interested in conforming to the normal ways of an Indie Pop genre music video and with having a narrative, normally involving a male and female couple. However I subverted slightly away from what Ellie's man and women relationship was and decided to put a twist onto my own making it an abusive relationship where a women is trapped and is unaware of what she can do. Only to have a happy ending, once she decides she has had enough and gets the courage to leave her boyfriend. When looking towards a more aggressive narrative I decided to look at other genres for inspiration such as, Rihanna and Eminem's song 'Love the way you lie' being a Hip-Hop / Rap genre. Despite this not being my genre it helped me figure out how to convey a believable abusive relationship. Rihanna and Eminem's video is a lot more fierce and intense, which is not what Indie is about, so after taking inspiration I decided to die everything down a notch so that it was all still effective but flowed better in regards to the song.

I conformed to my genre in the ways of the setting in my music video, such as the moments outdoors where my artist is surrounded by red roses, as well as these going with the genre it also allowed my audience to see the link between the red roses and what they indicated. The roses were the foundation we used to build our narrative on, every moment in the narrative would always lead back to the roses. The stereotypical meaning of red roses would usually mean love, but in our case it meant the power held by the women who finally left her abusive boyfriend. Indie Pop genre features always have a certain theme and in our case it was the red roses. However we also subverted away from our genre when we turned our weak female narrative character, against the abusive man, turning her into the most powerful one. Usually in stereotypical Indie Pop narrative videos, the women is always the weaker one and that never normally changes. However we did conform to this for the majority of our narrative, showing our women's weakness until one day she had enough and left.  This then went against the usual stereotype as we wanted to create a message to our audience letting the women know that they can be the stronger one. Furthermore our artist conformed most to the typical Indie style as most of her singing moments are set with her in front of a black background with fairy lights. We used this as we found the more simplistic the background was the better the artist looked when performing as all attention is on her. It also follows in most Indie videos as most of the artists are in a room by themselves singing to the camera.

When making my music video I found using Goodwin's Theory really helped as I then had to make sure the lyrics had a perfect link with the visuals, for example to song is called 'Devil Side' and I have made the narrative into an abusive relationship highlighting the mans 'Devil Side'. I made sure that the link was complimentary so that there was no confusion in what was going on. I also then conformed to his other theory 'Genre characteristics' where the look of my artist represents the look of a stereotypical Indie Pop artist. Indie Pop artists usually have an edgy kind of look, such as Lorde with her huge curly hair. For my artist we used makeup as our forte to create the Indie Pop look for my artist, we used red eye shadow and lipstick to create a flawless and quirky look. The look is also based on our synergy of red roses, this helped when linking all out media products together.

When creating and editing our video we were particularly interested in Vernallis' theory as we found it helped us to build our music video into the success it is. For example we took on board his theory of using 'Cuts to the beat' so that we could make our video flow more and look more professional. This is extremely important with our genre as all previous Indie Pop videos like to experiment on the properties of sound and how their video can match these. We used this in certain moments of our video where the beat would drop, the male narrative character would through something or punch something and as he hits his desired objective that is when the beat them drops. This then allows the music to help emphasis his power. Vernallis also believes in using exaggerated camera shots such as extreme high and low angled shots. We decided to take this on board in the narrative scenes to that the camera angles could help indicate who is more dominating in each scene. For example when Rory hits Millie and she falls to the floor, we then use an extreme high angle shot looking down at Millie through Rory's eyes. Showing his power and strength over her.

Using the Indie Pop genre was a great foundation in helping us decide on what we can and can't do. However it was difficult to follow the stereotypical Indie genre, as we had so many ideas that we were not sure we could use. Meaning we did subvert away from the genre in parts of our music video such as the abusive boyfriend in the narrative. Although we subverted this then made our music video original and different, allowing our audience to be more interested in it.

Media Language

Discuss how you used Media Language in one of your coursework productions to create meaning for the audience.

Intro -
I have chosen to evaluate the use of media language in my A2 music video of an 'Indie' genre and the song used is called 'Devil Side' which was originally by Foxes. There is a wide range of camera shots, editing, mise en scene and sound which I used to create a meaningful and moving tone to my music video that could relate to certain people in our audience who may be going through the same abusive relationships.

Para 1-
In my music video I used a lot of media language such as the use of camera work throughout the video. For example I decided to use Propps theory that there is always certain characters throughout a performance, in my case there was the Villan being Rory, the abusive boyfriend. Then Millie the Damsel in distress. Using camera angles I was angle to portray this as I would use a low angle shot to look up at Rory, showing the stereotypical power of a man. Then I would use a high angle shot on Millie, looking down on her showing she is weak. However towards the end of the video I decided to deliberately subvert away from Propps theory and challenge it. Turning Millie into the Hero as she decides she has had enough of the abuse and leaves Rory. By doing this led to an unexpected turn in the music video. When subverting from Propps theory I used camera angles to show Millies raging power by having a close up face shot then I panned out and down so that all of her body could be seen from a worms eye view. This then showed her becoming a strong and dominant women, going against all stereotypes.

Para 2-
I also used Mise en scene to show and create meaning, however I found conforming to Todorov's equilibrium theory helped me when doing this. As showing throughout my music video, there are countless high and low moments which I have taken inspiration from Todorov as I felt like this would really show the relationship in all the different stages. When using the equilibrium theory I had to use mise en scene so that you could clearly notice the sudden changes. By this I made sure the outfits were much brighter and more colourful in the happier scenes, colours such as yellow as that is known to be a happy and a warming colour. As well as the scenery, I filmed these scenes on a sunny day in the town centre or a park so that as well as the outfits outlining the mood, the environment did too. This is then contrasted when the abusive scenes come up, as the clothes for both Rory and Millie would be dark, dirty and dull which already sets a disturbed mood. The scenery used in this scene was in dark rooms such as the bedroom or the bathroom having no natural light entering so that the room can look darker and give off a sense of depression. Without Todorov I would have not thought to use the equilibrium theory and therefore the mise en scene may not have been so important.

Para 3-
I used editing to also create meaning towards the audience as I wanted to get the message across to everyone about abusive relationships. When using my editing skills I took into consideration Strauss Theory of binary opposites with the strong abusive man against the weak inferior women. Using editing really helped me to show this as I was able to use quick cuts between Rory and Millie allowing the audience to see their clear facial expression and how Millie was scared and that Rory was overpowering her. Strauss theory helped me to distinguish the two characters making them complete opposites I was able to use slow duration editing skills to show parts of this, for example when Rory is shouting at Millie I would slow it down by 50X so that you can see the raging anger coming from his facial expressions and redness of his face filling up. This showed the audience his true colours and allowed them to see how much of a horrible man he is. I was also able to make the audience feel more sorry for Millie by using a number of transitions fading into each other of Millie crying in the bath and then being hit by Rory. Showing a brief but moving clip of a majority of her life involved with Rory.

Para 4-
The last media language used is sound, the genre of our music video is 'Indie' and this represents the sound used from the artist singing throughout. We chose am 'Indie' sound as I felt like it would represent my artist more, showing her as someone who is not your ordinary singer. Furthermore when picking out the correct sound for my artist I had to conformed to Bartes theory of enigma coding and realised I wanted this in my music video. From this I needed to make sure I picked out a detailed enough song that would make people ask questions and want to know more. For instance, I picked a song with quite a low pitch which already showed it would be quite a sad and depressing song. This would then make the audience ask as to why my artist is singing out this and is it about her. Already making them want to know more about the artist herself. However in the song it also has some high pitched moments of when the artist is singing about the happier and nicer moments, this would automatically make the audience feel better towards my artist, thinking that although it is a sad song she is alright. This makes my audience feel more emotionally involved with my artist.

Ancillary texts-

Evaluation-
I effectively used all these media languages and the theories and I have found it has really helped me in creating a well thought out and prepared piece of media.

Essay A1 D&T

In your experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your productions?

Across the last two years I have made for my AS level coursework a spy spoof film opening named, ‘New kid on the block’ that showed the story of these two spies who couldn’t be more different, one posh and professional woman and the other an immature and unaware little boy. For my A2 coursework I create a music video named ‘Devil side’ and through this story I highlighted abusive relationships and issues of feeling trapped in them.

When creating parts of my AS coursework I used digital technology in order to create the posters, however at the time I used paint and PowerPoint to make this poster as it was a quick and easy way to do so. Although when making this I realised my options were limited and I was unable to make it look fully professional. For the posters used in my A2 coursework I was able to get to grips with Photoshop instead, which allowed me to venture out more on the posters and make a more original and professional outcome. For example, I used the ‘magic wand tool’ to create accurate cuts and put my artists in locations she was never in. At the start Photoshop was difficult to understand and use, however using YouTube helped a lot as I was able to look up all the techniques and ways to do certain things. Such as using the ‘healing brush tool’ which made any bad parts of the image automatically better and of a higher quality. This was used on my artists when the images were of a lower quality but still worth saving and using in our end result.

When filming my AS film I used the schools normal HD Camera, the quality of the camera I used was good but I was limited on what I could do with it. I then used the footage and put it onto Adobe Premiere where I began to edit and put it all together. I used basic tools such as ‘cut’ and ‘Ripple Edit tool’ as my knowledge of Premier was still little and my confidence was not great. I found sticking to the safe options got me through the editing process but held me back in places where I could have made the film better. Although I was able to again use YouTube to help me create certain desired effects such as a binocular effect. This was created by importing an image of two circles put together and cutting out the inside of them. After that all that was needed was to put the image on top of the video in order for it to look like you’re looking through binoculars from a first person’s view. In my A2 Music video I was able to develop my camera knowledge and ability and use a Canon Digital SLR – Manual Focusing camera so that I could get better shots and film footage overall. Using the manual focus allowed me to blur out any unnecessary backgrounds and have the camera only focusing on the artist. When editing this on Adobe Premier I used more complex tools such as ‘Colour corrector’ in order to change the colour and tone of certain footage. This was used when the desired scenery was not available for the happy scenes, which meant I had to edit the footage to a brighter and happier colour so that the emotions could clearly be shown. I also used the ‘Overlapping’ tools so that I could have more than one image happening at a time. This would normally be used when the artists signing image is flipping in-between the narrative. We did this so that it could give a clear indication to the audience that the artist was related to the narrative story.

In order to present the ideas of my coursework I used programs such as Emaze. This was an easy and simple way to present my ideas of all the work I had done, it allowed me to get all my ideas into a selection of slides and present it elegantly. However, as time went on I was able to use other programs such as Prezie. Prezie allowed me to convey my work using interactive materials making it more enjoyable to watch. This also allowed my products to look more aesthetically pleasing and more welcoming to all types of audiences. Overall my knowledge on digital technology has developed massively and over the course of two years I am now capable of using a number of different programs that I was not able to use at the start.

1B Representation Plan

Representations -

• White Middle Class
• Class
• Age

DR CAGES

Disability
Regional identity
Class
Age
Gender
Ethnicity
Sexuality

AS FILM -
Millie is of the upper class whereas Jordan is of the lower class.
Shown by the way they dress e.g. Millie in all black and heels. Jordan in a tracksuit with trainers.
Age Millie is portrayed as older and more mature whereas Jordan is the younger immature one.
Gender - against the stereotype. Millie is the more dominant one and Jordan is the weaker one.