Michael Wesch on Youtube and the Mediascape

Michael Wesch is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Kansas. In 2008, he gave a lecture about how instrumental the role of Youtube and the world wide web is in general in evoloving the human race from an anthropological standpoint. He states that as sites such as youtube give the public the chance to contribute to the mass media, more and more people are having to change themselves in terms of personality or how the appear in order to fit in with the new medium and society.

As this lecture was given in 2008, many of the big famous youtubers who gain income from the site haven't started out yet. Instead, he focuses on how the platform was used as a means of connection around the globe; almost like a new social media. This can be seen by the fact that a majority of the videos that were posted back then were roughly 3 minutes long (about 200,000 a day back then- this has increased dramatically though) with ordinary people discussing their views and talking about their philosophies and lives.

Furthermore, he discusses how anyone with access to a webcam can join in on the global discussion rather than needing a full film crew or a producer commissioning the work. This lead to the creation of online dramas and the emergence of the channel known as Lonelygirl15, but i'll discuss that in a separate blog post.

This video clearly demonstrates how media how now influenced society in such a way so quickly that has caused shock waves resonating throughout the world, leading to mass societal change in only 20 years or so.

Kina Grannis- In Your Arms

As i discussed in my blog post about stop motion, i plan on using a small clip of stop motion in my music video. While looking at various videos employing stop motion, i remembered a video that i saw about five years ago, "In your arms" by Kina Grannis. This is an incredibly unique music video as it employs Jelly Beans to form the main background and scenes in this stop motion video.

Looking at this video, it is clear to see the power and presence stop motion can have as a medium for creativity. After remembering and re watching the video, i found a separate video documenting the behind the scenes of the music video. It is after watching this where i stated to realise the time involved in making a video of this style and magnitude. The fact that a 3:30 minute video can take a year just to shoot it baffled me. However, the sheer devotion and creativity paid off as this is one of my all time favorite music videos.

• 2,460 frames
• 1,357 hours (22 and a half days)
• 288,000 Jelly Beans 

While im not looking to employ stop motion of this magnitude in my production, it does give a great insight into the depth a creator has to dive into to create such a complex piece of stop motion. The fact that they had to make sure that every hair and minute aspect of Kina's expression was the exact same as their reference photos is amazing. Also the sheer amount of time involved in creating the back drop just for one picture on the camera. All in all, this is a fantastic project which lead to a great music video that i would highly recommend. 

Band Websites- Ancillary Text Research

One of the ancillary texts I have chosen to accompany my main task is the band website homepage. With this in mind, i devoted some time to look at some band websites. The websites i chose to view were Red Hot Chili Peppers, Catfish and the Bottlemen and Twenty one Pilots. I found that there were a list of criteria that these websites had in common. These websites all had:

• Tour dates and locations
• navigation to media (pictures,videos)
• merchandise
• downloads to music
• music videos  
• links to social media
• Ticket sites

Compare this to the twang- no websites just rely on social media and separate sites for Merch and tickets. While the bigger bands websites do have links to their social media and other outlets, smaller bands like "the Twang" solely rely on social media and businesses to advertise gigs ad tours and distribute merchandise.

One site that breaks the mold for more established bands and musicians is John Mayer's website. His website appears to be completely devoted to his new EP's (extended playlists) and a video advertising his new tour as seen by the screen captures below.. While it still contains the links to social media, it focuses less on the merchandise and more on the music and where you can listen to it.

Looking at the variety of examples of different artists websites, we can see that they all contain the same themes with varying amounts and emphasis. A website like the Twenty One Pilots one focuses more on the merch, whereas John Mayer's focuses more on tour dates and new releases rather than merchandise. This has aided me in one of my ancillary texts as it haas given me a greater insight into the themes featured in an average band website. 

BBC Three

BBC Three is a rather unique case study of what the future might hold for television channels. This is because BBC Three used to be a TV channel, but in 2016 moved to be completely online to act as an extension to BBC Iplayer (the BBC's catchup service). On this new platform, the BBC are now able to create exclusive shows for the online space. These include documentaries, comedies and dramas; making it more into a netflix like platform just without the subscription.

The move of BBC Three from terrestrial television gives us a glimpse into the future. I feel the BBC used this move to break into the market of catch up and on demand TV which has grown exponentially in the past few years with platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. We can see that BBC Three being online has given the BBC a chance to advertise some of their internet exlusive shows such as Taboo and the Asian Provocateur (my personal favourite).

But with more and more TV channels making the move to online due to the popularity of netflix, is this where TV will be going in the next 10-20 years? personally, i think no. While i agree that streaming platforms are stealing the show at the moment, for channels with as high a reputation as the BBC still having significant foothold, and the markets for TV's still booming, i feel there will always be some live television rather than it all being located online. Below is a link to the BBC 3 site

BBC 3 

Youtube Band Project

Cobus Potgeiter is a South African youtuber who creates primarily drumming based content. In January 2012, he set up this kick starter called "the YouTube Band Project", a scheme where he would get musicians from all over the world to send audition tapes over YouTube in the hopes that they could form a band and record an album. The kick starter was needed to fund travel, studio time and accommodation. During this process, after the band mates had been selected, Cobus made a vlog series following this once in a lifetime experience. below is a link to the Kick starter video and the first episode:

I feel like this experiment shows just how powerful technology and the internet is now and how it is able to connect us all. But aside from it being a good case study on how the media has brought us closer together; it is also a great documentary, which links to another type of media that i haven't gone into in my blog or research.

What i mainly draw from this is a greater understanding of the field in which i want to work in, sound for music and film. But it also carries the forms and conventions of many documentaries of a similar type. While it isn't a traditionally set out documentary, it builds upon many of the features present in them in order to best present the experience these 5 friends went through. I would highly recommend a viewing.

How Suspense is Built in Film

Over school holidays, i tend to find myself watching quite a few horrors and thrillers. There's something about the atmosphere and the tension created in both of these genre's that i can connect with very deeply. It was only until recently where i began to understand it after stumbling across a few interviews of Alfred Hitchcock where he define's the differences between suspense and mystery. To describe this, he used his famous analogy of the bomb, which is explained in the video below.

 While this is a very  good description of what suspense is, it doesn't describe how this can fit into a film. One scene from the recent film "the conjuring 2" carry's quite a lot of suspense using the pre-requisites of a suspenseful film.

Warning: this is a scary scene. Viewer discretion is advised 

This scene exhibits some elements that are common in suspenseful moments in cinema. Probably the most prolific in this particular sequence is the pacing, lighting and sound track. Suspense normally relies on the scene to be slow, but gradually gain momentum as it carries on. This is exhibited by the shadow walking towards the picture and the placement of the portrait in the background of most of the scene. This gives the audience a focal point of the scene- they know that what is going to happen will be related to that picture. This is aided by the music. Because there is virtually no music, or little sustained notes on the strings or something, it keeps the audiences attention purely on the visuals of the scene rather than overwhelming them. 

Narrative in music videos

It can't be ignored, the story that some music video's carry. And this isn't more true than in the videos of 30 seconds to mars; a band fronted by Jared Leto (actor in Suicide Squad, Dallas Buyers Club and Fight club). It may be due to the singer's connection to film that means that the band lean to more story driven videos. When talking about this story element, one video in particular springs to mind; and that is for the video "The Kill".

This video links is clearly heavily influenced by the shining, as it features some of the iconic characters and scenes from that film- such as the bar scene and the bear mascot; But does bring in some rather unique elements into the mix.

While this video contains both performance and narrative elements, it is clearly more weighted towards telling a story. It even features little inserts of acting and drama to further the story such as at the start when Jared is filling his band members in on the hotel. This is rather common place in more narrative music videos. Some even featuring bits of action midway through the song. an example of this is "From Yesterday" by 30 Seconds to Mars.

While i can see the attraction of a strong narrative in music videos, especially when mixed with performance elements (much like my product) i feel that sometimes it can actually be detrimental to the overall feel of the music video as too much of it is separate from the music itself; which, after all, is what the music video is designed to accentuate. However, from these two videos i can take a lot of inspiration on how i can layout my music video in terms of shots and the blend between performance and story telling.

Options for the Main Task- Ancillary texts

If you have seen my overview of the A2 media course, you will have noticed that there is more to the coursework than just the production. In fact, we have to include two extra pieces using different media forms that link to our production. For a music video, i am given the option of creating an album cover, a home page for a band website or a magazine article for the album/ single. I have to choose two of those to accompany my main production. The only one i am definitely is the album cover as i like the creative possibilities related to the creation of covers.

album covers are incredibly important in giving the consumer an idea of the theme of the song/ album. i have found a few albums that do this well, and a few that don't.

Firstly is the album cover for "closer to the sun" by Slightly Stoopid.

Looking at this cover, you probably would assume this band was linked to more heavy music, political comments and more gritty topics with the big sound to accompany. However. this band is actually California Reggae. In fact, a lot of their album covers tend to link more to this gritty, dark imaging, rather than linking closer to their genre. One would assume this is either meant as a sort of joke or nod to other bands with similar album cover themes. But, i digress.

On the other end of the spectrum is Pink Floyd, who seem to much prefer the more simple covers that don't suggest much about genre. an example of this is the cover to "Dark Side of the Moon"

This incredibly elegant album cover carries very little suggestion as to the genre of the band, aside from it linking to a more modern, uncluttered sound. The use of the spectrum coming out of the prism suggests that the album will carry more depth or clarity compared to others (represented by the beam of white light entering the prism). But I may be reading in to it deeper than i should because of how much i love this album cover.

Wong Fu

Wong Fu is a Youtube channel and company that creates incrediby well made short films. It was created by Weseley Chan, Ted Fu and Phillip Wang in 2006. Their primary genres for videos tend to be romance, coming of age and comedy. One thing that shines in all wong fu productions is the production value, writing and cinematography. An example of where all of these factors are in full force is the video below called "The Last"

Wong Fu also create comedy shorts, like the video below:

below are links to their website, and then their youtube channel. The website is useful as it advertises new projects coming up, such as "everything before us"; a new mini series that the company are bringing out. Through these projects, Wong Fu is able to collaberate with many youtubers and other experts in other fields to create the best product at the end.


Wong Fu's Website

Wong Fu's Youtube

Mumford and Sons- Lover of the Light

In the run up to summer, our main objective is to decide on what main task we are going to do. For me, I have narrowed it down to either a music video or a short film. This is because I feel like I have the greatest experience and interest in these two mediums rather than radio dramas or podcasts. That being said, I now have to make my choice based on examples of each of these mediums. Firstly, I will look at "Lover of the Light" by Mumford and Sons.

This video, starring Idris Elba (one of my favourite actors at the moment), focuses on the life and journey of a man trying to connect back to the world. However, he is restricted by one factor. He is blind. I think this is very well played however, as there is no real sign posts provided. Instead, it is all done through props and the actor himself. One of my favourite scenes in the video is when he is about to leave the house but his grasp falls on his cane. The use of the hand shuddering amplifies his frustration and sadness about his condition and how it is his biggest restraint.

This theme of restraint is key to the flow of the music video, as it focuses a lot on him being free to roam and being one with nature. But, there still exist timly reminders that he is not well (such as the cane).

As music videos go, I like how much this one carries a story. Many exist just to carry the music or to give it greater depth to the experience for the viewer. This one actually follows a story and has quite a strong narrative and focuses on quite a melancholy theme of disability and isolation because of it.

The Deeper Questioning Grid

In our last lesson, we were introduced to this document called "the deeper questioning grid". This is a table that features the two first words of a question. The aim is to get us, the students, to adventure with out questions and aim for a greater understanding through the questions you ask. It is shown below.

 with this grid, we were asked to get into pairs (not partering with who we made our production with) and watch each others production. From this, we were tasked with making questions about their production with this grid.

I think this exersize gave everyone a greater understanding of what is expected at us from the A2 course and how we can better apply ourselves.

AS Main Task Critique

Synopsis

For my AS level media main task, my partner Alyx and I wanted to dive into the aspects and conventions of horror films in order to contort pre concieved ideas of the christmas season. Our film focuses on a monster breaking into a families home and looking round the house. Much of this is drawn from slasher horror films such as Halloween, whilst mixing in with supernatural/creature films. 

Area's of success

I Think we achieved the mood we were striving for; focusing on the creature like characteristics of the being we follow. Furthemore, our structure for filming worked well. We decided to do all of our exterior shots during the festive season because decorations would still be out. This meant that we could build up a stock of good film that we could contiunally draw on in order to build up the ideas of the time of year. I feel our use of free hand camera was good too as it links closer to the idea of the creature, and choosing to do a majority of out exposition either through the radio broadcast or through items found inside the house that the monster looks at.

Areas of improvement 

i think one of our primary concerns and areas of improvement was how dark our peice was. Because we didn't understand just how much we could do in post production. And as we wanted our production to be quite dark. To achieve this, rather than using darkening in post, we made our set quite dark too. We used drapes and towels in order to darken our set. However, this means that a majority of our footage was rather dark and had to be brightened. This could have lead to a kind of bleaching effect on some of our clips, aswell as not being able to see much; especially in our ending shot. Aswell as a shoddy segway between a shot taken in a seperate location on a seperate day. These are my main gripes with our production however.

Conclusion

I feel like this task gave us an incredible introduction into film making. We are able to draw from our mistakes and are better informed on the theory done in class such as 180 rule and the rule of thirds. i can comfortably say that i feel way more confident in starting my A2 production after having this this experience.