Blogger of the Week

Well done to this week's winner, Priya, for labelling her posts so neatly and producing a professional-looking blog.

And well done to Amandeep for keeping up to date by blogging every lesson last week!

Audience Research Ideas

It seems to be the most difficult area to do well with in your research and planning, but here are a few tips:

Check out the Media Knowall site at http://www.mediaknowall.com/gcse/keyconceptsgcse/keycon.php?pageID=audience

Really useful article you can use to help learn for your exam, too, at:
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/pph9701.html

Remember what also counts:

• showing rough cuts of your work to people and listening to their comments and suggestions
• consulting people about what sorts of shots you should use
• researching the sorts of costumes you actors should wear
• comparing your product to those watched by similar audiences and making sure you do what those audiences seem to like watching
• observing the audiences at concerts, etc, and noting their age, etc
• interviewing a member of your target audience about their lifestyle, likes and dislikes, music preferences, film preferences, favourite magazines, whether they have facebook, Twitter and who they follow, maybe even type of phone they have.
• looking at the media packs for advertisers in magazines read by your target audience - these are online and often contain useful data about your audience
• collecting data about your audience via questionnaires

Bloggers of the week

…go this week at A2 to Abbie, who has an impressive 59 posts so far and is the most up-to-date with her blogging; and at AS to Emily, for keeping bang up to date with the tasks.

Please remember to add labels and label your blog posts appropriately. Ideal labels are: Camera Work, Editing, Mise En Scene, Audience Research, Planning, Construction, Sound, Research. These are all relevant to specific areas of your marking criteria and make it easy for a moderator to navigate your blog and see how much work you have done in each area. That means, label carefully, too, and don't add a label, say, to a nine-frame analysis to add that to audience research, when it's clearly not! This also means it's easy for you to see if you've neglected any areas in your planning, particularly audience research.

Bloggers of the Week

A great deal of blogging has gone on this week, which is very good news. However, top spot this time at A2 goes to Katherine, who has managed to catch up a great deal on numbers of posts, and detailed, quality posts at that.

At AS the prize goes to Shona, who continues to be the most prolific blogger in the class!

How to label your post

Here's how to do it: 1. Decide on your label 2. Click on the label icon at the top of the toolbar 3. Label your post You can also do this to past posts by going into design, ticking the box on the left to select posts, then selecting the label icon.

Special extra blog award

Goes to Simran this week for reaching the top number of blog posts ever yet achieved by this centre. Blogtastic!

Bloggers of the Week

At A2, Abbie and at AS, Jenny, for her perceptive quotation from the director Mark Waters. Well done and blog on, my friends!

A2 Bloggers of the Week

Well done to Abbie for her perceptive and relevant 14-frame analysis and Simran for recording the 'journey' of her planning meticulously. Blog on!

AS blogger of the week

This week's blogger of the week is Priya for her well-chosen posts on sound and editing. Blog on!

Bloggers of the week

For A2 last week is Vicky for catching up on the term's work. Well done. And this week it's Simran, who has the most posts to date.

Blogger of the week

Blogtastic work from Jenny this week with her post on Tangled. Blog on!

How to film dance

For you A2 Music Promo creators, an interesting post on how to film dance. Top tip - remember eyeline match and the 180 degree rule still applies.
http://garrettgibbons.com/how-to-film-and-edit-dance/

Plus some interesting and useful tips on how to make a music video: http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/music-videos/shooting-music-video-tips.html

Problems uploading video?

We've all been having problems uploading video to our blogs. One thing I've not tried before worked today - filmed this on my iPad, then selected the option to email it. This compressed the video, I downloaded the email to my laptop, and it has uploaded quite easily. Worth a try, all of you, as another way to upload your videos to your blog.

Bloggers of the Week

Sorry to be a day late posting this. However, A2 Blogger of the Week is Amandeep. Well done for posting the most in September - 13 posts this month. AS Blogger of the Week is Shona, who has the posted the most (six) in September. A2s, you should aim to have 80 posts by the end of your coursework. AS students, aim for 40.

Bloggers of the Week

Contratulations to the two Bloggers of Last Week who managed to impress the most - Shona for getting her Preliminary Task up on her blog so quickly and at the right resolution, and Abbie for setting up as she means to go on and really showing the journey of her Advanced Portfolio as the research and planning progresses. Close runner-up was Priya, who also managed to get her Preliminary task up on to her blog.

Sound in Cinema BBC4 from Thurs 12th Sept 9pm

A MUST LISTEN this week is the BBC's celebration of sound in cinema. Relevant to your AS Exam and your A2 coursework, check out the details at http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/sound-of-cinema.html and tune from Thursday 12th September at 9pm when:

BBC Four’s celebration of film music begins with Sound Of Cinema: The Music That Made The Movies, a three-part documentary presented by writer, composer and film music aficionado Neil Brand. Neil tells his alternative history of cinema, putting the soundtrack centre stage. The series features some of the biggest directors of past and present, including Quentin Tarantino, Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese, alongside film scores of cult and blockbuster movies like Star Wars, Inception, Hitchcock’s Psycho, and Gladiator.

Bloggers of the week!

Well done to Katherine for winning Blogger of the Week for the first week of the school term. Her essay on what she's learned from the lip-sync task is well-constructed and shows clearly the skills she is building up for her own music video.

Well done also to Alexa for being the first to post in Year 12!

Coursework on YouTube

Just to let you all know, your current coursework is now accessible on YouTube on our school channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/years1213 so you can use this to embed into your blogs, get feedback, show to all your friends, family and contacts and feed into your evaluations on audience feedback.

So you think you want to study Media beyond school?

Check out this video on a previous Media Studies student who went on to study at University. Her A Level Music Video is fab!

Exam dates

Remember, remember ... The AS exam is on the morning of Monday 13th May and it's 2 hours.
The A2 exam is on Tuesday 4th June and it's also 2 hours.

Best A Level student video I've ever come across on YouTube - an inspiration!

Blogger of the week

This week, for AS, it's Crunchie and Goldfish for keeping their tasks and their records of their progress on their coursework up to date. Well done!

Dating your blog posts

To keep the sense of a journey through your  coursework, you can edit and change the dates of your posts. Go to design - posts - edit post - click on the clock icon on the right hand side and a calendar appears; then you can choose a date on the calendar to replace your post at any previous date that fits in with your planning.

Music Video Director Visit

St Mary's has made contact with an award-winning music video director, Terry Hall, who directed the superb latest Muse video, 'Supremacy'. Check out his webpage here http://www.hellolove.tv/#/Promo%20Directors/Terry%20Hall and watch this space for the day he'll be visiting to tell us all about the music video industry!

Blogger of the Week

For last week's blogging extraordinaire, is Annabelle. Look upon this blog, my students, and seek to keep up with your tasks as well as you can to achieve full marks for your planning. Treat your blog as a diary and post as often as you can, including when you're recorded voiceovers, add pictures of yourselves working, list any new skills you've developed while practising with the camera and editing. Put up shots of your storyboards (however much you may change them later).

Blogger of the Week

For last week was Rolo for keeping up to date with her Production Tasks, with her 9-frame analysis. Shame the pictures did not upload, but keep trying! Also special mention to year 13 who are blogging brilliantly now that coursework is underway.

Reminder: Pete's Media Blog

Just in case you haven't looked lately, do remember to follow Peter Fraser, OCR's Chief Examiner. He's constantly blogging hints and tips about your filming and your exams. Check out the winners of the Media Mag film-making competition 2012. You could enter this year as long as you've finished your work before 25th March: 1http://petesmediablog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/doing-brilliant-production-work.html?m=1

Bloggers of the Week

Welcome back, Bloggers. Now the Mocks are over and coursework is in full swing, there has been an unprecedented explosion of blogging activity. Blogtastic! To celebrate, we have four winners of last week's award: Simran, Abbie, Katherine and Vicky. The competition is very hot for this week's award, but there can from now on be only one winner... Blog on!