/ Feedback (in class) – Group Work Project Brief 4 /

This week our group presented the layout of our eBook to the class. We were pleasantly surprised when the whole class seemed satisfied with the work we had done at this point. People enjoyed the look of it, stating that it was “unique” and “colourful” which enables readers to keep attracted to it. This is important as we wanted to give off the effect that media advertisements do.

Annie chose www.canva.com and I have been very satisfied with her choice. It allows us to show a deep analysis with the options to include images as well as text to show the reader what research we have done.

My case studies are coming along nicely. I will be submitting them to Annie by Friday in order for us to begin the introduction and conclusion and complete any last minute work before submission on Thursday June 4. Something that came up in my research was that of the common formulas used between the two breakfast ads that I am comparing. It is interesting to note the use of families in both as well as children perhaps showing that there is a particular audience target. I will be looking deeper into this within the eBook.

I have loved researching deeper into the bombardment of media texts (and more specifically advertisements).

Our group seems to be on top of the work!

/ Week 12 – Lectorial Reflection /

Wow… well it’s the last lecture for Semester one. Crazy to think how quickly this semester has come and gone.

Today in the last lecture we discussed Media Materialism.

Some notes I took:

Culture

  1. identifying subgroups within population – youth group etc.
  2. the world as culture, humankind – think about humanity as a whole/we are a human culture
  3. art, theatre, cinema: creative expression – what you would find in the newspaper under culture.
  • Culture is multiple – different classes/races/ages
  • Messy, unpredictable, confused.
  • Brian Eno – “culture is everything we do not have to do” – we don’t need to have certain cuisines or clothing but we need to be clothed and need to eat. (we could survive without them)
  • Culture is something that we do, but also something that we are.

Technological Determinism: Technology determines its own path – each development has a preconceived course

  • – Invention of the Walkman – shut out oral cues of the world, we could shape our own music.

Social Constructivism: we control it

  • No matter how radical the innovation is, we ultimately have control.
  • Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
  • It is not a straight line, it is unpredictable.

 

It is interesting to consider the idea of culture and the way in which it is alive within the media. This lecture confused me a little as I am quite exhausted from a long semester. However it was interesting to hear of the different ideas in culture focused on the theory that technology is pre-determined and has a direct path compared with the theory that we control everything and technology is unpredictable (social constructivism).

/ Hannah Vasanth /

So I have been following Hannah Vasanth for quite a few years now. She used to play the keyboard as part of Jessie J’s band (an artist who I am absolutely obsessed with).

Born to South Indian parents and raised in Berlin, Vasanth moved to London in 1997 to sutdy at the Royal Academy of Music. She studied Jazz Performance which was definitely a good choice! Since that time, she has made a name for herself. Playing keyboard for big name artists like Anastasia, the Sugarbabes, Rihanna and Jessie J.

Her influence comes from jazz artists like Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans. However her music is more urban and pop styled influenced from DJs like Diplo to singers like Lana Del Rey.

Hannah is a down-to-earth girl who always finds time to help those around her (next few quotes and excerpt taken from https://www.academia.co.uk/about-us/case-studies/jessie-j/).

“I believe that it is my duty to help and inspire young people, especially artistic ones at the beginning of their journey. For a lot of the youth I am living ’the dream’ – so it’s great to be able to break down the job to them and explain the blood, sweat and tears it took for me to get here! Doing this keeps me grounded – at the same time inspires me to go even further so I can continue being a role model.”

Currently (however recently left) playing for Jessie J, Hannah gave me an insight into her career path and how she came about pursuing music;

“I always wanted to go into music – I was very involved in school bands/choirs/ensembles, but the pop thing just kind of happened – I fell into it through a good friend and MD [Musical Director] Bob Knight offering me a last minute job. The ball just started rolling from then and here I am.”

Hannah is endorsed by Yamaha, and has been for many years, so she’s always had Yamaha ’boards in her rig;

“My first proper professional set up was a controller keyboard, I think it was a Yamaha CP33 with my laptop, as well as a Yamaha ES6. The set up has changed a lot over the years – always based on a Yamaha twin-rig [Motif  XF 8/6] with specialist boards being added – a Roland VK7, Nord Lead, etc.”

All other gear on top of the Yamaha boards are usually by recommendation, Hannah tells us, including her recent adoption of the Muse Research Receptor. Being around other touring musicians, she’s always being told about the latest gear by her super-geeky, knowledgeable friends…

“I have known about the Receptor for a long time now – I first heard about it from my friend Michael Blustein – he used to play keys for Enrique Iglesius and now plays for Foreigner. Over the years I have followed Muse Research, and spoken to players that use it. I was toying between a MacBook setup and a Receptor setup for a long time. Ultimately, the Receptor won…”

One of the key benefits of the Receptor is that you can take sounds you created in the studio and play them in a live situation without the worry of anything overheating or crashing. No more substituting sounds for built in, factory sounds as a lot of musicians have been forced to do over the years;

“If I am on a more electronic gig, and the producer created a pad/synth sound using a popular plug-in such as [Native Instruments] Massive – I could then take this preset, load it into the Receptor and literally have the exact same sound as on the record. I am also a fan of String plugins such as [ProjectSAM] Symphobia and [AudioBro] LA Scoring Strings – so am looking forward to using these in the future. Lots of plugins I want to try out!”

So have a listen to the above video and let me know what you think! I can’t wait to here more from this talented lady!

/ Media Tutorial – Last One /

Screen Shot 2015-05-25 at 9.59.47 am

So today we had our last tutorial for the semester. We continued working in our groups as the Project Brief 4 is due next week.

Our group has created an e-book in which we presented part of today. The fabulous Annie has put it together so that we are able to show research into texts and more specifically advertisements.

My section includes researching television commercials and in particular cereal ads. I am looking at the way in which these are broken down (so the formula) in order to portray a particular message and this is done by watching and analysing several cereal ads.

Above is a screenshot of a convention of a cereal ad (Milo cereal). Of course the actual cereal being advertised is mentioned, however often there is a close up of the cereal box with a faded out background so that we can clearly see the subject of the ad. This is generally paired with a voice-over stating that the cereal has “healthy” ingredients.

This project has been quite interesting to explore as it is amazing to see how simple these ads are but how effective they are.

/ Sound Design /

Nobody understands the excitement I feel to be starting a new elective next semester. Cinema has been great but the subject as a whole is not where my heart lies. Sound Design is one of my many passions and I just cannot wait to learn how to use particular programs to create sounds even if it is for film.

So what is Sound Design?

According to Google: Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including filmmaking, television production, theatre, sound recording and reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production, and video game software development.

Here are several different links you can follow to some of my favourite all time soundtracks/songs from movies in the past 20 years. Everyone hypes over movies like Frozen but I hype over those movies that have the most beautiful instrumental pieces.

In some particular order:

Social Network; David Fincher (2010) (Music by: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yydZbVoCbn0

The Imitation Game; Morten Tyldum (2014) (Music by: Alexandre Desplat) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVDQ9eHYJqk

Interstellar; Christopher Nolan (2014) (Music by: Hans Zimmer) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDVtMYqUAyw

American Beauty; Sam Mendes (1999) (Music by: Thomas Newman) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al21Vtlsg4A

Here is a long video with quite a few different songs from several different films: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nM33VDmzvk (It’s important to note that Hans Zimmer appears quite a few times suggesting that he has done pretty well for himself and is now a well-respected Sound Designer).

Happy Listening!

/ Prepare your tissues /

So after seeing a friend share this video on her Facebook profile I decided I would have a watch… and it was pretty worth it!

It is about a young, to be wedded couple, who go through a life-changing make-over through the ages that they will in the future become (ages 50-90).

The couple get to see each other through these ages together commenting on how they are feeling about what they see and what they think about themselves. Christie mentions that “it’s a really affecting thing to see someone you’ve known since you were 19, in their 70’s and imagine what life would be like then” which for me is important to hear as it shows just how much love these two share for each other and the fact that they still would want to be together at this age.

The idea of togetherness brings many people watching to tears as it shows just how powerful and strong love truly is and that the way a person looks is all to do with the journey they have been on. Christie also mentions that there is a “strange comforting feeling seeing him this way” (THE FEELS !!!)

Something that really stuck with me was the statement Christie makes towards the end of the video; “being about to get married.. I couldn’t be more sure that this is what I want.” #goals

Have a watch and see for yourself just how beautiful this video really is 🙂

 

/ Week 11 – Lectorial Reflection /

‘ The Remix and the Glitch’

Notes I took during the class:

  • The remix & the glitch – breaking things to get at the art
  • There is no such thing as an original idea
  • Remix in pre-digital era was done by the ‘DJ’
  • There were artists that released music specifically for clubs
  • Mash-ups can promote other music.
  • Culture builds on the past and the past always tries to control future

Rip! A remix manifesto – 4:40 -12:15

– Biggie Small – The Notorious B.I.G. –

– Jackson 5 – I want you back

– Lil’ Kim –

– DMX

– B.O.B – nothing on you

– U2

– Get Low (Lil Jon)

 

When thinking about the idea of remixing, I think it is important to consider the fact that these remixes have been created by taking old material and creating something completely new with potentially a different purpose. Does this then make it a breach of copyright if it is just taken to create something new and different?

I believe it is so impossible to not copy anything.. and in my opinion copyright is sometimes a joke. You cannot expect every single human on this earth to come up with something completely new that is not related to anything else.. that’s a ridiculous idea.

/ Progress… – Project Brief 4 /

So far I have been working away at discovering the formulas for television advertisements. I will be completing two case studies in which will show a depth of analysis into the ways in which advertisers attempt to sell individuals a product/idea.

I have decided that I will be comparing two breakfast cereal advertisements, which are targeted towards parents of today’s society. I have not yet chosen which advertisements, however I want them to be similar so that it makes the study more reliable.

I have quite enjoyed this project so far as I am learning more and more about being aware of my surroundings and enabling myself to become aware of the deconstruction process behind media texts.

Feedback from peers has been good in terms of what my group is planning to discuss and analyse. I hope it comes together well 🙂

/ Week 10 – Lectorial Reflection /

Institutions were discussed today (another option for Project Brief 4)

Institutions are:

  • – principles, values, rules that underlie these
  • – social, cultural, political, economic relations
  • – concern with organising structures of society
  • – term for sociology

‘The Wire’ – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire

“Marriage” as a social institution

– industry (commercial (photographers/planners etc.)

– historical continuities

– expectations: values (monogamy)

– a legal framework/regulatory

– meta-institutional frame

– rituals, symbolic

– reproduces social relations/expectations

– romantic love – cultural narratives

– widely accepted/practice

– cultural ‘rules’

– community/social recognition

 

Examples of media institutions:

– ABC

– The News

– Journalism

– Newscorp

– Cinema

– Broadcast Television

– Community Radio

– Public Service Broadcasting

– RRR

 

Media Institutions

– are enduring

– regulate and structure activities

– are ‘collectivist’.

– develop working practices

– employees and people associated are expected to share values

– public is aware of the status

This lecture was a tedious as I was feeling quite tired. However it was interesting to discuss institutions and the power in which they hold.

/ Self-Promo (tbh) /

I’ve decided to upload this lil cover I did of Sia’s Titanium. Singing is a huuuge passion of mine and I sort of wish I was doing that as my main career but it’s so good to have back-ups right! Plus I don’t think I would get very far.. HAHA.

anyway if you are reading this – give it a listen and tell me what you think xx