Genre Research

Genre: Rap

Rap:

The rap genre/rap music is undoubtedly one of the most popular forms of music throughout the centuries its existed. It is a form rhythmic speech usually performed over a backbeat or instrumental which helps to draw in the audience as it gives them something to dance to or help to remember the lyrics. The word rap formerly meant "to lightly strike" in 16th century Britain  which then went on "to converse" the 60s in America. Presently it is referred to as a musical style.

Early 80s rap video:

Modern rap video:

Top record labels:

• OVO Sound
• Maybach Music
• Aftermath
• Shady Records
• Death row
• Def Jam

Forms and Conventions:

• The form of rap is nowadays commonly based on the artist having a bad childhood and how they have come up through this struggle, acting as role models to people in their same situation. This is shown through their lyrics and music videos.
• The costume that these artists wear consist of tracksuits or well known branded clothing that they are also using as promotion e.g. Stormzy wearing Adidas
• They are usually shown wearing rings, chains, watches and all sorts of jewelry to show that hard work pays off/what money can get you once you've made it.
• The music videos themselves stereotypically consist of drugs and violence accompanied with angry facial expressions from the artist/artists as they are rapping.
• The locations used for rap videos within the UK mainly use council estates/in a dark atmosphere as they show where the grew up and that they've made it out of there or they are shown living a life of luxury with the money that they've made as if they are showing off. 

Technical Post - Green Screen

Advantages:

• Quick and easy to use as not much equipment is required.
• It is a very cheap option in terms of bringing the location to the studio.
• Production  time will be shortened due to the easily changeable backgrounds.

Creativity

Blog:

The layout of our blog was a pretty simple blog which had sidebars and task bars so its easy for the audience to find little things that they want to look for rather than have to look through everything. This blog includes both the preliminary task and our actual thriller opening with all the research for this embedded in between. This can be accessed through "St Marks Media Blogs" in the section marked "Group Blogs"

Preliminary Task:

Thriller Opening:

Both the preliminary task and thriller opening were a success in terms of what we going for/trying to gain from the audience. The work on continuity editing within the preliminary task allowed us to apply this skill into our thriller opening which helped to create a lot of verisimilitude. In terms of improvement, there were scenes within the thriller opening that had very dark scenes which reduced the quality of certain scenes. Therefore I would have liked to use a farm room with better lighting which would allow us to film scenes in higher quality.

Conventions from real media texts

Post-Production - Directors Cut

Captioned Images

For the editing phase, we used Final Cut Pro on the iMacs where all raw footage from our filming was uploaded and put together in the timeline to create the final product that was our thriller opening. There were a few sound difficulty problems due to filming in quite loud and public areas so we were able to use Final Cut Pro to adjust the volume and increase it so that the dialogue could be heard.

Also with the lighting, a few scenes were quite dark when we filmed it so during the editing phase, we were also able to adjust the brightness so that the darker scenes were better lit so the action could be seen but still give the effect we wanted to have on the audience.

In terms of titles, we were also able to add text into the opening sequences of the producers, cast, editors etc., and we chose the right size, font and color text to add into it so that it was still visible to the audience but in the corner and not too big so that it wasn't a big distraction from the action that was occurring.

For certain scenes we wanted to use different effects to give the audience a realistic thriller feel to our opening and we were able to add things like cctv camera edits over our clips in the shop scene and interrogation scene which created a lot of verisimilitude.

For the audio lines within the opening, we added background music from an non-copyrighted source which helped to emphasise the thriller effect behind the action and the dialogue that occurred which I think turned out quite successfully.

The Research and Planning Processes

Research:

Thriller Opening - The Dark Knight

This particular research on actual thriller openings was very useful to our own thriller opening. We were able to pick out different aspects that occurred/conventions within the opening of 'The Dark Knight' and found what gave it that thriller like element. For example, the use of the mask to hide the Jokers identity gave us the idea to also use this with our own protagonist which emphasised the elements of a thriller. Also it helped us with how our opening credits should come into the opening and the idea of jumping straight into the action.

This type of research/audience profile was useful to us as it allowed us to look at someone of our own age and the reasonings for watching films so we could apply this to our own work and make the target audience want to watch this film. This included having lots of action involved within the opening. Also, finding out their favourite thriller film/s helped us to look at these openings to pick out the conventions that gave it a good opening and apply these to our own thriller openings.

Planning:

For the planning, my group decided to do a storyboard and an animatic to present the ideas of our thriller opening and how things were going to pan out. The storyboard was successful as it allowed us to plan out the events within the thriller and highlight where things like the credits would enter, where the action would begin, etc. The animatic allowed us to plan out the timings of the actual thriller opening and helped to plan out what needed to be shortened so that it fit the time gap and overall this was successful as our thriller opening followed this.

Use of Digital Technology

In this audio podcast, I talk about pre-production, production and post production (Three stages of production) and how they were used throughout the making of my thriller opening.

Thriller opening:

Collective Identity: Representation of Youth

Self – representation and online identity

Zoella

Zoe Elizabeth Sugg, is a fashion/beauty vlogger and author but is best known as highly rated YouTuber, Zoella. She birthed into the YouTube/blogger world in 2009 and has gained 11.8 million+ subscribers to date, becoming one of YouTube's most influential vloggers of all time.

(Zoella Website/Blog)

https://www.zoella.co.uk/

In terms of her homepage for her blog, it consists of very light/pale colours such as baby pink, purple, yellow etc. and this highlights her gender as well as who her target audience is to gain a wider audience. As you can see, there is a link with the message "who run the world?" which comes from the song performed by Beyoncé which targets women throughout the world. therefore Zoella has a similar target audience of young females in society and emphasising this message.

Also, at the top of the homepage, there are fairy lights dangling which you usually associate with teenage girls as they tend to have these in their bedrooms which again links Zoella with her audience.

As seen at the top of the screen, Zoella has her own brand logo in a handwritten font, suggesting that its her own handwriting and emphasising the fact that this is all her own work and created everything all by herself.

The banner includes, beauty, food, life, places, style and the shop, giving the viewers a variety of options to choose from within the website.

(Zoella Main YouTube Channel)

 https://www.youtube.com/user/zoella280390

Zoella has created 2 YouTube channels, one for fashion and beauty and the other for what she does in her everyday life. Within her main channel, there are many fashion and beauty videos which consist of makeovers, new products being tested and competitions for her viewers to win prizes such as her own products so they too can belike her. Therefore she is viewed as a role model to her young female audience.

 (Zoella 2nd Channel)

https://www.youtube.com/user/MoreZoella/featured

Zoella's second channel "MoreZoella" consists of vlogs of her everyday life, be it through collaborations with other YouTubers such as brother, Joe Sugg and also boyfriend, Alfie Deyes, formerly known as 'PointlessBlog'. This blog tends to be more of a chill blog that both genders can associate with and enjoy as it drifts away from the main female related blog.

As well as her YouTube channels, Zoella use various different media platforms to promote her work and gain an even wider audience to connect herself with. All this has made her the successful person she is today and continues to be.

These are some of the clothes that are sold within the Zoella shop on her website and as seen, it s for a female audience.