This is our video component to the module.
End of the module
After presenting our presentation last Thursday, that was our last lecture with Yuwei and Deborah, we came in today (Monday) and edited the last bits of our video, up to now its taken 5 hours but the video is turning out to be what we wanted. As we took it all with Brittanys SLR camera, it took a long time fitting all the photos together to make our own little stop motion video. Today we will also hand in all the work for our module. We have learnt a lot in Yuwei’s lecture’s with the help of Deborah, its made us realise how much technology has changed around society and we notice media convergence in everything!
Brittany MacRae, Michaela Roy, Remi Turner, Dan Broome and Kelsey Saunders
:)
The start of the video!
we all got together as a group today and started the video on media convergence.
Michaela made a script for us to follow from. This really helped because first time we tried to make the video we didn’t do much because we hadn’t planned out the shots.
We wanted to do something a little different and wanted to do something different. We decided to do stop motion.
Brittany brought her camera in and taken lots of shots.
We taken images of ipads, computer, iphones and news papers.
We decided to also include a voice over and use a marantz to do this.
I thought it really helped us and we got a lot done.
Last Thursday we got some great shots for our video. I (Michaela) typed up a structure to stick to and we seemed to get a lot done, then we even had time to experiment. We have all planned to meet up early Monday morning and edit the video, add audio and get it all finished before the deadline hits.
Today we had Nicky Campbell telling us about his career and how he achieved it. It was very interesting as he kept comparing technology and media from when he was younger to how things have changed now. He talked a lot about how communication was mainly through a fax machine and now he has mobile phones he can watch movies on his phone and listen to 5Live on his phone. I thought the talk was very important for us because it was somebody speaking with experience and somebody who has lived through the changes of media and could explain to us from personal experience. To end the show he even took a photo of us and posted it on twitter to show just how much technology has changed.
Our last lecture
Today was our last formal lecture. Unfortunately we only had an hour but it was a great summary in what we had learnt in the past. We went over key words such as transmedia, prosumption etc. Something I found really interesting was the video Yuwei showed us. The video consisted of a band playing the nyancat song (http://nyan.cat/, where you can add nyancat of facebook or follow on twitter) and lot of other memes. Memes are something found in internet culture (http://memebase.com/). This is something that people who use the internet a lot and are a part of this culture will understand and gain a sense of community.
Memes are a way of turning everyday occurrences, feelings, news stories etc. into something we can laugh at. These faces (or memes) are used over and over in images to create scenarios. People over time understand what the faces mean and the repetition in other new scenarios are fun for the audience.
Today we also began to shoot our video. We have decided to do a stop-motion type video. We had a few troubles with the camera unfortunately and things didn’t go to plan but we decided we would try again on Monday. We also sorted out our presentation.
On Friday 17th November, me (Brittany MacRae) and Michaela Roy had attending a meeting for an upcoming film called “The Rochdale Pioneers”. We are working on this film, both onscreen and as crew and its a very interesting film. At the meeting they mentioned not only are we filming the film but everything we do will be blogged and kept for an interaction documentary which will contain all the facts about the Rochdale Pionneers as well as behind the scenes interviews and information. Also soon we will soon be launching a website dedicated to the remake, where people can get involved. The new film will be the result of a collaborative process and people can follow the film’s production progress through dedicated social media channels.
“Transmedia storytelling is like a game of Chinese Whispers” - Sophia Lazarides
Brittany MacRae-16th November
As we have already mention Liz coming in to inform us of what she is creating and improving, I would like to mention my favourite part of the talk. Liz mentioned they are trying to improve TV to suit people with limited mobility because of course people will have carers but she wants to improve media so they can access tv themselves and not have to rely on somebody else. She mentioned that already she has tried out different touchscreens which will be added to their wheelcheers and can be used by touching, blinking, or a remote attached to their heads. I thought this was a great idea because not only is she thinking of others but to create something which allows people who can barely move to be able to take control. I thought it was really interesting that in the BBC rooms there is a room made to look like an ordinary living room where they put people when practising new media to make them feel comfortable. She will then monitor them through a false mirror. She makes sure she has all the facts and isn’t copying something thats already been created, therefore she goes through a number of steps before physically trying out the item.
Another interesting element I thought was when she talked about documentries which have extra information on the website. She used an animal documentary as an example and says to make the extra information more assesable (so you don’t have to be searching and searching a website) when the programme is on she is creating an app which will work for laptops and all tablets (such as ipad) and the app will know when the programme is on and pop up a link to automatically take you to the page which holds extra information. She calls this the second screen and I think its a brilliant idea.
14th November
Today we had Alex Connock giving us a talk of future TV. The meeting consist of a number of videos shown to us which involve interaction. The video was really interesting, and are found on the website www.interlude.fm. Alex mentions that interaction has been used for years, however it has been reformed and inproved in diffferent ways making new media for future tv. During the video shown within it we had 3 options on which character should sing the song next, this was great because it was cleverly done as no matter what you picked the film never cut into a different character it was carried on. Another video was shown from a university student a few years ago and she made a film called “The Little Red Plane”. This gave me an idea for our group video for Yuwei, I though of doing a stop motion video showing how different media has expanding into a hybrid of medias (from small to large back to small, to show its a loop and with never stop changing).
This is an image of a robot called Daleketta. The robot talks and interacts. Daleketta has a universal control which was really interesting. When Doctor Who was on the Deleketta robort would copy what he said and repeat it.
In today’s lesson we had a visit from Liz Valentine. Liz Valentine works for the BBC in the research and delvelopment. She gave us a really interesting talk about what her job involves and what she does day to day. Liz comes up with ideas and tries to get them broadcasted.
She picked out a interesting quote.
” The relationship with the audience is changing particually with the growth of Social Media”
I think this is a really interesting quote because technology is developing each day and with technlogy improving it gives us more plans to do in the future.
She told us plans that she has for the future. In the future they plan to make digital boxes much easier for people with learning difficulities. She plans to have a remote with different colours on that goes to different channels.
I enjoyed listening to Liz because in lessons all the time we try and create new shows for small exercises and shes the lady who thinks of things to do. Although its a very small department you could see the passion she has for the job. It makes you think that if you come up with an idea it could be taken on. It also shows how in the future there is be a huge improvement and will be expecting many exciting things.
This console is a good example of what is loosing revenues. Nintendo had been runing out of money so introduced the Nintendo 3ds but didn’t make as much as expected. Poeple would rather buy an ipad and buy free apps or buy apps for £1.50 instead of £40 games.
In todays lesson we looked at the impacts of media convergences on the gaming industry. The gaming industry is such a massive target but gaming companies are loosing out on money. Large busineses such as Nintendo are loosing out on money because there are new technologies with games built in. With technlogy such as Ipads and I pods it now makes it easier and cheaper to play games on hand held technology and instead of buying a large console. Concole’s are not the only gaming consoles on the market. Sales figures of Nintendo DS hardware didn’t do as well as expected.
We learnt that on the context of media studies a text is any media product. Images are represented as signs. A good thing that Yuwei did in the lesson was to find an image in the metro news paper and find out what it’s representing.
I found this really interesting because you don’t actually think of what its actually representing until you look fully into detail.
