My Life Through Music

My first experience's of music were largely what my parents and grandparents listened to in the car taking me, and also some of my mum's friends who would look after me whilst she was studying. My very first memory of music would be Michael Jackson's Thriller, as my Nan had the 13 minute long music video on a DVD, and I would watch it on repeat for hours. Aside from that my main music influence would come from Disney Film's such as The Jungle Book and Lion King with particular preference towards, 'The Bare Necessities' and 'I Just Can't Wait To Be King'.

When I went to primary school, my affiliation with musicals was still strong as I was introduced to films such as Grease (which again I would watch on repeat). However I was exposed to more 'pop' music but mainly aimed at children my age such as 'The Fast Food Song' and 'the Macerena' which I was mainly exposed to at discos and children's parties. During the end of primary school I started listening to the songs that my brother was listening to, such as Green Day and Bowling for Soup, as I would borrow his Walkman however I was too young to download songs for myself so would just listen to whatever he put on.

During High School my music taste was significantly less exciting, listening to songs in the charts

such as Beautiful People by Chris Brown and Runaway Baby by Bruno Mars. During this period also I went to the West End a lot so my relationship with musicals furthered, particularly with shows such as Chicago, Wicked and Matilda.

I don't particularly like music these days, I find a lot of the songs sound the same, or lack actual lyrics. The songs i mainly listen to now are throwbacks to the 90's and 00's including my favourite song 'American Boy' by Estelle ft Kanye West, however I do like some newer Beyonce songs such as 'Sorry' and 'Daddy Lesson's.

Weekly News 35

Donald goes to war as Hillary backs recount: Trump accuses the media of IGNORING electoral fraud, claims 'millions' voted illegally, says he WON the popular vote - and calls Clinton a hypocrite

This story comes from the Daily Mail 'U.S' section as is written by Nicki Schwab, and follows after 3 major electoral college states, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, have called for a recount. Since the announcement of the victory of President elect Donald Trump there has been a string of riots and protests, with claims that overall Clinton actually received more votes, and it was the college voting system which awarded Trump his presidency.

 
the outrage sparked is somewhat more humorous as during his campaign, Trump stated that if Clinton won the election, the voting would have been fixed, and also claimed millions that did vote for Clinton, did so illegally.
I personally believe it will be safer for Trump to remain the President elect for the United States as his policies are so extreme, and absurb, that they (hopefully) will never get passed in Congress, compared to Clinton who could easily have policy passed, which could negatively affect the country, however having the first black president to then the first female president, would be very significant in the diversification and modernisation of the U.S.

'Amy' Review

The Oscar award winning documentary Amy, (2015)  was directed by Asif Kapadia and uses a mixture of home videos, magazine photographs, television interviews and audio interviews with her friends to tell her story of her rise and fall with fame.

The film reveals the lesser known story of how Amy Winehouse came into the music industry, and how relationships between her friends, family and her relationships caused her demise. The narrative of the film is similar to that of a Greek tragedy, and centres around Amy, the protagonist, and shows  both her own career decisions led her to a certain path and also the heavy interventions of characters such as her Father, Mitch Winehouse and her long term boyfriend, Blake Fielder. 

Kapadia demonstrates the massive influence/importance of music in Amy's life through the narration via her own song lyrics, both released recordings and captured on home video, that creates the illusion of that the film is some kind of diary make the whole documentary personal to Amy herself. 

Kapdia is a british filmmaker himself which makes the documentary feel more genuine with a British subject such as Amy Winehouse, other films he's made include Senna about the Brazillian Formula One race driver, which won 2 BAFTA film awards, and was nominated for a various other selection. 

Coursework proposal: Update

The idea behind my music video, following on from my research investigation of the representation is to try subvert the representation of women through the common theme of dancing (used in both Blurred Lines and Carry Out of my specific references)

Two of my friends from high school were part of the BGT 2015 finalist and World Champions dance group of Entity of Unity Academy.

 

I plan to have the twins dressed in 'masculine clothing' i.e hoodies and oversized tracksuits etc, dancing in different locations to a remix of 'This is a Man's World' by James Brown. 

At the end of the video the girls will remove their hoods and reveal that they are actually female, therefore subverting the stereotypes of both men and music videos, and showing that women can be assets and features in music videos without having to be sexualised.

Weekly News 34

Is volcanic rock the answer to global warming? Study finds it can permanently trap carbon dioxide in just two years

This story comes from the Daily Mail, 'Science and Tech' section and is written by Cheyenne Macdonald for the Mail Online. 

Most of the headlining stories on the Daily Mail and across the newspapers this week, I found quite trivial mostly talking about the lives of celebrities and uninteresting facts about X Factor or I'm a Celeb so I decided to look a little deeper into the sections of the Daily Mail where I found this story.

This article essentially goes into the science of a research investigation which has revealed that Basalt (rock made from cooling lava) has been found both in laboratory tests and in the field, to absorb and contain carbon dioxide. 

I think it is quite ridiculous to see this discovery so deep into the site, as it could mean big things in terms of the worlds growing Carbon Footprint which is massively endangering our planet, and the alternate headlining stories include an image of a pair of flip flops that have gone viral, and Cheryl Cole hiding her baby bump at her mum's birthday meal.



The layout of these articles demonstrate that mainstream society is in more sensationalist stories, ones that cause gossip and talking points, rather than events and discoveries, that could massively impact the way we live our lives.

Coursework proposal

Last year for my coursework production I did a DVD cover and film poster.

My MS3 statement for this year is to 'Explore the representation of women in popular music videos with specific reference to Blurred Lines, Carry Out and If I Were A Boy' therefore, this year for my media production I plan on creating a music video. I am still unsure on the specifics however I think I wish to include a generational concept for my narrative to show the different representations of women at different ages.

Weekly News 33

'Lego ends advertising with the Daily Mail after calls for companies to 'Stop Funding Hate'

This story comes from the Independent, and is written by Ben Kentish.

The decision comes following a story made by the Daily Mail, where they slammed 3 High Court Judges for postponing Brexit. 

(story available here)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3901170/The-three-judges-blocked-Brexit.html

Interestingly, I found this article through searching for the Daily Mail for a story for weekly news, as the paper often posts controversial content.

the article says 

"Stop Funding Hate urges advertisers to rethink their ‘support’ for rightwing newspapers over what it sees as misleading headlines about child refugees, and the recent ruling by High Court judges that Parliament must be consulted before Article 50 is triggered."

Other companies targeted by the campaign are the CO-OP group, John Lewis, Waitrose, and Marks and Spencers. This group of companies targeted suggests the class of people who are campaigning against the Daily Mail are of a middle class background, as these are more of the high end versions of high street stores. Which also relates to the Independent newspaper which is a more high brow/middle class newspaper. 

The campaign has also received celebrity endorsement in the form of Gary Lineaker who is the spokesperson for Walkers. Lineaker has backed the 'Stop Funding Hate' campaign from the beginning and has revealed he has spoken to the crisp company about removing their adverts from 'the Sun' newspaper'  

Gogglebox Prezi

History of Television

TV Scheduling

What is TV scheduling?

Broadcast programming or TV scheduling is the placement and organisation of different Television shows and films to enhance the show’s audience potential. Certain more popular or higher budget works are put in what is called a ‘prime time slot’ of 7-9pm where the highest audience numbers are recorded.  There are 3 main concepts to TV scheduling; inheritance, pre-echo and hammocking.

Inheritance is the idea that a new programme follows after a popular programme and subsequently inherits some of its audience.  An example of this may be Our Girl on at 9pm on BBC One, which followed the extensively popular Great British Bake Off which is on at 8. Viewers may have just finished watching GBBO and with the swiftly following, engaging titles of Our Girl their attention is not diverted enough to change channels. This also means the reasonably new series of Our Girl, which is only on its second season, gains an audience which may usually be out of their targeted bracket.

 

Pre-echo follows a similar system to inheritance, where the programme is scheduled before a popular programme, so that any viewers tuning in early may catch the end and tweak the audience’s interest either to catch up or tune in next week. An example being new game show ‘Meet the Parents’ before ‘X factor’ on prime time Saturday ITV. This is a good way for new shows to attract audiences as the more popular shows have guaranteed audiences which boosts the ratings.

The third concept is called Hammocking, where a show is scheduled in between 2 popular shows so it gains both the advantages of pre-echo and inheritance scheduling.

Target audiences also determine the type of scheduling, and the times of day in which they are shown, this includes:

Early morning: people who work early, children

Day time: students, unemployed, house wives, shift workers

Prime time: everyone, families

Late night: unemployed, students, shift workers

The ‘Watershed’ is a system in place to put any programmes with explicit language, scenes of an explicit nature and programmes where the content is viewed unsuitable for children. This is another way to target the audience as it suggests that the children have gone to bed and therefore the content is aimed at adults/parents.

Weekly News 31

'This Years I'm a Celebrity....Get Me Out Of Here! has been revealed, and there is lots of potential for the famous Jungle shower'

This story comes from the Sun and is written by Andy Halls, TV editor in Queensland Australia.

I was interested by this article as I watch I'm a Celeb every year, and I also thought it could link in with the 'reality TV' show case studies for the exam.

The title of this article is quite misogynistic, picking out the famous 'jungle shower' shot of one of the female celebrities in a bikini in the shower as the most pivotal and important part of the show. Following the initial famous shower shot of Myleene Klass in 2006, viewers have come to expect a beautiful young girl amongst the campmates.

The title suggests that the shower scene is the only reason the women are in this years season, despite many of the women such as Scarlett Moffat and Carol Vorderman being household names in their own respect.

The article then goes on to give a brief description of each of the 'celebrities' and suggest s what the campmate is most likely to do i.e Carol is 'most likely to tell people what she thinks of them'.