Sams Development

At our last group meeting we drew up a storyboard and decided exactly what we are going to do for our short film.  By this I mean; when we are going to film, where we are gong to film and what we are going to film.

Although this is an advert for a Nokia mobile phone, I really like the way this advert is shot and how they have edited the clips in post-production. Much like this advert, we have decided to use shots of mobiles and other devices playing their own video, as well as extreme close-up's of the exchanging of money, typing and connecting of devices. This song; Ridum by Joe Driscoll, is also a great song to fit this 'funky' video.

Sam Development- Presenation and my short Animation

Presentation
This week I have been taking my section of the essay and using it to form the basis of my part of the presentation. I did this by re-writing it in a presentation format, by picking out only the key factors of each point, so I can expand on each one through speech.

Video
I also thought I would upload my animation I created at GCSE Level so i can see which factors I would keep the same (if any), and which I would change in our video project.

We are not going to include as much stop-motion in our video as it would take far too long and the quality may be affected. I also feel that clay-mation would not work well for our video, as with media convergence we want it to look sharp and contemporary. I don't feel this could be achieved using clay.

However I do like the idea of having some music or soundtrack in our video, as it will make it more interesting and gives us something to edit our clips to in post-production.

Sam's Development- Research for Our Film

As we are going to produce a fun, modern and partly animated video on media convergence, I have started to research videos on YouTube which I hope will give us more inspiration.

I really like this animated video explaining media convergence, it includes many recent fact and figures, cleverly highlights the importance of convergence and is most importantly visually interesting.

I feel that this video has given me some great ideas for our own video, as I loved the way it had illustrations and images for every point given, as well as including small sized video clips within the video itself.

Sams Development

Over the past week I have been writing up my section of the essay and researching part-animated YouTube videos for inspiration for our 5 minute video. I have written up the section of our essay which looks at Media Convergence and it's challenges to society. I found this section quite difficult to write up as we found it hard to find theories and quotes relating to this part of the essay.

Here is a section of what I've written so far:

"Although media convergence offers many opportunities to society, it also poses many challenges too. At present day, media “convergence is throwing up new media services at a prodigious rate”, this makes it difficult for society to keep up with every single adaption and addition."

I will also post up some of the videos I looked into, as well as my own which I produced at GCSE level.

Sams Development

Whilst researching the term 'Media Convergence' I found that there is no single definition or even a similar description for it. I feel this is because the phrase 'Media Convergence' covers such a wide range of topics such as technological, organisational and industrial, so therefore there cannot be a single explanation.

I researched many books such as:

• Ambivalence Towards Convergence Digitalization and Media Change
• Understanding Media Convergence
• Convergence Culture Where Old and New Media Collide
• Media Policy: Convergence, Concentration and Commerce
• Media Society, Industries, Images and Audiences

But the most simple yet effective definition I could find was in this book :

• Understanding Media Convergence the State of Field

'(Jim Carroll's off-quoted explanation of why it's like teenage sex)

• No one knows what it is but thinks that it must be great.
• Everyone thinks that everyone else is doing it.
• Those who say they are doing it are probably lying.
• The few who are doing it aren't doing it well.
• Once they start doing it, they realize that it's going to take them a long time to do it right.
• They'll also soon start realizing that there is no "right" way to do it.

(Poynterextra, 2002)'

Grant. E, A. Wilkinson. S.J, (2009), Understanding Media Convergence the State of Field, Oxford University Press.


This is another simple definition I found, it explains both media convergence and multi-platforms in one simple phrase:

'By media convergence, I mean the flow of content accross multiple media platforms'

Jenkins. H, (2006), Convergence Culture Where Old and New Media Collide, New York University Press.

Development: Group Meeting

Today we met as a group and discussed how we are going to address each section of this assignment (the essay, short film, presentation and this Blog). We have decided to firstly prioritise the essay as we feel that it will be easier to pursue the other projects once we have gained all the information we need for the written essay (from books and theories to video clips and blogs).

We also drew up an essay structure and put together all of our ideas about media convergence and the opportunities/challenges to both industry and society.

For next week we are each researching media convergence and one aspect of the essay; such as challenges to society or opportunities to creative industries.

Introduction to our Blog

Our group consists of Sam McMahon, Hannah Cummins, John English and Cobi Elliott.

As a group we are going to explore Media Convergence, and its opportunities and challenges to creative industries and to society as a whole. We are going to answer this question through writing a 3000 word essay, producing a short film explaining the developments of media convergence and creating a digital presentation. All of our developments such as theories we have learnt, videos we have explored and analysed, meetings we have had as a group as well as knowledge we have gained as individuals, will all be compiled in this Blog.