Institutional Research

A2 Media Studies – G324 Advanced Portfolio – Institutional Research

You have to show that you fully understand the issue around music publishing, distribution and marketing and the role that film and music institutions play in the process of bringing an artist to market.

You will need to research how bands, artists and their music products find their way onto the market and how these products are distributed across a range of platforms and the institutions that are behind this distribution and marketing.

Choose about 3 companies that are relevant to the kind of artists you are working on.  The points you need to cover are:

1. The company’s background.  How long has it been in business, who owns it? What other artists are associated with them?
2. Explain why this company is relevant to your project.  What makes them a relevant company for your artist? How are the company positioned to promote your artist. Think about horizontal and vertical integration as well as cross-media convergence.
3. How is technology going to impact upon the distribution and exhibition of your artists products?
4. Are their opportunities for cross-media convergence and synergy?  Explain why.
5. What other options do you have for marketing and distributing your product independently?

Audience Research: Pre-Production

A2 Media Studies – G324 Advanced Portfolio – Audience Research

A compulsory part of your planning is to submit evidence of Audience Research.  This will take the form pre and post production research and feedback and every detail will need to be recorded onto your blog.

Pre-Production

Who are your target audience?  You need to be able to clearly demonstrate you know who your target audience are and how, in the planning, you are attempting to create media products that will appeal to them.
Part of this is to complete the following;
1. An audience survey that focuses upon audiences tastes, expectations and media consumption habits and the role that music/film plays in their lives? Where and how do they consume film/music? How much are they prepared to pay for it? Who often do they stream legally/illegally?  What platforms do they use?

2.  A psychographic and demographic profile of your core audience, including details of their media consumption habits, their interests and hobbies.

Post-production
Once you have completed a rough cut of your film/video, get some audience feedback.  Is your film/video working the way you hope it is?  Are the representations understandable, are the performances authentic, is the camerawork/editing effective?  Use your audience to provide you with feedback that you can act upon in the final edit.

Remember, everything you do needs to be recorded on your blog and evaluated!

Making the Ordinary Extraordinary

One of the key features of a pop promo is to make the ordinary appear extraordinary, whatever the situation.  The combination of camera shots and angles, lighting, mise-en-scene and editing combine to present to us a world that is somehow extraordinary.

 

1. Watch your allocated pop promo

Make detailed notes on how the micro-elements combine to make the ordinary appear extraordinary;

• Camera shot, angle and movement
• Lighting
• Mise-en-scene
• Editing
• Performance

2. Using the keys cmd+shift+4 take screen grabs from the pop video that illustrate how each of the micro-elements is used to make the ordinary feel extra-ordinary and represent the artist as a ‘product’.

3. Using the screen grabs, create a 5/6 frame annotated storyboard that clearly demonstrates how the world of the pop video is made to feel extraordinary