Focus Group

So this week was the week for us to do our focus group to find out how viewers interact with multi platform programmes and what they gain from this experience. 

After all doing our own individual research on two shows each, we decided as a group that the 3 most successful multi platform programmes are The X Factor, Embarrassing Bodies and Million Pound Drop. We wanted to do 3 shows from 3 different genres so we could show the contrast between them. I felt like this was a really good idea because it demonstrates that multi platform isn't genre specific and by exploring different genres we are covering a wider range of television. 

We asked our Focus group to firstly play on the apps of either The Million Pound Drop, Embarassing Bodies or X Factor. However we also added in the Deal Or No Deal App on the day because we had failed to predownload The X Factor App. If we were to do it again, we would be more organised. Participants were then asked to order a list of emotions in the order they had felt them, such as happy, excited, tense, angry. All individuals then filled in a postcard, explaining what their favourite app was and then to recommend it to someone and a device to use it on. This allowed for us to get quantitative results meaning that we could easily analyse them and use them as research towards answering our question. 

We found that our focus group preferred to play the Million Pound Drop as they said it was engaging and visually pleasing. They preferred to play it on a touch screen device as they found it easier to transfer their money across. However our focus group quickly grew bored of the Embarassing Bodies App showing that it is more well suited for informative purposes and offers no entertainment value showing us that fans will spend more time on game show apps than factual show apps. Our focus group also enjoyed the Deal Or No Deal App as they enjoyed conversing with each other to discuss what to do next showing that this works better as a social activity. 

I felt that it was really important to do a focus group as it allowed us to find out what people thought of our apps in a controlled and hands on way. If I was going to do it again I would make the activity less complicated as sometimes participants were confused. 

Digital Artefact Complete!

We recently handed in our digital artefact in for 'Beyond the Camera' and after a stressful day of getting it all together I was glad to be finished with it! The fact we left it last minute made me realise that with practical projects especially, it is definitely best planning ahead and doing it days before the deadline as things can go wrong randomly when playing around with software and it creates a stressful environment. 

Capturing our own images and sounds were something really important to us as we wanted to make as much of this project 'ours' as possible and I really enjoyed going round taking photographs with an actor and creating our story. On reflection it was much easier to take our own images because we could get it exactly the way we wanted. However recording our own sound was harder because we didn't have the equipment to record sound in a clear way so we had to use sounds off the internet on the whole. If we were going to do it again we would definitely try harder to get more sounds of our own.

The process of piecing it all together went quite well. Using After Effects was easy for me after the tutorial and I was happy that I felt so confident using it. I will definitely go online and get some more tutorials to learn more as I realise that it is a useful skill to have. 

I was proud of the final product because it looked extremely professional and I was surprised that just 2 students like us had produced it!

TV Studio Post Production

After getting our tapes of our two recordings back, Ashleigh, Dave and I went straight to the editing suite to get started on piecing it all together. Once we got started, it was easy as there wasn't much for us to do - we only had to piece it together, add graphic and the credits and titles. 

However the titles caused us great issues. Originally we had planned to have our presenter dressed up in a variety of sporting costumes and quickly cut from costume to costume but due to scheduling issues this wasn't able to happen. So I quickly came up with the idea of a montage of celebratory sporting moments because I thought that this would promote a more positive image of sport and if people just watched the titles, they could see what the show was about. I quickly gathered a few clips online and edited them all together on Premiere Pro. I was really proud of myself for doing this as I'd never used Premiere Pro before so managed to teach myself it in a short amount of time under pressure showing that I am a fast learner - a vital skill to have in any career but especially a media career. 

I really enjoyed post production as I got a chance to learn new skills on Premiere Pro and Avid and got to practice existing skills even more. Editing is definitely something I enjoy and I look forward to practicing this skill more - hopefully when making my own films in my spare time. I also really loved having more responsibility of what the show would turn out like through offering suggestions and doing a lot of editing myself. Overall I am incredibly proud of our TV show and hope the marks reflect the effort we put into it!

TV Music Shoot!

A few days ago we had our music shoot for our TV show. As well as the guest and the demo, we also had to have a music segment at the end. The university had kindly provided us with a band, TJ & Murphy, and after choosing a song at a showcase they did for us a few weeks ago, we were given that song and the lyrics so that the director could create an imaginative camera script.

By watching other music performances on television I noticed that the filming of a performance is a lot different to the filming of an interview. It requires a lot more interesting shots including zooming in and out, the use of pull focus, and plenty of pans across. 

Our filming went well however I have to admit that I let the side down. As I've mentioned, camera work isn't my strong point, especially in highly pressured situations. I am good with handheld camcorders, SLRs and the Sony Z1s, but when they are in a TV studio, I just freeze up and get nervous so my nerves distract me. I know this is something I need to work on and I'm definitely going to use my spare time to become more comfortable with cameras as it is best to go into the media industry with as many skills as possible. 

Digital Media Cultures Essay

After weeks of lectures, it was finally time to choose our essay question. As with all projects and essays I ever do, I always aim to choose to do it on something that I am really interested in so that I can expand my knowledge in those areas. My central interest is television as this is where I hope to see my career go when I graduate. My secondary interest is radio as I love doing my weekly show with James Dunn, Stay Fresh, Liverpool (https://www.facebook.com/StayFreshLiverpool) so whenever I can involve these aspects into my degree I love it because I know that I will work so much harder if I enjoy it. 

However looking at the questions available, I also needed to be a sensible student and look at what question I can see myself getting the best marks on as obviously the higher the better. I didn't feel that any of the questions relating to television were going to produce my strongest answers so I began to look at what other areas I was interested in, and what questions looked more suitable for me. 

I eventually chose the question, "Assess how the internet has changed the music industry?". I felt confident with this as I already knew of a few reasons so I just had to go and research these reasons in depth using books and academic journals and apply this to the question. Me and deadlines have an unusual relationship. I prefer to wait till the last possible minute as then I can feel the pressure and it gets the adrenaline going and I do all the work to a high standard. Some people argue that this means that I rush it or I do no work but this is definitely not true. I work more efficiently quicker and under pressure which I think is an excellent skill to have as the media is a high pressure industry with tight deadlines. 

As this is my first essay that I have ever properly researched and referenced I hope I do really well on it! 

Applied Media Research - X Factor

The other show that I chose to research before the group decided on our final 3 was The X Factor. This is another one of my favourite programmes, and I'm an active user of their multi platform services so it wasn't much trouble to research!

The X Factor
The X Factor is one of the country's biggest talent shows so it is only to be expected that it would have a strong multi platform presence as it is essential to keep momentum going. 

The key element of The X Factor's multiplatform programming is their mobile app which features a range of behind the scenes footage, providing fans with an insight into what goes into making the show, what the contestants go through, and allows fans to learn more about their favourite contestant. There were videos of the performances and judges comments for people who missed the live show, backstage videos showing makeup and singing tutorials, interviews sponsored by Talk Talk in which fans could interact and send in their own questions, backstage photos, footage from the Xtra Factor for people who missed that show, exclusive messages from the contestants, insights into what goes into the styling of the contestants and interviews with them about their style. The App also allowed for fans to have their say about what they thought, with regular live votes throughout the show about who was the best dressed judge and if judges were right in their opinion. Throughout the week there were more votes for fans to take part in to keep them entertained and interested whilst the show wasn’t on, on things such as, who was their favourite judge and if the right person went home that week.

 Another one of the App’s unique selling points was the ‘Tap to Clap’ game in which fans, whilst a contestant is performing, can access the app and vote whether they are enjoying the performance by either repeatedly pressing a “Boo” or a “Clap” button, the more they press this, the further along the scale their vote goes, to whatever end they want, either the red zone meaning they hate it, or the green zone meaning they loved it.

 With the polls for fans and the ‘Tap to Clap’, fans were able to see what other people were voting as the app allowed for fans to login via Facebook so they could see what their friends were voting for, and so they could share what they thought with their Facebook friends.

·      The App also allowed you to login via twitter to get an update on all of the contestants twitter accounts that you follow.

I found that the app allowed for fans to keep interacting with the show throughout the week when the show wasn't on, which kept them interested till the weekend as you could track contestant's progress. In today's world, audiences tend to be fickle with shows they watch and get bored and switch off easily so it is extremely important for fans to stay gripped. 

·      Fans could also use the official X Factor Facebook and Twitter pages to interact with the show. Nowadays it is vital for all major shows to have official social media pages as it has become a key marketing technique to drum up attention for a show. Also fans like to feel like they can directly contact the show with their thoughts and opinions and feel like they are cared about. During the live shows, the Facebook page posted backstage pictures of the judges and contestants and asked fans to comment on their views of that particular performance, making fans feel like their opinions mattered. The official ‘X Factor’ Facebook page had a link to a ‘Talk Talk’ page in which they regularly had webcahts with different contestants enabling fans to send in their questions to their favourite contestant.The official ‘X Factor’ Twitter page often asked for fans to tweet in requests for certain contestants to say hi to them via an ‘X Factor’ sign which was a photo of a contestant with a written piece of paper saying hi to that twitter user and then their autograph. For fans to get this, they often had to be the fastest tweeter in reply to the ‘X Factor’s tweet asking for the next line of lyrics from a song. For fans being asked by their favourite show to interact with them is a great honour to them and they feel like they are worth something. If fans feel they are important to the show's success, they will keep tuning in week after week. The great success of the show's social netowrking sites is shown in numbers, with the Facebook page having over 6.5 MILLION likes and the twitter having over 2.8 million followers. 

·      The ‘X Factor’ also has a big following on Youtube as fans can go back and view performances from any series as many times as they like allowing contestants to potentially gain an international following if their video goes viral.  In 2012, every audition clip, live performance and behind the scenes interview were put on the official Youtube channel, the app and the website – previously only selected content was available on each medium.  The Youtube channel managed to generate around 30 million video views a week, compared to 12 million from previous series. 75% of these views were from outside the UK showing the international popularity of the programme. The channel now has over 1.3 million subscribers and over 1.4 billion views overall. The videos also regularly make the most viewed lists on YouTube. This shows that the need for shows to be cross platform is essential and can help make a show even more successful as the way in which people watch and interact with TV is different – people like to be able to access it anywhere, anytime on all the platforms, and share clips that they enjoy with their friends.

·

·      After the success of X Factor UK’s attempt at being multiplatform, it was only natural for the American version of the show to take this on for fans of the American show.

·      This was shown to be successful as they won 3 awards in the 2012 Social TV Awards: ‘Best TV Show Specific Social TV Award’, ‘Best Social TV Integration of Twitter’ and ‘Best of Show’ – all for the X Factor Cross Platform Experience.

·      Don Fox, Vice President of Brand Entertainment for Fox stated that “Digital became a high priority for us – much more than in the past” and “the buzz was undeniable” with the show regularly being in the top 5 most talked about shows over social media

·      Sponsors set up their own social media efforts, asking fans to interact with the show more, for example, ‘Pepsi Choice Performance’ where fans could vote on a contestant’s song choice, wardrobe style, dance and set style. ‘Verizon’ used touch voting  where customers with Android phones could vote by just touching a contestant’s photo

    I really enjoyed researching into the X Factor's multiplatform services as I use them myself and find them entertaining. I was shocked to find out just how successful they were and this proves that making a popular show multiplatform on a range of devices that also allow audience participation and gives exclusive content anywhere and anytime is crucial in the success of a show. 

·   

TV Show Filming!

All the anticipation and planning had been building up to one day: Wednesday 28th November 2012. This was the day that we were going to film the interview and demo for our show, 'The Beautiful Sport'. 

The day before, our group went in to set up for the show. We wanted it to look feminine but also sleek, so men wouldn't switch off because it looked too 'girly'. We wanted it also to look bright and happy to promote a positive image of sport and make people feel almost energised watching it. Whilst helping to make all the decisions of the set, it made me realise that the image of the show is just as important as the content because if the show looks rubbish to the viewer, they will be more likely to switch over. I was really proud of the finished product because it looked like a professional studio and looked great on camera.
Here is a photo of what our studio looked like:

I then went home and wrote the camera script that the director was going to use to direct us on the cameras. I found it hard at first but once I got into it it wasn't so bad. I'm really happy that I had the opportunity to do this because it allowed me to have an insight into another area of the TV industry. Looking back at it, I don't think directing is for me because I found it really difficult to work out what the cameras would look best filming at that specific time

When it came to the actual filming of the show, I was feeling pretty nervous as I'd never done anything like this before but thankfully we had a few practice runs. When we all felt confident enough we went straight ahead and filmed 2 versions of the real thing. It went amazingly well and I was really proud of all of our group. I loved being floor manager, ensuring the studio was safe and cuing the presenter and guest on and is definitely something I would love to do again. This was my favourite thing I have done on the course so far and made me realise that I would love to do this as a job.

Applied Media Research Detailed Research - Hollyoaks

Over the past few weeks, the other members in the group (Jodie and Emma) and I have done some research on some of the most popular multiplatform shows. The two that I did research on were Hollyoaks and X Factor. I chose to do these because as they are two of my favourite programmes I already knew quite a lot about the multiplatform aspects of them both. Also I knew that extra research on these two shows wouldn't feel like work as I would enjoy it and I always think if you enjoy work then it will be much better done. 

Hollyoaks
Hollyoaks, a soap aimed at young adults, has always strived to be innovative within the issues it focuses on and in the way the show is created. This is also shown in the way it has became a major player within multiplatform programming. I feel that this is a clever idea as the audience the show is aimed at, are more likely to interact online with a particular TV programme. Also as Hollyoaks is on every day except for the weekend, I think that it is vital that there are areas of the show that viewers can interact with over the weekend so they can maintain a high level of interest. 

As soon as you enter the official Hollyoaks site (http://www.e4.com/hollyoaks/index.html ) you can instantly see that it is fully interactive, embracing the idea that users can register to join the site, with a section at the top titled, 'Stuff happening now' which is a live feed of what other users are 'liking' and commenting on within the site. 

As you scroll down there is a comment box in which members are invited to come and write down their views of the show at the moment, sparking conversation with other uses on the message board. The fact that this on the first page is good because I think it instantly shows that Hollyoaks are a show that welcome the audience to get involved and participate.

There are also links to their official Facebook and Twitter so fans can get gossip and news about the show before others. The Facebook has over 1.5million likes and the Twitter has over 150,000 followers showing that social networking and TV is now linked strongly than ever before. These networks are vital for shows to thrive as it is imperative that fans are kept interested and given the exclusive access they feel they deserve. This also allows for fans to tell the programme creators exactly what they think about the show and this can have an impact on how the show continues with characters and storylines. 

There is a blog on the site that gives away spoilers about that weeks upcoming storylines so fans that are interested can go and get some hints about what will come up -  something that me, personally as a fan, love to do. 

Hollyoaks also really care about what the fans want, and their ideas and suggestions. They recently asked for fans suggestions of a name for a character's baby and the executive producer, Bryan Kirkwood, went ahead and chose someone's winning answer. This is really encouraging for the future of multi platform programming as it shows that viewers can impact the programme by participating in decisions made about the character. 

In 2012, Hollyoaks created the fictional mini-site 'DocYou' which played a central role in the storyline of character, Esther, being online bullied, showing viewers just how it can affect a person's life. Fans were able to visit the actual DocYou site and see how the characters were interacting with eachother, and bullying Esther so they felt like they were actually in the story, making the characters seem like real people. However, Hollyoaks also added a variety of backstage videos showing the actors who played the characters involved with this site, talking about how bad cyber bulling is and how it can be stopped. This acts as a vital support system for fans who were going through the same thing and gave them confidence to get help. There was also a link to the official Hollyoaks DocYou Facebook site which fans could 'like' and talk about the issues with other fans.

There is also a page that shows the playlists from each episode and allows you to instantly download these playlists from iTunes allowing fans to also have a little piece of Hollyoaks on their music players!

Hollyoaks has been completely revolutionary in storylines involving fans participation, such as running a competition allowing 10 fans to attend a secret Wretch32 gig and being asked to film it, which would then appear in the actual televised episode of Hollyoaks. This is groundbreaking and why I am such a fan of the show, it's brilliant to see them use new digital media to their and the fans advantage and makes me excited to see what they will do next

Digital Artefact Planning

Our next task that we had to do for 'Beyond the Camera' was, in groups of 2, to create a digital artefact which would be a combination of images, video clips and sound. We were to make this on After Effects and try our best to source most of our own images and sound. I was excited to get stuck in because I was excited to learn more about After Effects and I knew that we could go as crazy as we wanted with this and do anything at all because I prefer to not have strict limitations on what I do. 

After an extremely helpful After Effects tutorial I felt lots more comfortable using the software and was amazed to learn about Rostrum Camera Techniques. This is when an image is panned across and zoomed in/out to show the viewer more of an image. It can be used to help tell a story and this is an element which fascinated me and I definitely wanted to explore this more in my artefact. 

Me and my group member, Elicia, came up with an idea of a walk in the park gone wrong, with an innocent person being followed and a scary ending. We know that we want to create an atmosphere with the sound and play around with it as we had never got the chance to work with such an emphasis on sound before. 

Over the next few weeks we plan to go out and capture our own images and sound because we want to project to be as much ours as possible. I am really happy about this as we haven't had as much chance yet this year to go out and shoot our own material for a university project.

Wish us luck!

TV Studio Final Planning

We are getting closer and closer to the filming of our TV show so I thought I would update you with all that has been going on and our final show and guest idea!

After compiling all of our ideas together we went with Dave's idea of female boxer, Natasha Jonas. She was in this year's Olympics, being one of the first female boxers ever to compete in the Olympics. We were really excited about getting her on the show as she would be a fascinating interview as she could tell us all about the Olympics and talk about female boxing which is an extremely topical and controversial issue at the moment. Dave managed to get her to agree by contacting her through the gym that she trained in. However unfortunately, she suddenly stopped contact with us and we had 2 options. We could either keep going with the contact in the hope that she would eventually reply or give up and find someone else. We decided to go with the latter as we didn't want to be left there on the day without the guest. This opened my eyes up to the unpredictability of TV and people can just let you down so it is vital that you always have a back up option. Thankfully we did. We still wanted to stick with a sporting guest we managed to find another local boxer called Dexter. He was getting ready for his big sporting comeback so he would have a lot to talk about relating to that. We could also bring up the contraversial issue of female boxing too so we were happy with this decision. 

When deciding on the concept of the show we felt it was vital to do something completely new that had never been seen before. The brief stated that we needed a quirky and unusual concept and we wanted to follow this to the full degree. We thought about what type of shows that there is a gap in the market for and what type of people would be at home watching lunchtime shows. We knew that a lot of women are housewives and stay at home mum, however there are also a lot of men who don't really have anything to watch at lunchtime apart from 'Loose Women'. We combined the idea of our sporting guest and a show which is suitable for both sexes and came up with the innovative idea of a sports show that is aimed at women but men can also enjoy - think 'Soccer AM' meets 'Loose Women'. I was really proud of this idea because it was something completely new and definitely fitted the brief. 

Initial Research

After getting put into groups relating to our chosen questions, we set about creating a plan on how we would answer the question, deciding our methods of research and what TV shows we would look into. 

Our question was: "Which are the three most successful ever examples of cross platform television programming, how did viewers participate and most importantly, what did they gain from the experience?"

We broke the question down into 3 areas as we felt like this would make the question more manageable and we could easily plan our next steps. 

The 3 areas were:

1) What are the 3 most successful ever examples of cross platform TV programming

                    Using the research which we would gather, we will be able to answer this, going off people's reviews, statistics about usage and articles about the multi platform shows and industry. We will begin by looking at a range of programmes and then narrow these down the 3 we feel are the more successful.

2) How did viewers participate in the multiplatform programming?

                    We will gain the answer to this by having a focus group in which will we get participants to play the corresponding apps to the shows that we have chosen and see how they take part in it. We will also ask people about this in the questionnaire that we will send to people. 

3) What did they gain from the experience of multiplatform programming?

                    Our focus group task will find out what participants gained from their experience of it. We will also try and research some statistics and data about what people tended to get from multiplatform programmes to show some wider evidence. 

It was clear from this that the research we were going to do were:

• A focus group with some examples of apps of television shows that were multi platform to see what participants gained from it and how people actually went about in participating in it
• A questionnaire to be created that asked about peoples' viewing habits and experiences of multiplatform programming
• Research a number of shows to start with, and then choose 3 successful shows to go in depth about and use these shows as the answer to our presentation. 

The shows we decided to initially look at were:

• Hollyoaks
• X Factor
• Embarrassing Bodies
• Britain's Got Talent
• Big Brother
• Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
• Million Pound Drop

We are now going to go away and research a few of these shows each so we can meet back up and decide on the 3 most successful ones. 

I found this planning day very productive because we managed to take a question that initially seemed more complex and then break it down into a more simple, step by step process of research and answers. I am excited to get stuck into research because I find the idea of multi platform programming really interesting and some of these shows are my favourite ones so research won't feel like much work! 

TV Studio

The past few weeks have all been go go go, especially within this TV Studio module so let me catch you up with what has been going on!

Groups and choosing our roles
The first thing that happened was that we were put into groups. I was put into a group with Tasha, Ashleigh, Dave and Rio which I was really happy with as we all get on really well so I know that we will work effectively together as a team. We then had to all choose the roles of a TV studio team that we wanted. The roles up for grabs were: Producer, Floor Manager, Presenter, Director and Set Designer. I knew that I definitely didn't want to be director or set designer as I'm not always the best at having a creative eye with camera angles or what looks good on screen. I wouldn't have minded being the role of Presenter because I feel confident in front of the camera however I preferred to try something different and 2 members of the group wanted that role. I decided that I definitely wanted to be either the Producer or the Floor Manager as these are job positions that I am considering as my future positions in my career. I successfully ended up being Floor Manager which I'm really excited about as I can get practice of the job and see if it's something I fancy doing again in the future. 

Camera Workshop
We had our first camera workshop with our lecturers, Trevor and Alex, who showed us how to use the brand new cameras and gallery. I was very nervous to do this as using these cameras were completely new to me but the lecturers made us all feel at ease and once we started to use them, I became comfortable using them. Having a go at the gallery was enjoyable however I realised just how much stress and pressure real directors have on live studio shows as they have to choose the right cameras at the right time otherwise you end up with bad shots. After this session I felt more confident using the cameras for our live shoot but I will appreciate more practice. 

Paper Planes
As one of the major parts of the show we have to produce is a demonstration with the guest, we had a mini task of planning and filming a short demo for kids TV about how to make a paper plane. We had to write a script, design the set and then have the presenter present whilst 3 of us were on cameras and the director was in the gallery instructing us what to do on cameras. Unfortunately I was struck down with tonsillitis so couldn't come into uni for the filming of our Paper Planes piece. However because I still wanted to play a major part in the production, I wrote the script for the show. I found it enjoyable writing the script as I thought it was exciting planning exactly what the presenter will say and how the show will go. This is definitely something I want to do more of. We got positive feedback from our piece and I was really proud of my group for how amazing our mini show looked! I was happy that we had this task because it made us realise about some key things that may seem small to us but actually made a big difference on camera. For example, it was crucial to look how every shot is framed, especially on close ups as often presenter's hands would get in the way of the paper plane so it was hard to see what the instruction was. Also it is important that the presenter isn't wearing any noisy jewellery that interferes with the mic. Overall this task was extremely helpful because it opened our eyes to the fact that we need to be aware and plan everything because there isn't room for mistakes on live TV. 

Cross Shooting
As another practice exercise we did with the cameras was practice cross shooting. Cross shooting is often used on chatshows when there is an interviewer interviewing a guest. There are 3 cameras with the middle camera focused on both the interviewer and guest. Then the other 2 cameras are focused on just one of them, with each camera focused on the other person. I found it really interesting to learn how to do this because I've spent years watching this technique being done on lots of different shows so it was great to finally learn how it is all done. With this knowledge I feel that it will definitely help make our shows look more professional.

Initial Ideas
After our first group meeting in which we created a list of over 40 ideas for guests, from fashion designers, to dancers, to circus performers, we decided to go away and research an idea each properly, contacting the prospective guest and seeing if they would be up for appearing on the show. For us, we decided that we wanted to find our guest first, and as long as they were an interesting person, the show concept could be created around them. The idea that I went and researched was the idea of having a comedian on the show as I thought this would ensure that our show would be entertaining. As Liverpool has a big comedy community I knew that there were lots of people who I could talk to about appearing on the show. I went down to a local comedy night and asked around the comedians to see if they would be up for coming on the show and received an overwhelmingly positive response. It's great to know that if we go with this idea that we would be able to choose an ideal guest from those who volunteered. 

Quantitative and Qualitative Questions

Before getting into our groups to answer our chosen set questions, we first learnt about different types of questions we can ask in our research. They were 2 types: Quantitative Research and Qualitative Research. 

Quantitative Research is answers are from a multiple choice, or a rating, such as from 1-10 and are easy to analyse. These are ideal for quick little surveys to provide a snapshot of people's opinions but with no explanations.
Qualitative Research allows people to respond in their own written way, allowing for rich and detailed answers. These are harder to analyse but it is worth it as you find out exactly what people are thinking and why

I found it easy to learn about this research as I had previously covered it in A Level Psychology. In my 2 years of this course, this has been the only piece of information I have already known - everything else has been completely new but I have enjoyed this because it proves that I am a quick learner who can be as successful as people who have known it all for longer. However it was extremely useful to go over it again and to have it applied to what we are now going to use it for. For my chosen question I hope to use a combination of the two to find out exactly what we want to know for our answer. 

Applied Media Research Guest Speakers!

I decided it was best to do one big post about all 3 speakers than do 3 separate individual ones so that all the questions will be all in the same place. 

1. Digital Fiction Factory

The first guest speaker was Ian Wareing from Digital Fiction Factory. They are a creative partnership between BBC, Channel 4, Creative England and Conker Media (now known as Lime Digital) who specialise is multiplatform media productions. One of the examples of their work was for 'Hollyoaks' called 'Hollyoaks - the Morning After The Night Before'. This grabbed my attention immediately because as I am a huge fan of 'Hollyoaks' I had participated in this multiplatform product and really enjoyed using it as it allowed me to learn more about the characters and interact with the show all day and night, instead of the usual 6.30pm slot. 

The question Ian set was:
"The Internet, social media and other open systems have allowed for user

generated content (UGC), crowd-sourcing and other forms of audience participation to prevail in digital media. But how do we translate these

features into storytelling experiences, without treading on the toes of the author?"

This question definitely interested me because I think one of the best recent developments within the media is the fact that audiences can interact with characters and storylines, sometimes even having an impact on what will happen. By choosing this question I would get the chance in learning mroe about how audiences can and have participated with their favourite shows which I would enjoy.  However I struggled with the wording of the question, not quite knowing where to start in answering it, and how I would go about researching it. 

2. Onteca

The second question was set by Jon Wetherall from Onteca. They develop games and applications for Nintendo Wii, iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, Android, Facebook and IPTV. They specialise in free games that entice the customer then asking them to pay for extra content if they want to. This is a very effective tactic as I have often downloaded many free games and ended up paying for the extra content as I've enjoyed the game so much and want to experience more of it. In today's media world, companies need to think of new ways to advertise as more and more people are not watching adverts on TV by either using an on demand service on the Internet, or recording the shows and fast forwarding through them and advertising on free apps is a perfect replacement as you get global outreach.

The question Jon set was:
"What new models are there for selling media? When people download so much media freely, what are people willing to pay for and how? What are and what can we learn from the best monetization mechanics for Freemium games on mobile?"

The app area of the media is probably one of the areas I am interested in least as I don't wish to go into the market of sole app development. However in today's modern world you can't escape them and I feel it is important that all popular shows have their own app and offer exclusive extra content on them that is accessible anywhere, as the key thing with having a successful television programme is to have extra content for fans to interact with and offer their opinions with and to be accessible everywhere on a range of devices - which is a mantra I hope to take with me through my career. However gaming apps are not my biggest interest and I probably won't pick this question as I know I will work better with a question that fascinates me greatly

3. Nine Lives Media

The third and final question was presented by Mike Lewis, from Nine Lives Media. They are an independent TV production company that make documentaries, current affairs programmes and drama documentaries. This immediately appealed to me as I am the most interested in TV and that's where I hope my career will take place. Mike's talk was all about multi platform shows - shows that offer extra content on apps, websites and social networks. This appealed to me greatly because I believe that soon all popular shows will be multi platform to increase the 'buzz' about a show and keep fans interested. I love interacting with multi platform shows such as 'The X Factor' and 'Million Pound Drop' and researching these shows would be perfect for me!

The question Mike set was:
"Which are the three most successful ever examples of cross platform television programming, how did viewers participate and most importantly, what did they gain from the experience?"

I am definitely going to choose this question because it appeals to all my major interests within the media: television, audience participation and multi platform programming. In today's world, the 'second screen' is becoming a vital part of watching television, with people tweeting or facebooking all their thoughts about a programme, and therefore creating an online 'buzz' about a programme, for example #XFactor trending every weekend on twitter. This is something I would love to delve in and learn more about as it is only going to become more popular and important in creating shows for television. Also after researching the company 'Nine Lives Media' I was really excited to discover they have created some programmes that I have watched and loved, such as 'Small Teen Big World' and its follow up documentaries, 'Small Teen Bigger World' and 'Small Teen Turns Eighteen' for BBC Three. These documentaries really inspired me as it was fascinating to see what the young girl had to deal with and really opened my eyes up to how everyone is equal and should be treated with respect. 

Magical Illusion

Our first project in 'Beyond the Camera' was to create a magical illusion on Photoshop by manipulating a still image using the software. I was initially worried about this because as I've mentioned before I've not been the most confident with this software. However after having another tutorial in one of our lessons I feel so much more comfortable with Photoshop and felt confident to go ahead with this assignment.

The first thing I had to do was think of an idea. Creating ideas has always been one of my strong points and because we could do absolutely anything at all it was wide open. I definitely wanted to think of an idea that noone else would so I decided to choose an interest of mine that many don't share. One of my favourite animals are is a whale so I liked the idea of putting a whale in an unusual place. I ran with this idea and decided to not just stop with a whale but use an underwater scene too. My initial idea was to put an underwater scene behind a window looking into a living room with someone sitting on a couch by the window unaware of what was behind them. However I chose to change this into something even more unusual and decided to go with the idea of having an image of someone holding a glass. However in that glass there will be an underwater scene with a whale jumping out of it. 

I went to the Blue Planet Aquarium to take some of my own photos so that I could use my own images for the underwater scene. Thankfully there was a special tropical section and I managed to take the perfect image that I was going to put into the image I also took of someone holding a glass. Unfortunately as there are no local whales I had to find a copyright free image of a whale to use.
My first draft:

Assembling my composition was easier than I originally thought as thanks to the tutorial I had received I knew my way around Photoshop. Also I found that there were a wide range of tutorials online that provided me with instant help if I encountered any issues. this was great to know as when I begin to experiment more with Photoshop I know that I can just go to these tutorials and get answers to any problem I have! I will definitely go on to learn more about the software because I know that it is an essential skill to have in the media industry. 

Stay Fresh, Liverpool!

This afternoon sees something very exciting return to all our lives...it's the long awaited return of James Dunn and myself's radio show, Stay Fresh, Liverpool on Looprevil radio station.

This is something that I really enjoy in my life and helps me learn new skills within radio. I want to take it to the next level this year, with more features, more guests and more listeners! I plan to advertise the show more to gather more interest as it would be great to have people who we don't know listen to the show, not just all our friends and family! 

If you've never listened why not give it a go today? We're on 4pm-6pm on http://looprevilradio.co.uk/ and it definitely makes for an interesting and humorous listen!

We also have a facebook group on Stay Fresh, Liverpool Facebook which plays a huge part in our show as listeners write posts to respond to what we are discussing. We focus a huge part of the show on the listeners as they are truly what makes the show what it is.

So yeah, please have a listen today as we would love to reach an all time high on our first show back! 

Thankyou :D

Avid Awards 2012!

As the second year was only just beginning, we were all in for a pleasant surprise. Avid, the makers of video editing software that we use in university in first year, had decided to very kindly sponsor an Awards Evening in association with the Liverpool Screen School. This was in order to celebrate all of our first year films that we had made, not just on our course of Media Professional Studies, but also on Film Studies and Broadcast Media Production. I thought that this was a good idea as it allowed for all newly second years to get together and appreciate each others work, as we don't normally get the chance to see what each other has done. 

I was fortunate enough to be nominated for 'Best Location Film' and 'Best Factual Film'. I was so proud of my group and myself to be even nominated for 1, let alone 2 awards for 2 different films. It gave me the realisation that this was definitely the right course for me, and it felt amazing to have work that I played such a huge part in, actually be appreciated by industry professionals. It was also lovely to see that quite a few of my friends had been nominated too!

Here is a link to the film that was nominated for 'Best Location Film':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlUmpUoECvA&feature=player_embedded

Hopefully soon I will put up the film that was nominated for 'Best Factual Film' 

So awards night came, and my uni mates and I all went down to the Redmonds Building for the grand ceremony to begin (well it was in a lecture theatre but one lecturer was wearing a tux so it was basically the Oscars). We took our seats and the anticipation was flying through the air. It came to our first nominated category, 'Best Location Film' and unfortunately we lost but the winners definitely deserved it. More awards were given to others then it came to our second nominated category, 'Best Factual Film' and we WON!!! I then had to awkwardly go down in front of every and accept the award with my group. I was really happy to win the award as it proved, not just to me, but to others who may think I am a slacker, that I actually work hard and do the work well. 

Here is the LJMU article on the awards night:

http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/NewsUpdate/index_124551.htm

Winning definitely inspired me to continue working hard as it showed myself that I've got the ability to succeed. It also inspired me to start making my own films in the summer as I don't want to be distracted from uni work, but watch this space!

Here's my award:

Also major congratulations to my good friend, Joe Costin, who won 'Most Original Film' with his group. And thankyou to my group of Cathryn Appleton, Lois Bunker and Molly Dale for being an amazing group to work with!  

Applied Media Research Introduction

We recently had the first introductory session of 'Applied Media Research'. This module is all about, as the title suggests, research within the media. I've found that research is really important within the media because it is vital you know what the audience's needs and wants are otherwise you end up spending money on, for example, a programme that receives low ratings and criticism. 

Over this module, we will have 3 guest speakers and each of them set us a question. We then choose the question we want to do and answer it in a presentation after collating a variety of research from focus groups, questionnaires and academic research using the Internet, journals and books. 

This module interests me because I've always found researching things fascinating as I love to know more about topics and love knowing people's opinions on things, especially the media! I am really excited for the 3 guest speakers as they will be industry professionals from different areas and will give us an insight into what it is like to be successful. 

Summary of Semester 1 modules

Year 2 has officially began and with this comes a whole load of new and exciting modules and I can't wait to get stuck in! Here's a summary of them!

Digital Media Cultures
Digital Media Cultures is the theoretical module, all about a range of different areas of the media, from television formats, to music, to social networks. We then have to produce an essay based on one of these lectures as we will get to choose from a range of questions. I am excited for this module as I've never really learnt much about media theory before. I am going to ensure that I attend every week because I want to have the best choice of questions so by going to every lecture I will know all about each of the topics and make an informed decision. I am most excited for the lecture about television formats because this is the area of the media that fascinates me and where I hope my career will be. 

Beyond The Camera
Beyond The Camera is the follow up module from last year's Digital Media Tools. We will learn more about Photoshop and After Effects in order to create our own Magical Illusion image using Photoshop and then a digital artefact which combines our self sourced sounds and images to create a story. I am most nervous about this module as last year's Digital Media Tools wasn't my strongest area, and I'm not the best at being experimental with sounds and images. However this just means that I am more eager to learn more about the software and already feel more confident with Photoshop after practicing with it over Summer. 

TV Studio
The TV Studio module was the main selling point for me picking Media Professional Studies as my degree choice because television is where I've always wanted my career to be focused on. One of the most exciting aspects of this module is that we are one of the first to use the amazing brand new TV studio worth over £1million!!! In this module we have to create a 15-25 minute daytime TV programme with a guest and that guest doing a demo. It has to be a quirky idea that would fit perfectly on Channel 4 lunchtimes. I can not wait to get stuck in to this module as I've always had plenty of ideas for new TV shows and I am an expert at daytime TV!