Unit 6 LO1 Understand how media producers define audiences for their products‏.

Question 1
Why might a media institution use Qualitative research? How effective is this form of research?

In order to answer this question we need to know what qualitative research is. Qualitative research is research a person or an organisation in this case will go out to collect on their own in forms of questionnaires, panels, testing and focus groups. Qualitative research also uses features of Psycographic research is the peoples personalities, values and opinions. Psychographic research of individuals or of communities can be valuable in the fields of marketing.

Focus groups are really popular with market research so that they can test new features on their target audience. Qualitative research is effective as it gives the institution a chance to get greater quality of feedback from the audience so that the institution can get a better understanding of their product and whether it is successful or if they would have to make any changes.

We need to ask ourselves why might a media institution use qualitative research? Well a media institution might use qualitative research to gather information about their companies product from their target audiences for example Asian Bridal Magazines. Asian bridal magazine has to understand what their audience wants from it. So the magazine company may go out and get their audience to fill out a questionnaire about the pros and cons of the magazine and they may ask questions such as ' What do you like about the magazine, and why?'

There are three types of magazine classification. The three are niche, alternative and mainstream. These magazine companies may will use this research source as a way of gathering information on things they can improve on their product and what the audience like about the product. 

First of all we want to know what a niche magazine is. It is a magazine who specifically focus on one topic. An example of Niche magazines are Asian bridal magazines. The reason why asian bridal magazine is a niche title is because it is reaching out to asian woman within the range of 19-30 who are looking to get married. The reason being is that this is the age that asian women look to get married and are interested in different styles and ideas for bridal look. 

An alternative magazine is information produced to mainstream media within a given context. Alternative magazine companies such as Alternative Press magazine. It is based around indie music reaching to the age group of 17-25. Alternative magazines reach out to more of a wider audience and may want to use qualitative research to discuss the topics that are produced in the magazine. Questions may cover what they should change about the magazine to make it better for the audience. 

Moving onto mainstream magazines who will use qualitative research. Mainstream magazines are magazine companies which cover a variety of topics such as sport, general news and what is trending at the moment. Mainstream magazines are mainly produced every week. An example of a mainstream magazine is Ok magazine. The target audience for Ok magazine ranges from ages between late 20s-30 of british/american ethnicity within the middle class.

The reason as to why they might use qualitative research is due to get information on what topics they should cover in the magazine. 

Question 2.
How might a media institution create and use target audience classification. How effective is this form of research?

For those who don't know, a target audience is a particular group which a product such as film is aimed at. For example we could say who is the target audience for a cartoon series? For a question like this we need to take into consideration who watches cartoons? The answer is simple, kid with age range 3-10. 

Before any production is created media institutions need to research on audience demographics to understand who your target audience is, why your target audience behave or think what they do, how to target your audience and how you can communicate your message effectively to your audience. 

There are different age ratings for different productions for example a game production such as grand Theft auto would be rated as an 18+ game due to the fact that it contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol. 

 Quantative research is a good method to use to gather research on audiences views. This is because we can get a clear example of statistics on people opinions and views. 

Question 3 How might a media institution use quantitative research? How effective is this form of research?

Some media institutions may use the forms of research as they are both effective. Qualitive and Quantative data can both be used as they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Institutions may use quantative research to get clear set of statistics to get an understanding of number of peoples views. Where as qualitative data may have an advantage as they can get an understanding of people views and opinions on a wider scale as they get to probe the people who are taking out a survey. The disadvantage of this is that the person who is taking out the survey/questionnaire could lie in their answers. 

Television companies use BARB to gather viewing statistics. This is so that the know how many people tune in to watch their programmes. This is important so that they know if their channel is running successfully and if not what changes need to be made. 

Rajar stands for radio joint audience research. It is the official institution in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK. 

Nrs which stands for National readership survey is the UKs most authoritative and valued audience research. The survey covers over 250 of Britain's newspapers and magazines. 

We know what quantitative research is, but how effective is it? Quantitative research is really effective in my opinion as we get a wide scale of statistics of the questions that are going to be asked, so an institution knows the exact numbers they are looking for. 

Conclusion 

In conclusion to all the questions above we can say that understanding your target audience is a major key role in any media institution whether it be magazines, games or movies. 

Some may ask why it is important? It is because if you don't have a clear understanding about who your target audience is going to be people may be watching the wrong things that is not suitable for them. 

To understand their target audience and what their audience want they could gather information from different types of research such as qualitative and quantitative. This will widen their knowledge about their audience.

I believe the best way of classifying audiences is knowing who your product is going to be aimed at, so we want to look for a target audience and know which gender we are aiming it to. This will bring out the best research.

8-10 PHOTOS

The Hidden Price Tag

As i was waking down the streets of Bricklane i came across a little alley way where i was amazed at all the graffiti on the walls of a abandoned car park at the end of the alley way. As i made my way in, i came across a nice car. Mercedes Benz to be precise. Something hit me which was the trend in nice cars around the streets of Tower Hamlets which is known as one of the most deprived parts of east london according to government statistics.

This picture was taken in Bethnal Green also found as i walked down another alley way. These two cars caught my eye as they stood out from the rest. Especially in the area they were based in. I edited the photo making the background black and white and keeping the colours of the cars neutral. The reason as to why i have done this is simple. The background represents the age of the building and the kind of houses they are. The reason why i kept the car colours the same were due to the fact that it stood out from the houses and it also told me that maybe these people that live on these estates think to themselves ' I cannot afford to buy a house of my own, so why not treat myself to a fancy car.' which to me makes complete sense.  For both of these photos i used the manual camera setting on the nikon d90 DSLR.

Slums

As i was standing in whitechapel waiting for the que for the cash machine to die down, the view ahead of me caught my attention. We can see the Gerkin ahead which is located in Central London. It just shows how close the city and poverty are to one another. I took this shot so you can see the clear view and also the deals that are on the posters of the market stalls. I photo shopped this image to crop it where the CCTV sign on the far right stops. This is to make the photo more effective by showing the poverty. Most importantly whilst i was taking this photo it reminded me of the movie Slumdog Millionaire.

This is what it reminded me of. This is a picture taken in Mumbai. We can see in the photo the slums of mumbai right close to the city sky scrapers this works well with the photo i have taken in Whitechapel.

Work.

As i set off to take my photos. I could not think of many ideas that i will find closeby. But as i was walking through the park i looked across the road and saw this wall of graffiti in a residential area. At first i was just going to take a picture of the Graffiti wall itself, but then came across two men who made the picture a lot more interesting. We can see a man with a suit on who is probably on his way back from or maybe even on his lunch break. Behind him is a man who looks more as though they live around the area. The man at the back is looking directly at the man towards him giving him a look which makes it seems he thinks that the man in the suit it is out of place for this area. I believe this was a great example of economical divide.

Signs- flooding with emotion. 

This picture was taken in Hadleigh Street located in Bethnal Green. Not the usual sign post you will see, but this is a really effective one. This was obviously made by someone who understands the area and expressed their feelings on a sign post. In the background of the picture we can see construction going on to a building on the right. On the left we can see lines of the railway tracks and the containers underneath them. The sign represents the poverty in the local area and what it is like to live in a area like this. The rail lines that are running across are used by most city workers to get around from town to town. 

The Agent

Walking down Hanbury street which is located off bricklane was a well known property agents called Victorstone. You may be thinking what has this got to do with economical division? Well that's what i thought at first till i saw the buildings which are above it. We can see that these are flats who are probably owned by residents in the deprived area. Just below them is a proffesional property agents who issue household for more of the middle/working class.

The frustrated man.

Taken in Shoreditch. Is a shot of this man who is sitting on top of a electrical Box with a caption on the wall which reads 'Everything is fine'. This photo is really ironic as the man in the photo has his head down looking as if he is going through a rough time. You will come across something like this in a street of a residential are but you will not come across something like this in the streets of knightsbridge.

  Backstreet

 The back streets of Bricklane. This photo showed me 2 people who had two different interests. The woman in the black jacket looking at the wall of graffiti as if she has not seen anything like it before whereas the woman up front is walking by as it is everyday to her to see the graffiti on the wall. We can also see the lamp post in which clearly mentions 'cctv'. It just goes to show that whatever the circumstances it will not stop people from violating a public street.

Scene By scene Breakdown

Scene 1- 

• Mid shot of Rashidul walking out of the house 
• Looking out of the balcony
• Making his way downstairs 
• Over the shoulder shot showing him looking out the balcony

Scene 2- 

• Rashidul walking out of building 
• walking along the street
• Long shots of him walking

Scene 3- 

• Extreme long shot of Rashidul walking to the end of the street 
• Landscape shot showing him missing the bus
• Over the shoulder shot showing him missing the bus

Scene 4- 

• Rashidul walking into school late
• Mary receptionist accusing him of excuses about being late
• Rashidul accepting the accusations and carries on making his way to class
• Mid shots and Long shots of Rashidul walking towards his classroom

Scene 5-

• Close up shot of Rashidul daydreaming in class
• Landscape shot of classroom getting on with their work
• Teacher asks class for homework to be handed in
• Bully snatches Rashiduls homework threatining him not to tell the teacher
• Teacher asks Rashidul where his work is
• Rashidul hesistates to tell teacher the truth, making rashidul end up getting a phone call home
• Paper gets thrown at Rashidul

Scene 6- 

• Different shots of Rashidul walking into the playground
• Rashidul sitting on a bench alone with his head down
• Shots of other students running past him happy

Scene 7- 

• School councellor Lanre approaches Rashidul when he sees that he is looking upset
• Lanre and Rashidul walking up to Lanre's office.
• One to one conversation between lanre and Rashidul

Evaluation- Mr Kemp

My narrative is about a villain who is trying to take over a city to rule with his powers thinking that he will demolish everyone, little does he know that there is someone in the city who may not look it, but is slightly more powerful than him. This boy who goes by the name 'Labrynth' has the ability to posess people to gain their special skills. I.e Posess a soldier and he will be armed with all the weapons adn strength needed. The structure i have used in this narrative is the three act structure.

My first cut scene that comes into the narrative is when Labrynth is watching the Villain trying to take over the city and then cuts into the scene where he is outside of his college discussing the issue he saw on the news with his friend. This was a solely narrative cut scene but is trying to make the gamer seem as if it is like a movie to give the more dramatic effect.

The plot devices that i have used are giving the gamer the ability to choose who is going to possess first to gain his first form of power. The character devices that i have decided to use are gaining health by reaching certain platform throughout the narrative. The gameplay devices i have used are easy to use, and fairly straight forward, There is also a challenge as to not being caught possessing certain people, so the gamer will have to be discrete when doing so.

After this cut scene It skips to the main character 'Labrynth' having to choose who is going to possess and how he is going to go on and complete his first mission. It link with the cut scene as it gives a foundation of what the mission is about.

I would say my game is non linear as it allows the gamer to choose what he wants to do throughout the game and allows the gamer to have that extra freedom needed. Later in the game it is developed as gradually he will go through all the villains men and come to battle with the villain who is trying to take over the city.

The location of the cut scene isn't so important as it is shot outside a college but the main reason behind it is so that it has a film like structure and scenery.

I think the games genre and target audience work together well as people within the age range of 16-24 will enjoy the freedom that you will get in the game. It is sort of a mix of other games such as Call of duty and grand theft auto. I'm particulalry pleased with the main storyline it is not too hard and not too simple.
The things i will do differently is to make it more like a game rather than a movie as gamers can get bored?

Appature, Ios and Shutter

So you're using a camera and you want to know the info behind it...

Shutter- Shutter speed is all about the amount of time the shutter is open. The speed of the shutter is in seconds, the bigger the amount of seconds the faster the shutter. For example there is a trail of traffic and you set your camera on a bridge with a tripod the and you put a slow shutter speed on, the picture will appear blurred but effective at the same time. Say for example you did that without a tripod the picture will be blurry but not as effective. You want to aim for something like this.

Aperture-  The aperture can be adjusted on the lens to control the amount of light coming through the lens. When you are using the camera there is going to be letter 'F' in front of the number. The 'F' stands for focal. The higher the number of the F means the smaller the aperture of the lens. The lower the number of the F the bigger the aperture of the lens. There is also a problem because the smaller the lens means that there is not going to be enough light coming into

unit 70 computer game story development

Without a character there is no narrative. Well that's how i see it. While the narrative is going on you will want to know more about the characters and what they have in connection with the narrative. Characters are created to promote a certain game.. to catch a certain gamers eye. This all comes down to target audience. Gamers are all about their characters, their characters features and any sort of skills. So all in all it depends on who the person is to match what kind of character and also what kind of game.

The game in which i am choosing with a strong protagonist is Tomb raider. Let us start off with who the protagonist of this game actually is. The protagonist is Lara Croft who plays as third person perspective.  Her role in the game is to battle through her way in this deserted island full of uneasy creatures and dead people as her ship has been wrecked and she has been left on her own. The main task is for her to survive through all the obstacle that may get in her way through the exploration. Now going onto the characterisation. In this game i believe that using a woman was a strong point, many people may have thought a woman? for a survival game? Believe it or not, by using a woman to play as the protagonist it has increased the sales of the game overall. Besides the business side of all things the game has attracted more woman to play the game too as nowadays all we see in games is men having to go through all the battles, it was nice to have a change for once. Lara is also this strong, brave woman who is intelligent enough to fight her way through. This also shows people that it is not always men who have the power, woman have also got the mind and body strength to battle their way through.


 One of the antagonists i have chosen to talk about is featured in the game Metal gear solid 3 and is known by the name of 'The Boss'. I know not the most creative of names but trust me, once you play it you will realise as to why he is called that. The boss will take it easy on u at first but then she stops playing nice with naked snake even though that is her former lover. As you continue on in the game you will realise that the boss is one of the best soldiers who has ever lived, she is one that even her enemies respected. Once you come closer to the end of the game, you will realise that she is probably one of the most honourable opponents you will ever face.

What is backstory? Well it is pretty simple to figure out, it is the story before the actual game starts. It gives you a slight overview of what the game is about and what your main objective is throughout and answers your questions as to what is going on. One of the games that i have played with a backstory is very recent and is GTA5. In the beginning of the film you are introduced to 3 characters who are robbing a bank. After accomplishing this, they then go onto making a runner. As they are doing this the police have surrounded them off and they are trapped, with everything at a blur one of the characters gets shot, but who? Character trevor believes that it is good friend Michael who gets shot and dies when really it is not, leaving you to unveil the truth yourself. When i first played this it had bought masses of excitement into me that i just wanted to play and find out more, the way they have explained and portrayed everything to the gamer is as if it as a movie or even real life based. Moving onto the next game that i will be talking about is double dragon which is a fairly old game. As kids we probably thought they were just two brothers who wander the streets of new york looking for people to beat up, but what we did not know was that the game was actually meant to be taking place in the post apocalypse, and Billy and Jimmy are not just two brothers, they are supposed to be two martial arts masters! who are protecting a sacred and secret style. Finding out the backstory for this game bought a whole load of thinking to my head but gave the game a slight more interest.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

magazine layout (miss paradise)

Daily mail and vogue magazine layout contrasts

In todays lesson we looked at layouts of e-magazines. The two sites in which i looked at were 'Daily mail' and 'Vogue fashion magazine'. The two contrasted in various ways. First i analysed 'Daily mail' as soon as you enter the site we could see that there were big headings to grab the readers attention. The page was laid out with 3 columns. The first column was about a news heading about a motorist getting a fine, the text was written in big and they decided to show the distraught  pictures at first. The pictures used were to show the readers the emotions of the people involved in the story, they showed a picture of the motorist who received the fine looking very unpleased and made the man look like the bad guy in the situation, right below we see the picture of the family (victims) looking very upset, this is to get the readers to feel some sympathy towards the family. In the middle column it had a miniture gallery which navigated you to stories about celebrities and their recent updates. This was very easy to navigate and is full of pictures! Below it had miniture subheadings about the recent politics happening worldwide and the third column was also stories laid out with pictures and little summaries of what the story is about so it gets the reader going. Also on top of these headlines it says 'don't miss'. This a way of reaching the readers attention. Another thing i have also realised from this page is that they had a search engine so you can look up previous stories online and also a little ad telling us to follow them on social networking sites twitter and facebook.

I then went onto the vogue website this website was more organised and less packed with info. On the top left of the site it had the company name and underneath there were headings which navigate you to different departments of the site to show what is happening in and around the company. In big lettering the word 'Magazine' is shown to us which tells us straight we are looking at their e-magazine. Underneath that they have easy to navigate pages to look through. It has 2 columns where there is one main column talking about the main stories and the second column which is links to separate pages and adverts. In the main column it talks about the recent fashion updates and what is happening in the fashion/modelling world. On the first story they used a rhetorical question which is really effective. On the right hand side of the page there is only two adds about other magazine updates where people get the opportunity to subscribe. Unlike daily mail, vogues subheadings have minor text underneath them whereas daily mail has a long summary about the story. On the top right hand of the site there is miniture search engine symbol and an option to register or login to get more updates of what is going on.

We can see that daily mail is trying to have more of a diverse audience and trying to grab as many peoples attention whereas vogue knows who their target audience is and are more about the layout of their page to represent the company. The vogue magazine has also  got less information rather than daily mail and also vogue is only talking about one particular subject for it's company and daily mail is talking about many as it is more of a newspaper company for the world to read whoever you are.