News Task

1. Explain your role/responsibility within the team and the task. What were you required to do?

My role within the team was to work on the creation of a realistic Telegraph front cover with one other person, Andreas. We were given a selection of eight stories that 'came in during our shift' and thus our first task was to choose which of them to feature on our front cover. In the end the only story we chose not to use was 'Mum finds severed finger in bag of Iceland frozen chips'. This was because it didn't particularly fit in with the highbrow-themes of our paper and we deemed it less relevant than the other 7 stories- something that editors must constantly do in real life. We then had to find/create our images and scale them appropriately to fit the template. After this myself and Andy had to come up with 7 appropriate Headlines for the stories we had elected to choose and then rank them. The brexit deal was agreed to be the most important story for the Telegraph. Once all the necessary elements had been sorted, we printed them out and, once our team had checked the layout/content, we stuck them down.

2. For one media form, describe the codes and conventions you chose to follow and explain their intended impact.

For our standalone, we chose to talk about the heavy snowfall in the UK. We used a wide of a cyclist standing by themselves in a snowy feel looking on towards a church/cathedral. The big spacing that exists naturally within a wide helped to connote the isolated feel that we were choosing to push, in order to tie in with the audience who probably felt trapped by the snow or at least dehabilitated. In addition to this, we chose to use a high-end Gucci fragrance kit advert. This was in order to tie in with the predominantly AB-job target audience, as the product met their needs.

3. Explain how your choices reflect the real newspaper's values and target audience.

We chose to feature the Brexit deal as our top story as the target audience would be very keen to hear about any changes/ developments. Furthermore, We chose to frame both the deal and Mr Davis in a positive/ informative light as that lines up with our core views and angle. Our pug was also an obituary for a popular children's entertainer, who was popular amongst our target audience as he featured predominantly in shows from the 70's and 80's. A time when the Telegraphs TA were young.

4. Explain how your team adapted the news across the three different media forms and the reasons behind your decisions.

Myself and Andreas, chose not to headline the story 'Online shopping edges sales in trading revolution' as we felt, whilst it was still relevant, it was not a key story for the print copy to cover. However, the social media team chose to feature that story on Instagram. This is because the story has potential for aesthetic imagery, a convention of the Instagram platform.

5. In hindsight, is there anything about your team's outcomes that you would adapt or improve?

In hindsight, we would change the Facebook headline of "Britain is officially no longer part of the EU". This is because the actual story was about a deal being agreed. This would mean our platforms would not run in synergy, and this is a big no-no for news outlets. Furthermore, I would've liked to do more checks to ensure quality.

Celebrity Magazine Cover

1. Summarise the music celebrity you have created. Include name, music genre, personality and how they are being used to comment on contemporary celebrity.
My celebrity, 'esq.' is a artist from a fusion of genres, mainly rock and trap music. He uses gender as a tool to challenge certain stereotypes that exist within the music genre. For example, the trap scene is massively male dominated and has very masculine undertones. His quirky and unique manner mean that his quite serious messages are delivered light-heartedly but in ernest.

2. Evaluate how you have constructed the representation of your celebrity through your cover image and cover headline/text (denotation/connotation of text and image).

      On my cover, the model esq. is wearing bright red lipstick. This is a definite challenge of classic gender-based ideas as men would traditionally never wear lipstick. Furthermore, this is especially poignant as the industry in which he is based has quite rigid ideas about gender so challenging this is a big part of his philosophy. As well as this, the juxtaposition of the masculine, metallic ring next to the pink gemstone ring represents one person being able to almost 'wear' both genders whilst still making it in the music scene, something no-one else is doing. Esq. is wearing a flowery necklace as well, which furthers his feminine image/persona. It is these contrasts which make this cover an effective challenge to regular, regimented beliefs.

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        3. Reflect on the production/editing process.  Are you pleased with the end result? Identify what is successful about your shot?  What would you have done differently in hindsight?

g       Overall, I am quite pleased with my final cover. I really like the colour scheme and the use of props. However, if I had more time, i might retake this shot with a little bit more happiness and lightheartedness to reflect my celebrities persona. Additionally I would fix the bug that caused my skin smoother program to not worl, in order to achieve a more professional look.

Minecraft Pocket Edition Gameplay For YouTube

1) How I Did It
To make my video, I looked at a pre-recorded minute and a half Minecraft videoclip of some fairly basic gameplay. I then planned out what things to say roughly, knowing many ad-libs would be thrown in whilst recording for authenticity. to shoot my facecam, I used one of the department's iPads, which also doubled as the mic. To edit, I used another iPad with a free editing app, which allowed me to overlay my facecam over the gameplay and add basic text.

2) How could my video attract Mojang and/or Microsoft, and how might it influence them.
My video could attract the attention of Mojang and/or Microsoft by reaching enough views on YouTube, however, just by merely posting it, I am giving Minecraft free exposure and advertising. Therefore, as a collective, many videos across the platform will inevitably attract Minecraft and as a result of this, many YouTubers have been invited to Minecon (the Minecraft convention) to give talks and present.