Lego Marketing Revision

Connotation: thoughts provoked by an object.
Denotation: Literal object.


Lego marketing:

• Merchandise 
• Commercial break which was created out of Lego
• Video Game
• Posters
• Adverts
• Happy Meals
• Website
• Social Media

Intertextuality

• Matrix storyline
• Lego
• DC Universe
• TMNT
• LOTR
• Harry Potter
• NBA Superstars
• William Shakespeare
• Star Wars
• Wild West
• Sci-fi
• Romance
• Action

Lego TV Advertising.

TV Adverts normally show the product being advertised.

They differ to the theatrical trailers due to their shorter length.

The TV adverts would have been shown at around 7 .

In Dancing On Ice at 7:27 pm on Sunday 9th February 2014 - 5 days before the movie launched - ITV broadcast a world first, an ad break made entirely of Lego!

The commercial break included adverts of British Heart Foundation with Vinnie Jones, Confused.com with Brian the Robot, BT Infinity,  Premier Inn with Lenny Henry.

All of these adverts were created in Lego as well as the Lego Movie theatrical trailer.

The BHF advert represented the football fans who knew of Vinnie Jones. It also is an advert for a charity, showing the parents of children that The Lego Movie has good intentions.

The Confused.com advert was comedic with the iconic Robot Brian inside a Lego world and teenagers being stereotypical, relating to teenagers watching the advert as well as fans of the icon Brian.

Additionally the BT Infinity advert relates to couples with its touch on romance as well as the constant need for new internet. 

The Premier Inn advert contains Lenny Henry which represents racial diversity, showing good intentions. Fans of Lenny Henry also would be attracted.

Followed with the advert for The Lego Movie, cementing the certainty for anyone on the fence about the film.

The Advertising campaign made 60 newspaper and magazine headlines and was shared on social media which further increased the audience watching the adverts.

Character posters were released which show the main characters and diversity of the cast, male, female, black and white, each poster represented different people. The main poster showed a Lego setting with Emmet as the main focus of the image, showing how he's the main character, it has genre conventions of Sci-fi and action movies which primarily target males.

There was a dual release of The Lego Movie and its videogame counterpart allowed for two target audiences to be reached, gamers and movie goers. Since the movie advertised the game and the game advertised the movie, the target audiences of both intertwined and the gamers would watch the movies while the movie goers may have played the game.

BLUMLER AND KATZ

DIVERSION

SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

SURVEILANCE

PERSONAL IDENTITY

NEWS

Explain two ways that newspapers are funded.

The first and simple way of newspapers being funded is by selling copies to buyers and using the income for the business. Secondly newspapers include adverts for products of companies who would pay to have said products advertised. The Guardian and other newspapers online also ask for donations on their websites.

How does The Observer reflect its values?

political alignment (Labour)
art and culture
Social and liberal democratic
no brexit
gay lifestyle
Multiculturalism

Radio 1 revision.

The target audience for radio 1 is 15-35, middle class C1 - E, all genders, British
Live lounge was launched to appeal to the internet audiences that left due to the invention of music streaming platforms.
Harry Styles covered Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain'.
This attracts different target audiences due to:

• The target audiences of both bands of One Direction (X Factor fans and teenage girls) as well as Fleetwood Mac's (30+ rock fans of any gender, British and Americans)
• It also attracts average music listeners who like the mix of electrical and acoustic music in the live lounge.
• The song 'The Chain' was used in the blockbuster hit Guardians of the Galaxy so fans of the Marvel movie may be attracted too.
• There is also the audience group of Radio One.
• 'The Chain' was also the theme of F1.g

Explain how media language has been used differently to represent the target audiences.

In Top of the Pops, the colour pallet included shades of pink mostly, showing a female target audience being the primary focus of the magazine as pink is a stereotypically female colour. However, in the MOJO magazine, the colour pallet only included red, black, grey and white to represent the target audience of males as these colours are more masculine.

The lexis and typography in Top of the Pops include feminine sentences such as "who is fitter" which represents the heterosexual female audience fingerling over Justin Bieber and Harry Styles. This shows the magazine is aimed at teenage girls as they're the target audiences of One Direction and Justin Bieber. There are also a lot of stereotypically feminine titles such as "Look like Rochelle!" and "Your most EMBARRASSING body worries SOLVED!". The two titles are based on the female obsession of appearance to attract young, insecure girls.

The Guardian Analysis.

The Guardian website includes a simple layout with the title and links at the top. The font of the title is easy to read so it's accessable for everyone. As well as this, the colour scheme is simple, including only yellow, blue and white and black. The colours are inviting but also professional, there aren't too many colours so that it looks comical but not too little so that it looks too intimidating. The main stories are about Brexit and education, The Irish boarder and Labour, it shows that The Guardian is a heavily political news source. The word "brexit" and other political words are in bold to show their relevance, allowing the audience to see the relevance of the stories.
The main image includes a close-up high angle shot of Theresa May. It shows their slight bias against her and towards Labour in the form of her looking less powerful compared to a low angle medium shot of Tom Watson, showing him to be bigger and therefore more important. The lack of articles on the Conservative party show the Labour party bias.
The links at the top of the page include: "News", "Opinion", "Sport", "Culture", "Lifestyle" and "more". The inclusion of opinion before sports show The Guardian's desire to present their opinions on political matters appears more important than sports.
It also shows it's  bias against the conservative party with mentions of "Johnson and Gove under fire for law-breaking" yet articles on Labour portray them to be benevolent and victimised. Furthermore there are multiple mentions of Labour in bold but no mention of the Conservative party, save for the word "Tory" which isn't in bold. Furthermore, the use of "The last thing you want" in the conservative party clearly shows the Observer's views on it.


The observer's twitter also posts images which ruin the conservative image such as the one above which clearly represents their bias against the conservatives in the form of anti-brexit marches and mocking images of Theresa May.
News now can be commented on in the form of social media and comment sections, unlike 50 years ago when no one could express their views on the news being fed to them. The news now is also more efficient due to the digital world it now lives in rather than only newspapers which would take a while to reach people, unlike the use of the internet, allowing for news to reach people much faster and be updated much faster also, allowing for almost 300 posts by the Observer on twitter alone.

Tabloid, Broadsheets and Hybrids

Tabloids: soft newspapers with humour:

• The Sun.
• The Guardian
• Daily mirror
• Daily Mail

Broadsheets: serious newspapers:

• The Daily Telegraph

Hybrids: a bit of both:

• Daily Mail
• Daily express

Mock DIRT 4 - 6.

Describe what is meant by 'Public Service Broadcasting' (PSB). Use the BBC as an example in your answer.

Public Service Broadcasting is when a broadcaster releases entertainment for the benefit of the public rather than themselves. This means that they rely on the public for their funding rather than from regulators such as OFCOM. As a result of this they get their own funding from public voting, advertisements, selling merchandise. The broadcasters would create their media with the public's interest at heart but wouldn't have to follow the restrictions of any regulators such as OFCOM. Public Broadcasters also provide coverage for interests which have very little or no market. They also supply topics that are of social benefit, not commonly provided by commercial broadcasters.

The Avengers

Explain how social contexts influence television programmes. Refer to The Avengers from 1965 to support your answer.

The BBC being a PSB meant that the creation of The Avengers was entirely out of the public's benefit. It meant that they created the show for the public, and while the target audience of the BBC was the working class, the characters in the show were classy, posh spies. This is due to the constant fear of the Russian/German spies of the time, therefore showing the social contexts influence the television programs of the time. Furthermore art was also coming into light and is shown also in 'The Town of No Return' at the start with the giant eye on top of Ms Peel's door, a direct reference to pop art culture.

1960s news texts.

Masthead
Teaser stories

Layout

Typography

Colour

Lexis

Imagery

This case study clearly shows there was scepticism of spies from the Soviets, as well as political negotiations with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. It also shows that the 1960s had started to grow into a generation of free love though divorce wasn't wholly accepted. The layout shows how important certain aspects of the time were. For example, the title "Lawyers will urge divorce by consent" is the largest bit of text, showing how its controversy of free love and religion was more interesting than the possible spies of the Soviets. There's also a corset for sale showing the importance of fashion as the advert is so large, it also shows the sexualisation of women starting the be significant in th era.

This case study shows the significance of the war in Vietnam, a large, bold title is shown in the centre of the image which shows how a typical 60s Brit would care about the ongoing war of Vietnam. There's slight racism in the article of the Olympics "Briton shoots a Gold" with an old racial slur. The Main article is "Unions Postpone Strike" clearly shows the relevance of the class tension with worker strikes and worker rights, it also shows the poverty that the nation was still in 20 years after WWII. There's also an article about the re-marriage of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (JFK's wife) showing the significance of love in the era as the sixties was known as the era of free love with the creation of the contraceptive pill for women, allowing for them to have sexual relations with whoever they want.

This newspaper has another article about spies, still showing the scepticism of spies over the world. There's also a small article where the president offered Vietnam a truce and opportunity to end the Vietnam war. The queen also presented herself at the 'mourning valley' of Aberfan after a collapse of a colliery spoil tip which killed 144 people (116 children). The layout shows a large image of the queen showing the patriotism  of the 60s was still relevant. it also shows an advertisement of a shop or business of clothes which shows the relevance of fashion and sexualisation of women in the 60s. There was also the main headline of a spy escaping jail, this also shows the relevance of war speculation and scepticism in Britain.

These newspapers all portray the feelings about war that were relevant at the time with article titles such as "America accused of spy frame-up". This is because of the number of stories on spies from other countries. The scepticism of spies is shown to be quite potent in the era despite the second world war being 15-20 years behind it. This is because of the fear the war instilled on the planet and how they affected each country morally and economically. During this period the Vietnamese War was ongoing and cause a lot of pain and loss for countries involved shown by the article heading "Enough of this sorrow".
Furthermore they present gender (especially women) more independently sexual, including advertisements of fashion and lingerie which are presented on images of women. There's also a main article titled: "Lawyers will urge divorce by consent", showing the start of divorcing being legal and accepted though still topical and relevant enough for newspapers to have articles on them. The article on Jackie's remarriage shows the acceptability of having multiple marriages coming into view as she was a very iconic character in society, even Britain clearly, and the article on her remarriage shows how relevant both topics are. The new topic of remarriage is against Christian beliefs, this means that Christianity was still potent enough that divorce and remarriage is controversial but not potent enough to ban it entirely.
Racism was still a huge problem in these times, shown in the term used multiple times "Negroes" as well as a quote from Lee Evans "this is our only outlet.  wouldn't have won a scholarship to go to university if I didn't run fast. Maybe a white boy doesn't need to try so hard because his parents can afford to send him to school". This shows how racism was still prominent in the form of opportunities being  more available to "white boys" than the minorities.

News History

Technology that changed news:

• The printing press allowed for copying leaflets.
• The typewriter allowed for faster production of articles as well as neater ones.
• Telegrams using morse code were extremely fast and allowed fast communication over long distances.
• Cameras made images more realistic.
• The radio allowed for news channels with faster and more available news.
• TVs were created to give visual news.
• Computers were created to code and communicate.
• The invention of the internet allowed for newspapers to have online versions.

What Is News?

What is the purpose of news?

• Informing the public of current affairs.
• Educating the public.
• Advertising products to the public.
• Entertaining the public.
• Profiting.
• Influencing or persuading the public's opinions or views.

What is fake news?

It is information which has been presented to the public which portray unhelpful or untrue information. It's not necessarily the publication of someone's article which purposefully present news which is false or inaccurate but also images, audio and videos posted out of context which unintentionally present incorrect information.

Mock DIRT Q1-3

Analyse how sound is used in the extract to create meaning. Refer to at least two examples from the extract in your answer.

Non-diegetic sound is used to foreshadow the robbery in the extract. For example, the short-lived ominous music played whenever the construction vehicle is shown foreshadows the malicious intent of the driver which we find later. Additionally, the use of  diegetic, casual dialogue "She was massively disappointed!" shows a friendly atmosphere between the officers in the café. This juxtaposes the ominous non-diegetic music in the shot beforehand and creates tension and foreshadows lack of preparation in dealing with the imminent crime. Furthermore, the diegetic dialogue during the chase from Jake "Hey guys it's Jake, uhh..." shows Jake's lack of experience with the current matters and foreshadows a failure in preventing the crime due to this. Finally the ambient, diegetic sound of the sirens represent a high-speed chase and therefore the viewers feel excitement when watching the clip.

Analyse how far the extract depicts the police's point of view rather than the criminal's point of view. In your answer you must:

• Analyse aspects of the extract using examples to support your analysis.
• Judge how far these aspects depict the police's point of view.

The extract starts with a conversation between a detective and a mother of a lost child. The clips consists of multiple low-angle, close-up shots of the detective and significantly less medium close-up, eye-level shots of the mother to show the power of the detective compared to the mother. The clip also contains medium shots of other officers in the next room to show the importance of them also, despite being peripheral characters in the clip. The robbers also are only seen through medium-long shots at eye-level or bird's eye view from a surveillance camera rather than any close ups, dissociating the robbers from the audience. Compared to this, the close-up, low-angle and eye-level shots of the officers at lunch connect them to the audience a whole lot more so that the officers are the centre of view for the audience.

The editing also shows the lack of importance of the criminals compared to the officers, the criminals are only shown to be travelling to the crime scene and then robbing the store and then leaving, whereas the police have multiple representations: the officers at the scene, the officers at lunch and the chase are all significantly longer than any single shot of the robbers.

The diegetic sound of the robbers is incredibly short, there is only a few seconds of dialogue from one of the robbers before they hastily leave, whereas the use of diegetic dialogue for the police is in every scene and every officer is given attention through this.

In this question you will be rewarded for drawing together elements from your full course of study, including different areas of the theoretical framework and media contexts.

How far does the extract try to create a sense that it is portraying 'real life'?

In your answer your must:

• analyse aspects of the extract giving detailed examples
• judge how far these aspects create a sense of watching 'real life'.

The extract also portrays 'real life' by creating a believable setting. The setting changes consistently but has been created by set designers to resemble very realistic police stations, hospitals and flats so that they mimic real life and allow the audience to understand the real-life situations the police are exposed to daily. Additionally the mise-en-scene of props such as pencils are key detail to really mimic a real life situation. As well as this the visible blood from the drug abuser as well as the ruined flat shows detail and feels real for the audience.

Surveillance Capitalism.

Surveillance can be used for advertising and is almost unethical. This article shows that the audience's role has changed since the invention of the internet as surveillance capitalism does this by taking advantage of the population's laziness in reading terms and conditions, allowing companies to access data which usually wouldn't be ethical.

Cuffs Extra Practise.

Audience expectations of police drama:

• Tense crime scene.
• Action.
• Buildup of enigma which causes questioning from the audience which must be answered by the narrative.

narrative expectations:

• High-speed chase.
• detective analysis.

Character expectations:

• Good cop/Bad cop.
• serious/goofy officers.
• Criminal masterminds.
• Old male chief of police.
• Pretty police officers.

Location expectations:

• City.
• Village
• Roads where chase happens.
• police station.

Representations:

• Race.
• Gender.
• Ethnicity.
• Justice.

Values:

• Justice.
• Equality.
• Empowerment of minorities.

Title credits must grab your attention:

• Loud.
• Quick and dramatic beat.
• Ambient sounds (sirens etc.).

Blumler and Katz.aSurveillance,

• Self identity,
• personal relationships,
• Entertainment (escape from reality).

What do the opening scene and credits tell us about the genre, narrative and characters? What would the audience expect from the series. 

The music is non-diegetic rock, upbeat and edgy: not traditional for a serious crime drama, therefore it shows how Cuffs is directed towards the younger generation and shows how the plot will be serious and edgy. The cinematography shows jumpy scenes which creates the sense of action, attracting the younger generation who want to experience excitement in the form of the entertainment they get from watching the series (Blumler and Katz). The show also shows different aspects of the characters, some were happier in the opening, showing an upbeat show however others were also seen to look grim and serious or tense, showing the other aspect of the show being serious and grim which would cause an expectation for loss and defeat from the audience and therefore represents the police rather well as they're often in a position of defeat in their cases. The opening credits also shows a diverse cast in the show: Ryan Draper (a black police officer), Jo Moffat (a female character) and a muslim officer, showing the justice of equality in the show which the show wanted to portray in a generation which was less accepting of diversity. The police imagery above the imagery of the city and the graffiti shows the relevance of good verses evil and also the importance of the police and about how the police is important to the city's integrity.



How has sound been used to create meaning?

The diegetic sound of the sea gull and sea instantly represents the seaside and communicates to the viewer that the scene takes place on a beach, the immediate use of a radio and siren also communicates a crime scene which communicates to the viewer that the show will be filled with crimes and action. The non-diegetic sound of ominous music as soon as the clip starts shows the tension the show brings with it and creates a first impression of enigma as to what the tension is about. The sound bridge of non-diegetic monologue over the shots of the beach with the police station shows the link between the two settings, however the monologue of the chief super juxtaposes the scene at the beach. The line "ensuring cohesion and security" completely juxtaposes the chaos ensuing at the beach which communicates the lack of control the police actually have and what the have to work against daily. Furthermore the "positive daily interactions with the public" line of the monologue completely juxtaposes the line from the dialogue of "seriously, what's the point in you", showing how even those who called the police are prejudiced against them. Finally the line from the Chief Super "I'm here not only in my professional capacity but... as a family member" shows the favouritism that the Chief has over his new officer. However the change in music to something more rock/edgy shows how he may be slightly rebellious. In conclusion, the non-diegetic music creates foreshadowing to attract the target audience of the 2010s whereas the non-diegetic sound bridge and diegetic dialogue allows for the narrative to progress properly.

Cuffs episode one.

Narrative:

• Ryan Draper appears on scene at a nudist beach to settle a dispute.
• A fight breaks out which is broken up by Ryan.
• Ryan is hit by one of the instigators.
• Ryan is paired with a new partner: Jake Vickers, the Chief Super's son.
• They arrive at the house of a man who had mental health issues.
• Jake bandages him up and helps him to the hospital.
• They leave him at the hospital alone: first mistake by Ryan.
• Racist is let out of prison and attacks Indian man.
• The mental health guy abducts his daughter due tp a family dispute.
• Ryan lectures Jake for saying Chill.
• Ryan shouts at a child, we learn that he's a father.
• Crazy shoplifter woman is handled poorly by Jake.
• Hint towards homosexual relationship between Jake and solicitor.
• Jo Moffat asks out the Chief Super to dinner, they have an affair and he cheats on his dying wife.
• Newsagents get destroyed. Thieves escape.
• Jake and Ryan enter a car chase after a store robbery.
• Jake reads the wrong road and the police block the wrong road.
• The robbers get away but a child abductor is stopped.
• Unaware of this, the officers let him go before they realise who he is.
• Racist is named, four officers, big raid.
• Ryan and Jake arrest the racist and Jake knocks him out.
• The detective is shouted at by the mother of the abducted child.
• The abductor sends a video to her explaining why he took her.
• It turns out he’s her dad and he wants to spend more time with her.
• The detective watches the video and finds a paper labelled with the hotel he’s in.
• He enters the hotel and finds the man attempting suicide.
• He saves him.
• The child is reunited with her mother and the father is arrested.
• Jake, Ryan, Donna and Carl train in a parking lot.
• While Jake takes a break, another man caches his eye who he recognises.
• The solicitor flirts and gives Jake his card: this represents the stereotype of gay people "sleeping around".

Characters:

• Ryan Draper: a black experienced police officer (represents racial diversity) who has two children.
• Jake Vickers: a homosexual "greenie" who's had no experience. He's the Chief Super's son.
• Jo Moffat: a lonely woman who works at the agency.
• Chief Super Robert Vickers: the head of the department, he cheated on his deathly sick wife with Jo Moffat.
• Detective Inspector Felix Kane: a socially awkward detective whom we learn has a habit of enjoying the red light district.
• Misha Baig: a Muslim woman who works at the force (represents Muslim culture positively).
• Mental health guy (represents mental health).

Setting:

• Story is set in Brighton.
• Known for gay culture.
• police chases around Brighton and highways.

Tone:

• Humorous tone during joke crimes such as beach scene.
• Tension increases during police chases.
• Tone gets sexual when solicitor flirts with Jake.
• Gentle tone: family scene 

Television in the 2010s

LO: research the 2010s (UK) in terms of social, cultural and political climate of the decade; research TV usage in 2015.

Cuffs was released in October 2015.
What were the key events in 2015 that might have influenced a TV series set in the present day?


Politics- after the 2015 election, parliament was primarily conservative with 331/650 seats, labour suffered their worst loss ever at this time since 1987.

Entertainment-

• Instagram and vlogging is popular.
• The rise of Harry Potter and Marvel showed the need for an escape for reality.

Sports-

• Rugby Union 6 Nations starts.
• Cricket World Cup.
• Golf Masters.
• Premier League.
• FA Cup.
• F1.
• Wimbledon tennis.
• Tour de France.
• Athletics World Champs.

Youth Groups-

• the youth stereotypes were chavs and roadmen.
• social media and iPhones.
• Drug culture.
• Knife crime.
• Videogame violence.
• Rap music.

Events-

• Terrorist Paris attack.
• Fuel prices drop  causing inflation rates to fall to 0.5%.
• Obama is still president but Trump is gaining popularity.
• Ireland legalised gay marriage.
• Brexit.
• Afganistan.
• Syria.
• ISIS.
• Korean Nuclear Capacity.

In 2015 the UK general election was incredibly slight. The Conservatives, while having the most votes only just had over half of the seats at parliament with 331 out of 650. Before 2015 the government was a coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. however since the conservatives had a stronger role in parliament in 2015 they were in power and have been ever since. Ever since 9/11 there has been a large scepticism towards muslims, causing a popularity in political parties such as UKIP. All over the world people were protesting about global warming in March and about the airstrikes on Syria which we were causing. There were also protests about student tuition fees and multiple anti-austerity rallies. In November there was also a terrorist attack in Paris which caused a lot of riot.

The key events shaped this era because of the violence and confusion. The wars and political riots caused a rise in the popularity of movies and videogames which let people escape reality. However the wide-shared acceptance of homosexuality allowed for gay marriage to be legalised in this era.

Media products have been created to fit this. For example movie franchises such as Harry Potter and Marvel have become popular due to people's desire to leave reality and the media takes advantage of this in many different ways such as videogames which are created simply because they're more popular now that people want lasting escapes from society.




2015 VS 1965

In 1965, gay marriage was completely suppressed and transgressive therefore in 1965 police dramas there'd be no homosexual characters however in a 2015 police drama there may be as gay marriage was legalised the year before. As well as this there would be a less diverse cast in 1965 and would follow British stereotypes whereas in 2015 the stereotypes would have changed and the acting wouldn't be so posh and traditional. In 1965 there was also a sexual independence for women allowing for women to dress how they choose and have affairs due to the contraceptive pill. However in 2015 there are restrictions for how women can be presented and the 1965 dramas violated this rule by portraying these characters too sexually. The crimes in 2015 would be more serious as there was the threat of terrorism and so more dramatic but the police officers in 1965 were taken less seriously as the crime rates weren't as high or at least they weren't perceived to be high compared to 2015.