The Daily Mirror News Task

The front page

The Facebook page

The Instagram page

The Twitter page

The website

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

Within the team, I worked with Abbie and Cherish to produce the front cover of a physical copy of the Daily Mirror. This included choosing appropriate stories for the platform, creating the headlines and adding images. We then designed the layout of the page to make all of it fit together and produce a finished cover.

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

 When making the front cover, we immediately knew that, as a tabloid, the Daily Mirror was more likely to feature large amounts of image content than a broadsheet newspaper such as the Daily Telegraph. Printed copies of the Daily Mirror certainly have larger image content than the website or social media pages, as this will allow the cover to catch potential readers from afar in a way that is not necessitated by a website or social media. The large image of David Davis that we chose for our cover is very relevant to the article about Brexit. We intentionally chose an image that was not posed, as this allowed us to portray him as perhaps "CONFUSED" in the caption, which conveys the Daily Mirror's lack of support for Brexit. Beginning the image caption with a single capitalised word and then having the actual description for the picture is also a common convention of the Daily Mirror that we reflected in our own version. The inclusion of an advert for Tesco on the front page also shows the Mirror's conventional way of making money through printed advertisements, as well as being targeted towards the Mirror's less affluent audience who would not be shopping at a more expensive store. This cover of the Mirror will appeal to the audience by reflecting their own views and by adhering to the familiar brand identity of the newspaper.

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

The front page has a clear and immediate presentation of the Mirror's left-wing political stance, shown through the description of the Brexit deal as 'shoddy' and the politician involved as 'diabolical'. The standfirst continues this negative attitude towards Britain's EU-leaving deal, which goes further still to cement the newspaper's position as left-wing.
With the exception of Brexit, the stories were chosen because they were not terribly specific financial or economic stories, which traditionally would not appeal to the Daily Mirror's audience of lower socioeconomic grades. As a result of this, we included alliteration and hyperbole in the headlines to create humour and entertain the target audience through a sensational portrayal of events - a technique also seen in the real Mirror.


4. Explain how your team adapted the news across the three different media forms and the reasons behind your decisions.
 Upon receiving the brief, we knew that some stories could be shown on all three platforms according to their level of importance. For this reason, the Iraq story was featured on all three. However, we felt that stories like the Frozen Finger Fiasco would be better if they were shown in print due to their comical nature, which would allow for a word play headline and contribute to the appeal in the print version. This appeal through entertainment is a necessary one for the printed copy, as it is the only media form that the user must explicitly pay for.



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

I think that our cover could have been improved if we had been more consistent with the design. For example, the font could have been made to stay the same across all instances of text, which would make the cover seen more professional. However, I think that the overall effect was achieved and that the cover is a clear presentation of Daily Mirror conventions.
  

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.

I gave my celebrity the same name as me, and while this is a fictionalised version of me, I think giving him a normal name rather than a stage name chosen for appeal (such as an alliterative name or a single word like JayZ) supports the character's representation of an indie style of music, where I think artists would be more likely to use their real name. My celebrity is one who presents themselves as more of a normal human being ,rather than other male artists who perhaps go too far to present themselves as macho or tough-looking.

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

My celebrity sits alone against a nighttime countryside background, perhaps to show the solitude of fame in how it separates you from the rest of society and people's regular lives. He is quite small in the frame compared to other Billboard covers, but this just goes further to illustrate a sense of solitude and loneliness. The 'other side of stardom', as written in the magazine text, is represented through the presence of literal stars above the celebrity, who looks up as in searching for another meaning - or their other side. Of course, the actual message of this phrase, to stop focusing on celebrity glamour and go back to the roots of music, is shown through the celebrity's casual dress and lack of obvious makeup, as well as the use of an acoustic guitar rather than an electric one, which would have been indicative of a modern setting - but this acoustic guitar instead encourages us to look back.

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?

I am pleased with the end result, as I think the model and background have blended well to create an eye-catching image - certainly helped by the blue colour grade applied to both. I think the shot of the celebrity is the best one of the set that was photographed, as some others, such as the one where I was leaning on the guitar while standing up, looked awkward and would not have contributed to the relaxed emotion I was seeking. However, I think there is room for improvement, as the model is perhaps too small in the frame, and could have been larger to fill more space on the cover. The reason I made him his current size was to leave some space above his head for the stars to be visible, so perhaps the solution to both problems would have been to retake the shot in many different poses to allow for more flexibility in choice of photograph later on.

Minecraft Pocket Edition Gameplay For YouTube

1) How I did it

To create the video, I filmed myself reacting to a pre-recorded clip as though I were playing the game live. To add to this impression, I often described what was going on in the clip - such as the character holding seeds, which I said opened the possibility of creating a farm. I overlaid the footage of myself onto the gameplay video using the FilmMaker Pro app on an iPad, and also adjusted the size of the overlaid clip, as I didn't want it to obscure a large portion of the actual gameplay. Providing a constant and engaging commentary, which I attempted to do, is very much the style of these videos, as seen in the videos of popular Minecraft youtubers such as DanTDM and SkyDoesMinecraft.

2) How could my video attract Mojang and/or Microsoft, and how might it influence them?

These kinds of videos rely on the fanbase of Minecraft being interested enough in the game to watch a video of somebody else playing it, and provided it goes viral, the thoughts and opinions given by the creator of the video could be heard by many people, including Mojang or Microsoft. An example of popularity leading to this scenario is in the success of the fan-made plugin Bukkit - Nathan Adams, a developer for that plugin, was given a job at Mojang due to the success and popularity of the fan-made content.