2015 Christmas Reading Year 12

Social media:
http://mashable.com/2010/11/29/social-media-movie-marketing/
http://socialfresh.com/how-social-media-is-changing-the-business-of-blockbuster-movies-infographic/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/britt-michaelian/social-media-is-a-major-g_b_4284162.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/preetam-kaushik/the-changing-roles-of-film-producers_b_2483863.html
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/will-ferrell-s-anchorman-2-changing-way-movies-are-marketed-154076
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/jun/16/twitter-movie-website-hashtag-film-social-media
http://www.portent.com/blog/social-media/hunger-games-social-media-campaign.htm
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/online-movie-campaigns-time-to-see-the-bigger-picture-2042357.html

Effects:
http://io9.com/5411842/does-cgi-ruin-movies
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2014/08/20/an-interview-with-veteran-special-effects-supervisor-scott-squires-part-two
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2013/03/15/why-less-is-more-when-it-comes-to-movie-special-effects/#.VImJ4tKsUuc
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-10-10/barry-norman-modern-films-rely-too-much-on-special-effects-sequels-and-remakes
http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/1997/09/10/hollywood-relies-too-heavily-special-effects-and-gimmicks#.VImIMNKsUuc
http://whatculture.com/film/the-importance-of-visual-effects.php
http://vfxg.org/profiles/blogs/are-visual-effects-more-important-than-story

Types of website - FM3 Research

What are the Various Types of Websites?

Originally, websites were purely informational. Before the web was opened to the public, educational and research institutions and goverment agencies were able to make information available to each other via text-only websites. Now that we have the World Wide Web, there are more types of websites than you can shake a stick at. Here we will discuss the basic types, noting that we will not include all and that there are hybrids of all those we will discuss.

Basic Website Types     1. Personal Websites     2. Photo Sharing Websites     3. Writers / Authors Websites     4. Community Building Websites     5. Mobile Device Websites     6. Blogs     7. Informational Websites     8. Online Business Brochure/Catalog     9. Directory Websites   10. E-commerce Websites

  

1. Personal Websites

Your Internet Service Provider or Domain Registrar may offer you free server space for you to create your own website that might include some family photos and an online diary. Usually these will have a web address (URL) looking something like this: www.your-isp.com/~your-user-name/.
  

2. Photo Sharing Websites

These types of website are cropping up like fleas on dog. There are web sites like, Flickr.com, Photosite.com, and Google's Picasa. There could easily be over a hundred such sites that offer free photo sharing paid for by their online advertising. Also, many digital cameras and photo printers now come with software enabling mere mortals to create digital photo slide shows and upload them to the web. Most smart phones have apps to accomplish the same ends.
  

3. Writers / Authors Websites

Writer's and Author's websites are part of what's known as the Writer's or Author's Platform in the publishing business. The platform includes, a website, a Facebook presence, blog, Twitter account, and the old fashioned mailing list. Many publishers will ask a prospective client about their platform. In other words, "If we publish your book, what sort of a reader base do you already have that we can count on to buy your new publication?" Fairly weighty request, wouldn't you say? For now, let's concentrate on the website part. A writers website would include a biography, a catalog of published books and works, perhaps excerpts from some works, links to publications on sites like Amazon.com, a link to the writer's blog, reviews and comments on the author's publications. You get the idea, and that is to build a following, a fan base to which future publications can be directly marketed.
  

4. Community Building Websites

Social Websites, Forum Websites, and Sharing Websites.
These websites build online communities of people who want to interact with other people socially or meet people who share their interests. The best known website of this type is probably FaceBook.com. There's alsoLinkedin.com, and let's not forget the old MySpace.com just to mention a few.
For sharing and discussing mutual interests, there are online forums for practically any subject you can think of. These Forum websites can be a great source of information and help for the small business person. (I'm sure there is a forum dedicated to your type of business. Just do a web search for something like real estate web forum.) Now you can see this is where we start to get into the idea of "hybrid" sites.
Photo Sharing and other forms of sharing sites might also be considered community building sites, much as Blogging sites are. Can Dating Sites be considered Community Building Sites, or are they E-commerce Sites. All that's up for discussion.
  

5. Mobile Device Websites

The use of mobile devices (smart phones, tablets, watches, etc.) has become ubiquitous. One problem is that standard websites are difficult to view and sometines take a long time to download on some of these devices with their small screens and wireless connections. Websites whose pages are narrower in width and take up less bandwidth work much better for mobile devices. A new domain designation has been created to identify websites that are "mobile friendly". That is .mobi, as in www.xislegraphix.mobi, if I had such a site.
  

6. Blogging Websites

People took the words Web Logs and shortened it to Blogs—online diaries, journals, or editorials, if you will. My, how Blogs have taken over the Internet. A person used to be outdated if he/she did not have a website, now having a blog is de rigeur. A blog owner will log-on daily, weekly, or whenever, and write about whatever is going on in their lives or business, or they may comment on politics and news. How wonderful the Internet is! Now anyone who can afford a blog can be self published and allow their thoughts to be read by anyone in the world who has online access.
  

7. Informational Websites

A major informational site is wikipedia.org, the online encyclopedia. And it is unique, because it allows members to contribute and edit articles. Now your small business may not want such a comprehensive site, but if you have information to share or sell, an informational website would fill the bill. Suppose you have a landscaping business. You could create a website that lists plants with their definitions and planting and caring instructions. This would be helpful to people, and you would use it to lead people to your nursery. Of course you could "hybrid" this site by adding an e-commerce feature, a forum, or even photo sharing.
  

8. Online Business Brochure/Catalog Websites

In the days before the Internet, we used the print, radio, and television media to spread the word about our businesses. Now we can cast a large net, reaching literally millions of people al over the world with just one website. With your online brochure or catalog, you can show anyone who looks for and finds your website, photos and descriptions of your products or services. To some this may sound like an E-commerce Website, but there are many businesses that deal in products or services that are not sellable over the web—think hair-stylist, dentist, or day-care center.
  

9. Directory Websites

Just as we used to use the printed Yellow Pages in phone books to find services and businesses, today we have website directories. The Yellow Pages has one, YP.com. Directories can be dedicated to a certain topic or industry, or they can encompass geographical areas. Search Engines, such as Google.com and Yahoo.comcan be considered directories, but since their databases are so large, rather than searching alphabetically, one enters a search term in the search field.
  

10. E-commerce Websites

Ever hear of Amazon.com? It's one of the grand-daddies of all e-commerce websites. But you don't have to be an Amazon to sell your products online. There are millions of small businesses who use their e-commerce websites to sell their products over the Internet. Just about anything that can be sold in a brick-and-mortar store can be sold online—with much less overheads! 

Exam dates 2016

FM2 (Year 12): 17th May

FM4 (Year 13): 10th June

FM3 research project presentation dates

Tuesday 6th October:  Maddie and Connor
Thursday 8th October:  Jack and Connor
Tuesday 13th October:  Maisie
Thursday 15th October:  Rhianna and Abdul
Tuesday 20th October:  Theo and Maisie
Thursday 22nd October:  Maddie, Michael
Tuesday 3rd November: Jess and Kieran

Primary research

Primary research is research that you have carried out yourself. This can be material that you have generated (e.g. asking a question on a forum that other users have responded to) or uninterpreted material that you have analysed (e.g. using Google to find reviews on a film about female strippers and counting up how many of the positive reviews were written by male reviewers as opposed to female ones).

Examples of sources of primary research include:

• questionnaires
• emails
• interviews
• forum posts
• focus groups
• surveys
• audience testing
• analysis

You will need to analyse your data (e.g. completed questionnaires) and summarise your findings.

• Explain the tests you performed (and why you did them - aims and objectives).

• Describe the demographic make-up of your test group.

• Explain how you gathered the data.

• What were your results?  (Look to highlight interesting results, important trends and differences/comparisons.)

•  Show any negative results too, and try to explain them.

• Indicate what results are significant in terms of the your topic.

• Draw any immediate conclusions.

The quantitative data (fixed response) can be presented in the form of tables, graphs and diagrams, but you also need to use words to guide readers through your data.
The analysis of qualitative data cannot be neatly presented in tables and figures, as quantitative results can be. It must all be expressed in words and you must guide your reader.

Preparation for the FM2 exam - some blogs and sites to follow

Charles Gant (UK box-office trends)
http://www.theguardian.com/film/series/at-the-british-box-office

Mark Kermode (general film blog)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode

Stephen Follows (analysis of film issues)
http://stephenfollows.com/

David Bordwell (film analyst)
http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/

The Guardian film blog
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog

BBC Film
http://www.bbc.co.uk/film/

The Guardian Film
http://www.theguardian.com/film

Industry news
http://www.screendaily.com/

Also some good information about the UK film industry is on the Media blog here:
http://howardschoolmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/institutions-and-audiences-some-useful.html

Christmas reading - preparation for the mock exam!

Social media:
http://mashable.com/2010/11/29/social-media-movie-marketing/
http://socialfresh.com/how-social-media-is-changing-the-business-of-blockbuster-movies-infographic/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/britt-michaelian/social-media-is-a-major-g_b_4284162.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/preetam-kaushik/the-changing-roles-of-film-producers_b_2483863.html
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/will-ferrell-s-anchorman-2-changing-way-movies-are-marketed-154076
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/jun/16/twitter-movie-website-hashtag-film-social-media
http://www.portent.com/blog/social-media/hunger-games-social-media-campaign.htm
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/online-movie-campaigns-time-to-see-the-bigger-picture-2042357.html

Effects:
http://io9.com/5411842/does-cgi-ruin-movies
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2014/08/20/an-interview-with-veteran-special-effects-supervisor-scott-squires-part-two
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2013/03/15/why-less-is-more-when-it-comes-to-movie-special-effects/#.VImJ4tKsUuc
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-10-10/barry-norman-modern-films-rely-too-much-on-special-effects-sequels-and-remakes
http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/1997/09/10/hollywood-relies-too-heavily-special-effects-and-gimmicks#.VImIMNKsUuc
http://whatculture.com/film/the-importance-of-visual-effects.php
http://vfxg.org/profiles/blogs/are-visual-effects-more-important-than-story