December Production Diary Vodcast

Key Terms 2

Institutions – The organisations which produce and control media texts such as the BBC, AOL Time Warner, News International.

Intertextuality – the idea that within popular culture producers borrow other texts to create interest to the audience who like to share the ‘in’ joke. Used a lot in the Simpsons.

Media language – the means by which the media communicates to us and the forms and conventions by which it does so.

Media Platform – nothing to do with trains, this refers to the different ways that media content is delivered, mainly via TV, laptop, tablet, smartphone, cinema, video/computer game, printed page etc. for instance the BBC delivers content via TV, laptop and mobile device, and also through printed publications. Most media organisations deliver  their content via a multitude of platforms.

Media product – a text that has been designed to be consumed by an audience. E.G a film, radio show, newspaper etc.

Media text – see above. N.B Text usually means a piece of writing

c – literally ‘what’s in the shot’ everything that appears on the screen in a single frame and how this helps the audience to decode what’s going on.

Mode of Address – The way a media product ‘speaks’ to it’s audience. In order to communicate, a producer of any text must make some assumptions about an intended audience; reflections of such assumptions may be discerned in the text (advertisements offer particularly clear examples of this).

Montage – putting together of visual images to form a sequence. Made famous by Russian film maker Eisenstein in his famous film Battleship Potemkin.

Moral Panic – is the intensity of feeling stirred up by the media  about an issue that appears to threaten the social order, such as against Muslims after 9/11, or against immigrants, or against ‘video nasties’  following the Jamie Bulger murder.

Multi-media – computer technology that allows text, sound, graphic and video images to be combined into one programme.

Myth – a complex idea by Roland Barthes that myth is a second order signifying system ie when a sign becomes the signifier of a new sign (2nd years only this one!)

Narrative code – The way a story is put together within a text, traditionally equilibrium- disequilibrium, new equilibrium, but some text are fractured or non liner, eg Pulp Fiction.

News values – factors that influence whether a story will be picked for coverage.

Non-verbal communication – communication between people other than by speech.

Ownership – who produces and distributes the media texts – and whose interest it is.

Patriarchy – The structural, systematic and historical domination and exploitation of women.

Popular Culture – the study of cultural artefacts of the mass media such as cinema, TV, advertising.

Post Modernism – Anything that challenges the traditional way of doing things, rejecting boundaries between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing pastiche, parody, intertextuality, irony, and playfulness. Post-modernism favours reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structures), ambiguity, simultaneity, and an emphasis on the de-structured, decentered, dehumanized subjects!

Preferred Reading – the interpretation of a media product that was intended by the maker or which is dictated by the ideology of the society in which it is viewed.Oppositional Reading – an interpretation of a text by a reader whose social position puts them into direct conflict with its preferred reading. Negotiated Reading – the ‘compromise’ that is reached between the preferred reading offered by a text and the reader’s own assumptions and interpretations

Propaganda – the way ruling classes use the mass media to control or alter the attitudes of others.

Reader – a member of the audience, someone who is actively responding to the text.

Regulation – bodies whose job it is to see that media texts are not seen by the wrong audience (eg British Board of Film Censors) or are fair and honest (EG Advertising Standards Association)

Representation – The way in which the media ‘re-presents’ the world around us in the form of signs and codes for audiences to read.

SFX – special effects or devices to create visual illusions.

Shot – single image taken by a camera.

Sign – a word or image that is used to represent an object or idea.

Signifier/Signified – the ‘thing’ that conveys the meaning, and the meaning conveyed. EG a red rose is a signifier, the signified is love (or the Labour Party!)

Sound Effects – additional sounds other than dialogue or music, designed to add realism or atmosphere.

Stereotype – representation of people or groups of people by a few characteristics eg hoodies, blondes

Still – static image.

Sub-genre – a genre within a genre.

Two Step Flow theory – the idea that ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population.

Uses and Gratifications – ideas about how people use the media and what gratification they get from it. It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives.

Sourced from: https://brianair.wordpress.com/film-theory/glossary-of-media-terminology/

Key terms 1

Anchorage – how meaning is fixed, as in how a caption fixes the meaning of a picture

Archetype – A universal type or model of character that is found in many different texts, e.g. ingenue, anti-hero, wise old woman, hero-as-lover, hero-as-warrior, shadow trickster, mentor, loyal friend, temptress

Audience – viewers, listeners and readers of a media text. A lot of media studies is concerned with how audience use texts and the effects a text may have on them. Also identified in demographic  socio-economic categories.

Binary Opposites – the way opposites are used to create interest in media texts, such as good/bad, coward/hero, youth/age, black/white. By Barthes and Levi-Strauss who also noticed another important feature of these ‘binary opposites’: that one side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture as more valued over the other.

Catharsis – the idea that violent and and sexual content in media texts serves the function of releasing ‘pent up’ tension aggression/desire in audiences.

Censorship – Control over the content of a media text – sometimes by the government, but usually by a regulatory body like the British Board of Film censors.

CGI – Computer Generated Imagery, Refers to the (usually) 3-D effects that enhance all kinds of still and moving images, from text effects, to digital snow or fire, to the generation of entire landscapes

Code – a sign or convention through which the media communicates meaning to us because we have learned to read it. Technical codes – all to do with the way a text is technically constructed – camera angles, framing, typography, lighting etc. Visual codes – codes that are decoded on a mainly con-notational level – things that draw on our experience and understanding of other media texts, this includes Iconography – which is concerned with the use of visual images and how they trigger the audiences expectations of a particular genre, such as a knife in slasher horror films.

Consumer – purchaser, listener, viewer or reader of media products.

Context – time, place or mindset in which we consume media products.

Conventions – the widely recognised way of doing things in particular genre.

Convergence – The way in which technologies and institutions come together in order to create something new. Cinema is the result of the convergence of photography, moving pictures (the kinetoscope, zoetrope etc), and sound. The iPad represents the convergence of books, TV, maps, the internet and the mobile phone.

Demographics – Factual characteristics of a population sample, e.g. age, gender, race, nationality, income, disability, education

Denotation – the everyday or common sense meaning of a sign. Connotation – the secondary meaning that a sign carries in addition to it’s everyday meaning.

Diegetic Sound – Sound whose source is visible on the screen Non Diegetic sound –Sound effects, music or narration which is added afterwards

Enigma – A question in a text that is not immediately answered and creates interest for the audience – a puzzle that the audience has to solve.

Feminism – the struggle by women to obtain equal rights in society

Gaze – the idea that the way we look at something, and the way somebody looks at you, is structured by the way we view the world. Feminist Laura Mulvey suggests that looking involves power, specifically the look of men at women, implying that men have power over women.

Genre – the type or category of a media text, according to its form, style and content.

Hegemony – Traditionally this describes the predominance of one social class over another, in media terms this is how the controllers of the media may on the one hand use the media to pursue their own political interest, but on the other hand the media is a place where people who are critical of the establishment can air their views.

Hypodermic Needle Theory – the idea that the media can ‘inject’ ideas and messages straight into the passive audience. This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages. Used in advertising and propaganda, led to moral panics about effect of violent video and computer games.

Ideology – A set of ideas or beliefs which are held to be acceptable by the creators of the media text, maybe in line with those of the dominant ruling social groups in society, or alternative ideologies such as feminist ideology.

Indexical sign – a sign which has a direct relationship with something it signifies, such as smoke signifies fire.

Image – a visual representation of something.

Sourced from: https://brianair.wordpress.com/film-theory/glossary-of-media-terminology/

Screen play for the brief

THE BRIEF: SCREEN PLAY

The protagonist is seen stood central in the frame at a high angle and extreme long shot. In a crowd of people in a busy urban area. There is non-diegetic heartbeat audio that builds suspense. The camera zooms in frame by frame in time with the heartbeats to the protagonists hand - who is holding a bag. 

The protagonist raises his hand to his ear as if he is receiving information through an earpiece. A non-diegetic woman's voice is heard.

The Woman: Agent Cross? Agent Cross, an enemy hostile 6 o'clock. Get back to HQ now!

Protagonist drops his hand and non-diegetic fast paced music begins. The protagonist sprints towards an alleyway with the unrevealed antagonist following closely behind. There is a low angle shot of the protagonist sprinting towards the camera, as he sprints over the camera and passes the camera, it cuts to him sprinting away from the camera in a different location and in training form.

The chase continues to a large field where a first person camera will be filming from the antagonists point of view with the protagonist a few metres ahead. A steady tracking shot of the protagonists feet with a shallow depth of field to still keep the antagonist in narrative enigma.

. The protagonist jumps and climbs a wall where it match cuts to a wide armed pull up in a gym scenario with a shallow depth of field. The protagonist gets cornered in a industrial area and there is an extreme close up, shot reverse shot between the two character's facial expressions. The protagonist drops the bag and as the bag hits the floor the screen goes black for a second. The camera is in the bag and it shows the antagonist opening the bag and picking up a letter which the audience does not see. The audience only sees the reaction of frustration from the antagonist.

New Working title

My group has now recently decided on a working title.
This working title is THE BRIEF.

This relates to he story as the agent follows a brief given by another agent. In the style M does in James bond.








So we feel this is a appropriate title.

Adding labels to blog posts

This  blog will give a step by step guide to adding labels to your blog.

The guide is seen below.

1. go to the blogger website.
2. click create new post.
3. click on labels link in post settings.
4. enter in a label. Then press done.
5. This is how to add one  label if you want more place a comma (,) and a space between each one.
6. or to speed it up you could quickly write them all out , then add the commas in after.

How to embedded Youtube videos

Step by step guide to blog embedding.

1. First find the video you want in one tab and your new blog post in another.
2. Look under the video and just above the comments you will see a share button. Press this and it will bring up a new set of options.
3. Pick the embed option.
4. Then right click on the highlighted link and press copy or even press Ctrl V. 
5. Then head over to your blog. 
6. Right click on the blog post, but do this in the location you want the embedded video.
7. Then press paste, or Ctrl C. 
8. when you post the blog it will come out in embedded form. 

Or you can 

1. copy and paste the URL from the browser
2.  to create a hyperlink
3.  then in blogger press the link option in the tool bar.
4. Then add in the URL 
5. and choose a word you want to be able to click on to view the link.
6. Lastly publish the blog and test the link. 

Blog Improvements

Recently, I have made several blog improvements including new post on the production of our film opening, but also the reorganisation of of several other blog posts.

You will see I have embedded several videos onto my blog. Furthermore here is a blog post which has every video on my Youtube channel and the link to the channel its self.

CLICK HERE FRO THE BLOG ON EMBEDDED VIDEOS

I have also added several labels which you can see in the right hand section of my blog.

Next I added a RSS feed onto my blog through the gadget section of Blogger.

Blogger logo

RSS 

I have also added captions to all my images with give them more context.

All videos Blog

My youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwjwvrtE3JBgnGDT_f2Smjw

Conventions vodcast 1



My pitch



Tyrannosaur swede



Prelim task (180 broken)



Prelim task (180 not broken)



Casino Royale impact


Insperation for idea (Point Break) Video


Spectre opening analysis


The Brief 1st Rough Cut


Kingsman opening analysis


GoPro Test Footage


Rough Cut 2


Rough Cut 3 with match cuts


Match Cuts (Rough cut)

Love Actually Analysis

 Love Actually Analysis 

Love actually is set in southern England in and around London. It is set in an upper class background where wealth is the norms and accents are considered posh. This is shown in the trailer.

..

This films was rated R rated aka 15 this means there is a reasonably large audience. The budget for the film is $45,000,000 this would be partly because of the stars which were in the film.

Friday, 25 September 2015

Johnny English Brief Analysis

Genre : Comedy
Filming locations:
London - Canary Warfe
              -  Westminster Abby
Kent


Gross:
USA - $28 M
UK - £19.2 M

Directed By: Peter Howitt

Cast:

• Rowan Atkinson as MI7 agent, Johnny English
• Ben Miller as MI7 agent, Angus Bough
• John Malkovich as Pascal Edward Sauvage
• Natalie Imbruglia as Interpol Agent Lorna Campbell
• Oliver Ford Davies as the Archbishop of Canterbury
• Tim Pigott-Smith as Pegasus
• Kevin McNally as the Prime Minister
• Douglas McFerran as Klaus Vendetta
• Steve Nicolson as Dieter Klein
• Greg Wise as Agent One

Johnny english is set in the South of England and portrays the stereotypical view of England of  Posh and rich

It portrays a candied view of England that appeals to both British and American audiences.

Film opening

So far we have been developing are groups film opening. We have chosen a hybrid idea of the popular action thriller

.

Are idea shows a chase scene where the protagonist has a backpack which the antagonist wishes to take. In anticipation for What is inside. The chase ends in an urban wasteland where the bag is thrown at the antagonist to preserve his safety. But the man finds that there is nothing in the bag. At this point the protagonist has escaped when the antagonist glances up.

So far we have produced a story board which obviously contains the goings on of the story, and how it will be shot. Below we see an example of a story Board.

To accompany this we have the shot list which records all the shots we have used so we can keep track on shoot day. Furthermore this may be developed on the day if we find inspiration from our locations or if it brings any unwanted limitations. Below we see an example of a shot list.

Finally, We have created a screen play, which with holds an idea of the dialogue. The dialogue is limited as we only have it in the opening scene were we have a female sidekick who give the protagonist advice.Below we see an example of a screen play

My Youtube channel

My Youtube channel  is a place where you can see more of my work where I have several videos which I have embedded into my blog. Here is the link to my channel or you can click on the hyper link in the first sentence.


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwjwvrtE3JBgnGDT_f2Smjw

Prelim video

He you will see my prelim video one both lightly edited one showing the the 180 rule not being broken and one of course where it is so I was able to create a good understanding for his rule. Secondly I did also used shot reverse shot in both videos which has worked well with the dialogue. Below you see the embedded video of both video.

Vodcast 1: Conventions

This is vodcast of the conventions of film openings. Which includes several examples and explanations of theses conventions. You are able to see video this below.

My Idea/pitch

My idea is shown in this following pitch, that I carried out in front of my media group.

You will see near the end of this pitch a small Q&A.

Locations for film opening

At first idea was to be based in Leeds to capture and urban feel. As we were able to gain a sense of crowds a city. At the same times as giving it a short film feel.
But recently my group and I have taken the decision to shoot it in Ilkley as it is more local and there are still locations which help us with the feel we are trying to get.

Spooners in overcast weather

 For example the site next to Spooners which gives the appearance of an urban wasteland. Which you can see in the image on the right.












Again on the right you can see an image of Spooners but in winter.







There are also several alley ways which also achieve the look we want.