Quite simply new technology has blasted apart the media industry and it's way of doing everything in such a way that it's inconceivable to think back. Firstly if we just look at production we can see by looking at films such as StarWars Attack of the Clones, Cloverfield, The DarkKnight and especially in animated films like Wall-E. If we take StarWars II as the prime example of production we can clearly see that without modern day technology it would be impossible for them to produce such a film.
StarWars II Attack of the Clones consisted of some of the most advanced technology of it's time, if we simply look at a few clips we can see the that the huge battle scenes were created by state of the art CGI (computer-generated images) which can take hours to create just a second of it via a huge mass of computers. Furthermore many of the scenes of the character Yoda would not have been possible in the film without technology to create an virtual character, in previous episodes of the StarWars series Yoda was simply a puppet, but that would not work in this film due to some intense action scenes.
If we then look at the Wall-E it is clear without the technology we have today this film would not have come off paper, it would take a huge array of computers days, if not weeks, to compile the entire Wall-E film into one suitably sized median to enable distribution. Without computers and the special type of CGI used only by Pixar we would not see Wall-E as it is today, similar things in the past such as Toy Story, also produced by Pixar, would not be around without the huge amount of computing power at their disposal. It would have taken them literally years to draw out all the animations by hand, and even then they would not have the same quality as which the computers create.
Other noticeable technologies which have appeared over the 30 years affecting production include such things as the Green / Blue wall, enabling actors to become immersed via CGI into an entirely different world, and also allows such films as Cloverfield to display amazing monsters not possible via normal materials. However the main thing that technology has brought to the production table is the ability of having real-sized battles on the screen, 30 years previous films such as StarWars had to rely on a few extras to buff up the large battle scenes where now a 1 man actor can be repeated and create a scene with literally thousands of people on at once without a hitch.
Technology also had a huge impact on the marketing of films due to the internet being officially born as we know it today in 1991. 2 prime examples of the difference in marketing is The DarkKnight and Cloverfield. The DarkKnight itself had a huge 'propaganda' before it was even close to being released with a massive amount of clues and tricks laid throughout numerous Batman websites to add interest to the film and only give the littlest amount of information for hours worth of effort. However it proved to be a hit, 1000s of internet users worldwide joined in on the mass Batman hunt to figure out the clues and eventually got a little teaser of the joker. This shows that new technology and the speed at which we can transmit information from one person to another just increases the urge to complete a puzzel.
Likewise due to technology many teasers can now be shown everywhere at once via social networking sits such as youtube and facebook enabling a huge amount of viewers to have a peek before the film is out of production. Cloverfield used this to its advantage with no TV advertising and only a few select cinema ads it relied on the speed that word of mouth now travels and we all watched on in amazement as a film with no major actor or a very good storyline suddenly spread across the internet like wildfire.
Exhibition was also affected via new technologies via the increase in capacity of the transport of their films from VHS to DVD and now to Blu-Ray and the ability to now mass produce everything from posters to bonus material.
To conclude it is clear that new technology has had a huge impact on everything across the media industry, and it's still changing with the rate of technological advance being on average having the raw power of processing doubling every 2 years.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Snatched Evaluation
Evaluation of 'Snatched'. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My group thriller “Snatched” was primarily inspired by 4 films, Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock 1960), The Third Man (Carol Reed 1949), This is England (Shane Meadows 2006) and Witness (Peter Weir 1985). The mise-en-scene displayed via The Third Man with it's post-war Vienna setting provides the audience with a gritty and dark atmosphere as well as adding a level of tension to the shots, likewise This is England, even though not a thriller, employs a similar approach with a poor urban setting adding the same feeling as The Third Man while also adding a level of realism to the film. This provides a connection to the audience allowing them to relate to the characters involved via it's location. For this reason we decided to take on the convention and decided to have our location as a run-down car park, thereby bringing across the unglamorous location and the vulnerable feeling of our female victim Grace.
The image above is showing a scene from Snatched where grace, the female victim, has been shut into the boot of Tom's car. This is developing the convention of vulnerability displayed by many thriller films via claustrophobic space, our prime inspiration for this scene was via the film Witness. We realised that by employing a point of view shot rather than having an array of shots similar to Witness on the small Amish boy we'd allow a larger connection to the situation Grace was in. Then by adding in cross-fade affects we also showed the damaging affects of the drugs on Grace and her ability to act.
Furthermore we decided to follow the similar line of The Third Man again with it's large range of tilt shots, close ups and medium shots to provide a general feeling of unease and tension throughout our opening scene, likewise we tried to follow a similar lighting scheme via the gloomy surrounding area.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our thriller production represents primarily two contradicting pictures of a female character, from the unsuspecting victim Grace to the calculating villain Mary. We present Grace as the traditional representation of a female character, which is vulnerable to the events unfolding before them, as seen in Psycho via Marion Crane. Where as Mary is shown as a calculating villain, not necessarily a strong woman but someone who looks out for themselves, this challenges the traditional representation through and through, and provides a nice counter balance to the other extreme.
The other character shown in the opening Tom, is displayed as a the stereotypical male villain, the one in control with all the cards in his hand via having better standard of clothing to having the car which Mary relies on. This is also a traditional representation of a male character as shown through Psycho via such characters as Sam Loomis.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I would think that Snatched would most likely be distributed by ourselves than a company, at least to begin with, due to it being created by complete unknowns within the industry, while also being in competition with 1000s of other films created in the same means all over the country. Plus due to high costs of distribution we would most likely ignore trying to get it shown within a Multiplex cinema or even an Art House, we'd use modern day technologies instead.
Like many other films we would have to rely on word of mouth to get us off the floor, to do this we would distribute the film via social networking sites as well as streaming sites such as Youtube, Bebo, Facebook and other vacillates thereby hoping to attract the attention of a real company via the amount of audience viewings. So by putting it online we would enable 1000s to view our movie quickly and easily while also having practically no cost to distribute it at all while also providing the means of spreading it via the word of mouth by easily providing the ability to put the film onto such devices as an Ipod, Nintendo DS or even your phone via different encoding.
If we were successful in gaining a large following / fan base we could then approach a small distribution company such as Warp Films and provide evidence of an interested audience as well as showing many links to their own supported film This is England which was a huge success and argue Snatched could be as well if given the chance. However due to already being available on the internet for free we would most likely ignore DVD and try to have a TV airing instead thereby earning money via advertising.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The primary audience for Snatched is the demographic 18-25 who enjoy off beat thrillers because female audiences will be attracted to the 2 extreme pictures of the female personality displayed via Grace and Mary, one vulnerable and weak while the other in control. Likewise the male audience would be attracted to Tom's stake in the goings on of the film and whether he was truly in control or he was actually doing the wishes of Mary.
I would expect the social class to be around the middle class such as the demographic C1 and C2 due to Snatched not being a overly complex film yet also not being as easy to understand as a stop sign which provides intrigue to the audience. This would provide both the University educated student and the blue collar worker something to think about during the film hooking them to watch it to the end to find out what happens.
How did you attract/address your audience?
The audience have been attracted to our film via it's intriguing title 'Snatched' and the concept of a drug addict selling out her friend to a male drug dealer. The audience would also first be attracted due to the film being free and available to watch when ever you want online. This would also hopefully increase the rate of word to mouth promoting the film further attracting a large audience.
Other reasons the audience may be attracted to the film is the location of Norwich, many viewers will watch the film just because it is filmed where the live. Likewise due to having the concept of kidnapping and drug dealing at the front of the film many viewers will be attracted to sit down and see how it plays out for the character Grace.
If we look at the questionnaire we carried out on some year 12 and 13 media students we also found that many of them of the age of 16-18 were attracted to the film due to it's cliffhanger opening and impressive audio with the large impact of the sirens.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction this product?
Throughout this project I have learnt a wide range of skills from understanding how to use the camera and it's varying functions as well as understanding the key importance of using the tripod for a steady affect, otherwise our film would more likely cause motion sickness than entertain the audience. We also learned due to our first attempt at creating a thriller that you must thoroughly plan the camera shots if you wish to provided a variety otherwise you may find yourself with 90% of the shots all being medium thereby lowering the impact of the action onto the audience.
When we edited the project I learnt how to use Adobe Premier Elements, while this program is very basic compared to its big brother Adobe Premier CS4 it does provide some very useful functions such as cross dissolve, dip to black and the ability to export the video into any format we wish. Thanks to the cross dissolve and dip to black we could add more impact to our thriller production, a prime example is when Grace is locked in the boot and has the affect of the drugs in her system, we were able to add in a cross dissolve affect to bring across her vulnerability in that situation by making a blurred affect.
I also learnt that if you wish to keep the audience hooked you must keep the film simple enough to follow but complex enough to keep interesting, otherwise they may grow bored, I feel we did this by employing a simple linear narrative which answers many questions but also leaves many more unanswered.
Finally we learnt during the construction of our product that speed is of an essence, and we found that the school computers were sometimes not up to the task and would operate very slowly compared to our own personal computers, for this reason we learned a great deal of patience and understood when it was our own fault for the program operating slowly or the computer itself being outdated.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
The preliminary task enabled me to understand better how our group would work, I found it very pleasant in the way we all contributed throughout both projects, however we found that planning was key to it all. Without planning all we had was waffle. During our preliminary task we got to know each other a bit better and gauge each others weaknesses and strengths, I found quite clearly that both Lauren and Emily were far better at acting than I was, it especially helped that Lauren is doing a Drama A-level letting her bring a theatrical perspective to the production.
During the preliminary task I found that keeping on the 180degree line rule was key, otherwise you could seriously confuse the audience thereby making the task a waste of time and energy! The shooting the first time round went wrong due to miscommunication, however after putting our heads together and due to Lauren's quick thinking we were able to salvage the small amount of time we had to produce another 15 minutes of good footage.
The responsibilities throughout were well spread out, I stepped down from an acting role in our first production thriller idea and then directed the camera instead on our second idea and took many shot. The acting throughout was done by Emily Mullender and Lauren Jordan, both members of my group, who did it extremely well regardless of having to lie on a freezing cold car park roof.
Throughout editing both tasks we found it the sound a tricky situation due to having a large amount of background noise however by changing the volume settings we were able to turn down the volume enough that the background noise was noticeable but not bothersome yet you could still hear the dialogue or music clearly. We also found that audio played a huge part in bringing across the message of the scene, if you had upbeat it may not look as terrible as you wish it be thereby damaging the overall mise-en-scene.
Overall throughout the entire course I feel we worked well as a group and we handled our blunders and success with equal skill and thought and that the end results were what we wanted. The primarily task ticked all the correct boxes and our thriller production was just that, a thriller.
My group thriller “Snatched” was primarily inspired by 4 films, Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock 1960), The Third Man (Carol Reed 1949), This is England (Shane Meadows 2006) and Witness (Peter Weir 1985). The mise-en-scene displayed via The Third Man with it's post-war Vienna setting provides the audience with a gritty and dark atmosphere as well as adding a level of tension to the shots, likewise This is England, even though not a thriller, employs a similar approach with a poor urban setting adding the same feeling as The Third Man while also adding a level of realism to the film. This provides a connection to the audience allowing them to relate to the characters involved via it's location. For this reason we decided to take on the convention and decided to have our location as a run-down car park, thereby bringing across the unglamorous location and the vulnerable feeling of our female victim Grace.
The image above is showing a scene from Snatched where grace, the female victim, has been shut into the boot of Tom's car. This is developing the convention of vulnerability displayed by many thriller films via claustrophobic space, our prime inspiration for this scene was via the film Witness. We realised that by employing a point of view shot rather than having an array of shots similar to Witness on the small Amish boy we'd allow a larger connection to the situation Grace was in. Then by adding in cross-fade affects we also showed the damaging affects of the drugs on Grace and her ability to act.
Furthermore we decided to follow the similar line of The Third Man again with it's large range of tilt shots, close ups and medium shots to provide a general feeling of unease and tension throughout our opening scene, likewise we tried to follow a similar lighting scheme via the gloomy surrounding area.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Our thriller production represents primarily two contradicting pictures of a female character, from the unsuspecting victim Grace to the calculating villain Mary. We present Grace as the traditional representation of a female character, which is vulnerable to the events unfolding before them, as seen in Psycho via Marion Crane. Where as Mary is shown as a calculating villain, not necessarily a strong woman but someone who looks out for themselves, this challenges the traditional representation through and through, and provides a nice counter balance to the other extreme.
The other character shown in the opening Tom, is displayed as a the stereotypical male villain, the one in control with all the cards in his hand via having better standard of clothing to having the car which Mary relies on. This is also a traditional representation of a male character as shown through Psycho via such characters as Sam Loomis.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I would think that Snatched would most likely be distributed by ourselves than a company, at least to begin with, due to it being created by complete unknowns within the industry, while also being in competition with 1000s of other films created in the same means all over the country. Plus due to high costs of distribution we would most likely ignore trying to get it shown within a Multiplex cinema or even an Art House, we'd use modern day technologies instead.
Like many other films we would have to rely on word of mouth to get us off the floor, to do this we would distribute the film via social networking sites as well as streaming sites such as Youtube, Bebo, Facebook and other vacillates thereby hoping to attract the attention of a real company via the amount of audience viewings. So by putting it online we would enable 1000s to view our movie quickly and easily while also having practically no cost to distribute it at all while also providing the means of spreading it via the word of mouth by easily providing the ability to put the film onto such devices as an Ipod, Nintendo DS or even your phone via different encoding.
If we were successful in gaining a large following / fan base we could then approach a small distribution company such as Warp Films and provide evidence of an interested audience as well as showing many links to their own supported film This is England which was a huge success and argue Snatched could be as well if given the chance. However due to already being available on the internet for free we would most likely ignore DVD and try to have a TV airing instead thereby earning money via advertising.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The primary audience for Snatched is the demographic 18-25 who enjoy off beat thrillers because female audiences will be attracted to the 2 extreme pictures of the female personality displayed via Grace and Mary, one vulnerable and weak while the other in control. Likewise the male audience would be attracted to Tom's stake in the goings on of the film and whether he was truly in control or he was actually doing the wishes of Mary.
I would expect the social class to be around the middle class such as the demographic C1 and C2 due to Snatched not being a overly complex film yet also not being as easy to understand as a stop sign which provides intrigue to the audience. This would provide both the University educated student and the blue collar worker something to think about during the film hooking them to watch it to the end to find out what happens.
How did you attract/address your audience?
The audience have been attracted to our film via it's intriguing title 'Snatched' and the concept of a drug addict selling out her friend to a male drug dealer. The audience would also first be attracted due to the film being free and available to watch when ever you want online. This would also hopefully increase the rate of word to mouth promoting the film further attracting a large audience.
Other reasons the audience may be attracted to the film is the location of Norwich, many viewers will watch the film just because it is filmed where the live. Likewise due to having the concept of kidnapping and drug dealing at the front of the film many viewers will be attracted to sit down and see how it plays out for the character Grace.
If we look at the questionnaire we carried out on some year 12 and 13 media students we also found that many of them of the age of 16-18 were attracted to the film due to it's cliffhanger opening and impressive audio with the large impact of the sirens.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of construction this product?
Throughout this project I have learnt a wide range of skills from understanding how to use the camera and it's varying functions as well as understanding the key importance of using the tripod for a steady affect, otherwise our film would more likely cause motion sickness than entertain the audience. We also learned due to our first attempt at creating a thriller that you must thoroughly plan the camera shots if you wish to provided a variety otherwise you may find yourself with 90% of the shots all being medium thereby lowering the impact of the action onto the audience.
When we edited the project I learnt how to use Adobe Premier Elements, while this program is very basic compared to its big brother Adobe Premier CS4 it does provide some very useful functions such as cross dissolve, dip to black and the ability to export the video into any format we wish. Thanks to the cross dissolve and dip to black we could add more impact to our thriller production, a prime example is when Grace is locked in the boot and has the affect of the drugs in her system, we were able to add in a cross dissolve affect to bring across her vulnerability in that situation by making a blurred affect.
I also learnt that if you wish to keep the audience hooked you must keep the film simple enough to follow but complex enough to keep interesting, otherwise they may grow bored, I feel we did this by employing a simple linear narrative which answers many questions but also leaves many more unanswered.
Finally we learnt during the construction of our product that speed is of an essence, and we found that the school computers were sometimes not up to the task and would operate very slowly compared to our own personal computers, for this reason we learned a great deal of patience and understood when it was our own fault for the program operating slowly or the computer itself being outdated.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
The preliminary task enabled me to understand better how our group would work, I found it very pleasant in the way we all contributed throughout both projects, however we found that planning was key to it all. Without planning all we had was waffle. During our preliminary task we got to know each other a bit better and gauge each others weaknesses and strengths, I found quite clearly that both Lauren and Emily were far better at acting than I was, it especially helped that Lauren is doing a Drama A-level letting her bring a theatrical perspective to the production.
During the preliminary task I found that keeping on the 180degree line rule was key, otherwise you could seriously confuse the audience thereby making the task a waste of time and energy! The shooting the first time round went wrong due to miscommunication, however after putting our heads together and due to Lauren's quick thinking we were able to salvage the small amount of time we had to produce another 15 minutes of good footage.
The responsibilities throughout were well spread out, I stepped down from an acting role in our first production thriller idea and then directed the camera instead on our second idea and took many shot. The acting throughout was done by Emily Mullender and Lauren Jordan, both members of my group, who did it extremely well regardless of having to lie on a freezing cold car park roof.
Throughout editing both tasks we found it the sound a tricky situation due to having a large amount of background noise however by changing the volume settings we were able to turn down the volume enough that the background noise was noticeable but not bothersome yet you could still hear the dialogue or music clearly. We also found that audio played a huge part in bringing across the message of the scene, if you had upbeat it may not look as terrible as you wish it be thereby damaging the overall mise-en-scene.
Overall throughout the entire course I feel we worked well as a group and we handled our blunders and success with equal skill and thought and that the end results were what we wanted. The primarily task ticked all the correct boxes and our thriller production was just that, a thriller.
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
What is the balance of Realism and drama in soaps?
Many Soaps attempt to create a balance between realism and drama. The former enables the audience to relate to the situation each character is in adding more interest where as the later keeps the audience hooked and actively interested to see what happens next. If this isn't correctly balanced it can cause a large loss of the audience, for instance in East Enders when it goes to the point of unrealistic with characters being buried alive a large portion of the audience could no longer relate and therefore stopped watching or filed a complaint, even though it had a huge amount of drama which undoubtedly did keep some of the audience interested.
Where as on the other end of the spectrum East Enders is realistic by how it's always chronological, you never jump back and forth within an episode. Also it enforces realism by having holidays actually on the day such as a special Christmas episode, valentines on valentines day and not having Christmas during august. Likewise Coronation Street follows a similar pattern keeping time correct.
East Enders also has drama in with relationship disputes, fraud, distrust, fights and of course a wedding or death thrown in once a season to keep the drama and suspense thereby keeping the audience hooked enough to sit down the next night and watch it all over again. However coronation street for instance has low drama due to wanting to attract the older audience.
Overall soaps strive to keep a balance between the two because it promises a more main stream audience against a more specific one.
Where as on the other end of the spectrum East Enders is realistic by how it's always chronological, you never jump back and forth within an episode. Also it enforces realism by having holidays actually on the day such as a special Christmas episode, valentines on valentines day and not having Christmas during august. Likewise Coronation Street follows a similar pattern keeping time correct.
East Enders also has drama in with relationship disputes, fraud, distrust, fights and of course a wedding or death thrown in once a season to keep the drama and suspense thereby keeping the audience hooked enough to sit down the next night and watch it all over again. However coronation street for instance has low drama due to wanting to attract the older audience.
Overall soaps strive to keep a balance between the two because it promises a more main stream audience against a more specific one.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Research on Institutions & Piracy
Below you will find notes on the Institutions Warp Films, Universal Pictures and Working Titles in a
Warp Film
Simple, due to the increase in technology piracy has become all the easier with it becoming almost a competition to see who can upload a film onto the internet the day it is released, or sometimes even leaking it before it's released. The film industry isn't alone in this problem, many other sectors in the economy is also being affected from books to video games.
Technology behind piracy comes in 2 major forms, being either peer-to-peer downloading via torrents and the like via search engine sites such as "The Pirate Bay" or other faster sites such as rapidshare.com who provide a hosting service.
Interestingly enough uploading copyright material is against the Terms & Conditions on Rapidshare, however they do not take it upon themselves to weed it out but the owners which is pointless since it is free to use.
Overall there is no way to stop piracy, it will only get worse until the media industry and others either design better security or embrace it.
Warp Film
- British Film Company
- Warpfilms was setup in 1999
- Partner with WarpRecords
- Known for releasing low budget but high earners such as This is England.
- This is England is Warps most successful film to date.
- Famous directors such as Shane Meadows.
- An American Film Studio - Does both production and distribution
- Universal Pictures / Studios was officially setup in 1925 however has it roots back to 1909 with the Yankee Film Company.
- Since 2007 Universal Pictures has distributed all of Working Titles productions.
- They own 67% of Working Title.
- Universal Pictures are a mainstream American Company and is the 2nd longest living company
- The found was Carl Laemmie
- Produced British films such as Bridget Jones' Diray, Love Actually and Hot Fuzz.
- Founded in 1984 by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe.
- It's one of the largest British production companies and is based in London.
- It's primarily owned by Univeral Studies and BBC.
- Also has a baby brand called Working Title 2 which produces low budget films like Shawn of the Dead.
- Produces both Tv programs and Films
Simple, due to the increase in technology piracy has become all the easier with it becoming almost a competition to see who can upload a film onto the internet the day it is released, or sometimes even leaking it before it's released. The film industry isn't alone in this problem, many other sectors in the economy is also being affected from books to video games.
Technology behind piracy comes in 2 major forms, being either peer-to-peer downloading via torrents and the like via search engine sites such as "The Pirate Bay" or other faster sites such as rapidshare.com who provide a hosting service.
Interestingly enough uploading copyright material is against the Terms & Conditions on Rapidshare, however they do not take it upon themselves to weed it out but the owners which is pointless since it is free to use.
Overall there is no way to stop piracy, it will only get worse until the media industry and others either design better security or embrace it.
Monday, 2 March 2009
Representation of Youth in Skins
Note:- This is homework is to do only 1 PARAGRAPH, so only one stereotypical representation will be looked at in detail.
Skins displays youth via a large number of stereotypes from the bad language, messy surroundings, hectic social lives, enjoyment of annoying their parents as well as constant mentioning of sex throughout the series. However throughout youth are being represented as having a hectic social life from the first episode with Tony calling up numerous friends via his mobile phone and having conversations with over 4 different characters, this representation is further enforced by Tony holding multiple conversations on the mobile at the same which then leads to the audience watching a quick succession of shots switching from him to varying characters. This allows you to name each character and get a small idea, however at the same time with the quick succession of shots and constant switching of conversation from Tony to another character the audience gains a true understanding of how hectic the life of a youth is.
Skins displays youth via a large number of stereotypes from the bad language, messy surroundings, hectic social lives, enjoyment of annoying their parents as well as constant mentioning of sex throughout the series. However throughout youth are being represented as having a hectic social life from the first episode with Tony calling up numerous friends via his mobile phone and having conversations with over 4 different characters, this representation is further enforced by Tony holding multiple conversations on the mobile at the same which then leads to the audience watching a quick succession of shots switching from him to varying characters. This allows you to name each character and get a small idea, however at the same time with the quick succession of shots and constant switching of conversation from Tony to another character the audience gains a true understanding of how hectic the life of a youth is.
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