REVISION

For Blumer and Katz, audiences use media to gratify needs

• Audiences watch The Avengers for the pleasures of escapism, diversion and entertainment. It is is exciting, entertaining, thrilling, gripping, and introduces us to a new world. Aim to link your analysis to The Avengers as a spy/ crime drama: thrilling chases, deadly fights, terrifying bloodhounds, sly enemy agents, high production values like filming in Norfolk, the comedy of the train journey, tense after-dark recces
  

• Audiences derive intellectual satisfaction from 'surveillance': education and information finding out about what happens - how do fifth columnists invade Britain, take over a village, plan a covert military campaign?

• Audiences  enjoy the social relationships (we share the characters' values & see things from their point of view; The Avengers provided a talking point as it was innovative, amusing and thrilling, with Peel providing both glamour in her pin-up qualities and a role model as a new woman); audiences enjoy sharing pleasures with friends & family, like watching TV together
  

• Audiences make choices about what to watch based on their shared values and beliefs (audiences admire Peel and Steel, empathize with the government agents, are on their side and support British values; audiences identify with certain people as heroes, hope that villains will be defeated, want a particular set of values to be restored and so on) 

 

MUSIC VIDEOS: MUSIC LANGUAGE

 PREP Explain how music videos use media language to promote their artists. Refer to the pair of music videos you have studied from the list below in your answer.

Our music videos are Wheatus Teenage Dirtbag Avril Lavigne Sk8ter Boi

HOW TO ANSWER: Media language points to consider:

the prioritising of the star / the group; the privileging of the star / the groups in the frame

authenticating the star's performance / the band's performance to show their skills

the use of close ups; lip syncing to camera; eye contact with the audience

 

CUFFS: REAL LIFE

 How far does the extract try to create a scene that is portraying real life?

The extract attempts to create a real life setting with everyday people involved in certain scenes, this allows the show to create an ordinary feel and make them appeal normal. One example of this is when the police officers are seen in a café in the seaside town of Brighton. They are depicted as being very normal and are seen as being 'off the job.' This location in particular is used to create a sense of normal and average people in society will use it everyday. Seeing the police here included them in this normal world of society, they are in the public eye.

During the chase sequence, a camera shot called birds eye view or an 'Arial shot' allows us to see the chase in full detail. It shows us the many cars, roads and roundabouts in the once again average city of Brighton. This helps us to feel immersed in the real life chase scene and all these locations and things we see everyday so that also allows us to feel connected.

CUFFS: MEDIA LANGAUGE REPRESENTATION OF CHARACTERS, SOCIAL ISSUES AND CONTEXTS

 We watch Cuffs using clickview and work from the OQR GCSE text book starting on page 5

Non diegetic sound- sound that doesn't exist within the world of the film. Its added on after.

Cuffs has a comedic aspect to it. The police are doing there job but there is a comedy element that comes with it that helps to lighten the mood and appeal to more audiences. 

Two shots, Ryan in the shot is talking about Jake whilst him being behind him out of focus. Then when he realises Ryan is talking about him it 'focus pulls' and he comes into the shot.

Jakes dad- Super intendant Vickers. 

Close ups- The camera angle is facing on a characters reaction to a certain situation

Short reverse shot- building up a scene/event

Hard cut- changes to a completely different scene

Birds eye view = aerial shot

Camera angle/ technique that pivots left to right- panning

Following a conversation- cross cut

MOJO COVER

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Title: Neil Young
Main splash: Neil Young; "When the music calls you go with it" 
Image: He's represented and being quite happy and the focus on the cover is just on him no one else.
How is it lit: A lot of light is used to highlight his face and features, this is done to make him seem important and the centre of attention
How many other images are there: There are two other images, one of Neil Young's album which is promoting him and his music. Furthermore, in the top right hand corner there is an image of a man who relates the the text on the cover. 
 
How 'busy' is the cover as a whole: I would say that this particular cover is quite busy but not the extent where it looks bad.
Are there cover lines: There are cover lines on the right hand side
How organised are they: Fairly organised
Do most music magazines have a similar number of cover lines: I would say they do, its normally round 6 or 7.
 
What are the main colours and is there an accent colour: Orange blue, warm colours 

POPCORN PREP

 What is crossing cutting and when can it be useful?

Cross cutting is a common technique used in lots of films to establish action happening at the same time or a scene that relates to one another. For example, someone could be reading a letter from their child saying that they are running away and it might cut to the scene of the child running. This shows a relation to the characters and the scene that is present. 

WORD DEFINITION

•  Synergy 

The word Synergy applies to the Lego movie as it means the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances etc. The Lego movie works with other companies and past films that are Widley known to connect to many different people.

• Tent-pole Production

A big budget movies that is expected to make a lot of revenue 

•  Ensemble Cast

The Lego Movie is designed to appeal to everybody and many wide audiences. This is because it shows known characters from Marvel movies and other franchises, Historical figures, Comic book characters and more. This allows more people to enjoy the content that is put in the movie.

• Conglomerate

Once again this refers to many different companies working on one movie

• Vertical Integration

This is a strategy that allows a company to streamline its operations by taking direct ownership of various stages of its production process.

BBFC AGE RATINGS

 The lego movie age rating. 

Following on from our topic on the 2014 lego movie we have been looking at different age ratings for movies. These help to decide how suitable a film is for different ages. The lego movie received a PG rating due to the fact that there is no sensitive contents. A PG rating is usually for those above the age of 8 and is a movie potentially anyone could enjoy. However with a PG rating parents can make their own judgement on the movie because it could still contain mild violence or a hint of romance. But usually PG films are targeted at a younger generation so they probably wouldn't pick up on these aspects that make it PG. The bbfc states that a PG movie should not unsettle a child but entertain them. The movie doesn't focus on difficult topics and keeps the content to a certain level. There may be mild bad language but not the extent of a 15 or 18 rated movie.

LEGO MOVIE TRAILER ANALYSIS

Task1: How does Emmet come across? How effective would this trailer be in promoting the film?

Emmet is shown to be an ordinary cheerful guy who doesn't look on the negative side of things and always looks for the positive. He is presented to be a normal working guy who in society's eyes doesn't cause trouble, for example this is demonstrated when he buys a coffee and doesn't complain about the price being $37. The lego moving is based around this idea of a hero having to solve something whether that be the world or someone. Usually the main character who is normally playing the hero would be a physically fit guy who some may find intimidating yet a very kind person. Emmet is the exact opposite of this. The producers use comedy to portray this when he tries to do star jumps and can only manage 3, hinting at his lack of physical ability. Furthermore, Emmet is not you typical hero but I believe this could appeal to those who may find themselves relating to the character. This trailer I think is a good way of representing the film and it is very effective in promoting it. This is due to the comedy factor and overall decent plot. 

FILM MAKING

 Recently In media we have been working on making a film. There are many elements that go into the process of making a short film/ an opening which is exactly what we were doing. We had to think through what we were going to base our film on and work on the creative side such as the aesthetic of the film. Firstly, we had to think of a production company name. For this I worked with Tabi and Honor. They thought of the name "fishy films" and we would use a fish to produce are final stop motion video. The aim was to have a quick handmade stop motion video no longer than 1 minute that would be unique and dynamic. Our idea was to write the letters of "fishy films" on to blue bubbles and film them coming out of a model of a fish on by one. We chose a background that looked like the sea and started to move our fish over it. Furthermore, we used the software "hue" to make our video. We had to set up our fish and background under the hue camera then using the mac we took pictures of us moving the scene ever so slightly. We had a few images where someone's finger was in the way but we easily fixed this by removing those particular images. Then we had to add sound effects, we choose the sound of bubbles and made this the most prominent sound. In the background we had the sound of kayaks and waves but we lowered the volume of this. I think the outcome of our production company logo was very effective and the overall look of it was exactly what we planned out, for it to stand out from the rest.

The first thing we did to make our end project (the short opening of a film) was to create a scene on a table top then film it from a birds eye view. For this I worked along side Hannah, Jasmine, Honor and Maddi. For this piece of filming we used one of are phones and held it above the table covered in different items. There was an umbrella and a kimono that were from Asia, a jewellery box with pears and earrings and flowers. I was the one who did the filming and everyone else set up these items in a aesthetically pleasing way. I moved the camera slowly over the table being careful not to get any of the floor in or anyone. We had to re film it a few times because its never perfect the first time. I had to have steady hands for this but in the end I believe it turned out well. Within this we also had Hannah pick up a fan that was on the table and close it to suggest or foreshadow something that could occur in the actual movie. Alongside with the items I have previously mentioned there was also a framed picture of a woman and lots of cloth and lace draped over the table. These items played a significant role in the opening as they related to the live action part we filmed after this. 

The live action part was to add depth to our movie opening and to give it a bit of character. We decided on casting Maddi as the face of our movie and she was in a Kimono and held a baby in cloth that I have previously mentioned. The idea was to create almost a Spring scene in Japan, hence the things on the table that linked back to Asia. We had Maddi walk down the mansion steps carrying her baby, she then lay the baby down wrapped up in its cloth. During this time of filming she had the pearls from the table on her and we told Maddi that it would be a good idea to leave the pearls with the baby, almost like a parting gift. Like the stop motion video and table top filming we had to re do it a couple time to make it the desired outcome. 

To bring are short opening together we had to edit our clips. We imported the video shot on Honor's phone onto the macs and began using the app "iMovie" to edit our clips. I did most of the editing as I had used this app before and was fairly familiar with it. I first put in the table top filming then did a smooth transition to the live action scene. I added text such as the title, names of the people who worked in the film or worked on it and choose a font and colour. We went for a rich blue and a red and a font that wasn't too fancy but still worked with are film. We settled on the name "Sakura" which translates to cherry blossom and we gave it the opening description of "A cherry blossom dream." By giving it such a title I think it created the image of a romance or a coming of age movie but we left the idea up for interpretation as we could go anywhere with this film if we chose to. We had done all this editing before making the production company logo and our original group split and it was down to me, Honor and Tabi who had joined. As I previously explained, we edited our stop motion video with hue then we copied it onto our iMovie project. This was fairly easy and it fitted quite well. Our opening was by far the longest but I think it was the most professional. We already had the bubbles as sound effects on the production company logo so we just had to think of and add are main music to the short film. We chose the song "My future" by Billie Eilish and we actually had to record it via the mic on the software and playing it from my phone. This surprising worked well and our movie opening was finished

After working on this film for quite a while now I think its safe to say we spent a lot of time on this and it payed off. The filming was good and I think the overall idea was very well thought out and the executed well. What I would say is that we could've linked our production company logo to our films by making it something to do with Cherry Blossom or give it  more fitting name. However, I think we what produced was good and I'm very proud of it.

COMPANY PRODUCTION LOGO

 In today's double lesson, Honor, Tabi and I made are logo for our production company. We decided on the name "fishy films" due to the fact that our stop motion video was going to be a fish blowing bubbles with the name of our company. We decided on a background that looked like the sea and we got a fish to use as are main focus for the video. Following on from that, we made bubbles on PowerPoint with the words "fishy films" on them and proceeded to print and cut these out. We then practised how we were going to film are video and figured out where we wanted to lay everything out. Overall, I think our idea and the outcome of it was very well executed.