Monday, October 14, 2019

Exam 1 notes

P E E T
Point - Representations of national identity, Media language alternatives and combinations
Evidence - Use of Images
Explanation - Iconography and connotations, Link to theory, Audience and producers
Theory - the theories taught e.g:  Stereotype Theory

Last years A-Level paper 1:

Section A
1. audiovisual - unseen media language - 15 Marks

2- print - news: 30 Marks
-1 unseen
-1 mirror
-Use their headline

Section B
3.
Independant film - 2 marks

Vertical Integration - 2 marks

Film marketing - Soc - 6 marks

Economic Contexts - Film - 15 Marks

4.
Radio - Late night women's hour - 10 Marks

Radio - Unseen - 10 Marks

Monday, September 30, 2019

Activity 1

Monopoly- This is when a sector of the media industry such as newspapers is dominated by one or a small number of large organisations.
Distribution- This is the process of how the media product gets to its audience after production
Takeover- This is where a larger company buys a smaller company
Convergence- This literally means ‘to work together’ and is where one form of media product ‘cross sells’ another form of media product to their mutual advantage of increasing sales/audiences.
Plurality- This means  that there is a diversity of viewpoints available and consumed across and within the media industries and prevents any one media owner or voice having too much influence over public opinion and the political agenda.
Vertical Integration- This is when a Media Company owns different businesses in the same chain of production and distribution.
Merger- This is where two or more companies, usually of similar size, combine to form a larger single company.
Consolidation- This is where a media company tries to maximise its power and profit by combining elements of its business into a more concentrated and more effective model.
Conglomerate- A large business corporation that is comprised of a range of different parts or smaller businesses
Horizontal integration- This is the process of a company expanding its media production in the same area of media. For example, one newspaper company buying another newspaper company. This can happen by internal expansion, merger or takeover and can lead to a monopoly.
Synergy- This is the combination of different areas of the media coming together to maximise profit

Activity 2
1. Trinity Mirror plc is the largest British newspaper, magazine and digital publisher after purchasing rival Local World for £220 million, in October 2015. It is Britain's biggest newspaper group, publishing 240 regional papers as well as the national Daily MirrorSunday Mirror and People, and the Scottish Sunday Mail and Daily Record. Since purchasing Local World, it has gained 83 print publications.

Monopoly, Conglomerate, Consolidation, Merger, Takeover, Vertical intergration.

2. News UK is a British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media conglomerate News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch. It is the current publisher of The TimesThe Sunday Times, The Sun and The Sun on Sunday newspapers as well as the Times Literary Supplement and Times Educational Supplement. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc.

Monopoly, Conglomerate, Consolidation, Merger, Takeover, Vertical intergration.

Monday, September 9, 2019

Late Night women's hour

Target audience is middle aged middle class women.

Its tone is more informal than women's hour.
the audio is in line with woman's hour being spoken word only, no audio stings or music. Making the format more formal than the tone.

The presenters have been Lauren Laverne and Emma Barnett.

Lauren Laverne is of a more working class background having working class grandparents and a father being a sociology lecturer. She has a regional accent which she has been criticised for and presented her opinions very clearly as the presenter.

Emma Barnett is a more traditional host voicing her opinions explicitly less and having less controversial left wing views. Acting more as a vessel for the target audience. Middle class southern white women.

Late night woman's hour is more progressive than woman's hour.

Monday, June 24, 2019

statement of aims

In my work my chosen brief is to create a cross media production for a hypothetical new television show in the crime genre. I chose to do a show focused on channel 4 rather than Netflix to create a more traditionally English less American format/aesthetic for my show.

I’m choosing to create a cold open of the crime to be investigated occurring. This will entail an unnamed victim hacking a computer in a shady company building. Them leaving an being spotted by a man who makes chase, implied gang member. The victim is chased under a bridge and tries to escape by jumping a fence. They are grabbed from being by their hoodie and thrown onto the ground into bins (sending them flying). The gang member stands over the victim (victim’s point of view camera angle) he brings his weapon down on them (chain, bat or machete).

The shot order will follow mostly how I have described in my synopsis of the plot.
#1: opening close up shotof the hacker angled from the back left (related to the computer screen).
#2: inversely angled mid-shotaimed at the door of the dark room with hallway light pouring in, the technician/groundskeeper passes by the door cutting off the light.
#3: this catches the hacker’s eye who turns around to look. Extreme close up shoton face, specifically eyes.
#4: mid-close shotof the hacker’s hand and arm pulling out a USB drive.
#5: Long shotfrom the end of the hallway of the hacker coming out of the room and moving towards the camera.
#6: mid shotof the groundskeeper seeing the hacker and shouting for him to stop.
#7: long shot of running thorough a hallway cut to a semi aerial long shot (camera on elevated ground) of running out of a door.
#8: mid-close shot speed walking through a (maybe forested? Maybe alley way?) area.
#9: over the shoulder shot from behind characters head, hacker spotted by second major character the attacker.
#10: Close up shot on hacker, long shot on attacker showing the following.
#11: Extreme close up on hacker’s eyes flicking back, to make the audience aware that he knows he is being followed.
#12: Mid shot from behind hacker (attackers’ perspective) coming out of the dark area and bursting into a sprint.
 #13: Long shot from opposite side of road of attacker making chase under a train bridge and turning the corner.
#14: Close up quick shot of a metal fence and a hand grabbing it.
#15: Cut to a close up shot of the hacker half way up the fence being grabbed from behind. (the camera only catching the hands.)
#16: close-mid shot of the hacker character being thrown into a corner of rubbish bins; the bins get knocked and rubbish is violently sent flying.
#17: Up shot (from the hacker’s perspective) of the attacker, he removes his ski mask, crouches over the hacker, says his line, stands and swings his club/bat down fast.
#18: Cut to black screen, title fade in.

The costumes I intend to use for the characters is blue or black overalls for the man passing by the room the victim is in. The victim in grey straight jeans/chinos, short sleeved white shirt with a loosened tie underneath an old black hoodie, possible ski mask? The gang member wearing a black tracksuit with a ski mask and hood up.

I plan to make the DVD cover minimalistic but plot relevant. The train bridge taped off in police crime scene tape showing the location of the crime and one of the main settings without spoiling any motivation or major plot points. The back being two characters on either side of a description on the left the character of a police detective (the hypothetical show’s main character, who doesn’t appear in the video) and on the right side the attacker from the video on a plane of black. Police tape at the bottom in a cross shape. The inside of the DVD case if possible being the USB lying in a patch of grass behind a chain-link fence.

Monday, April 29, 2019

Tide print advert points

The advert clearly trues to influence the target audience directly having them in the image. That is lower middle class women who desired time saving devices for their 'job' of domestic labour. The woman show also talks at the audience as direct address.

The use of red is eye catching an intense to emphasise certain words: TIDE, Cleanest, Whitest, brightens. If someone were to skip read the advert this was likely what they would pick up on mostly clearly.

A technique used is the two women talking to each other. It uses women to advertise to other women. Having to people of the target audience being represented makes it seem more credible and the informal language used suggests these may be quotes by actual users of the product.

Friday, April 26, 2019

Television - Crime Drama

Television - Crime Drama

Opening sequence and/or chase scene. Cold open dramatic chase scene.

Alleyway chase scene? Passing under a bridge? Early evening setting. - Dalmally passage? Bridge of South
croydon station.

Policeman chasing teenage drug dealer/mugger (probably played by me)(need to find someone to play a early 20's to middle aged policeman)

runs around corner and tries to run up chainlink fence.
Thrown into bins or cardboard boxes.

Knife pulled on policeman (transitional dynamic close up?), suspect escapes, end scene zoom on policeman's face?


Then a title card and a final cut to an office setting with a time skip.

Title? -

DVD cover front and back

Billboard poster

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Beyonce Run the world and Dizzee Rascal

In this music video for Beyonce's run the world a binary opposite is created between the men and women. The men stand around with riot shields, chains and batons. They have a very anarchistic semiotics. Comparatively the women all look authoritarian with police hats and black leather. This creates the effect of making the women seem calm and collected while the men seem wild but intimidated by the women. Conversely in Dream where representations of gender is not the focus of the video the representation is far more standard. There is puppet girls, representing the working class, as objects of desire in the beginning and mothers towards the end, the mother especially is treated respectfully and is not seen as less for being a young mother. This is a positive representation of gender. However the more interesting representation is the older woman, who represents the establishment and 'ruling classes' who is quietly disapproving or supportive of the things he does and choices he makes throughout, this representation of establishment as a woman could imply that like the establishment older women are inflexible and controlling, which is a negative and stereotypical representation of gender.

The ways that the women are dressed in each music video is also indicative of how they are being portrayed. The women in Beyonce's run the world are dressed provocatively, in black leather and showing a lot of skin. However, rather than this being a negative representation of gender, it is shown as a good thing, implying that they are fashionably and sexually liberated from oppressive patriarchal standards, rather than they being objects of the male gaze. Inversely both the puppet girls and the older woman are dressed extremely modestly in long dresses with plain, muted colours. Both the colours and the style of dress imply control from the woman, who represents the oppressive establishment, 'protecting their modesty' and holding them to backwards patriarchal standards. The shots in which the first girls are shown are also in the closer shots implying the male gaze of the camera, which makes sense in the narrative as the time that happens is when Dizzee is talking about getting girls.

Both the music videos in some way inverse the way that male and female identity expression is portrayed. Gauntlett's identity theory is the idea that the media provide us with 'tools' or resources that we use to construct our identities. The idea that whilst in the past the media tended to convey symbolism, straightforward messages about ideal types of male and female identities, the media today offer us a more diverse range of stars, icons and characters. In Dream there's a representation of a young black father pushing a pram, a very unstereeotypical portrayal for a young black man. However, this portrayal simultaneously conforms to the more traditional idea of the nuclear family which could be said to be reductive. Like wise in Run the world's video and lyrics women are portrayed as explicitly dominant over men, breaking the past media expectation. 

Gilroy believes that colonial discourses continue inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the post colonial era. Civilisation constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary oppositions based on notions of otherness to races other than white. As both these songs are by black artists this theory applies to both of their work. The more clear example of this theory is in Dizzee Rascal's video which features mostly black characters in the video's autobiographical narrative. Images of stereotypes like loitering and graffiti surround the black characters as well as the heavily stereotypical scotsman drinking. The most explicit scene of racial bias from this theory would be the police brutality scene with the puppets, showing the racial profiling the artist or people of his race may have experienced. This colonialism is shown to have held him back previously. However later in the video all of them are in a studio away from the policeman outside showing that through their success they overcame racism and colonialism. 

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Dizzy Rascal - Dream

The iconography of this video mimics the 50's show muffin the mule, down to the woman playing the piano. The woman in the video represents classic conservative, white, middle class England. She representing the white middle class England, controls the puppets in the video. This creates the binary opposition of the white woman singing and the stereotypical actions of black puppets on the piano.

At the beginning of the video Dizzee Rascal himself comes out of the box as soon as the woman begins to play the music.  This shows that he is self aware that he is being controlled by the woman, who represents the white middle class society, and showing him getting back in the box at the end shows that he is content with it. This could be a point about black artists having to give up on some of the aggression that is drawn from grime and replace it with pop to gain mainstream appeal and that in this way he has sacrificed to get where he is.

The puppets themselves all show representations of people from the street level of England, the young, mostly black, men all being stereotypical acting puppets shows how people from the woman's perspective of society view young working class black men, as well as the fact that they are on strings showing that they are being controlled by the society.

Later in the video the representation increases as the police come in with helicopters and cars, making the woman recoil and cringe at it, with a police officer puppet beginning to beat up the two black guy puppets from the beginning. Although despite being in a position of power over those being victims of police brutality, the officer is still on the same strings as all the other puppets, showing the opinion that even in real life who have more powers over others are still at street level and being controlled by the society.

The change of scenery to a recording studio as the lyrics explain how he got there. The policeman puppet is shown banging on the window trying to get in to continue fighting with them but is unable to. This showing how Dizzee's music career has allowed him to surpass the everyday struggles on the street, of police brutality to relative comfort. The woman's face changes to polite concern as the scene changes to one of his performances, it represents the society questioning whether or not he has been given too much power and influence for where he came from. He however is also shown to be taking advantage of the system by having the woman hold up his album, this could also represent how he is now appealing to a mainstream audience.

The song itself then goes into his advice for people aspiring to get where he is, there is two notable instances in this section, the first being the woman nodding to his message of "keep school in your plans" showing how he has to put messages approved by society in his music now. This must be significant to him as he would not be used to feeling pressured to include positive messages in his work as he would have before becoming popular. There is also the subversion of stereotypes in the form of the black man pushing a pram and being shown as a responsible father. This is a clear subversion of the stereotype of absent black father and portrays a very positive message.

Monday, February 25, 2019

Riptide by Vance Joy

I was scared of dentists and the dark
I was scared of pretty girls and starting conversations
Oh, all my friends are turning green
You're the magician's assistant in their dreams
Oh
Oh and they come unstuck
Lady, running down to the riptide
Taken away to the dark side
I wanna be your left hand man
I love you when you're singing that song and
I got a lump in my throat 'cause
You're gonna sing the words wrong
Is this movie that I think you'll like
This guy decides to quit his job and heads to New York City
This cowboy's running from himself
And she's been living on the highest shelf
Oh
Oh and they come unstuck
Lady, running down to the riptide
Taken away to the dark side
I wanna be your left hand man
I love you when you're singing that song and
I got a lump in my throat 'cause
You're gonna sing the words wrong
Wes Andersons style most clearly imitated by the suitcase scene. Objects place meticulously within a suitcase being closed.
David lynch's style is in the scenes where the woman is singing in the club style.
The Independent music genre is music that is produced independent from music record labels. It could also refer to music not intended for mainstream audiences.

Tuesday, January 29, 2019

i daniel blake



But Loach has erred in the opposite direction. For a filmmaker who styles himself a ‘social realist’, he has an absurdly romantic view of benefit claimants.' opposite reading

Director: Ken Loach
Writer: Paul Laverty
Stars: Dave johns, Hayley squires, Sharon Percy
Funding: 16 films
budget: Low budget
distribution: eOne films
Casting: Casts lots of people from the setting and who aren't actors for a feeling of authenticity


Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Assassins creed 3: Liberation

The genre of the game is action-adventure, stealth. The avatar you play as is Aveline, the first female assassin in the series. With her you can switch between three outfits: an assassin's outfit, a slave disguise, and a posh dress. The game is initially set in 1700s New Orleans, but you are able to travel to other places later in the game. The controls are more or less the same as the rest of the Assassin's creed games, but slightly changed to adapt to PS Vita. For example, if you wanted to run in an Assassin's creed game using a PS3 controller, you would have to hold both the R1 and X buttons, but to run with the PS Vita controls, you only have to hold down the R2 button. There was already a previous Assassin's Creed game released on the PSP, so this was the second AC game released as a portable game. However, the controls were more reminiscent of those on a console game and it was later released for some consoles in HD. The multiplayer options of the game was extremely limited and was essentially a mini game of dispatching troops to nodes on a map, this was a far cry from the mechanics of the single player game and was a disappointment to fans. The limitations of the game was mostly down to the PS Vita's limits such as poor graphics compared to the mainline releases and laggy visuals with frequent framerate drops. However the game also had Issues with the AI of NPC's glitching and not responding correctly to the player.

The company that develops and publishes the assassins creed franchise is Ubisoft, a french game company headquartered in Montreuil, France they own multiple successful video game franchises such as Assassins Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs which are all story driven Action Adventure games as well as more pure FPS games such as Rainbow Six siege and Tom Clancy's: The Division.
Film trailer  & Poster - avengers infinity war

The avengers infinity war poster stands reminiscent of the old style of painted posters, such as star wars and krull. It shows off all of the hero characters in one poster, which appeals to main selling point of the film; being that all the characters from the universe that has been created around the franchise will appear in the film. The characters diverse colour schemes are united by the flares of the various colours. In this way the characters don't seem out of place with each other as they may have previously being from different films.

The franchise's symbol of the 'A' stands in the middle to establish a clear brand and stand out. In a similar fashion the title is at the bottom below the ground of the characters and in a mostly dark negative space to draw attention to itself. Some characters have been given more space in the poster than others for example the face of Robert Downey Junior's character being at the top and the largest of all the faces to connote its importance.