Section 2 Terminology

Videogames -

Personalisation - ability to adapt things in a game and share - prosumer - skateparks in skate

Interactivity - enhanced - between gamers / gamers and game - playing multiplayer skate games on Skate 3, and building own skateparks and filming skate edits.

Instant gratification - don't have to wait anymore for new things - easy to just download new content
Undemand Culture - audience always wants new content/ideas - DLC - instant gratification allows this

The videogames industry use these to their own advantages - making more money, change acceleration marketing

There are different videogame audiences - online and offline - offline audiences do not benefit much from media and the online age - for example Skate 3 is very similar to Skate 2, just with the addition of online multiplayer which in offline career mode you cannot access, which shows how it doesn't benefit the offline gamer.

Future - online multiplayer doesn't benefit everyone - offline career modes and single player interactivity needs to be enhanced in the future - for example the oculus rift virtual games console

Film -

megaupload.com - peer 2 peer file sharing website for films - shut down - affecting the industry badly

How piracy affects small budget films - no revenue is produced, however the benefit is that people are still watching the producers film - without the internet, long tail, they probably wouldn't have seen it

Cinema needs to enhance its technologies to encourage consumers to visit more - better surround sound, new Dolby 5.1 surround sound system, cheaper cinema tickets would help as well

Section 1A: Digital Technology

Skills development - Technology -

AS Childrens film opening - Media Studies -
Digital technology that I was new to using - college camcorder (learning to use the settings), learning how to use an Apple Mac computer as I have never used one, along with the software including Final Cut to edit the childrens film and Adobe Photoshop to produce titles and credits for the film.
The camerawork in the childrens film was not really planned out very well, we did plan a storyboard, however didn't analyse how shots create meaning.

AS Thriller film opening -  Media Studies -
My knowledge of using Final Cut improved a lot since the childrens film opening, this allowed me to be more creative whilst editing the thriller film opening. Something that developed was the user of sound effects, we used multiple sound layers in the edit suite to create a conventional thriller sound track.
We analysed the shot list to ensure it was conventioanl to the thriller genre, and that the specific shots helps the audience identify who the villain was in the scene.
Blogging - learnt how to use Prezi online presentation software - easier than using powerpoint as it is more flexibile with layout

A2 Music Video -  Media Studies -
Ancillary products - photoshop
Apple Mac computers were much slower than when I used them for my foundation portfolio projects, they had been used a lot and were starting to show this by slowing down. this affected ym groups creativity more than anything during the project, as it slowed down our post production processes, which really stressed the whole group out, which led to individual members working on specific things at home, for example I learnt how to do photo burst videos using Sony Vegas on my Dell laptop.

Section 1A - Foundation Portfolio Thriller Opening

Section 1A - Foundation Portfolio Thriller Opening -

Creativity -
Creative camera angle and lighting to hide the villain in our thriller opening
Challenged conventions of film noir thriller -filmed in the countryside church instead of the urban locations conventionally used in film noirs- we were creative in incoproating some aspects of film noir into our thriller opening such as hiding the villain in shadows, having long duration shots and slow editing.


Digital Technology -

Pre-production - online software - blogger to record research and planning, embedding youtube videos, powerpoint presentations, prezi mood board presentations.

Production - DSLR to achieve high quality low light shots in the church setting that we filmed at - 50mm 1.8 for close-up shots with shallow depth of field, 18-135mm for wide and long shots.

Post production - freesound.org for sound effects - footsteps, wind, crows cawing - conventional to genre
Final Cut X for editing on apple mac computers - learnt how to add key frames to a title to make it appear as if is growing in the frame
Photoshop for creating credits -  learnt how to download fonts from dafont.com, and install them into Photoshop

Post Production -

Editing the soundtrack using sound effects from fresound.org - footsteps, wind, crows, clock
Final cut express - learnt how to key frame titles -
Photoshop different fonts for credits
Producing the company ident logo


Research and planning -

Audience research - I used the Pearl and Dean interactive film guide to find figures - we discovered that our target audience would be between the ages of 24-30 years old, sophisticated cinemagoers who understand the conventions of the genre and the difficult narrative structure of our thriller film.. 

Learnt different cinematography rules - 180 degree rule, 30 degree rule, rule of thirds

Using conventions of real media texts -

No Country for Old Men (Ethan Coen, 2007)’ which shows the guard with a prisoner out of focus in the background - this influenced the close-up of the victim in our thriller opening, with the villain in the shall depth of field in the background 

The opening sequence of True Blood, makes links between animals and humans - snakes as  representation of a character in the opening - the wooden carvings on the end of benches in our thriller opening are shown with shallow depth of field, which show the villain in out of focus of the shot. The wooden predators represent him as the killer, and help the audience read this the way we intended as producers. 

Villain character in Se7en (Fincher) - John Doe - not revealed until the end - shown in the shadows and in shallow depth of field to hide his identity - we followed these conventions of hiding the villain in our thriller opening with our villain character. 

The growing ticking soundtrack in the opening of Drive makes the audience feel uneasy- we used a ticking clock in our thriller opening as the mains sound, no composed soundtrack, just the echo of a ticing clock in the church which makes the audience feel uneasy up to the point of the cinematic boom at the end of  our thriller opening

Section 1B: Media Language

Media Language -
How I created meaning in my media production

Micro elements - cinematography, editing, sound, mes
Macro elements - narrative, genre, characters

Andre Goodwins music video theory

Genre conventions - audience expectations

Advanced portfolio A2 Music Video -

Editing -
Constant cuts from performance with lead singer to to narrative with the couple, represents how the lead singer is thinking about his ex girlfriend and her new relationship. This constructs meaning about their relationship.
Relating to Allan Camerons modular narrative - split-screen - as our music video is split into two, the lead singer reflecting on the past, and the narrative

Cinematography -

Sound -
'6 years you've been with me, 6 years and you treat me like this' - diegetic dialogue - sets the story for the audience, and opens the plot of the media text.
Stewart Halls reception theory - producers encode meaning into media texts and the consumers decode the meanings in three different ways - preferred/negotiated/oppositional readings. The dialogue in our music video helps the audience read the text the way that we as producers intended.

MES -
Iconography -
Guitars which represent the rock genre
Constant costume change - casual costumes - conventional to the indie rock genre


Goodwins music video theory -

Genre characteristics -

Lyrics and visuals -
'All of the stars' - visuals are the star time lapse that I produced - represents the meaning that the lead singer feels his relationship is in the past.

Lyrics and sound -

Demand of the record label -

Notion of looking / voyeurism -
Lead singer has a direct gaze to the audience - represents how audience are meant to identify with him

Intertextual reference -
Jimmi Hendrix graffiti is a signifier in our music video - reference to the classic rock genre which indie rock evolved from which is the signified meaning.

Representation in 'Australia'

In what ways does the clip use or challenge theories of representation?

Laura Mulvey -
The clip challenges the male gaze theory because the male character is the one objectified by the spectators in this clip - the female is the one looking at the male character sexually - the final reaction shot represents this
The female character is completely covered with clothes - however when she has her head stuck outside the tent, we only see her head which suggests she is still objectified as just a 'body part'.

Performativity- Judith Butler
The female character acts feminie - she is flustered the the male characters visual representation of masculinity - she is lady like - doesnt want to share the tent with three males
Agrees to the theory - conforming to the theory

David Gauntlett - denotation/connotation - 
Connotation of the shot of him shifting his shorts and the following reaction shot suggests a sexual reference

Denotation - dog - means best friend -
Connotation - companionship, suggests a character is caring

Section 1B: Representation

Representation: a re-presentation of reality
The way in which a media text communicates meaning in relation to a particular group of people, individual, object or place.

Theories:

Semiotics - Ferdinand De Sassuare -

As an audience we look for signs to find meaning in a text

A signifier is a representation of an object or something - the object - e.g. lips
A signified representation is the accosiated meaning to the signifier - the meaning - lips= love, lust, female, princess (narrative theories), temptress (use men), drawing attention, sex, rage, danger, death

Thriller opening -
Signifier= wooden sculpted animals/predators in the church
Signified= represents how the villain is a predator/killer/murderer/doesn't care

Music Video -
Signifier = Jimmi Hendrix guitar graffiti
Signified = a reference to the classic rock genre within our indie rock music video, represents how the indie rock genre has been influenced by classic rock

Encoding/Decoding - Stuart Hall -

Preffered - reader interprets the text the way the producer intended
Negotiated - reader may decode the text in a slightly different manner
Oppositional - reader interprets text in the opposite way the producer intended

Denotation/Connotation - Roland barthes - Mythologies (1970) -

Denotation = literal meaning of something
Connotation = suggested meaning - connotation of the colour red - death, love, danger...
'It is possible to argue that all media representations relate to broader cultural myths'

Thriller opening -
Denotation = the bible shows how the victim is religious
Connotation = represents how the victim has religous views on something, which could suggest why he is the victim of the murder in our opening. The bible is red which represents death and danger

Laura Mulvey - Male Gaze theory -

Controlling the male gaze - men being in charge is what makes a girl sexy
Female form is objectified by the frame - to be looked upon
Cinema is a male dominated arena

Scopohpilia - the pleasure at looking at other peoples bodies as objects
Voyeurism - the pleasure of seeing the forbidden

Yvonne Tasker - softening theory-
Yvonne Tasker suggests in her theory that all female characters will be 'softended' by something/someone in the film. For example a female can be softended by the fact she is a mother.
E.g. Nikita in 'La Femme Nikita (Besson), is softened by the character is Victor the Cleaner when he takes over her mission in the film.

David Gauntlett - Media 2.0 -
The internet generation is about participation and collaboration
Unmediated self-representaion in the age of prosumer. You can now produce your own ideas about things

Judith Butler - performativity -
Gender identity is a performance
Gender performativity - speech + gestures - are a daily performance by genders every day
Non conformer ism - leads to being bulled/victimized

How we used/challenged audience theories in our music video

A2 Advanced Portfolio Music Video project -

Our music video follows the story of a relationship breakup and the development of a new relationship, between a love triangle. The two main characters perform cameo roles in the narrative, whilst also performing with guitars in various locations around cambridge.

Avtive consuming -

Stuart Hall - Encoding/Decoding -
Prefered/Negotiated/oppisitonal readings of the our music video -
Because our music video has a linear narrative, it is fairly simple for the audience to understand the plot, so majority of audience members will understand the text the way that we intended as the producers, this would be a preferred reading.

Blumler and Katz - uses and gratification theory -
This theory shows what audiences 'do' with media texts, rather than what the media text 'does' to the audience. Shows how the audience are actively viewing.
States that audiences watch the media text with four different purposes.
It could be said that our music video could be for 'Entertainment', 'Personal relationships' and for 'personal identity'. This challenges the theory as the theorists state how each media text should fall into one category.

David Gauntlett Pick n Mix reader -
Suggests that audiences that are 'sophisticated' enough will be able to pick what they want from media texts and what they don't want from the media when they consume.

David Buckingam - Creative audience -
States how young audiences will use media and specifically web 2.0 to just 'fill time', to keep them 'entertained' so they aren't bored.
He also states that they use the media to make sense of their lives, to help make sense of real experiences such as relationships.


Passive viewing -

Hypodermic needle/copy cat theory -

Section 1B - Audience

Audience are the people who consumer different media products, consisting of people of different cultures, ages and genders who all create different target audiences for the producers.

A select group of people you wish to please with your media content

A variety of different groups you can belong to - audiences can enjoy different genres

Active and Passive consumption -

Something you do rather than something you are - not necessarily actively consuming but passively absorbing

Passively absorbing -  Injecting ideas or views into the minds of the audience - hypodermic needle theory, copy cat theory - controlling the way people behave
Examples: adverts on bus stops, radio on in the background, adverts next to YouTube videos, product placement in films

Hypodermic needle model - no filter between cause and effect the media causes/has an impact
Video games make people violent
This approach suggests the media can have a powerful impact on audiences. The 'injected' audience is seen as powerless to the effect if its influence.



Trendsetting - media sets trends

Copy Cat theory - suggested presumption that an audience would copy what they see - links with murders that were influenced by A Clockwork Orange.

Desentisation - the more you are exposed to something the less you react to it, sex/violence, this links in to an assumption that there is too much sex and violence in the media


Actively consuming - audience have a role in understanding the text - Stuart hall theory
paying to go to the cinema, to a concert, recording a tv program

The rise of the internet led to a more active view of audiences.

Reception theory - more individual

Stuart Hall - encoding/decoding theory - preferred, negotiated, oppisitonal readings of media texts

Blumler and Katz - uses and gratification theory- splits media into four categories -
Entertainment and diversion - to escape, fill time, distract them
Personal relationships/social interaction - enhance and build relationships, shared experience to go to cinema
Personal identity - media injects back to you - you can relate to characters within media texts
Information/education - we go to media with a requirement/to be educated further

Pick and Mix reader - David Gauntlet -
A consumer you pick and chose what you do and don't want.
A theory of the internet age - picking out of multiple google search results
They pick what media and messages they consume (actively deciding)

David Buckingham - the creative audience -
The media is used to help young people make sense of their daily lives, to experiment with new identities and allemate realities. it is now a wallpaper, a wall of noise to fill down time.
Interactions are meaningless

Revision: Theorists for Media Online Age

Andrew Keen - skeptic of Web 2.0 due to the amaterisation of the media being share on the internet. He thinks it lacks the 'quality control'. Can relate to our YouTube case studies, for example Jonason Movies producing the Toy Story film in real life which lacks quality.

Chris Anderson - Long Tail theory - the theory of how the internet allows media products that are in the 'niche' end of the long tail, such as documentary, foreign or anime films. Relating to our film case study, niche films can be distributed by Indie Rights film distribution on YouTube. The internet allows there to me more 'shelf space' for media, instead in the past there was limited shelf space for films as cinemas could not screen many niche films as they had to screen for the mainstream audience.

David Buckingham - is a moderate of Web 2.0, he thinks it gives 'young people the opportunity to produce their own media. But he is a moderate because he thinks people need to have a media literacy before they become producers of their own media, so they aren't just copying mainstream media.

Clay Shirky - Advocate of web 2.0 - cognitive surplus - time spent being wasted such as watching TV is now being spent being creative or 'engaging in social activism online'. For our video games case study for Skate 2, Skate.Create allows consumers of the videogame to produce their own skateparks (maps), skateboarders, and make their own skateboarding edits using the in game editor and then share them on Skate.Create or YouTube. This shows how playing video games is wasting time, as the consumers are now being creative with the videogames whilst playing.

Henry Jenkins - transmedia storytelling, characters existing across multiple media platforms. Relating to our Angry Birds case study, the angry birds franchise can now be seen on television, Youtube, themeparks, in books, and on multiple gaming platforms including handheld portable devices such as iPhone, and consoles such as Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 as a downloadable game.

Genre

Functions of genre -
- Reinforcement of our ideas and values
- Creation of a set of audience expectations
- Creation of characteristics by producers which audiences can recognise
- A relationship between audiences and producers which minimised the risk of financial failure
- Dynamism and flexibility - they are constantly transformed by new additions -

What is the genre of my producer and how is this evident?
We followed the standard conventions of the indie rock music genre for our advanced portfolio music video project. These included followed the mise-en-scene conventions, such as the costumes that our characters/band wore which was fashionable, the handheld cinematography, fast paced cuts in the editing and the conventional full band sound. We followed the conventions by having cameo performances within the narrative along with performance within the multiple locations within the music video.

What are the positives of having a set genre for institutions? 
The advantage of having a set genre for institutions is that they can market the music video to audiences that actually want to listen to the indie rock genre of music. For example they can put adverts in rock related magazines such as NME or Q Magazine, and play the music video on rock channels like Kerrang to an audience that want to listen to rock music. If there was no genre and a rock music video was played on the classical channel then there would be an audience who won't want to watch the music video.

What are the positives of having a set genre for audiences? 
The advantages of having a set genre for audiences is that they can easily locate the music that they want to listen to. Genres categorise the music industry allowing audiences to chose the style of music they want.

Does my product at any point challenge any conventions of the genre?
We challenged the genre of indie rock by not having a conventional full bad setup in the performance scenes of the music video, because we intended for the lead singer and guitarist to be the idols of the band.

How do you think your chosen genre has developed over time?
Now it is more about the star persona and selling the band image to make a profit in the music industry, back in the day rock music was sold just for the music, and the band weren't the core image. Music videos usually included just live performance video footage to help sell the band as live performers.

Is your product in any way a hybrid of genres?
It is a hybrid of indie rock music and rock, it also includes a cinematic romantic narrative.


Task 2 -
How I used, developed and/or challenged generic conventions in all projects -

Childrens film - 'Spy School' - spy/action film opening - foundation portfolio -
Hero protagonist - Ajax
Antagonist villain - Vlaidimir
Gadget character
Three characters that are conventional to spy films such as 'Stormbreaker', 'Spy kids' etc..

Thriller - noir style opening - foundation portfolio project -
Antagonist isn't shown at all, he is seen in the shadows, out of focus and is also blocked by the wooden predators on the church benches
Enigma - why is the character who is praying in the church murdered?
Representation of the animals as predators like the antagonist is
Conventional sound effects - crows in the grave yard
Mise en scene - casual victim/ antagonist dressed in black so he blends into the darkness

Music video - indie rock music video - advances portfolio -
Followed/challenged conventions of indie rock music video as stated above

Narrative

Story: totality of events explicitly referenced in a whole narrative (including backstory as well as those projected beyond the action)

Plot: the story events directly incorporated into the action of the text. Those linked by cause and effect and the order in which they are presented)

Narrative - ''a chain of events in a cause and effect relationship occurring in time'' - Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art, 1980

Range includes either -
- Unrestricted narrative: (i.e news) - can't be restricted, uncovering factual events
- Restricted narrative (only offers minimal info, i.e. thriller opening - for entertainment/audience satisfaction

Depth: the level of idenficiation we are allowed with the protagonist within the text
- Objective: only have access to what a range of characters see and do
- Subjective: given unique access to a characters mental state/dreams - i.e Scottie in Hitchcocks Vertigo

Todorov -
Says that the conventional narrative in mainstream films are all structured with the same five stages -

1. a state of equilibrium at the outset
2. A disruption of equilibrium by some action
3. A recognition that there has been some disruption
4. An attempt to repair the disruption
5. Re-equilibrium that is different to the outset  

Vladimir Propp -

Characters have a narrative function and they provide the structure to the text

There are eight types built around certain functions at certain stages in the narrative

Hero

Villain

Dispatcher

False Hero

Helper

Princess

Princess' father 

Section 1B Genre

Genre -
Used to categorize certain films

Daniel Chandler -
''Conventional definitions of genre are based on the idea that they share particular convention of content e.g. themes and settings''
This means that films within one genre have aspects about them that are simiular, and this is what helps decide what genre to put them in. For example an action film will have a lot of fast paced editing and running about.

Steve Neale -
''genres are instances of repetition and difference, this is what pleasure for the audience is derived from''
This basically means that films within one genre have repetitive conventions that a group of audience members enjoy, and that each film within the genre may have a different plot, and this is what keeps the audience entertained.

Hybrid genres - mixture of genres - makes things different
Sean of the Dead - romantic comedy zombie - rom-com-zom

John Hartley -
''the same text can belond to different genres in different countries or times''
One story can be retold many of times using different genres

David Buckingham -
''Genre is a constant process of negotiation and change''
The genres will develop as time goes on due to change in society and within different cultures

John Ficke -
''Genre attempts to situate some order into the wide range of texts and meanings that circulate in our culture for the conveniences of both producers and audiences''

Nicholas Abercrombie - 'television producers set out to exploit genre conventions' - producers will always try to follow conventions of a particular genre so that the audience recognise it - for our music video we exploted many conventions of indie rock music videos, including performance and cameo narrative, shakey handheld cinematography, casual costumes - these made our music video recognisable as an indie rock video

Katie Wales - ''genre is... an intexertextual concept'' - music videos use interextuality to make reference to other texts, this is to familarise the audience about the genre of the music video - in our music video we made references to the classic rock genre with the jimmi hendrix graffiti, and also a reference to the opening of the School of Rock, a film about a rock school. The audience of these texts would also be the audience of our music video.

Christian Metz - talks about developing conventions of a genre - he says genres go through stages - Experimental, classic, parody and deconstruction. You could say our music vidoe was experimental, as we followed many generic conventions of indie rock, however challenged ones such as having a full band set up.

Genre - to make sense of the world because it helps to organise things to make things more simple

Section 1b notes

Section 1B -

Can only write about one project, can be from foundation or advanced portfolio
You need to support or challenge ideas within one of the 5 areas

Structure - introduction
1. Define the concept. Define the one of the 5 areas the question is on
2. Outline the production you will evaluate
3. Tell the examiner you are going to discuss (x number of ideas about concept in the essay)

Essay should include minimum of 2 theories/ideas to support/challenge the area
4 theories is recommended

Areas - Genre, Audience, Media Language, Representation, Narrative

Genre, Narrative, Audience, Media Language and Representation 

Audience -

'the people that consume the media products. They have different ages, cultures and genders which create a target audience' 

Stuart Hall's theory discusses how producers 'encode' meaning into meaning text which is then 'decoded' by the audience with three different types of readings -

- Preferred reading - the meaning the producers meant to come across

- Negotiated reading - the audience may not agree with the meaning, but they accept it

- Oppositional reading - the audience read the text the way it is intended, however they do not agree with it at all

Hypodermic needle theory - Media injects directly into the consumer whenever it wants to. Media controls what the consumers think. This is a fairly out dated theory now though

Andrew Hart (1991) - ''the meaning is not in the text, but in the reading'' - the way audiences interpret a media text can vary depending on how the audience 'read' or 'decode' it.

Erving Goffman (1974) - Dramaturgy - study of every day life to study media audiences

Genre -
'types of texts or 'categories' with sets of conventions that make them recognizable to an audience'

Branston and Stafford -

Bell et all - 'Genre is good for media industries because their potential audience and consequently their potential profit that can be easily assessed'

Genres are easy to make sense of, people can easily chose a genre film to watch be it a comedy, thriller or a science fiction.

Profit is easy to make because different audiences like different genres, so a sci-fi film could be marketed to sci-fi audiences.

Media Language -
'is about messages conveyed to its audience and its affect. The way in which the story is interpreted'

Reading too much into things such as Micro and Macro elements

Micro elements - Sound, Editing, Mise-en-Scene and Camerawork - to convey meanings
Macro elements - Narrative, Characters, genre

Andrew Goodwin - ''music genres have their own music video style and iconography''
Studied this for music video project. For example indie rock music videos have performance and narrative, primarily conventional band set up, fast paced editing...

David Bordwell - Argues there is a difference between the story given to the viewer through the narrative and the story communicated to the audience though media language.
This is because different audience members may interpret the media language in different ways (links to the encode and decode theory by Stuart Hall)

Representation -
'process of showing real things, people, places and events. re-representing reality'

Tania Modleski - representation of gender favours the good mothers over the seductress. The good housewife stereotype does nothing but reinforce the dominant ideology of patriarchy. This means it reinforces male dominance in films.

Laura Mulvey Male Gaze theory - Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema -
Her theory discusses how female characters in films are 'objects' of the male gaze which softens females as characters and people.

Narrative -
'basic plot and storyline of a piece of media'
'the devices, strategies and conventions governing the organisation of a story'

Roland Barthes - Narrative is infinite, every person has a story, every object has a story

Vladimir Propp - broke narratives up into sections

Stefan Todorov -

Allan Cameron -

Thriller project narrative aspects - voiceover, cliffhanger, flashback, enigma

Film Industry Facts

I need some more facts and examples for my film case studies, to help me back up my points.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/14029865

http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1001-Spring-2010/Internet-Issues-Piracy-Statistics.aspx

Click here to see figures on monthly cinema viewings.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4051741.stm -

''The simple fact is that cinema attendance in the 1940s in the UK was almost 10 times the size it is today.

In the 1940s the average annual cinema attendance was 1,400,000,000 people, compared to a mere 167 million in 2003.''

http://www.movingimageeducation.org/explore/platforms/cinema -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178341/Hollywood-Cinema-attendance-plummets-25-year-low.html -

''Meanwhile, the price of a ticket has been climbing steadily. In 1995, the average ticket price was $4.35. In 2011, that price nearly doubled to $7.92, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners.''

http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/6693/business/cinema-attendance-in-uk/ -

Practical Products Bradley Stearn

Media Studies -

Stop motion task: We played around with stop motion
Photoshop task: We photoshopped a picture of the world into a picture of an eye using photoshop

Childrens film blog: http://49childrensfilm11.blogspot.co.uk

Prelim childrens film:



Children's film opening: Spy School





Thriller blog: http://43longroadthriller12.blogspot.co.uk

Thriller prelim -



Final thriller opening: Night of the Disbeliever




Music video project -

Prelim - we made one minute of music video to practise lip syncing and editing to the song 'Cars' by Gary Numan.

Editing tasks: Editing footage of people in animal costumes dancing to the beat
Syncing up a song to student music video footage to learn how to sync audio to video

Music video blog: http://08musicvideo2012.blogspot.co.uk

Final  music video for Forget About What I Said by The Killers -




Ancillary texts music video project -

Six panel special edition digipak -

 Magazine advert to advertise the digipak -

Film Studies -

Western: We made this in our second film studies lesson in AS. It was to practice shot types and representing characters.



Post production tasks -
Editing footage from French Connection to make our own car chase scene.
Completely re-recording and designing the sound for the bar fight in Mean Streets.

Film extract blog: http://02filmextract12.blogspot.co.uk
Crime Revenge Film Extract
My role was Cinematographer in this film extract for our AS Film Studies



We are currently filming and editing our A2 short film which consists of three different genres/styles which include French New Wave romance, Black and white silent comedy and psychological horror.

Toy Story Live Action: Primary Research

I sent Jonason and Jesse a message on the Toy Story Live Action Facebook page with some questions about their film and how social networking helped it.

''Yes absolutely. When we had been working on the movie for three months or so we posted the first video on YouTube where we told people what we were doing. We made the facebook page so that there would be one place for people to go for the project (YouTube had some other things on it already). Before the movie was even released, we had more than 1,000 people "like" the FB page. 

Kind of just continuing the story: We searched out Pixar and Toy Story fan pages online and talked about our movie there. I decided to get a twitter which ended up being a great idea in the long run because we had Lee Unkrich (director of Toy Story 3) re-tweet a couple of our videos which really spread the word. It's like trying to find the people who we knew would like our movie and telling them specifically. Toy Story fans would be following him on twitter for example. Our movie had it easy in that way I think because Toy Story already has a big fan base that we could go after. If we did something totally original we would have had a little bit of a harder time. Still, I think we would have done it nearly the same way. 

Social networking sites were definitely what helped the movie go viral. Once we put the movie online (something we only decided to do a week before we did it) it really took off. Some videos go viral a long time after being uploaded, but there were people we didn't even know who had been waiting for it for almost two years.''

Overall I feel that social networking and web 2.0 are what helped Jonason and Jesse produce their film and get the audience that they needed. In the past before the internet was being used, it would have been much harder for them to produce the film, this is because doing research for finding locations and the props would have been more difficult. Also distribution of the film would have been impossible, without YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the audience just would not have been there for the film to get viewed. Because the film is quite 'niche' as it is different to anything else out there, it is part of the long tail theory by Chris Anderson, which states there is 'unlimited shelf space' on the internet for films to be screened.

Toy Story Live Action; Use of Social Networking

An interview with Jonason Pauley, director of Toy Story Live Action, on 'The Rush' web show.
Jonason mentions how having a Facebook page (click here to see) allowed them to build a 'hype' up around the film even before they released it. He says they gained over 1000 facebook fans before the film was released, so a fairly large fan base was ensured for them. Without social networking this fan base would not have existed, and the success of their film probably wouldn't have either.

 

The video below explains the film, and would have helped get the word out about the final live action film. However another great use of social media is explained in this news video, this is because Lee Unkrich, editor of Toy Story and director of Toy Story 3, 'tweeted' the final film to his 128,000+ Twitter followers. Without social networking, Lee Unkrich probably would have not seen the film, and the popularity and viral state probably would have not been received.

Skate Reel

Skate Reel allows the consumers of EA Skate to film and edit their own skateboarding edits within the game, and to share them to other consumers on the internet. The video editor allows you to do a lot, such as trimming the start and end of a clip, adding slow motion, colour corrections such as black and white, sepia, negative and saturated colours to give the footage a 'retro' feel. The final edits can be uploaded to Skate.ea.com to Skate.Create on the Skate.Reel

Brian Lindley - Producer of Skate -
 ''Another way for you to define yourself in your own sort of personal style, the sky is your limit''

Skate Reel makes the consumers into prosumers, making them the producers of their own content.

Brian Lindley: EA Skate Producer

Producer Brian Lindley talks about sharing photos and videos from the game on the internet for other people to see.
You create a team through the internet, you create your own brand with your own skateboard designs, this brand then gets seen by people around the world.

The video below also discusses the team aspect of Skate 3, and how you can complete career mode with a team of skateboarders  either offline with a computer controlled team, or online with real friends playing in the skateboarding team. In the video Brian Lindley, producer of EA Skate 3, says how skating in teams and creating your own brand is something that professional skateboarders do in real life,so Skate 3 is a much more realistic skateboarding game, which is also more interactive.

The game allows consumers to make user created content, if this content is used by a lot of other players, then a new featured means that EA will reward you new features in your own game for making that content. This is encouraging consumers to make content for the game, this is also helping to distribute the game around the internet by using Skate.Create.

 

Film Piracy

In this video Javier Bardem talks about how consumers illegally watching pirated films on the internet are affecting the people behind the productions of the film, not just the directors.