My attempt to make this picture (from our film) postmodern....
Tried to make it ironic by changing the colour (make it colourful) when the genre is a thriller!

Postmodernism!

Class notes on postmodernism:-

• A rejection
• Death of the author
• Breaking of the 4th wall
• Difference from the norm
• self referential

P A I N P I P E S

P layfulness - doesn't take scenes seriously.
A esthetics - The way they look. Looking similar to or different to other productions.
I ntertextual - Reference other texts to enable meaning to be made to the audience.
N ihilistic - Rejection of established laws and institutions.
P arody - A text that mocks another text to create humour.
I rony - Presenting something in a different way to how it appears on the surface.
P astiche - Imitating the style of another text. (E.g. Leone camera shot)
E clectism - Convergence of contrasting genres.
S elf-referential - Reference to themselves.

Hyperreality - When you can no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy. (The Matrix - Bullet time).

Postmodernism - Lack of values.

Michael Winterbottom - 'A mighty heart'

Coen Brothers - 'Intolerable Cruelty'

Moral panics

Processual model-

Emergence- when a form of behaviour comes to be perceived as a threat.

Media inventory- an explanation of the threat articulated primarily through the media (strategies include exaggeration/ distortion, prediction and symbolization).

Moral entrepreneurs- groups or organisations speaking out on the nature of the problem and solutions.

Experts- socially accredited experts who pronounce their diagnoses and solutions.

Coping and resolution- reaction of the media, moral entrepreneurs and experts contain ideas about the required measures. If current legal powers are insufficient demands for legal reform will follow.

Fading away- the condition disappears, submerges, or deteriorates and becomes more visible.

Legacy- a moral panic may have little long term lasting effect, or may produce big changes in, for example, social policy, the law or society's view of itself.

The Attributional model-

Concern- a heightened level of concern manifesting itself in measurable ways such as opinion polls, public commentary in the form of media attention, proposed legislation, social movement activity etc.

Hostility- increased level of hostility toward the group or category. Members are collectively designated as the enemy of respectable society and their behaviour seen as harmful or threatening to the values, interests, and even existence of society or at least a sizeable proportion of society. These groups (called 'folk devils' by Stan Cohen in his study Folk Devils and Moral Panics 1973) are constructed through a process of stereotyping and are essential to a moral panic.

Consensus- a substantial segment of the public must see the threat as real, serious and caused by the wrongdoing group members.

Disproportionality- where public concern is in excess of what is appropriate if concern where proportionate to objective harm.

Volatility- the idea that moral panics are volatile by nature, erupting quickly and often subsiding just as quickly. A moral panic might build on previous ones, but each episode cannot be sustained for long.

The boat that rocked - Richard Curtis case study

1) Who are the target audience for the film and how do you know? The target audience for this film would be mainly adults, both male and female. The humour in the film may attract a younger/ teen audience but the plot would mainly attract adults as they would understand it more.

I don’t think there is a specific audience for the film ‘The boat that rocked’. The humour in the film can be aimed at a wide audience. However I think the main target audience would be those who remember and lived through the times of the pirate radios like ‘Radio rock’. The first offshore radio station was broadcasted in 1964. Those who were around then would remember pirate radios and the events that followed. These individuals may find the film more interesting than others, although others learn the story of pirate radios (although its not represented in the exact way it occurred) and find it interesting.

2) How does the film rely on stereotypes?

There are many stereotypes within the film. The main stereotypes being the ‘pirates’, being portrayed as frequent drug and alcohol abusers and defiant to the laws surrounding radio stations. Others that are stereotyped are the government officials who all walk around in suits giving out orders. Those who make the law and those who break the law are stereotyped in a specific way. The way these characters are portrayed however makes the audience vote in favour of those who disobey the law opposed to those who are creating the law.

3) Explain the film making process from concept to culmination in 150 words or less

(will do this question but cant remember how to get onto the PowerPoint thing on our documents???).

Storyboard

This is a link to our storyboard. More information on Sam's blog.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y217/samj042000/storyboard.jpg

Working title films

Working title films is a British film production company based in London. It produces feature films and some television productions. The company is now co-owned by Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan who's films have won 6 Academy Awards, 24 BAFTAs and won prestigious prizes at the Cannes and Berlin film festivals. Not to mention the awards that they have won themselves; the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema at the 2004 BAFTAs and the Alexander Walker Film Award at the Evening Standard British Film Awards in 2005.

Some of the 'Working title film' productions include:

• About a boy



• The boat that rocked



• Billy Elliot



• Wild child

• Burn after reading



• State of play



• Bridget Jones's diary

Working title films is actually quite a small production company, however works (makes deals and co-finances films) with the well known production company universal studios, based in Hollywood America ( which is a subsidiary to NBC universal).

This is why, as you may have noticed, not all of the working title film productions are British.

Violence in 'Get Carter' and 'The Italian job'

There are many similarities between the films 'Get Carter' and 'The Italian job'. The well known actor Michael Caine stared in both films, resorting to violence to get what he wanted.
The violence however differed between the films as the criminal activity was glamorised more in the film 'The Italian job'.

I found that the film 'Get Carter' was at a much slower pace than 'The Italian job'. The slow pace however made 'Get Carter' seem more realistic. In today’s society it has become increasingly more common for violent films to be shown in a more glamorised manor. Not only in 'The Italian job' but in other recent films such as 'Oceans 11', 'The Bourne Ultimatum' and many others the criminal activity present in the films is shown in a way that makes the audience what them to get away with the crime. In 'The Italian job' the main character (Michael Caine), even when he first appears in the film, he was coming out of prison and was then rewarded with a visit from many women (prostitutes). Straight away his character is a person who impressionable young boys would look up to.
The violence in the film also shows little repercussions, so the audience is aware of the violence however isn't shown how bad the result of these actions are.

In the film 'Get Carter' the violence is made to seem more real. This is done by the slow pace of the film and also the dark shots that were used. The dark shots help the film show the real side of crime. The violence is also more real as it shows some of the repercussions of crime, for example when it showed Jack's brothers dead body. The dead body made the crime and violence in the film seem more real as the audience was aware of what had happened to Jack's brother at the start of the film and therefore knew what would happen to the characters that get hurt. The death of the brother is also constantly on the audiences mind as it was shown at the start of the film and the plot is based around this death, this also makes the film seem less glamorous.

Iweb experience

my experience on the Iweb program was very short and I would like to practice more in order to understand it more.
From what I done while i was on I web i know that you can upload pictures and videos to the web page, while I was doing it i uploaded a picture that represented British films. It was apparent that you could also podcast on the Iweb.
Hopefully when I have created a website by using the Iweb people will be able to visit it from a search engine such as google.

UGC

User-generated content (UGC), also known as consumer-generated media (CGM) or user-created content (UCC), refers to various kinds of media content, publicly available, that are produced by the audience.

Examples of UGC -

http://www.youtube.com/

youtube is an example of UGC as you can upload videos and then others have the opportunity to comment on and rate the video.

http://uk.yahoo.com/?p=us

Yahoo is also a UGC because people are allowed to comment on the news that is regularly updated.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/

This is a UGC because the users can rate other users purchases.

Media and collective identity

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y217/samj042000/mediacollective.jpg

This is a link that shows the table we had to fill in on British film and their identity.

British films

Representing Britian

Info on Michael Caine

Born: 14 March 1933
Has appeared in more than 100 films
He was married to actress Patricia Haines from 1955 to 1958. They had one daughter named Dominique.
He left school at 15 and took a series of working-class jobs before joining the British army and serving in Korea during the Korean War.
Three of his memorable films (Alfie (1966), The Italian Job (1969), and Get Carter (1971)) have all been remade.
More recently (August 2007) he was in Chicago Illinois filming The Dark Knight (2008).

Film trailers

Harry Potter -
http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/harrypotterandthehalf-bloodprince/

Atonement -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ntAx0vrOjo

Easy Virtue -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ACQTebcuTU

These trailers are all popular British film.
The Harry Potter trailer is helpful as it has its own website for the trailer, which would help me get ideas for when I have to design my own website (for my trailer). I couldn’t find professional websites for the other films, this may be due to the films being quite a few years old or they may not have had the funding to have a website specifically for the trailer. However many trailers are now available to view on 'Youtube.com' (which is where i viewed the other two trailers i found.

Evaluating my film!

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I believe that our media production uses similar techniques to other films as it uses music to fit with its particular genre. The genre of our film is a horror/thriller. The sound effects at the very start set the scene and introduce the genre to the audience. This happens in most films, they set the scene and then the main body of the film begins. Our film can be compared to those such as ‘Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets’ and ‘The Others’. They are both non-fiction and ‘Harry Potter’ is a fantasy, comparable with the storyline of our film, ‘The Others’ however fits with the same sort of genre making it similar in many ways (e.g. the use of ghosts and myths). Our film fits very stereotypically into the genre of a thriller and a horror. There are many stereotypical characters and scenes that conform to these particular genres within the film.


How does your media product represent particular social groups?
There are many different social groups with our film. One of these is South African- the teacher who is talking to the intrigued young girl, Grace (played by Naomi Zetter). He represents South African teachers and can also be representing middle aged men at the same time. Others social groups that are represented in our film are teenage girls, the young girl Grace in the film represents the girls of her generation. We were hoping that the audience would be able to relate to Grace in terms of the way she is dressed and the language she uses (the vocabulary she uses) when talking to her friends. Another social group that is represented in one of the shots is Grace’s peer group. This social group represents the peer groups as a whole; the other students who are the same age as her and many share the same interests, also representing friendships.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
A very well known institution such as Paramount Pictures could distribute our film to the cinemas such as the Odeon. They would also advertise our film on other institutional channels such as the BBC or Film4. By advertising the film on channels such as these it is more likely to be more popular as these institutions are so popular.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
As the genre to my film is thriller/horror the traditional audience would be late teens. Teenagers aged around 16-18. This film can appeal to both female and males as there are segment that would entertain both sexes.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt many different things, such as how to use the editing software on the Apple macs; I found it particularly difficult when saving our film as it would only let us safe it as a finished file, and then it would save it automatically to the computer system. This was frustrating as I couldn’t save the unfinished (unedited) film to my external hard drive as a back up. We had to share the Apple mac computers so it was lucky that our work didn’t get deleted. I have also learnt how to put the shots together neatly so they flow nicely and how the shot transitions are important.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from the full product?
I have learnt how to film different shots with a video camera, how to use a video camera in terms of zooming in and out and pausing it to change shots and many other technical things to do with the video camera and the editing. Personally I have learnt how to work well in a group and share responsibilities evenly, improvise and use time wisely when the actors don’t turn up to shoot a scene.


For my AS Media project Sam Johnson and I created and produce the first two minutes of a film. The outline of the film is that a young girl called Grace Cullen comes across a myth of a late school professor. The professor is rumoured to be haunting the school grounds. One by one Grace’s family and friends are found dead and the story come to a close with Grace discovering the true murderer.

For the required first two minutes of this film we set the scene and introduced the main Character Grace. The background story is told to help the audience in understanding the idea of the myth.

After showing our class our film they gave us their opinion on things they felt we could have improved on and things they thought were good. Some of the negative feedback included not being able to hear the girl (Grace) as she was talking to her friend outside the gate. We had noticed that the background noise for that particular scene was making it difficult to hear what was being said but we couldn’t determine how to fix that particular problem. The audience also commented on having some different angled shots of the teacher whilst he was talking. We felt that this would have been a good idea although we were pressed for time.

Some of the positive feedback we got from the class included the beginning of our film, the ghostly shadowed figure standing in the corridor, and the shots zooming in on it. They also commented on the panning shots and the credits at the beginning flowing well. Also ‘The Black Rose’ title was commented on as being effective and that the use of the bell (sound effect) was a good way to juxtapose the dark shot and the light shots of the corridor.

We tried to use many different techniques whilst filming the different shots in the film. For instance we used match on action, over the shoulder shot and the 180 degree rule. We thought very carefully about our shots, from the angle of the camera to the mise-en-scene. The mise-en-scene of the teacher talking was an important shot as the audience needed to be able to understand that he was a teacher. I think that we established this well as the whiteboard in the shot can connote a classroom environment and so can the desk. This should have been clear anyway though as we established that setting at the very beginning with the panning shots of the school.

Over all I felt that our film was a success and we achieved a lot during our experience of producing, directing and creating this short piece of film. If I was to do it again I would make sure the people who I choose to act in our film, have a lot of free time for the filming.