Representation

Representation is the way in which people events and ideas are presented to the audience via the use of stereotypes, archetypes and countertypes. These representations are created by the producers (anyone who makes a media text) of media text. The ideas which producers present to us are controlled by the Gatekeepers. A Gatekeeper is someone who has the power to make a decision about something the audience is allowed to see, hear or read. Moguls are the next link in the chain in media they are the media owners. Using newspapers as an example Rupert Murdoch owns the newspaper so he would be the Mogul he will have the final say in what is distributed to the audience.

• Stereotypes - Media institutions use stereotypes because the audience will instantly understand them. You can think of stereotypes as a visual shortcut. Stereotypes are uses so often that we assume they are normal or true. 
• Archetypes - This is the ultimate stereotype. For example the white  stiletto wearing, big busted, brainless blond bimbo. 
• Countertypes - A countertype is a representation which challenges tradition stereotypical societies, people or places. 

Genre Task - Opening Sequence Analysis

DISTINCT 

Prelim Task - Somme Survivor

This is my first film - Somme Survivor

1) Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you? 


To film this task we were put into groups and my group was Me, Ben and Will. We were then given a genre and the genre we received documentary we were quite happy with this genre because we had a lot of ideas, which we could film about. We discussed what to film but after a long discussion we decided to film about the War. We chose this because of a recent television series Our World War this series gave us a lot of inspiration because they filmed in much the same way as we wanted to. 


2) How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take in to account?

To plan this sequence we covered a long process of storyboarding in order to get all shots in the correct places enabling the film to be filmed quickly and correctly meaning we did not have to re film many shots. We used post it notes to write out the story board saving us having to redo page after page of storyboard instead we could just move the post its around. We tried to keep an enigma code 


3) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?


4) What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?


5) How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently? What did others say about your production?



6) What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think? 

Institution Task

Juno - Final edit

Juno - Final edit

For this task we were editing and filming our own footage which enabled us to become more farmillar with the cameras. By filming our own shots we realised the time it takes to film just one shot to try and get it as near to perfect as we could.

This was our first atttempt at creating our own storyboards by doing this we learnt how closely we need to watch in order to pick out the specific transitions and camera shots in oder to match the origional juno sequence.

In the group we had a slight weakness in keepig the camera still throuhout all of the shots because of this we learnt that where possible we should try and use a tripod to steady the shot. we also found weaknesses in our organisation during the filming as we ended up running around to find props insted of having them ready before we went to film.

We filmed all of the footage that we needed because we took multiple shots to ensure we filmed at least one good piece of footage for every scene which enabled us to pick and choose which shot we want for our final production.

From this task I learnt a lot about premiere because I could further adapt as t what effects are avalible. rom editing our own foootage I learnt that it is a lot better to film sots too long rather than too short, however by filming shots that are too short I learnt how to make the footage longer by slowing it down. By using the camera I learnt how to take a tracking shot and that it is very diffficult to keep the camera steady during this shot.

My Juno task is close to the origional however some of my shots are too short which spoils the match between the two. Some of my editing also didnt match up because the transitios from the origional were done using animation so we couldnt replicate this so we had to find an alternative method of using the transitions avalible on premiere. To improve the way the footage matched up we should have been more specific as to the way we filmed our shots.

Practice Edit

My First Editing Task

In the lesson we were taught how to use adobe premiere and this is my first attempt. From this lesson I have learnt a number of ways to edit the footage and sound by using the razor tool and adding fades to the music and transitions to the footage. I have also learnt not to use too many transitions because it doesn't flow properly and interrupts the whole story. However by the end of the lesson I started to become familiar with the software and am gaining confidence every time I use it. 

Opening Scene Analyses

The photos on the wall in the opening scene represent military people and symbols of death this could symbolise the characters aspirations to be like this people in the photos so he can consider himself better than others so he can judge them. The camera slowly tilts down in this shot which slowly lets us see every single photo and with every one we learn more about the characters personality. The shot tilts down and zooms out slowly to show the characters book collection which contains books such as: 

• The Holy Bible
• Trial Handbook 
• The Cell Within
• Eat Right and Stay Fit 

These books are mainly about judgement of one sort or another so we can see how he knows about the legal system maybe so he cannot be caught again. We can also tell that he is a smart and sensible man reading quite complex books about the legal system. He is also interested in keeping fit and healthy with  his book Eat Right and Stay Fit. As the shot zooms out we see the back of a man working out with a tattoo of a cross with a set of scales one labelled truth and the other justice again showing his interest in the legal system. The same shot continues to zoom out showing the whole of the cell and showing us the bars on the wall keeping him inside whilst he works out on his bed keeping himself fit. As he turns round we see more tattoos one of a heart over his real heart this could show a previous relationship before he was locked away. The cell door opens with the guard talking out of the scene telling him ' its the moment you've been waiting for' this suggests he's been locked up for a long time maybe because he committed a horrific crime. The music continues to play almost suggesting they are letting out a monster.  The shot finally finishes when the gate inside the prison is shut and begins again outside where the main entrance is opened almost as one door closes another opens in his life. The guard asks about his books and the man replies " already read em" showing he has learnt so he doesn't need them again. As he walks away the storm grows almost immediately letting us know something is going to happen again. 

Juno - Storyboard

Today we started to plan and make our story board for Juno which will enable us to practice our camera shots and our editing on premier. By using the storyboard we can see which shots need filming and from which angle they need to be filmed. The storyboard will also keep uson track and enable us to tick off the shots we had already filmed to ensure we didnt miss any out.

Film Language - (Camera, Editing, Sound, mess Shot Analyses)

• Costume - Black costumes milatary like , pirates are wearing cargo pants and boots, people eld hostage are wearing suits and formal dress almost office like. 
•  Lighting - Dark low key lighting not showing much of the characters faces during the opening scene because they are on a rescue mission so do not want to be seen 
• Audience - young adults with lots of computer generated effects and futuristic computers.
• Makeup - not much make up on any characters. 
• Props - Guns, Captain americas shield and the woman's taser 
• Setting - At sea preparing for a rescue mission during the night.  

The speech from the characters tell us they are preparing for a dangerous mission where lives are at stake we know this from the serious tone in there voices and the way the Captain directs his orders. Props such as guns are used to show the audience immediately that there is a risk of people being killed from the outset because guns are normally associated to war and lots of people are killed in wars. The positioning of the Captain in the shot where he gives his orders lets us know he is in charge because he has been placed in the centre if the shot symbolising he is in charge and is the most important. 

Film Pitch to Demonstrate Understanding of Genre

Film Pitch



Our film "80 Years Straight" is a rom com we chose this genre because we thought it would be interesting and we could thing of a good interesting storyline. When we pitched our film to the class we received good reviews mostly the class thought our title was relevant and catchy although some of the actors and actresses ages do not correspond we envisaged them to be playing 80 year old people. The class also thought that our characters were interesting and were appropriately cast. We also received feedback on the interest for the target audience and in this criteria we did well because our actors Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman have good chemistry so make the story interesting and east to watch. The class also thought the idea of the two men becoming homosexual very different so they thought this was good however they needed more explanation as to why they became homosexual after a long time. The class thought the narrative fitted the genre they described it as a " interesting idea" and how they were "open minded" about the idea. However we fell down on marketing the film with "more imagination needed" to do this better we could have thought of big billboards in central locations and television commercials to help advertise our film to a wider audience to bring in more money. Overall we received a score of 8 out of 10 which gave us 80% of the 20 Million pound grand prize. 

Narrative

Barth's Codes - " a galexy of signifiers, not a structure of signifields" Barthe's is basicly saying that text is a tangled ball of threads which need unraveling so we can seperate the colour. Barth has three main codes: Action, Symbolic and Enigma.

Todorov - The disruption of equilibrium by this he means that a charecter or an action causes an effect which disturbs the state of normality. The below graph shows the disruption of normality throughout a film, the peaks show the disruption and the flat lines show the normality in the film the prestige we see the disruption or normality when the bird is put into the cage as the normal life of a bird is free and outside.

Propp - Propp is a Russian who studied Russian folk & fairy tails and he then decided that every single character in any narrative has been used before. He narrowed these characters down to 8 main types :-

1. The hero
2. The villain
3. The donor
4. The dispatcher
5. The false hero
6. The helper
7. The princess
8. The princess father

In the film the prestige we see a few of the above characters that Propp discovered. We see the villain who doesn't rescue the magician who falls into the water, we also think we saw the hero who we think is the monition in the water.

Levi-Strauss - Believes that after studying hundreds of myths and legends and he observed that we make sense of the world, people and events by seeing and using binary opposites. some examples of binary opposites that we see every day are: 

1.  Good and evil
2. Black and white
3. Old and young
4. Wealthy and poor

in the prestige we see some binary opposites such as male and female and old and young whilst the girl and the wise man are talking.

Applying Barthes Narrative Theory

In the opening scene of the prestige we see these three codes. Firstly we see action, with the magic tricks making the bird and the man dissapear, this creates action because they both dissapear suddenly. Seccondly we see the enigma code which makes us ask questions, who was the magition? Who was the young girl? Do they survive?. Finally we see the symbolic code like the birds can be a symbol for young life and the clothing is a symbol of the era in which the film is set.

Semiotics / Image Analysis

Applying the DISTINCT conventions:

Horror

In this photo the setting is a deserted school playground, we chose this setting because we thought it made the whole location more scary because school can be associated with bad memories of bullying and because of this the deserted school playground makes the audience question why it is empty. The theme of this shot is horror we know this because we can see the teddy bear leaning up against the bench, this makes the photo more scary because the bear could be the reason the school is empty, further more the lone teddy bear could be associated to young children and no one wants anything to happen to someone young so the audience instantly begins to worry about the safty of the school site. The icons and props in this sceen is the teddy bear and the bench in the center of the photo, we used these because we thought they created a scary atmosphere because the bear is positioned in such a way as it is staring directly down the shot almost as if it is watching. The plot of this photo could be menising because the teddy bear is staring directly at the camera as if it is waiting to make its move. To improve the narative we could have added some charrecters in laying on the grass dead to show the bear had done something dreadfull therefore enhancing the whole plot and making the whole sceen more scary. In this photo we can see that it has been edited with a sepia effect to make the whole shot look older as if the bear has been doing its horrible work over a number of years. The whole shot has been taken from a distance to make the bear look tiny in relation to the building but despite this we feel the bear has huge power over everyting. To make this photo better we could have added a number of charrecters laying on the grass with makeup to look pale as if they had been dead a while.

Sci - Fi 

This picture the setting is part of the school which is under going building work we chose this location because we felt it looked futuristic and the ideal place for a science fiction film because they are usually filmed in futuristic locations. The fact there is no living people or plants emphasises how Sci - Fi is a genre heavily reliant on computer generated images because of the futuristic technology which is often featured again for this reason we chose this image because we felt it was a cold and lifeless setting perfect for the inhabitance of creatures from out of this world.

Connotations and Denotations

Semiotics: the study of signs and anythung that stands for "something else". we read pictures and images in an attempt to decode them and make sence of what they mean to us.

Denotation: What we see when we look at an image (what it is).
Connotation: what we understand of the image (what other meanings does it have)

Saving Private Ryan Poster 

 

Denotations: in the poster for the film ' saving private ryan' we immediately see a number of soldiers dressed in uniform from world war one or world war two. We can also see that the man in the front of the photo has bars on his helmet signifying that he is in charge of the small group that we presume are looking for a fellow soldier. There is also a lone soldier walking over rough ground this could signify the hardship of war on every single person taking part leading them to become lone because they have lost everyone around them. 

Connotations: The soldier wandering in the photo is black, the colour black has a number of connotations some of which being lost in the dark. The sunrise behind the soldier could mean that as every single day goes by the soldiers chances of being found are drastically deteriorating. The connotation of having army personnel is often thought of with great loss off life so this makes us think about all of the men that are pictured and we wonder if they will survive.

Denotations: From the opening scene of the film ' saving private ryan' we see a man remembering his friends that he lost during the war. we also see the american flag in the opening scene which tells us hoe patriotic they all still are. The scene is filmed on the coast of one of the beaches in normandy which was stormed by the americans during the war, on this beach is a remembrance site for the allied forces remembering every soldier which fell on this sight we see the vast number of crosses which each individually shows one person who died in the war. The man breaks down into tears and his family come to comfort him as he remembers what he did during the war during the storming of the beach in June 6, 1944.

Connotations: The image of the american flag brings about a sense of american patriotism felt during and after the war. The older man walking faster than everyone else towards the cemetery could signify how he respects his fallen comrades and wishes they were still with him. The white crosses in the cemetery evoke strong feelings of the where number of people who lost there life during the war and this humbles us to know they did it for us. When the camera focuses ono the mans face we can see how he is remembering the war and his part this could reflect a almost ritual he does every day because of the wrinkles around his eyes from repeated actions. When at the beach we see the waves crashing down this could signify the number of people who would fall with there ego starting off high like the crest of the wave and when they come crashing down like the life of the dead soldiers.