Monday, November 16, 2009

Questions 3.1 Page 128

1) List 5 media sectors and one leading profit making company for each sector?
  • TV-SKY
  • Newspaper-The Sun
  • Radio- KISS FM
  • Film- Film 4
  • Magazine- Mens Health

2) Name 2 independent music companies?

  • Big Brother
  • Universal Racords

3) Why is some music downloading illegal and some illegal? Some music which youdownload you can have free but you have to pay for all media dowloaded. As the origin isnt making any money from it.

4) Who owns the british Board of Flim Classicification? -

5) Name three organisations that own british newspapers?-

6) Why does the BBC have no adverts? The TV licence

7) What is OFCOM?-

8) What is MP4? Type of media fomat that allows to play music, video and pictures

9) Why does the sound regualy go on big brother? As they want to keep the best bit for the hour show the day after and to prevent any swearing.

10) Who owns channel Five?-

11)What happened as the result of the Hutton Report??

12) What do magazine make most of their money from? Adverts which are inside the magazine

13)Who owns your regional ITV channel? ITV east

14)How do website that offer free content make money?By advertising

15) Who deals with complaints about adverts?-

16) Which is the biggest film industry in the world? Hollywood

17) Who decides for age classifications on video games?

18)Which media company do you pay the most money to?BBC

19) What is an RSS feed?

20) Who are BARB what what do they do? They decided what content is allowed to be realsed to viewing.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Cutting it


  • BBC drama
  • 4 Series 2002-2005
  • Set around hairdressers in Manchester

Stars Amanda Holden, Sarah Parish and Jason Merells.

It follows the life of partners of love and businesses. Set in the middle of Manchester, they plan to open a hairdressers salon but too their amazement Allies Ex partner and father to her aborted child has already brought the desired location of their new salon.

And he has opened with his new partner ( Amanda Holden)

The scene where she is walking across the road and gets knocked over turns out to be she could be pregnant but turns out to be ovarian cancer and she is actually recovering form it. Hence the trip to the hospital.

British Film VS Hollywood


Mean Machines (2002)

Starring: Vinnie Jones, Jason Statham, Danny Dyer. This British film is the English version of the American Classic the Longest Yard. The Principle of the film is the big shot, famous sportsman goes out drink driving and get caught and gets sent to prison. The Head of the prison wants the superstar to help coach the guards sports team. He declines the offer and sets up his own teams and organises a match between the guards and the inmates. The convicts being the winners.

The budget of the Mean Machines was £2.8 million and was directed by the unrecognisable director Barry Skolnick. This has been his only film and there was a bit or controversy over why such an inexperienced director should take part in such a big project.


The Longest yard (2005)
Starring Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Burt Renoylds and Nelly. Their gross profit of this film was $190,320,53.

The director was Peter Segal, he directed such others such as
  • Get Smart
  • 50 First Dates
  • Naked Gun
  • Anger Management
There were many mixed reviews about the Mean Machines a lot of people just said it was a money making way of an American idea but then again they were all American who said that! However it was made in the way to make it its own story, unheard of director and little budget.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Production Tips

G321 Preliminary Task

Diegesis: The sound heard in a moving image can be split up into two categories. (Digetic and Non Digetic). Digetic material is that which exists in the world of the texts itself, so the characters are aware of it as well. E.g. background music and thunder.

Non Digetic music its purely used for the effect of the audience. E.g. voice over’s or atmosphere music. There can be some type of sounds which are both. E.g. the characters thoughts, they are aware to the audience but not heard to the other characters.

Micro and macro origination: To shoot the appropriate material we need to use the micro-macro stagey. To create the appropriate genre or style of film for a fictional film you need to consider the type of camera shots, music, style of titles, dialogue, and the setting. Instead of diving straight into filming it’s important to plan what you’re going to shoot and storyboarding.

Camera work and framing: Holding a steady shot should be used with a tripod unless your making a realist documentary where hand held camera is used for effect. Zooming is very rare and best to avoid unless you want the appearance of amateur footage. The rule of thirds is useful for framing shots. Combining the shot types and distances is essential to the ‘language to the film’. E.g. is long shots to mid shots. As far as camera angles are concerned is depends of the power and neutrality of the character.

Mise en scène : Mise en scène is all about the atmosphere and continuity. So its very important to chose the type of lighting, props and location to create verisimilitude (believable word of the text) Simple mistakes made are costume, make up, and haircuts which can have effects on the film.

Lighting: These are some tip which can make your film more professional, with a very low budget film.

1) Use natural light- sunlight, shadows, in mist, through rain.

2) Use cheap and artificial light- as long as we have carried out risk assessments, use candles firelights, torches.

3) Create colour filters- you can easily shine light through coloured liquids, vases, ornaments.

4) Position the light source for effect- lighting a scene from above, below or an obscure way.

5) Ultimately lighting a scene is a scientific purpose. Massey describes the equation in helpful clear terms.

Once you have explored what your light sources can provide, experiment with interaction of light with the objects in your frame.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Once Apon A Time In The West


Once Upon a Time in the West.

A spaghetti western film was released in 1968. We are first shown a desolate train station in the middle of Arizona. It was made by Sergio Leone.
The first scene is set in a lonely train station when a conductor is writing on the blackboard, where the sound of chalk can be heard, scrapping. As he looks up he can see a huge figure in the doorway, a slow pan up the body and the sound of the door creaking make the character look powerful and mysterious. To our next shot we are made certain as a black cowboy is in the doorway. An eerily silence creates tension as 3 other cowboys are in all of the exits. The icon of a black cow boy is very unusual as is making a statement that’s no only that the situations is weird but the presents of a African American man.

Digetic and Non Digetic sounds: Digetic sound is what is actually happening e.g. Doors creaking birds signing.
Non Digetic: Is sound that has been placed over the top to add emphasis e.g. Violin strum add tension.

Both type of these sound are used in the film.
Chalk Scraping on the black board, this show the area is eerie and quiet, the sound of chalk send shivers all over the body and something is not right about the sound this can add tension or make the audience unstable about whats going to happen.
Footsteps: The footsteps have been amplified to show the potential to what this character can do, this make the first impression of the character a powerful and methodical by the rate of his steps.

Non Digetic: In the opening sequence there’s no non-Digetic sound.



Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Final Cut part 2

After have a second go on final cut i have learnt to develop certain skills.

For example How to capture the film, instead of setting in and out points, setting the capture mode to 32khz DV pal, and just captureing different scenes remaining it and caputure more. Its a time consumming proces but is worth it as its a way of overlooking all of the footage you have captured.

Adding clips to the time line if they don't play you have to render then by pressing command R. THis allows the fottage to be played.

To add a title in the preview box (mmiddle ) on the bottom right hand corner there is an icon press that and edit you texts.

Monday, October 12, 2009

No country for old men.

No Country for old men was released in 2007 and directed by the Cohen brothers. I was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture. The scene is set in west Texas in the 1980’s. There are some fabulous establishing shot of the desolate scenes of the landscape, here is no sound which creates the tension as a sense of mystery is involved.

The next scene is of a man being arrested by a police officer and being placed in the car. The Officer is a very stereotypical, as he has aviators which is a type of symbolism. This man is very vague to the audience and causes us to be assuming this man is very suspicious, we are then shown a phone call from the arresting officer to the sheriff about a oxygen cylinder confiscated of this man. In the back ground of this phone call.
The man is taking his hands from behind his back and walking to the officer. The strange man is next strangling the policeman with his handcuffs and the last shot of this scene is off the feet of the strangled police man with just the black skid marks of the soles of his shoes.

This opening scene is an amazing tone to start on, the range of shots used and how they create a mood so quickly is incredible.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Thriller Films

A thriller film is defined as a suspenseful adventure story, play or movie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre

A thriller movie is something with action, amazing story line and original. However thrillers have also become rather repetitive. For example watch the Knowing with Nicholas Cage. Had a very good story line and had me hooked, had amazing graphics as the plane crashed, but then as you were about to be given the final answer to the last date on the page, a load of aliens take his son and they survive and he's left on the earth crying and the whole world dies. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448011/

However films such as the Dark Knight with the last Heath Ledger, even though its been made several times, this film has been made its own by an amazing story line and amazing acting.
Other films: Pulp Fiction, The Matrix , Hotel Rwanda and The Terminator.

Final Cut

Final Cut is a video editing software that allows you to edit and manipulate video captured on DV tapes. This software is very versatile as you are able to create lots of ways suited to an individuals preferred way of editing.

DV is a very consuming way of capturing video but its very easy to use. A second of DV video will consume 3.6MB of memory. A second is also known as 24 frames, there are 24 pictures for every second used in shooting. The buttons J,K,and L are used for certain tasks. J rewinds, K Pauses and L fast forwards. By pressing them more than once increases the rate. The space bar allows to pause and play.

The layout of final cut is very easy to navigate around, in the top left there is a box where the footage which is imported is stored. In here you can create BINS which is a folder which makes searching for clips very easy. Moving to the middle box on the top of the page is the preview box. This allows clips to be dragged in there and played. Either Frame by frame, fast forwarding, rewinding and pausing. The final box on the top right is the time line player. Along the bottom of the screen is a time line, clips can be dragged from the preview box to the time line. The time line player is basically the preview of the edited clips together.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009