Friday 26 April 2013

Success on all 3 days

Friday: I feel that on this day we didn't make as much progress as we wanted as we were spending a lot of time re recording angles etc, that we didn't end up using in the end. I feel we all treated our piece like a film, and ended up filming a lot of things that were not appropriate for the final thing. For instance taking pictures of things, rather than filming and recording a wide range of angles that were not appropriate. However, on the good side, we managed to get the whole outside part recorded, along with... the inside shots of jay walking up the stairs. Although it did take a lot of patience, we managed to do it in the end.

Saturday: I feel Saturday was the day we made most of our progress, mainly due to everyone being on time and ready to get on with it. The main achievement was that we found a lot of props that could give our opening sequence the curious/mysterious/spooky atmosphere we wanted. We found a bunch of chairs, that could be set up to look like a church hall, a cloak for the priests table (which we took from their range of fancy dress costumes) and finally the candles, which I felt played the strongest part in atmosphere out of all things. We filmed basically ALL of scenes that day, which is I feel we made the strongest progress on that day. However, we didn't round to actually finishing it, and I think that was when we had to alter the script down to the basics, as we ran out of time to achieve the overall product we wanted i.e the outside scenes. Having said that, I now look back and feel that was the right decision to make, although it may not have seemed so at the time, but it allowed us to focus on the main bits, rather than extra added on bits.


Sunday: OH, Sunday, Sunday... Sunday. WELL. Unfortunately, to our disadvantage the staff decided to not turn up until 2oclock which left us very little time to be able to film, and this is when we began to panic. After being late, they decided to drop another bomb shell on us that their was a art class their that day and that we may not be able to use the rooms we need. On top of that! they decided they would only allow us 2.5 hours to complete our whole filming as they needed to close up early. So this left us rushing around for every spare second we had to complete our filming. Which in the end we done! Although we were unable to re-record certain parts.

Wednesday 27 March 2013


Discuss the ways in which media products are produced, and distributed to audiences, within a media area, which you have studied.


A working title film process is a long, expensive process to go through. There are many aspects that need to be covered in order to have a success. 

These stages include finance, pre-production, production, post-production, marketing and exhibition. The first stages would be he financial aspect. Produces borrow a loan, or money in order to cover  all costs in their movie production. They would either try to sell their product to a rich company in order for them to support all financial circumstances, or invest in a bank to pay for any of the preferences needed. However, This could be a risk as if they don't get the money they need from the movies success then they could end up in a lot of debt. Finance is preferably the most important aspect for a film to make it to pre-pruction stage. 


In America and the UK, The process of releasing films is rather similar. For instance: Bbc, Film 4 and Working title Are some of the most successful companies.  Working title is a British Film Company; partly owned by BBC. I. Which BBC had made a lot f successful films such as: Les miserables, Shaun of the Dead, and many others.

Institutions and Audiences


General Can you brainstorm some examples of each in relation to The Film Industry?
  • Warner Bros
  • Working Title
  • Universal Pictures
  • 20th Century Fox
  • Lions Gate
What is the life-cycle of a film – what processed does it go through, from initial idea to being consumed to audiences?The film is first produced by the film companies. It is then sold to distributors who market the film and then they go on to sell the films to cinemas and the public.
 

How would you define the term; audience? The group of people the media text is aimed towards. 

How would you define the term; institution?The companies responsible for the production and/or distribution of media to the public.

Can you brainstorm some examples of each in relation to The Film Industry?  

Do you think media audiences and institutions are different now to 20-30 years ago? What has changed?Yes. They is a lot more variation in film and different ways to view media products online, as where as there was only the cinema 20/30 years ago. 

Why are films made? To entertain the public audience, and to expand on books in order to gain more money out of certain book fans. 

What is the life-cycle of a film - what processes does it go through, from initial idea to being consumed by audiences?  Audience Consumption 

Do you watch films? What kind of films do you watch?Indeed I do, I love Rom-coms such as 50 first dates, knocked up and many others 

Where and how do you consume films? Through the cinema, and computer. Has this changed over time? Yes! In the past people would go to a local cinema or theatre to view a film, however nowadays it's become more common for online streaming/downloading (piracy) 

Do you have any preferences regarding how and where you consume films? I prefer to watch films online, as it's In the comfort of my own home, 

Why do you watch films - what pleasures do you get from watching films?I love story's! And acting is my dream job, so watching different story's can be really beneficial for me 

What factors affect your choice of film? The actors, Age rating, Genre

Do you think there are any differences between British and American audiences? If so, what are they? Yes. I think British audiences prefer more comedy rather than American audiences, as they're have been many comical films brought out in Britain that perhaps a American wouldn't understand the humour of.

 Are digital technologies impacting on the consumption of film by audiences? If so, how? Yes. Online downloading (piracy is playing a big role in cinemas and distributions loosing money, as less people are viewing films in the cinema or DVD.  

Is the nature of the audience being altered by digital media technologies? If so, how? Yes People take full advantage of the fact online piracy and downloads are available, this meaning companies lose money for their films.







How is the chicken used as a metaphor in the opening sequence of 'City of God' ?

(this was handwritten)

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Exam question

Successful media products depend as much upon marketing and distribution to a specific audience as they do upon good production practises. To what extent would you agree with this statement remedial study?

Within the film industry, it seems that the distribution and marketing of the film Is by far the most important element in order to make financial success. A film ofcourse, would have to be greatly practised and planned out for it to even be considered distributed, however for the film to be successful they would need to have the most widest and effective distrubution possible. For this to be done at a high standard, the film would have to be distributed to BIG companies such as : 20th Century Fox, Paramount Films, Marvel, etc. All of these film companies are famous for distributing films all over the world, they all seem to be very high leaders in the film industry along with a few others. The trait of global distrubtion means that the film they are distrubuting will be made accessible to many different types of people, which would equal to more of a overall access.

The usual blockbuster would be released during the summer period, however The Avengers- Distributed by Paramount Pictures was released early April 2012, which for a Blockbuster is rather un usual. It seems that Paramount being aware that Spiderman was to be released during summer, felt that releasing The Avengers at the same time, would perhaps put Spider Man and The Avengers in competition. Adding on, months before Avengers was released there were many other Marvel films that were based on Marvel comics which meant fans of this sector would follow all the films that were Marvel, and this would of added on the success of The Avengers. The use of synergy with this film allowed it to become successful, for example toys, posters, clothing etc. The synergy used allowed the film to become a HUGE success in which case it made over $1 billion. The synergy of a film production allows a film to become highly successful, blockbuster films such as this film, spider man, hulk etc, seem to use synergy the most.

It is known that many british films use american actors, or famous people in order to attract a wider audience and also fans of films. For example: Wild Child uses an american actress named Emma Roberts, who has starred in many other films globally, which would mean she is a recognised actor.

Adding on, to grab different audiences film distributors tend to use adverts to also attract attention from people. Disney and children's channels tend to broadcast most of the animated type films/disney films on there adverts, to attract a younger audience in which the film is mainly aimed at. This not only would make the children want to see the film, but the aim is to get the whole family to watch the film as they usually would rate an animated film a PG, which means parental guidance.

For people who don't find going to the cinema a pleasant experience or perhaps didn't know the film was on, film distributors will commonly sell dvds shortly after the film has been taken down in the cinemas to attract there attentions to purchase them.

In conclusion, despite good acting, professional directing and production, the success of the film depends mainly on the wide distribution to make the film accessible world wide, therefore large distributors and producers are the most important people involved in making a film a success.







Sunday 16 December 2012

500 word representation of gender/sexuality in vampire tv shows




In the series True Blood the director explores gender and sexuality using female and male vampires to portray this image. In a clip of the queen Sophie Anne and Eric (both vampires) the pair of them exchange thoughts about the human girl that Eric is holding.
Firstly, when Eric walks in he drags the human girl across the floor towards Sophie Anne who is placed inside a cage locked up, this clearly shows the power of the male vampire and the control he has over female  humans in general. the human girl is seductively dressed in a white corset, which suggests she is there as a sexual object as-well as the vampires 'prey' or 'food'. 


The Mise En Scene in the scene gives the audience a good understanding of the class in which the protagonist 'Sophie Anne' is placed in, the surroundings seem to be rather classy, for example their are chandeliers placed all over the ceilings of the wall in the room. Furthermore, their is a swimming pool based in the center of the room and also classy furniture surrounding the room. This clearly shows that Sophie Anne is a female vampire with very much order in her life and has everything she wants.  Adding on, the clothing she wears is rather classy, she has a a cream jump suit with gold beads around her neck and perfect makeup and hair. This portrays her to be high class, attractive and perhaps even seductive. 

When the human girl is brought in-front of Sophie Anne's cage by Eric  instantly the audience gets a glimpse of Sophie Anne's feelings towards the human girl. Eric goes on to say ''I'm going to put my fangs into her and drink'' After this Their is a medium close up of Sophie Anne slowly moving her head up with a worried facial expression looking at Eric. This clearly shows the audience that Sophie has some sort of feelings for this human girl, whether they be sexual or friendly. After this, Eric goes on to say hes going to bite the human girl in a sexual way, this seems to aggravate Sophie, which suggest she has some sort of sexual feelings for the human girl... 

From watching the clip from 'True Blood' I clearly learnt that Women vampires are seen as strong and masculine characters also very seductive. However, although this masculinity is usually seen, there is still a part of which the male vampire has more control e.g. when Eric teases Sophie and then goes on to bite the human girl. This shows his power over the whole situation and the fact Sophie Anne is behind a cage suggests she has little power to stop him. Therefore Vampire TV Shows portray woman as mainly masculine, however they still stick to the usual convention of the woman having less power. Male vampires seem to be more in-control of most situations, and usually have the power to get a women to do what they want. 

Chloe O'Brien



PEACE HOMIES! (don't copy my work k)

Favorite Pitches and My Ideal Role

From watching everyone's pitches in class, I have to say my favorite out of all was Rafias idea! out of everyone's pitches I heard, Rafias was by far the best. I liked the idea of friends sharing an apartment with a strange male. I thought the target audience for this would be young adults, therefore it would be perfect for us to expand on. However, the beginning part which Rafia mentioned about letting the audience see Jamie drinking blood I didn't find useful as I feel this would give the whole climax away and perhaps be too predictable. 



The roles I'd like to participate into are Acting; because I feel I'm a very strong actor and would be great playing one of these roles. However, I also would love to get involved in the set design/makeup part of things, as i do find that part very interesting and I'm very imaginative when it comes to script set.