Camera shots/angles/movements

Camera shots/distance:

Extreme long shot/establishing shot: This shot is usually outside.  It establishes the time and location to the audience.

Long shot: This allows the audience to see the character from head to toe.  It shows the relationship between the character and the environment they are in.

Mid shot: This enables the audience to see the character from waist up.  This shot familiarizes the audience with the character because it shows more detail of the character than a long shot.

Two shot: This shot has two characters in it.  It shows the relationship between the two and the action that they are in involved in.  Usually used in chat shows.

Close up: This shot shows the head and shoulders of the character.  It allows the audience to see the characters emotions.  Also, it can be used to show a significant object to the narrative.

 

Extreme close up: This shot draws the audience in.  It is an intense shot as you can only see the character and no background or other characters.

Camera angles/movement:

High angle: When the audience views the subject from above, looking down. Often used to create a sense of scale – the position suggests subjects look small/vulnerable.

Low angle: The opposite of a high angle shot, we look up at a certain subject creating a feeling of importance or foreboding.

Eye level shot: An eye level shot familiar with soap operas. We view the scene as spectators, as if we are actually there in the programme which gives a sense of realism.

 

Crane shot: This is where the action is filmed in a vertical direction; the camera attached to a crane. this can often add depth to a scene; as well as getting multiple characters in shot.

Tracking shot: This shot is done using a track and dolly.  When the camera tracks towards a character it serves to draw the audience into the action.  When the camera tracks away from a character it signifies the ending of the action and that the next bit of action is coming.

Sideward ‘Crab’ shot: This follows the movement of a character to allow the audience to keep pace with the action.

Zoom: This shots creates the movement of going in towards the character and moving out from the character. It can stimulate a tracking shot.

Point of view: This shot is used in reference to a close up.  It engages the audience and shows them what the characters motives are.

Arc shot: This is a full or semi-circle around an object or character/s. This allows the audience to see the full reactions of the characters and increase the intensity of the narrative.

Tilt shot: This is the movement of the camera either up or down on an axis. An upward tilt usually conveys power or status; and mixed with a point of view shot can show how a character perceives another character in terms of authority.

Panning shot: This is where the camera is mounted on a tripod and moves from left to right. Used with a point of view shot, it can be used to show a character searching a room.

 

Questions on Institutions and Audiences

The questions below are supposed to help me establish what I already know about institutions and audiences in the film industry:

1) List five media sectors and one leading profit making company for each sector:

Internet – Google

Newspapers – The Independent

Television – BBC, ITV

Radio – Radio 1 (BBC)

Film/music/video games – 20th century fox, Sony – PS3, Microsoft Xbox

 

 

 

 

 

2) Name two independent music labels:

‘Blast First’ and ‘A Different Drum’

'Blast First' logo

'A Different Drum' logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Why is some music downloading illegal and some legal?

This difference is that some music is copyright, i.e belongs to a certain artist and record company whereas others can be on websites that don’t use copyright therefore making it fine to download.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4) Who owns the British Board of Film Classification?

The two men are called David Cooke and Quentin Thomas

David Cooke

Quentin Thomas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5) Name three organisations that own British newspapers:

Rupert Merdoch – owner of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun. Richard Desmond owns The Daily Express.

 

 

 

6) Why does the BBC have no adverts?

The BBC has no adverts as the company does not need the money from advertisement to run the channel, that comes from the public licensing. Compared to the ITV channel where they make there money to run the shows by advertising during intervals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7) What is OFCOM?

OFCOM is the communications regulator. They regulate the TV and radio sectors, fixed line telecoms and mobiles, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate. OFCOM is funded by fees from industry for regulating broadcasting and communications networks, and grant-in-aid from the Government.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. What is MP4?

An MP4 is and audio/video file consisting of MPEG. A common example would be the Ipod or PSP (Playstation Portable)

 

 

 

 

 

9) Why does the sound regularly disappear on the live Big Brother feed?

Whilst the producers watch the show, as scenarios unfold, they will put sounds over when they feel that bad language from the contestants/ ‘house-mates’ is about to be used.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10) Who owns channel 5?

Richard Desmond bought Five, which runs Channel 5, for £104 million.

What a tool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11) What Happened as a result of the Hutton Report?

An investigation has taken place into the death of Dr. David Kelly

Lord Hutton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12) From what do magazine publishers make most of their money?

Circulation and Subscriptions

When you go to the newsstand and buy your favorite magazine, the profit from that sale makes money for the magazine. However, there is very little profit in this type of sale, called single copy sale, once you factor in the price it costs to make the magazine, the cost to transport it to the newsstand and the commission the magazine company must pay the newsstand company for providing space to sell its magazine. Magazines make far more money from subscriptions since they cut out at least one of the intermediaries and get their product directly to the consumer. Magazine companies also have your address so they can make a pitch to renew your magazine subscription when it comes due, as well as pitch any other magazines they may produce that they think could be of interest to you.

Classified Advertising

When you open any magazine and flip to the back pages, you will see a classified section with want ads. Magazines sell want ads by the word or the line, and the ads can be quite expensive in popular magazines with a large circulation. Even moderate magazines with smaller circulations command large prices for their want ads if they target a specific area or group of people. For example, a magazine on life in Chicago would fetch a good price for want ads that target most of Chicago since the advertiser would know that the people likely to take advantage of his product would read his ad.

Other Advertising

The single best way that a magazine makes money is by allowing advertisers to use its unused space throughout the magazine, including the covers and inside front and back cover. It is normal for a full-page back cover ad to run several thousand dollars or more in popular magazines with national coverage. Not only does the magazine make money with this form of advertising, it also fills up the pages by placing ads in space on pages around the story lines. The magazine looks better and its revenue increases.

 

 

 

 

 

13) Who owns your regional ITV channel?

The ITV and PLC own the Anglia Regional News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14) How do websites that offer content for free make money?

These websites make their money through advertisement on the site and through links to other sites (which is another form of advertisement/promotion for other sites which they get paid for).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15) Who responds to viewers’ complaints about adverts?

The ASA – Advertising Standards Authority

 

 

 

 

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

This question asks for the amount of production level, i.e how many films they distribute and promote, rather than the amount of revenue they make. In this case it would be Bollywood as they produce the most films each year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17) Who decides on the age classifications for videogames?

The BBFC are in charge of this.

 

 

 

 

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

The TV and Film companies, as you pay for the TV licensing, and for most of the channels. For films you are paying for some funded films, for example Nowhere Boy had government funding which came from the public intially, and also when you see the film you pay for the ticket and promotion/advertisement if you by merchandise, and distribution if you by the DVD when it comes out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19) What is an RSS feed?

RSS (most commonly expanded as “Really Simple Syndication”) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works – such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video – in a standardized format.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20) Who are BARB and what do they do?

BARB – Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, is the organisation responsible for providing the official measurement of UK television audiences. BARB is responsible for providing estimates of the number of people watching television. This includes which channels and programmes are being watched, when they are watched and the type of people who are viewing at any one time. Viewing data is collected second-by-second and delivered on a minute-by-minute basis for channels received within the UK. The channel viewed the longest in a clock minute is attributed the viewing of that minute. Viewing at anything other than normal speed (fast forwarding/rewinding live or recorded content) is not reported. The data is available for reporting nationally and at ITV and BBC regional level.

Ladies and Gentleman…

One of my favourite artists of all time. I love his songs because in some of them I can sort of relate to them, and the mixture between calm, soulful and jazzy, upbeat songs is truly the mark of a great musician. I started listening to his music when I was about 13, when most tend to start enjoying music a lot more, and I remember playing his first album Undiscovered over and over again on my ipod. Songs that stand out for me from this album are ‘You give me something‘, ‘Wonderful world‘ and ‘This boy’.

Incidentally, the track above was the first song that I imagined would go well with our opening two minutes. I thought that the songs calm melody would enhance our underwater shots and also give a slight symbolic meaning to Jonny, the main character in our film.

Cover of James's second album 'Songs for you, Truths for me'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Broken Strings' duetted with Nelly Furtado; my favourite song from his second album

Inspirational thinking…

1972

It’s nice to look back at these David Hockney images. Especially on a chilly winter morning like the ones we have this time of year. These paintings capture the warmth and vastness of Southern California so articulately. I became interested in Hockney first for his photo collages but have grown to love his paintings and drawings. They have a strong sense of purpose while also being tender and expressive. I particularly like his impressions of water in his paintings, as you can see from the pictures above and below, it is really easy on the eye;  and gives a therapeutic sense.

Paintings such as these really inspired me whilst thinking of film ideas to produce film that could be compared to someone like Hockney’s work, I wanted to give the audience a visually pleasing feel; the first few minutes in our film opening where we see Jonny swimming lengths in the pool I thought captured the relaxing atmosphere that Hockney’s paintings do. Initially when we planned to film underwater we expected a nice crystal clear view of the interior of the pool and of course Lyndon (Jonny). However it seemed that Wragey pool was a little less transparent than we thought, but instead of giving us what could of potentially been very poor visibility, it produced a gorgeous turquoise blue that really seemed to work  brilliantly in terms of contrasting with the titles and harmonizing with the non-diagetic music to give an overall refreshingly brilliant start to the opening of the sequence.

1966

 

1967

1978

7) Looking back at your Preliminary task (the continuity editing task) what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it – to full product?

My continuity exercise

One of the key things I have learned from the transition of the two tasks is to plan carefully using aides like a shooting script, storyboards and location plans to help deliverer a better overall piece of work in terms of continuity and professionalism. As the continuity exercise was a short piece of work, 30 seconds worth, I for one didn’t put as much thought into it, mainly because I was inexperienced about different types of shots such as match-on action and the 180-degree rule and also what I had to do in terms of planning and editing the different types of shots to create desired effects.

My two minute opening Against the Tide

In my two-minute opening sequence I feel I delivered in terms of planning effectively and following the certain rules of the 180-degree rule, continuity in terms of keeping the same style of film titles throughout and professionalism in the context that all our shots were of a defined type (i.e mid-shot, long-shot) and that the transition between shots flowed effectively i.e the sequence of shots of Jonny on the Bike.

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

That at first, they are very hard to work!!

The apple macs we work on took me a bit of getting use to, say a month or two :L I learnt a lot of new short cuts  that really improved my efficiency when working. The programs at first seemed quite complex but after going through the editing process I got the hang of all the tools and commands.

Thankfully I have worked with the types of camera (Canon FS. 306) that we used for filming before so I had a good understanding of how to use it. It can easily be used to take lots of footage. We filmed each shot from our storyboard at least twice and it still had a lot more space for more footage.

I had worked with a number of tripods at GCSE, but this one was probably twice as big. However it was quite easy to set up and I found that some of the more establishing, long shots were executed smoothly and professionally as aposed to holding the camera by hand.  Furthermore we used an extended set of wheels to pan the whole camera and tripod along (the dolly) when shooting some types of shots; unfortunately the pavement we were filming on was very bumpy and when we played back the footage its level of professionalism was poor, meaning it ended up looking rather shaky, so we didn’t use the footage.

Final Cut Express was the main programme we used whilst working on our 2 minute opening. At first I found it quite hard to use and preferred to observe other members of my group use it, when I figured out a few short-cuts and other skills like cutting bits of film and music, I found it reasonably easy to use. Its like anything really, if you do things for long enough you start to get better at them; this was basically the way I learned. Now I feel I can use it comfortably.

Final Cut Express

We used LiveType to construct our film’s titles. I briefly experimented, looking at different fonts and effects that would work best for our film. I found this programme relatively easy to use from the start, and I quickly learnt a lot about the process of constructing titles. We also used final cut express to edit the newspaper montage into the background to give the film more relevance and understanding. I found LiveType very useful and easy to use.

LiveType

Throughout the process of planning, filming and editing our film, I have learned new skills and techniques from the technologies I have used.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

In the opening two minutes we tried to use as many techniques as possible to attract our target audience.  The starting sequence with the light blue water gives a therapeutic feel accompanied by the mellowing music. To describe these first few seconds as setting the tone for the film would be incorrect, but it does give a briefly calming and positive sensation that  the target audience would enjoy.

Jonny (Lyndon) swimming; mid shot

The length and style of camera angles and shots match the music and which would address a less-youthful audience, our older target audience viewers,  in the context that young audiences would prefer fast-paced, quickly edited shots. This can be seen in the shots below. The opening mainly focuses on Jonny’s return from practice at the swimming pool, this is clearly established for younger viewers to grasp the concept that this character will feature most in the film.

Mid-shot, establishes main character, long duration shot which music complements

Another shot with a long duration

4) Who would be your audience for your media product?

When we started to plan our film, we thought the target audience would be quite wide; The films narrative and different varieties of themes allows a wider range of age groups to enjoy the film. Since the main character is 17, a teenage audience would be appealed the most by the film, but older audiences would find the narrative interesting and  compelling. The linear narrative however is simple to understand so a younger audience could be attracted to it. The decision was that the film should be rated 12A, as it wouldn’t be appropriate for views under 12 to be exposed to some of the negative themes Against the Tide shows such as the tragedy element of Jonny’s accident.

Specific guidelines of a 12A film and why are film corresponds with them:

Drugs

Any misuse of drugs must be infrequent and should not be glamorised or give instructional detail.

There is no reference to drugs in our film

Horror

Moderate physical and psychological threat may be permitted, provided disturbing sequences are not frequent or sustained.

There are not many horror aspects in our film, there is only one scene (Jonny’s accident) where an aspect of physical and psychological threat is shown but this is the only reference to horror therefore being classed as infrequent.

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be copied, or appear pain or harm free.  Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.

There are no aspects of dangerous behaviour in our film

Language

Moderate language is allowed. The use of strong language (for example, ‘fuck’) must be infrequent.

There is use of strong language such as swear words but they are controlled (characters don’t utter the whole word but there is the strong indication of saying it) and infrequent.

Theme

Mature themes are acceptable, but their treatment must be suitable for young teenagers.

The majority of themes in our film are light and don’t have much negativity; suitable for the range of 12+ (younger teenagers). There are some mature themes such as ‘tragedy’.

Violence

Moderate violence is allowed but should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if justified by the context. Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and discreetly indicated, and must have a strong contextual justification.

Occasional gory moments such as Jonny’s accident where we have a glimpse of his injuries and also in hospital but this is easily justified in the context of the film as it is a main aspect of the plot. No sexual violence is seen in Against the Tide.

Furthermore, in the questionaire we asked our viewers the question ‘Would you agree that our target audience (12+) is right? Do you think the film might appeal to any other ages, social groups etc?’. Roughly 70% of people thought are target audience was right. Other target audiences that our viewers thought  would be suited to our film were the ‘athletic/sporting enthusiasts’ and the ‘PG/family’ type audiences.

 

 

 

3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Against the Tide is a British Social Realist film similar to other films such as Billy Elliot. This type of film would be suited to a smaller, more independent film company based around the U.K. Working Title Films is one of the most famous of these types of distributors that have produced many British films of similar genres and themes. Our film would be suited to this type of distributor because its codes and conventions isn’t  big, Hollywood block-buster, Armageddon-like  story lines that include a wide range of characters and sub-plots.

However it could be seen that having a bigger, more established distributor like Warner Bros or 20th Century Fox would have a profound affect on advertisement, marketing merchandise and all-round money income. Against the Tide focuses on one individual character, Jonny, and shows the characters journey through his trials and tribulations. Indecently this type of storyline is seen regularly in small British films distributors  such as Working Title Films and caters for the British public a lot more than other aspects of the world like America; the audience can relate to the film more.

Toast (2010)

Billy Elliot (2000)

United (2011)

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our films narrative is based around one boy that, in the first two minutes, can  be depicted as a well-cared for individual that is associated with a well-off family background. His life is near enough perfect at the start of the film which is quite different to normal social realist films as they normal include characters from poorer, less stable families who have to look out for themselves in the sense that nobody cares about them. This type of character can be seen in the film Fish Tank , Mia, a 15-year old with a troubled life, played by Katie Jarvis:

She is a a foul-mouthed, stroppy fifteen-year-old who has been excluded from school and is awaiting admission to a referrals unit and spends her days aimlessly. She lives on an Essex estate with her tarty mother, Joanne, and precocious little sister Tyler. This type of character is what would normally be associated with typical hard-hitting social realist films.

Jonny, the main character in our film has the prefect life taken away from him after a serious accident destroying his dreams of becoming an Olympic swimmer. Jonny is a completely unique character in the sense that his type of social group is rarely ever seen in this type of film. His family help him through his troubles and dark times whereas other characters in social realists wouldn’t be as lucky, Mia for example. A similar character to Jonny, who comes from a wealthy background and has his world turned upside down would be the child Bruce Wayne from the film Batman Begins. He has everything from an early age, family, money, but his life changes when his parents are murdered an he is left with no one but his butler Alfred, played by Michael Caine.

The representation of Jonny’s social group can be seen through mise-en-scene. His clothes; designer hoody, jeans and trainers are normally associated with a middle-classed upbringing as well as his bike. His house seems fairly decent with expensive furnishings to give an idea of his social background.