Inner Ring Road Filming

My group started filming our short film for the inner ring road project. So far it’s going quite slowly do to the weather and other work commitments. But we’ll be back out shooting on Friday if the weather is good.

100mc week 8 task

In Monday’s lecture we looked at narrative and narrative theories. The two main theories we looked at were from Tzvetan Todorov, and Vladimir Propp. Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with an equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of un-settlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative). As Vladimir Propp studied Russian fairytales and discovered that in stories there were always 8 types of characters evident. These are: the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princess and her father. This is easily relatable to films and programmes today.

For our task this week we had to choose 3 media objects and see how these theories apply to each object.

The first object i looked at was the Sun newspaper. Though not always truthful, this paper is meant to provide its audience with factual information. For this i didn’t think that Todorov’s theory applied to it, but in a way Propp’s one does. The sun newspaper is always making celebrities out to be either hero’s or villains, and sometimes report their stories in a fairy tale fashion.

The second media object i looked at was easy to put these two theories to it. It was the film “Tombstone.” At the beginning of the film the Earps are arriving in a new town to settle down. All is good and this is calm period. The the cowboy gang disrupt the Earps and cause trouble. Then there’s a mini war between the Earps and the cowboys, which is the period of un-settlement, and at the end the good Earps over come the cowboy’s as equilibrium returns. So yeah, this film does follow Todorov’s theory. Propp’s theory of characters fit into “Tombstone” also. Theres the Hero (Wyatt Earp), the villan (Johnny Ringo and the cowboys) the helper (Doc Holiday and other Earp brothers) the father (Wyatt Earp acts the father figure)

The third object i have chosen is “Harry Hill’s TV Burp.” Like “The Sun” newspaper it has short stories about celebrities, but doesnt really follow either theory.

So from this, i find that Todorov’s and Propp’s theories apply mostly to fiction media objects. They can apply to some true life stories but not all, as in life not everything finds equilibrium in the end or even begins with it, and in reality there isn’t always the characters from Propp’s theory.

 

King Hermit NYC video

This weekend i edited the footage of my bands (King Hermit) trip to New York city. It was edited as a montage video but could be classed as a music video. Here it is anyway:

100mc Week 5 Individual Task

This week i have been looking at vulnerable audiences and how the media effects them. The media can be used to control audiences with things such as propaganda, but also by adverts or messages in films and Tv programs. Adverts will give off the message that the audience will want the product to hopefully influence them to go out and by it. There is a theory about this called the hypodermic needle. 

“The hypodermic needle model (also known as the hypodermic-syringe model) is a model of communications also referred to as the “magic bullet” perspective, or the transmission-belt model. Essentially, this model holds that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver. The model is rooted in 1930s behaviorism created by the Frankfurt School in Germany and is considered by many to be obsolete today.” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodermic_needle_model

For the task this week, i have been asked to pick an object from my cabinet of curiosities and see the effect it had/has on a vulnerable audience. I chose the film “JAWS”

When “Jaws” was released in 1975 it had an effect on an audience i believe like no other film. Firstly the film was hugely popular and is sometimes credited as the first summer blockbuster. However, it did strike fear into the audience that still lasts today. People already feared sharks but not on the scale as they do after seeing “Jaws.” It effected some people who since watching that film, they have a fear of going swimming in the sea.

The negative effect it had on society was that due to the new found fear of sharks, so grew hatred for them. People went out in the thousands to hunt and kill sharks (as characters do in “Jaws”). In fact shark experts say that around the late 70’s the shark population did dip due to these hunts. It was only recently with documentaries on sharks did the media show them in a more positive light. However even today if theres any shark related incident in the media, it always references “Jaws”

Inner Ring Road Project Week 1

After the Khalid presentation, we were split into new groups for a new project, the inner ring road project. For this project we have to make a short four minute film that is some sort of road or journey movie. The film should start off at the other side of the Coventry ring road and end up in the Ellen Terry building.

Our group had a meeting on Friday, and decided to make a film about a friendly business man who receives a call from an anonymous caller who has kidnapped the man’s daughter. The caller requests that the man (who we named John) carry out tasks of murder to gain clues to where his daughter is. The final clue will lead him to Ellen Terry. 

Today we pitched our idea to the class and got the feedback that we should make sure that we dont over complicate the plot as we only have four minutes to tell our story. With this on taken into account, we will soon start pre-production work on our film.

Week 4 100mc Indiviual Task

For my task this week, i have to put objects from my cabinet of curiosities into the groups that media companies use to target their audience. The groups are as followed:

 A/Bs – Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals. Also Middle management, teachers, many ‘creatives’ eg graphic designers etc.

C1/C2s -  Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc. And Skilled workers, tradespersons (white collar)

D/Es -  Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar). And Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers

The Dark Side Of The Moon

I would class this Pink Floyd album as a D/E album. The theme of the album is having an everyday life with little money. In fact the track “Money” is about the control money can have on people and how there isn’t a lot of it for poorer people. When this album was released in 70’s, there were a lot of strikes going on, people’s attitude was changing from the peace-loving hippies of the 60’s to a revolutionary attitude. This album reflects this with its dark theme and lyrics. So on its original release this album would have appealed to the working class and the unemployed. Today however it is mostly brought by students, but their group is still  D/E

Rubber Soul

This is the album that saw the first hint of change from the teeny bopper music, to the more psychedelic of Beatle music. However it was still aimed at the teens and pop genre therefore classing it under a D/E group. I’m sure different types of people from each group have brought the album, it is mostly students and casual workers that it is targeted to.

Fight Club

As the whole story of this film is the unemployed, working class and manual workers rising up to strike back at the higher classes and corporate companies, I would have also classed this film as a D/E group. However, the twist in this is that the lead character, the man responsible for the uprising is himself in the C1/C2 group. So it may actually target more that group because we see the story from the main character’s perspective.

Saving Private Ryan

I would say Saving Private Ryan could come under all groups. People from Doctors, Lawyers, nurses to the unemployed would watch this film. Maybe for different reasons, the higher groups could watch it as a historic story where as some in the lower groups could watch it as an action film.

Playstation 3

This is a tricky one because when the PS3 was released, its cost was much higher than it is now. It was considerably higher in price than its rival the Xbox360. Originally i would say that the PS3 was a C1/C2 group, maybe even a bit A/B group. However due to poor sales, the PS3 has dropped in price and began to appeal to more D/E groups as well as C1/C2 groups.

Looking at the objects i have categorized, most of them are in the D/E groups. One or two might push to the C groups, but mainly its D/E. This could suggest that this system works, as i am a student and fall into the target audience of D/E.

110MC Khalid’s Presentation

Today was the day that we introduced Khalid to the class. After a lecture on sound in films, my group did the final preparations before heading down to present Khalid. We ran though the script we has planned for the presentation, and also set up on Dave’s laptop the order Khalid will speak about his social network sites. Then with about 15 minutes before the workshop started, i got dressed up as Khalid and made my way down to the class.

Our group were the first group to do their presentation, and after an introduction by Dave, i (as Khalid) took the stage. Khalid is a shy, timid sort of fella so i acted nervous, with slight pauses between my speech. I also added a foreign accent which i hope didn’t sound like any other accent. During the presentation i shown the Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and WordPress blogs that the group have come up with during the last two weeks. On these pages there are groups Khalid has joined that have a common interest as himself, also pictures of his time in Coventry.

After the presentation we were given feedback on our work. A lot of the class said that they thought it was an original idea to bring the character to life, not only via social internet sites but to bring him into the room. Some people found my performance funny, which is what the group aimed for. Some of the criticisms made fair points too. Some said they would have liked to have seen more people from the group talk. Another person said they would have like to have seen some physical objects that relate to the stories Khalid was saying.

Over all it was a good presentation. If would improve it if i was to do it again by bringing more physical objects and maybe speak about Khalid’s background a bit more, but i enjoyed the project and are now looking forward to the new one.

Letter To Self

Hi James

Well well well, back at uni again eh? Who would have thought it? You did a lot to get here kiddo so don’t muck it up. So what am i expecting out of you? Well not too much, i know you’re a bit of a dreamer but if you concentrate and crack on i recon you’ll do fine. You already had some media background (mostly film and radio) and i hope you will expand on that by learning new skills and techniques. I know you were very narrow minded last time you tried uni, so i expect you to expand and be willing to try new things. Who know’s you might find something you love doing. Attendance is something else to concentrate on. Try not missing a lecture if it’s possible because you’ll find catching up with work more stressful than doing it in the first place. But most of all, try doing everything to the best of your ability because you know you have talent so use it. I’m sure if you try hard and go in with an open mind you’ll pass with flying colours.

Laters Gaters

Jimatay

p.s One thing i forgot, for GOD’S SAKE enjoy it!

Week 4 100MC Group Meeting

Firstly apologies with this blog being a day late, I have been busy doing bits and pieces for other work that i didn’t have the time to blog yesterday.

Anyhow, this week the 100MC group were asked to look at audiences, and how the media target different types of audiences to the media’s advantage. It is key in media to find out who your audience is, and are they going to buy/watch your product. To find this out, media companies do a lot of market research. That could be questionnaires, focus groups or even looking at sales or viewings. The media also like to control the audience though instinct and make them think that they want to buy or watch a product. This is called the hypodermic needle. A good example of when the media have controlled the audience and used propaganda is with the rise of the Nazi party in the 30’s, but we’ll be studying more on this at a later date.

 For the group task this week, we were asked to conduct a short research tasked based upon the following provocative statement: “I Hate (insert media object) do you?”  The media object had to be something the group had a common dislike of. Our group chose the BBC program Eastenders.

To collect information on who else hates Eastenders, we decided to conduct a survey. The way we went about this was to create a Facebook group with the title “I hate Eastenders, do you?” and invite people to join. Those that do have written on the wall their age and gender and occupation. This will give us a feel for the type of people who dont like Eastenders. By Thursday, the group will collect the information and present it in a seminar.

I also have an individual task to complete, but will most likely post that up tomorrow.

Week 3 100MC Task

It’s been a funny old week for the 100Mc group. Due to different things, the group never found the time to meet in person. But thank god for the internet. We had set up a 100MC discussion board on Facebook and decided to have our meeting on there.  Amber posted the questions, and we all put what we would say underneath. This worked well and it was as good as sitting in the room together, but i think next week id rather meet in person.

After we all had our say, Amber typed up a meeting summary for the 100mc blog, that was collective of all the groups answers. The discussion went like this:

Question 1: Given how the company make their money, how does this affect what they do? Is anyone overseeing what they do? How effective is the control?

We found the film and music companies are not under any particular control, apart from the obvious rules and regulations (particularly on films). One of the companies that produced my chosen film was owned by one of the other producing companies, but it wasn’t apparent that any control was exerted over them, just that MGM was the parent company of UA. The record label was previously part of another company but that has since collapsed.

The BBC however is under a great amount of control. As a public service broadcaster and sole beneficiary of the licence fee; the BBC has a great deal of constrictions. The BBC is also headed by chairman Sir Michael Lyons who overseas what the BBC produce.

Despite there being a difference in how the film and music companies and the television companies are controlled; all have a high turnover and distributed worldwide and provide a global service.

Question 2: What do/might the three ways of looking at media institutions outlined in the lecture – political economy, organisational study and workplace ethnography – explain how the media objects that you looked at function?

Firstly we discussed the record label and simply we concluded that a record label is obviously about making money, but also about artist expression and fun. So not much accent is put on political economy. In regards to workplace ethnography; not much thought would go into what background/ethnicity/class the people working there were from, just that they were there to express themselves and make music.

The film companies are much the same as the record label in regards to political economy- they wouldn’t have much to do with it. However, political references may be made in independent films. The BBC on the other hand has a strong role in the political economy of Britain. Near every election there are party political broadcasts shown, or interviews with party members. There is also BBC news 24 that political parties would want to get on. The BBC is thought to be the most popular broadcasting service on British tv so political parties like to be on the good side.

Organisational sutdy- The BBC and the film production companies have similar structures to the companies. A chairman or executive and other staff working underneath. It is similar for the record label too, more so now the company has become worldwide.

Workplace ethnography- the film companies and BBC are similar in the fact that they accept all ethnic backgrounds and classes; especially as they are global companies. The higher staff are more educated and more likely now that all the staff have degrees or equivalent. The BBC,  in the previous century was more creative as the company would produce its own shows, but now most show’s are produced by independent companies and sold to the BBC for broadcasting. So creatively, the BBC isn’t as good as it once way, however the BBC do make shows (cheaply) and sell them on. In the early days of the film production companies it was actors/actresses who set up one of the companies, and back in the early 20th century it wouldn’t highly educated people or higher classes working for them because they would think it was ”above them”.
Creatively, the companies between them produced major and independent films, television and music so a wide range of creativity going on there.

Question 3: Do any of these models fully explain contemporary media? What failings do they have to explain ‘new media’?

The models don’t explain contemporary media, but each has something to do with it.
The failings for the BBC against new media is that at one time it was the only place to broadcast. Now with modern technology people can broadcast their work a lot easier. Also the amount of TV channels you can have these days. At one point it was BBC 1 and 2 and that was it. It is losing control. And once apon a time it was just BBC1.

People can get their work ”out there” it is much easier now, like we discussed last week-  if you have the technology to make something you can get it round the world now.

In relation to the creativity side of things- because people can broadcast their work a lot easier, there are a lot more channels and ways to get people to watch your media, so less people watch  class=”hiddenSpellError” pre=”watch “>itv, c4, c5, so less advertising money for them= bad quality and less creativity = cheap tv