PLANNING: TRELLO

I have created a Trello account which is a very useful organizational online tool so that I know what I have done and what needs to be done. It helps me keep track of my work and what I am doing. 

Below is a screen shot of my Trello which I will update as I work.

SEPTEMBER CHECKLIST

PREP: Three tasks by Monday, please. You can use the class blog and those of previous students for guidance.

1. Create Twitter account and 'follow' relevant media people like Pete Fraser (pete'smediablog), Jenny Grahame, MediaMagazine, Julian McDougall, Learnaboutfilm, OCR Media and Film, Casey Neistat, Film School Shorts, Future Shorts, Disney, Warner Bros, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, MGM, British Council Film, NationalFilmTVSchool, Sony, Edusites, ScreenInternational, Film London and so on...
2. Complete first analysis of a film opening, with illustration, using The Art of the Title site.
3. On PowerPoint, complete 2nd analysis of a film opening, with illustration, using The Art of the Title site. Sign up for SlideShare and upload your 2nd analysis to your blog.

NEXT PREPS: (in case you wish to get ahead) Ensure that you have posted them on your blog.
set Monday (for Tuesday): Read up about Disney (one of the Big Six) and familiarize yourself with some of their products, in order to support your response to the exam question on the film industry that we discussed in class today.
set Tuesday (for Wednesday): Find out how to use Emaze and complete 4th analysis of a film opening, with illustration, using The Art of the Title site
set Wednesday (for Thursday): Now that you have researched how film opening sequences work, you can summarize your knowledge of this genre's codes and conventions. You sign up for Piktochart and organize your learning about film openings into a Piktochart. Title: Film Openings Codes & Conventions.

SIXTH FORM REVIEWS Your forthcoming grade will be based on

• your oral work

• written work such as The Night Manager and Hustle

• your blog work (see Trello list): we aim to complete September tasks by half term!

Today, create a Trello. Screenshot it and make a post on your blog. Title of post: PLANNING: TRELLO

Start to use the Trello and take another screenshot. Update the blogpost with the second screenshot.

THE BRIEF

I am doing the video brief:

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source.

TV DRAMA : HUSTLE

ANALYSIS of GENDER using the OCR exam paper for 2011.


Answer the question below, with detailed reference to specific examples from the extract

only.

HUSTLE Extract here

1   Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs representations of gender using the following:

  • Camera shots, angles, movement and composition

  • Editing

  • Sound 

  • Mise-en-scene [50

LOVE ACTUALLY and DIRTY PRETTY THINGS

Watch the opening sequences of Love Actually and Dirty Pretty Things to analyse contrasting genre codes and conventions. 

Write a series of paragraphs based on contrasting points drawing attention to how genre is signaled through such issues as:

• mise-en-scene (setting)
• lighting
• editing
• representation of the airport in each film opening
• representation of the protagonist in each film opening (Okwe the taxi driver and doctor; Hugh Grant as the narrator / Prime Minister and Bill Nighy as Billy Mack the singer)
• contrasting representations of London in Dirty Pretty Things (drive into London and the hotel guest-side and below stairs)
• soundtrack: music, voiceover and dialogue

Source material:
Prime Minister: Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.

RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE

We watch then analyse an opening sequence, drawing attention to the following codes and conventions:

• GENRE  how it is signalled
• TITLES  who is mentioned in the credits and how the credits are presented
• PRODUCTION COMPANY
• MISE-EN-SCENE period, colours, props
• EDITING sound and vision
• NARRATIVE and CHARACTERS how is the audience drawn in

PREP You are going to do textual analysis of an opening sequence. You may use PowerPoint which we will take into SlideShare when it is ready.

You may find it easiest to use the 9 frames selected in The Art Of The Title and analyse each frame in a separate slide in PowerPoint.
Start with a screenshot of the nine frames together with the title of the film.
Then copy/paste the first frame into slide 2 and use one of the bullet points above to analyse it. 
The examiner is looking for 'critical awareness'. This means analysis not just description (why it is done like that). An example follows below:

DAYS OF HEAVEN (Terrence Malick, 1978)

Set in 1916 and telling the story of a tragic love triangle, this film evokes both the period and genre in its opening sequence, which reflects Malick's knowledge of photography and willingness to use little studio lighting. 


The film's cinematography by Morricone models itself on silent films, which often used natural light. Malick also drew inspiration from painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Edward Hopper (particularly his House by the Railroad), and Andrew Wyeth, as well as photo-reporters from the turn of the century, such as Alfred Stieglitz, Weegee (Arthur Fellig) and Jacob Riis. The street scenes capture the urban poverty of the period and explain the desperation of the film's protagonists whose future is precarious . 


We have studied Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange as an example of the power of photography as reportage and its use in social change; the close-up of the infant's and young woman's faces exert a strong appeal and tug on our heart strings. The films concerns with social difference and the need for financial security are hinted at by the stills of the girl in the wedding veil and the three young women drinking tea intercut by shots of manual workers of various kinds.


The subject matter gradually moves from the urban to more of the rural, reflecting the narrative trajectory of the film.


The enchanting orchestral music echoes the use of musical accompaniment in silent film to suggest emotion.


Period colors (brown, mahogany and dark wood for the interiors) and period costumes from used fabrics and old clothes to avoid the artificial look of studio-made costumes. The colours create the illusion of period photographs, street journalism: an essential part of creating verisimilitude or 'real life' on screen. As a result, the footage is imbued with the quality of documentary truth, of scientific 'fact' which allows the viewer to engage fully with the world of the film. 


Art of the Title comments: Firing a mix of critical thought and mesmerizing immersion, Dan Perri's title design for Terrence Malick's Days of Heavencombines street level photojournalism and credit-to-character inferences drawing the curious eye at will, the ears aswoon with "Carnival of the Animals - The Aquarium" by Camille Saint-Saens. You are nowhere if not here, with these people, in the Gilded Age of American history.'


'And then the last shot of the opening title sequence] subtlety shifts us from photos and into the world of the film. In a masterful move, the last shot perfectly replicates the same look of the previous images, but...it is one of the actors, Linda Manz (in a photograph taken by Edie Baskin.) It’s through her perspective that we will take this journey so it is fitting that she is the one who bridges the gap from the opening credits into the first shot of the film'. Read the analysis by Cinema Sights

WOMEN ON TV: THE GOOD WIFE

The Good Wife (CBS/C4: 2009-present)

The Good Wife has run for seven seasons. Alicia Florrick is a politician's wife who has to return to work after her unfaithful husband has been imprisoned for paying for prostitutes with public money. She is constructed literally as 'the good wife' who stands by her man at a press conference, shoulders her domestic responsibilities for her two children singe-handed after his conviction and also holds down a skilled job as a respected lawyer.

As well as Alicia, the series features a powerful female boss, Diane, who holds her own in the cut-throat  world of the boardroom where she plots to remove her opposition and secures her own position of power. She is so successful that she is eventually on track to become a judge. Diane is childless and intially uninterested in marriage.

An unconventional female representation is that of Kalinda, the law firm's private detective who is fearless in uncover investigations and unafraid to use her sexual power to manipulate people. Bold, cunning, intelligent and ambitious, Kalinda nevertheless nurses a dark secret: before she ever met Alicia, whom she comes to serve devotedly, she slept with Alicia's husband. Kalida values her independence and guards he privacy ferociously. She trusts no-one.

All three representations are of strong, accomplished women in the world of work. Only Alicia is seen in the domestic sphere.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS: NOWHERE BOY

We practise analysing the representation of age using the opening of the film Nowhere Boy (directed by Sam Taylor Wood, 2009) about the early life of the Beatle John Lennon.

In your end-of-year exam, Section A is the analysis of representation in television drama. An unseen clip will be screened four times.
You are expected to analyse and discuss the technical aspect of the language and conventions of moving image in the extract's representation of individuals, places, groups and events.

• camera shots, angles, movement, composition
• editing
• sound
• mise-en-scene

 You will be asked to discuss how these technical elements create specific representations of individuals, groups, events or places and help to articulate specific messages and values that have social significance. Particular areas of representation that may be chosen are:

•Gender

•Age

•Ethnicity

•Sexuality

•Class and status

•Physical ability/disability

We watch Nowhere Boy and analyse the visual codes (camera angles, camera movement, shot types) and sound (dialogue and soundtrack).
We use technical codes (the language of moving image).

We note the exam mark scheme for a grade A response:

• use of terminology (8-10 marks)
• use of examples (16-20 marks)
• analysis, explanation, argument (16-20 marks)

We practise from the very start formulating responses that cover these three elements in the order given above. We note just how precise  and detailed our points must be: similar to PEE in your Englsh examination technique (point, evidence, explanation).

Posted by Media@Claremont at 12:32

CREATE YOUR BLOG

Today in class you create your individual blog, add seven pages that will host your seven Evaluation questions and additional pages for the exam spec and exam modules. Then add the gadget for the search engine.

You link your blog to the class blog and to the rest of the students in the group by adding a bloglist in the sidebar entitled 2016-17.

PRELIMINARY EXERCISE

On Tuesday and Wednesday, as we are doing the thriller brief, we plan, film, capture and edit our preliminary task.

Continuity task: filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room, sitting down in a chair opposite another character with whom she/he exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180% rule.

BOMBS, BANGS AND BAD, BAD BOYS

Representations of masculinity in The Night Manager
In your summer exam, you will watch a TV drama extract four times and write about how representations are constructed. The extract will be from UK or US television, about 5 minutes long. You will have time to make notes between screenings. The question will have a focus (such as gender, age, class and status, ethnicity, disability, sexuality or regional identity. 
The question will look like this:

Answer the question below, with detailed reference to specific examples from the extract only. 

1 Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs the representation of age using the following:

• Camera shots, angles, movement and composition

 • Editing

• Sound

 • Mise en scène

 In today's lesson, we look at how representations of gender are constructed in The Night Manager. We view the trailer here then watch parts of episode 1 in class. 
To achieve a level 4 mark, you need to be systematic in your written analysis. You should think of each point that you make as made up of three parts, as this is how the examiner will award marks:

• identify terminology (eg. "There are two types of close-up shots of Roper in the opening scene when he is presenting a lecture with slides to a respectful audience who do not know about his secret work as an arms dealer.")
• specific example (eg. "One type of close-up features black and white stills of two-shots, with Roper holding foreign children in his arms as he smiles directly and frankly at the camera, followed by group shots, where Roper has his arm wrapped around a member of the local community in a friendly embrace, again smiling widely. The second type of close up is live action shots of Roper addressing the lecture hall, looking sincere, serious and committed as he describes his charity work with refugees.")
• explanation, analysis, argument (eg. "The effect of these shots is to position him as a caring philanthropist who protects and nurtures the community, especially combined with the speech he gives, referring to his role as philanthropist, entrepreneur, innovator., especially his final close-up  where he talks about 'lifting up his fellow man. Mid shots allow for the significance of his hand gestures to emphasise his earnestness and sincerity.")

We read the Media Magazine article on how representations of men are constructed in The Night Manager.

MEDIA MAGAZINE FLM PRODUCTION COMPETITION 2016

Congratulations to Roma Productions (Ryan E., Xander A-V., Ollie M-R. and Milo G.) for reaching the shortlist of the Media Magazine Film Competition this year with their film opening Nine. Their excellent film work was screened at the BFI on 6 July 2016 in NFT1 in front of an appreciative audience of judges and fellow contestants. Their work was praised for its excellent editing, dramatic plot and the innovative use of the drome cam.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the AS Media Studies course OCR J4. Today we cover aspects of the four key concepts: representation, media language, audiences and institutions. 

• Using photographs taken by Marc Riboud, whose obituary appeared in The Telegraph today, we deconstruct the representation of a 16-year-old girl holding up a flower to the serried ranks of US soldiers, taken in Washington, 1967, during the Vietnam War.
• Introduction to semiotics: Roland Barthes, semiotics and the deconstruction of visual imagery
•  Key terms: denotation, connotation

• We look at television drama, our exam topic, and how to use media language to analyse representations, such as the representation of gender, through camera work, mise-en-scene and sound.
• We touch on audiences and institutions, such as by discussing our own film viewing habits, a topic that forms part of your response to questions on the film industry in your summer exam. 
• You are encouraged to go the cinema as well as watch film online. Please keep abreast of current films, how they are marketed and how they do at the box office. Issues surrounding the success or failure of different film genres, how audiences consume films and how social media promotes films underpin your exam answers.
• Audiences consume media to gratify needs, according to Blumler and Katz's uses and gratifications model of audience behaviour (1975): the need for escapism, diversion and entertainment; the need to find out about what is going on in the world (surveillance); the need to form personal relationships in society (on screen and off); and the need to define our personal identity. (Useful sites: MediaEdu; MediaKnowall)

 

Welcome to 1960 and the France of Charles de Gaulle, a country whose colonial power is in rapid decline, despite the Gallic pride and delusions of a grandeur gone by.
In Paris the French Secret Service hire the good-looking, properly-raised, and intelligent but impressionable 23-year-old André Merlaux (Hugo Becker, Chefs, Gossip Girl) as their new recruit. His boss is Moïse (Christophe Kourotchkine, Match Day), the Director of Operations, and three agents are tasked with training him in spy-hood.
They are Moulinier (Bruno Paviot, Détectives), the head of African affairs; Jacquard (Karim Barras, Daedalus), whose responsibility is Algeria; and Calot (Jean-Édouard Bodziak, Yves Saint Laurent), a specialist in Eastern European countries. What André doesn’t know yet is the head of the spy agency is none other than the intimidating Colonel Mercaillon (Wilfred Benaïche, Nicolas Le Floch).

A Very Secret Service (Au service de la France): (L-R) Marie-Julie Baup as Nathalie, Joséphine de la Baume as Clayborne, Hugo Becker as André Merlaux, Christophe Kourotchkine as Moïse, Jean-Edouard Bodziak as Calot, Karim Barras as Jacquard, Bruno Paviot as Moulinier
Photo © Luc Roux / Mandarin TV / Arte

André’s training is to prepare him for tackling the most delicate of missions, from becoming friends with the Germans and keeping Algeria French, to figuring out America’s obsession with communism and preserving the colonial empire. And lest I forget, the one thing the French do better than anyone: going on strike.
What he learns about being the crème de la crème in the world of international espionage is the devil is in the details. France’s superiority comes down to its brilliance in administrative intricacies. Cases in point: answering the telephone and getting the proper rubber stamp.
But while on his way to elite secret agent status, André pulls a no-no by falling in love with the wrong woman. She is Sophie (Mathilde Warnier, Caprice), a wannabe modern woman who happens to be the Colonel’s daughter…(Source: The Euro TV Place)

WOMEN ON TV: THE GOOD WIFE

The Good Wife (CBS/C4: 2009-present)

The Good Wife has run for seven seasons. Alicia Florrick is a politician's wife who has to return to work after her unfaithful husband has been imprisoned for paying for prostitutes with public money. She is constructed literally as 'the good wife' who stands by her man at a press conference, shoulders her domestic responsibilities for her two children singe-handed after his conviction and also holds down a skilled job as a respected lawyer.

As well as Alicia, the series features a powerful female boss, Diane, who holds her own in the cut-throat  world of the boardroom where she plots to remove her opposition and secures her own position of power. She is so successful that she is eventually on track to become a judge. Diane is childless and intially uninterested in marriage.

An unconventional female representation is that of Kalinda, the law firm's private detective who is fearless in uncover investigations and unafraid to use her sexual power to manipulate people. Bold, cunning, intelligent and ambitious, Kalinda nevertheless nurses a dark secret: before she ever met Alicia, whom she comes to serve devotedly, she slept with Alicia's husband. Kalida values her independence and guards her privacy ferociously. She trusts no-one.

All three representations are of strong, accomplished women in the world of work. Only Alicia is seen in the domestic sphere.