TWITTER

At the beginning of term, you were all asked to start a Twitter account just for your Media work, in which you followed people and institutions that were useful for your Media work. 

This item is on your TRELLO list for September.

You were asked to link it to your blog so that it appears there, as mine does.

Having done this, you should make a post explaining why Twitter is useful: read (and quote) Rusbridger's article for the reasons that are relevant to you.

See also my class blog post on Twitter.

OPEN THE LINK HERE

REPORT G322 2016

RESEARCH: EXAMPLE OF PIKTOCHART

UK CINEMA - EXHIBITION AND EXCHANGE

CLASS AND PREP: Using the sheets that you are given, write the following essay on UK cinema, exhibition and exchange. One (or more) paragraph per point. As you go, give examples of your own viewing habits / that of your peers and family.

• Identify the types of cinema available to UK audiences
• Name the 3 biggest cinema chains and then 3 smaller chains
• Explain what kinds of films are shown in multiplexes, who they cater for and their advantages for audiences
• Name the top UK box office grossing films of 2015.
• Identify the independent cinema brands, and explain their character and appeal for audiences. State who they cater for.
• Explain what IMAX offers and why it is still commercially successful.
• Online film consumption / streaming is increasing via multiple platforms. Identify them. Explain the Netflix model. What future trend is likely to develop as a result?
• Draw up your key points in summary.

YOU HAVE BEEN ASKED TO FINISH THIS ON TUESDAY EVENING before Wednesday's class so that we can proceed to the next step.This essay work prepares you for your summer exam G322. As you can see from the class blog under 'pages', you do not have a choice of question about audiences and institutions in the film industry. Even harder is that the question will have an 'angle'. Here is the 2016 question, with the words 'to what extent' (the angle). This invites you to make a reasoned argument, not to just agree wholesale with the question:

'To what extent has the internet played a significant role in the marketing and exchange of media products in the area you have studied?' (2016)

Taking into account 'to what extent', can you think of non-internet ways of marketing films? Of viewing them? So how important is the internet in the process?

EMAIL ME THE COMPLETED WORK ON TUESDAY EVENING
 

CATCH UP AND CORRECTIONS

Many of you will have received emails about your blog work as well as found comments on your blog itself. If you have not caught up with your work, as your Sixth Form Review pointed out, you are now required to attend Study Hall, as forewarned. Remember that you should have posts on 

• analysing the representation in the Marc Riboud photograph, 
• a Piktochart on Audience (which includes the Uses and Gratifications model of audience behaviour) with visual illustration (hence, Piktochart)
• a post on The Business of Film (i.e. the fact that you are following the course, what you are gaining from it and what in particular you can apply to your own film production work, such as thinking about your audience).
• at least 4 detailed, lucid, well-illustrated analyses of film openings, presented in at least two formats, such as SlideShare or Emaze. You must check that a third party can open your work! Use  a friend to check.
• you and your group should find time to edit and post your Preliminary Exercise

BFI STUDY DAY

Year 12: ‘Introduction to the Film Industry: an AL Study Day’ at the British Film Institute on Wednesday 2 November 2016

The media department has arranged a trip to The BFI South Bank to attend a study day in support of their OCR GSE examination Key Concepts: Audiences and Institutions. It will be delivered by Rob Miller, OCR media studies lecturer and consultant. The trip will be led by Mrs Mann.

A study of the film industry is a requirement of all Film and Media Studies specifications and this interactive day offers an opportunity to find answers to key examination questions. There will be interactive, clip-based presentations about film production, distribution, exhibition and exchange in an online age with a particular focus on the ways in which digitisation has changed film consumption and distribution. Guest speakers from both mainstream and independent sectors will deliver Q&A sessions. A resource pack for students on the day is also included.

UPDATE: We are now using the resource pack to write an exam essay for G322 on audiences and institutions in the film industry. 

 Gareth Lowrie of NBC Universal discusses film marketing with Rob Miller

We discuss the significance of IMAX as a platform

THE BUSINESS OF FILM

Sign up for a FutureLearn MOOC starting 17 October 2016 called THE BUSINESS OF FILM. This will be a huge support in both your summer exam question on the film industry and also provide you with evidence of research for your film production module (questions 3 and 5 on distribution and attracting & addressing audiences).

Your current PREP is to complete the Infographic on AUDIENCES started yesterday. We look at Stuart Hall and reception theory today as well as BFI exit polls.



Our starter activity yesterday was the Guardian's award-winning video advertisement HERE We discussed the importance of intertextuality. The meaning of this video ad depends on the audience's knowledge of the original story.

Our starter activity today was watching and discussing the screening of The Mass of Men by student film makers from the National Film and Television School.
This short film is set primarily in one location (a benefits office) and opens / closes outside at a bus stop. Its editing is striking as tension builds, marshalling the audience's sympathy for the wronged, desperate man who is trying to be a good person but thwarted at every turn. The opening soundtrack (Dido's Lament by Purcell) makes poignant ironic reference to the closing words of Henry David Thoreau: the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

 
 
Today we also viewed and discussed award-winning AL film openings screened at the Media Magazine Production Competition Awards at the BFI in 2015 and 2016, where we at Claremont have had a number of short-listed entries. 

Arising out of these film openings is the way that dystopias can feature in films. We look at the concept of Jerememy Bentham's Panopticon.




 It has been used as a metaphor for internalized self-policing in, for example, the writings of Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish (1977).
'Foucault shows the development of the Western system of prisons, police organizations, administrative and legal hierarchies for social control - and the growth of disciplinary society as a whole. He also reveals that between school, factories, barracks and hospitals all share a common organization, in which it is possible to control the use of an individual's time and space hour by hour.' (Wikipedia)

 We also looked at collecting wild sound for movie making and uploading it to SoundCloud.

 Another good idea is to start thinking about visuals for making your production company ident: we looked at two or three exhibits from exhibitions (fishes) to remind you that you can 'collect' ideas that will form the basis of visuals.