Wednesday 26 November 2014

Genre, Audiance and Institutions


\The simple Media cycle, Institution, Media Text, Audience, The Institution produce the Media Text, which is then viewed by the Audience, the Audience then have feed back that the Institution can work with to produce further media texts that keep the audience happy, and make the institution money, the cycle goes on.

Genre helps the Audience to Distinguish the difference between films so that they are aware of what kind of text they are viewing. A Genres popularity is information that comes as a result of text being viewed, which effects what kind of media text that the production institutions should make next.

Because there is no point in making Rom-Coms when the majority of the audience is into Action films at a point in time, appeasing the masses is important, as it what makes money.

The information on popularity will then help the distribution companies with the advertisement, as it is very important that they strike the target audience in order to sell the Text. Aiming Horrid Henry the Movie at 20-29 year old men, just would not work, its a kids film, so they would need to advertise to attract kids, 5-11 years old.

Sub Genres

To define a films diversity within the genre, we have to further categorize it, into sub-Genre...

Sub Genre specifies the main genre of the film, i.e Physiological-Thriller, War-Thriller, Period-Thriller etc...





 3 Thriller films that all focus around crime, and the main character attempting to achieve an objective to either get revenge or so that they can ensure people are brought to justice for crimes.

All the main characters have a military, police, intelligence or general secret background which give them the upper hand in combat, and to an extent mental situations.

Connotations in the poster suggest and Action part in the Thriller. Guns serious faces, and a scene of professionalism in  each of the characters is shown in all of the characters in the posters.

Each film ends in an eventual victory for justice, and all who needed to be punished are, or at least given a good thrashing, in perpetration for for a squeal ( Bourne ).








The Type of Sub genres that you would expect in a thriller...

Action,
Crime,
Romantic,
Medical,
Period, 
Psychological,
Slasher and
Supernatural Thrillers.

Crime thriller is what relates most to our groups Coursework, as the entire film is to be based on the Police investigating a Serial murder. Very forensical and confusing plot that leads the audiacne to a very unsuspected conclusion.
 
 





Genre Difference, Repetition and Similarity

Thrillers can be very diverse from each other, as i explained in the introduction. Thrillers cover a wide range of topics, and has connotations from other genres such as action and horror, most thrillers are closer to one of these genres than the other, but some incorporate both with great effect.

'The Imitation Game' and 'The Purge'

Both categorized as thrillers, both very different.

The Imitation Game is about the famous Alan Turing, who single handed, and with very little support, cracked Germany's unbreakable Enigma Code during World War II, his life story and his end. Very little action, and no horror, but a lot of tension throughout which kept the audience on the edge of their seat.

The Purge is about  One night per year, the government sanctions a 12-hour period in which citizens can commit any crime they wish, with no punishment or imprisonment. Fear action and horror are rife in this flick, and the tension makes audiences cower away in fear.

Basically the opposites of each other in terms of the characters, period, and narrative are all so different from each other. But the common factor is that they both have suspense, that keep everyone focused on the action, and anticipating every second that follows the last. Though its for different reasons its the same emotions from the audiance.




Thursday 20 November 2014

Ideas For Media Course Work Opening Title Sequence

 My ideas will be given in order of the ones that i preferred.

Example: - first will be the explanation of the plot, in minor detail without giving anything away, a synopsis if you will, if our course work was to turn into something bigger

                - second will be the explanation of the title sequence ( what we would film )

1. - In the post apocalyptic Britain, destroyed by a virus which has killed off 3/4 of the world, a soldier with no attachment to the Army that, doesn't exist anymore, must fight for survive, against others scavenging what is left, and his own animalistic instincts, that have made him less than a protector of his country, and less than a person.

   - The title sequence shows the soldier as he slows patrol an empty woodland, when he gets to the edge, and closer to a field, a takes a knee and scans the area with his rifle, to see a car in the middle, abandoned, but recently used, he runs over to investigate, and spends some time scavenging the car for supplies. When he does he finds some food and water, but is distracted by a photo of a family he finds under the sun shield on the drivers side. Before he knows it he is under attack from a group of other survivors, but showing his military professionalism, he defeats them easily, and the quietly continues on his journey to nowhere...

2.  - A series of interviews between a fresh out of training Lieutenant and a battle hardened Sgt in the British army, exploring the moral and physical and mental traumas of modern day conflicts that the Sergent was involved in, exposing his PTSD and his experiences, based on true accounts and stories of soldiers in the British Army.

     - First showing an awkward and suspenseful stare off across the table in a white interview room, a nervous young female L.T. at one end, a dreary  much older and heavy eyed Sgt at the other. looking for a diversion away form the moment, the L.T. opens up his file and asked the Sgt to confirm the reports in it. She begins to read and the Sgt closes his eyes, we then have a change of scene, but all that the audience can see is the Sgt's face in an extreme close up. The voice of the L.T. can be heard constantly in an echo, which gives the audience an idea of what is happening, and what he can see. as the content gets more violent and descriptive, the expressions on his face change, to match the scenario. At a final climactic and shocking ending to the report, it cuts back to them in the interview room, with the L.T. closing the file, and asking, " was the report accurate?", to which he replies "let me start from the beginning"... fade to black

3. - Friday the 13th... in the British countryside. Showing the life of a cheerful farmer with a dark and twisted secret, he loves ruthless and remorseless murder.

    -  Showing a tent in the middle of the countryside, with the very indiscriminate sound of two young teens, a male and a female, having a good time. we then see a figure walk towards the tent, in wellingtons and some rather itchy looking trousers. he has a shotgun by his side, he raises it, and fires two shots through the tent, followed by the painful and terrified walling of the girl in the tent. the farmer reloads his shells, opens up the tent, and ignores the girls plead for her life, by shooting her, blood exploding from the entrance has he fire his gun. he pulls both bodies out, and sticks them into a wheel barrow and walks back, with his farmhouse in the distance, whistling 'Jerusalem.'

4. - When MI6 really master the art of disguise, there really is no where to hide if you are a wanted criminal or terrorist. Following a Special unit that focus on infiltration and surprise attacks by dressing up in convincing and elaborate costume.

    - A black Land Rover 4 door, driving along a town street, with 4 men inside, 3 goons guarding there boss. as they turn a corner they see a homeless man outside, asking for spare change. one of the goons commenting that he is a poor bastard for being a hobo. In the next shot they are on a rural road and they find that they are lost. Before they no it the homeless man they drove past, has smashed in the drivers window and shot the three goons before they even knew what hit them. The hobo then opens the rear passenger door to reveal a startled boss,and orders him out. The boss is stood in-front of the man at gun point, and the boss attempts to make a deal, the hobo shoots him i the knee cap, and bends down to pick a USB from out of his top pocket, and says "lets make a trade" replacing the USB with a live grenade. his phone rings and he begins to walk off to answer it, the hobo responds to the call by saying, " Got in, like taking sweets from a baby" the grenade goes off , and then there is a straight cut to black




Introduction to Genre



Discussing Genre (Thrillers)

Genre is the category of Media based on some set of conventions and the plot. Action, Thriller, Horror. Guns and explosions, Suspense and twisting story, blood gore and intense violence.
Genres can also have sub or hybrid categories, to provide better specification for the type of film.
Sub genres are further conventions to the main genre, i.e. Mockumentary horror (THREADS), philosophical thriller (LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN).
Hybrid genres are works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining conventions. I.e. Action Thriller (JACK REACHER), Horror Comedy (ZOMBIE LAND), Western Si-Fi (ALIENS VS COWBOYS).

The Genre we focus on in Media Studies is Thrillers, and for our coursework, we can only focus on sub-genres if we wish to expand the conventions of the Plot.  A thriller is a story that has suspense, it gets the audience exited and, thrilled. It often has traits from the action and adventure, but the level of fear makes it borderline horror. It usually very serious, but can make room for light hearted comedy if the plot requires, chances are that if we were to use our imagination, that we have very few restrictions into what we could come up with.
 





THE GODFATHER
CASINO
LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN
JACK RYAN
REBECCA

Are all examples of thrillers, and each film had hints of other genres are thrillers do…

Wednesday 12 November 2014

Editing the prelim Task

Adobe Premier Pro CS6 was the editing software that we used to edit our Prelim
Preliminary Task, Editing

After we had finished editing the Preliminary task, we spent two days in the schools editing room putting together and cutting down the film in Adobe Premier Pro CS6. We used our own footage and we were paired of with people in our group, two or three to a monitor.

As we edited we we given basic advice and shown how to use the software, by day two, we were basically on our own.

We weren't given any guidelines on how to edit other than the story board, which we could interpret with no limits, so each group of editors had there own way of putting together the footage.