Digital Technology: A2 Exam Question 1a

In my AS year we started developing our initial media digital technology skills by starting a small ancillary task. Our coursework project for AS was to do an opening short film sequence - we chose to do a teen drama. For A2 we did a longer and more skilled short film.

When first starting media I did not have any technical camera skills really except for common knowledge of how to use cameras. We were taught a lot from the early start of our course, and these skills were further developed when we moved onto our A2 work. In A2 we experimented with photography as well as filming. In our first ancillary task at the beginning of AS we were asked to stick to a brief of people having a conversation - we decided as a group to take this to the next level and be creative with the use of our college campus location. We did a horror type very short film, from our initial rushes that we shot.  


Our AS ancillary task and coursework taught us to stick to a simple brief and how to work together as a team with our new classmates. We were put into groups of 4 and learnt all about how to use handheld cameras, tripods and how to edit on simple computer editing software such as windows movie maker. For our coursework in the first year we were put in a group of three to work together and create our opening sequence film (2 and a half minutes). In A2 our film was almost twice the length than the one we did in the first year (5 minutes) and we edited it with better editing software. We were more aware of how to use everything and how to make the most of the gadgets and technology around us. To start with, we used simple software to edit our short film opening sequences with e.g Windows Movie maker. We learnt how to use basic equipment with the digital equipment, such as tripods. We used the internet to research on websites such as youtube and IMDB about short films - and to gain inspiration from them for our own opening sequence.

My skills devloped throughout the project immensly. In our second year our film was - to say the least - a lot more developed and skillful. We had a lot more definitive ideas from the beginning of our idea brainstorms. We knew exact camera shots, cotumes and locations we wanted to use. Because we had such precise thoughts of how we wanted our film to be from the very start we were a lot more organised with getting everything together. We used social networking sites such as Facebook to advertise for actors and actresses targeting mainly drama students from our own and other colleges. We used email; to commnicate with one of the drama teachers in our college to try and set up auditions with his students, we continuously were using our mobile to keep in contact - texting, calling, taking pictures of locations and sending them to each other etc. We used MSN Messenger a lot - we would set a time and date to go online to chat about our plans and to make decisions and generally send each other files, pictures and to help each other with our coursework and blogs.

THOUGHT SHOWER OF MY SKILL DEVELOPMENTS...

A SHOWER OF....

THOUGHTS

Thought shower

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Question 1a) Notes for Brief

Digital Technology:

Cameras (digital and DV), internet, microphones

Computer software, hardware and websites - Movie maker, Dope premier, mobile phones, laptops, internet,  online blogs, youtube, slideshare, google, msn, facebook, photoshop, excel, publisher.

Discuss how these different types of technologies have helped you acheieve what you have within your work. How have they aided your success etc?

Talk about areas you really have delivered your skills - further elaboration

Pros and Cons about software and hardware within your skill development

What decisions and restrictions were given to you by the exam board? What were you allowed to choose and develop yourself?

Were you more confident about creating your A2 product - evaluate it.

Ancillary tasks - what skills did you use to create these

Comparison between your AS and A2 skills

Talk about creativity, how did you produce things - did what you produce reflect yourself or your ideas?

Was your product influenced by your social surroundings?

Was your narrative/ camera angles original?

Have you taken your skills and applied them to any other subjects?

Have you used primary and secondary research (did it cost anything)?

Accessability of research - internet, books etc

Was it time consuming?

Were your sources reliable - were they accurate?

How did you organise your research and planning e.g blogs, folders etc?

What did you actually research and how did it affect your planning and product?

How did drafting affect affect you - did your knowledge of drafting help improve your work?

How did audience feedback affect your planning and redrafting - was it helpful?

How organised were you?

Talk about group work - leader or follower - how did it compare to AS?

How did your research impact your planning and production - the more research and organisation there was - the easier everything was?

Post production - sound, transitions, narrative structure, sound affects, music, photoshop (how did you get everything to reflect the same genre within ancillary tasks and the film)?


Using conventions from real media texts? Horror, Blaire Witch Project A2 - Twilight for AS, magazine ancillary - made to look like a real magazine etc

Section Question 1a) Exemplar Essay 20/25 marks

Orange = Explanation, analysis and argument


Blue = Example


Pink = Terminology


Green = Theorists and theories


Purple = Codes and conventions


  Over the two year media course we had to produce both a foundation portfolio of a school magazine and music magazine as well as an advance portfolio of a horror teaser trailer, film magazine – developing foundation skills further and a poster to advertise our trailer.

  In the first year we researched existing music magazines and analysed each one so that we could gain knowledge of particular layouts, fonts and key elements that need to be contained in our production to make it successful. Research and planning allowed us to recognise ‘mastheads’ on magazines as being the most important and therefore the need to focus on a font more detailed to keep continuity with the contents page and double page spread which we also had to create.

  Personally I researched ‘Rock’ magazines such as Kerrang, NME and others because I had chosen after carrying out a questionnaire to use Rock music as my theme. The real life media texts allowed me to visualise my favourite parts from each magazine – ripped sticker graphics and broken font on my own work which I then attempted to recreate within Photoshop CS4. In year 1 we were limited to what we could research because magazines were the only theme however, in the second year I was able to develop my ability to research real life media texts much further because we had a range of products we needed to create all under the ‘horror’ genre this time. I was able to research teaser trailers analysing my favourite and least favourite parts allowing me to plan with a mood board which I produced from a range of stills from previous horror films my ideas for my own trailer which helped me to develop my production of my products in relation to real life media texts and techniques such as restricted narration and handheld camera inspired my trail found in the ‘Blair Witch Project’ trailer which er ‘Laquem’ which is also set in the woods. Research into film documentaries like the ‘American Nightmare’ inspired me to create a product which reinforced fear and went against usual horror conventions to make it more interesting. Over the second year research became so important to achieving a product which was realistic and is now like my own distributed on YouTube as a real life media text of its own.

  Real life media texts like advertising film posters were able to help me develop my Photoshop skills further because I was able to push myself with the ‘colour burn’ filters and want to create the scary atmosphere of my trailer from just an image and text which I found really fun.

  Research into film magazines allowed me to develop my work from AS level so much further because I was able to produce a high standard piece of work in two weeks this year when the magazines took over 3 months last year which shows how much my skills have improves just by being able to constantly refer back to real life media texts for inspiration and even colour schemes that work well together such as black and red which in the first year I just found experimenting with. Research into horror trailers allowed me to recognise different styles of film and how we like Alfred Hitchcock could be an auteur creating new angles and ideas using generic conventions as well as unconventional representations that I have picked upon when watching films and analysing certain techniques which I have then attempted to do in Final Cut Pro when editing certain shots together to create collision cutting and changes in pace which my trailer does extremely well. I was inspired initially by the hand held camera in the trailer REC and the fact I want as an auteur to change the stereotyped representations to be able use a female psycho killer.

  Research also allowed me to produce text and inter-titles that shook in order to capture my audience but narrating the story slightly so the shots when together made sense. Research into types of camera movements needed were really helpful and allowed me to completely change the pace with tracking shots and handheld camera which I noticed was used in Silent Hill and American Werewolf in London which I analysed and placed on my blog for reference as some pieces of footage I wanted to recreate including the final girl representations.

EAA 8/10

EG 8/10

T 4/5

(20/25)

Class Feedback about Our A2 C.W Film

Genre

Horror - lighting follows conventions, dark dull and gloomy

Vulnerability of girl – horror convention

Shaky camera

Narrative

Non linear - challenging Todorov

Audience

Location - appeal to students as it obvious college location

Music - reflects contempary society

Media Language

Lighting and camera angles follow traditional genre conventions of horror film

Section Qs 1b) Exemplar Essay 24/25 marks + Sentance Structure Feedback

Orange = Explanation, analysis and argument


Blue = Example


Pink = Terminology


Green = Theorists and theories


Purple = Codes and conventions




Question 1b)

The media production I am going to write about in relation to genre is my favourite piece from the whole course which is my horror teaser trailer.

The genre of the trailer is obviously ‘horror’ and this in itself allowed us to be creative with narrative etc but limited us because we had to stick to a certain amount of generic conventions in order for it to be recognised by it’s existing target audience. Steve Neal said that ‘genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations’ which meant certain generic features had to be included and repeated which in my case was the use of a creepy location of the woods as well as hand held camera and restricted narration to cause disorientation and suspense within our trailer. However, the pattern of variation Neal describes also links to my horror teaser trailer because we were able to creatively push the boundaries by twisting some generic features in order to make the trailer interesting and therefore cause the audience to want to watch the full movie. For this my group chose use a female psycho killer I order to subvert the stereotypical male dominated role. This female identification through point of view shots etc captured our female audience because were providing them with power and this is unusual for the horror genre although it is known for its forward thinking approach as it often attempts to focus on subcultural views instead of targeting the mainstream. Genre encompasses many parts and the trailer links to it in more ways than one. Its use of enclosed location and the fact the woods attempts to reinforce our society’s fear of loneliness and isolation which the woods creates when the three friends get lost. In these sections of the trailer we used a lot of heavy cross cutting between the female victim who is running anxiously through the woods in order to find her friends and get home safely. We also used the Kuleshove and collision cutting methods as the pace began slow as the friends head our in the car unaware of the danger before them and once they are in the woods we deliberately quickened the pace of editing to cause tension and to show that something is not right, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.

Editing and mise-en-scene is really important to genre and reflects very quickly certain moods and atmospheres. Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes argued that the horror genre like many others used ‘binary oppositions’ in order to show the contrast between good and evil in order to force the audience to be constantly questioning the trailer for example; in my trailer I used light and dark to connote their happiness and carefree attitude in the daytime and the darkness to emphasise their fear and reliance

on their senses. This is particularly important to the horror genre as characters are often shown in high angle shots to appear vulnerable and therefore under threat.

Gore or ‘body horror’ is also a common generic convention used by most horror films that we studied including Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero who used it to make the audience feel sick by forcing them to see extreme violence. In my own trailer we were inspired to use gore differently by showing a hanging scene in slow motion to create tension and the centering in on the face and neck which had been broken and this was shown by the rope burn we had made from latex and the blood pouring down her chest. This shot moves clockwise and slowly zooms in to force the audience to see what the hang (woman) has done. In our final two shots we finish the trailer with the male anti hero being lifted off the ground with blood pouring out of his mouth which causes the audience to assume no one survives because the final girl is stabbed by her friend accidentally which quickens the pace and adds tension but she is the survivor who as Carol Clover suggests will be terrorised throughout the film and finally overcome the monster. This plays with the audiences emotions and links back to the horror genre well by creating our own style of horror. Andrew Sarris argues because it encompasses so much and is key to explaining a film. Genre is the idea that collectively make a particular recognisable style that draws in its existing target audience. My horror trailer had expressionist camera angles as the female victim desperately trips over the camera and we see her running above it as well as close ups of her facial expression that causes us to identify with her fear and therefore makes us scared. This meant the audience also were forced to objectify the female victim from the high angle camera shot down her top in which we can see her breasts slightly after watching other Hitchcock movies which use the male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey to force us to take a male’s viewpoint.

In my trailer we also used an iconic symbol of the noose because obviously as a hangwoman she needed the prop but also as a female the circular shape suggested female power and this is something the horror genre often does but for male characters using guns etc as phallic symbols which we also used as the male anti hero takes out a knife and stabs his friend frantically when she walks up behind him. The horror trailer was made much darker in Final Cut Pro using the brightness and contrast menu and also dragged the saturated colours towards the blue in order to create a dark, dusky night time atmosphere a generic convention of horror trailers.

The generic conventions we chose to use were all important to the success of our product and since distributing it on YouTube we have over 4000 which I am really pleased with and gives me the confidence that we obviously stuck to the genre enough to capture our intended target audience but were creative enough to make people want to keep watching the trailer and virally sharing it with others.

Genre places a media text into a grouping giving it an identity which can be recognised by the mainstream society and I believe my product is successfully fitted to the horror genre using the narrative that todorov argued was important to the horror genre by following an equilibrium at the beginning then a problem which in our case was the male anti hero playing a joke on the soon to be female victim making jump running after him causing their separation then a pathway to resolution – as they attempt to find each other and then a new equilibrium at the end which we deliberately left as an open ending to capture our audience effectively.

Marks for this essay


EAA = 10 marks 

EG = 10 marks 
Term = 5 marks 

(24/25)

Total Section A 45/50






Good examples of strong sentance structure within this essay...


Paragraph One


Steve Neal said that 'genre is a repition with an underlying pattern of variations' which meant certain generic features had to be included and repeated which in my case was the use of a creepy location of the woods aswell as hand held camera and restriced narration to cause disorentation and suspense within our trailer.


Paragraph Two


We also used the Kuleshove and collision cutting methods as the pace began slow as the friends head out in the car unaware of the danger before them and once they are in the woods we deliberatly quickened the pace of editing to cause tension and to show that something is not right, keeping the audience on the edge of thier seats.


Paragraph Three


Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes argued that the horror genre like many others used 'binary opostions' in order to show the contrasdt between good and evil in order to force the audience to be constantly questiomning the trailer for example: in my trailer i used light and dark to connote their happiness and carefree attitude in the daytime and the darkness to emphasie their fear and reliance on their senses.


Paragraph Four


This meant the audience also were forced to objectify the female victim from the high angle camera shot down her top in which we can see her breasts slightly after watching other Hitchcock movies which use the male male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey to force us to take a male's viewpoint.


Paragraph Five


The horror trailer was madee much darker in Final Cut Pro using the brightness and contrast menu and also dragger the saturated colours towards the blue in order to create dark, dusky night time atmosphere a generic convention of horror trailers.


Paragraph Seven


I believe my product is successfully fitted to the horror genre using the narrative that Todorov argued was important to the horror genre by following an equilibrium at the beginning then a problem which in our case was the male anti hero playing ajoke on the soon to be female victim

David Gauntlett 'Making is Connecting'

Making is connecting for three reasons:
1) Putting things together; materials, ideas of both
2) Social dimension (connecting people together) - this can be linked to the Uses and Gratification theory
3) Engagement (through making things and sharing with the world we have some engagement - we can connect with people/the world)

Obvious connections with Web2.0 where people can use self-expression, become creative and potentially collaborate (making things together with people from the other side of the world).  But this of course did not begin with the Internet..John Ruskin and William Morris, Victorian thinkers who said things about self-expression and creativity hundreds of years ago that are highly relevant in today's society:
- John Ruskin:  Argued that everyday creativity offers us a celebration of humanity's imperfections; the creative right of the individual.  For the same reasons the diversity of things made by people on YouTube, because they want to, is often more refreshing, interesting and promising for us as a society that those made by professionals.  He said that in modern times our strive to make everything corporate and consistent at our peril; treating people like machines.  If you stifle creativity you will suffocate the whole culture.
- William Morris: People need to be able to make their mark on the world, give shape to their environments and share knowledge, ideas and self-expression.

Creativity opportunities provide fulfilment, connection and joy.

Five key themes:

1. A new understanding of creativity as a process; about emotions and experiences rather than the products made
2. The human drive to make and share. Making and sharing; to feel alive and participate in be part of a a community, rather than just be a viewer
3. Happiness through creativity and community; what makes people happy
4. Creativity as a middle layer of social glue; a middle layer between individuals and society.  Combined people together (on one side and institutions on the other side)
5. The human need to make your mark and make the world your own.

History Boys

Juith Butler

GENRE CONCEPT - A2 Exam Question 1b

TOTAL WORDCOUNT = 1,131 WORDS

I am going to discuss my favourite part of coursework throughout my entire two year media course: my A2 short film production. I will be talking about the production of my film specifically linking to the macro element genre.
 
  We took ideas from films such as 'The Blair Witch Project' (1999)  and applied similar horror and thriller conventions via camera work to our film to give it the feel of a thriller. For example, when the girl is being followed walking down the road, she turns back to the camera, giving the impression that she is highly paranoid that somebody is following her, a few shots later we see her walking down a similar path back home but she is extremely drunk and can barely walk in a straight line - her paranoia disappears from being so intoxicated, it returns when she actually realises the geek is following her, at this point she speeds up her pace, then eventually starts to make a run for it. Steve Neal said that ‘genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations’ which meant certain generic features had to be included and repeated. In the case of our short film we showed this by using hand held camera shots; to create paranoia and suspense - again we took inspiration from 'The Blair Witch Project' for these ideas. We also chose the location carefully, filming in the woods to give it an isolated feel when the girl is being kidnapped. The woods are highly associated with the horror type genre and also locating parts of the film within a college campus, meant that our target audience could relate to being in an educational place - general corridors, canteen and so on. This location idea also came from 'The Blair Witch Project'. We took inspiration from short films such as 'Love Field' because we liked the idea of how silence and a non-dialogue script made the short film feel more intense. 'The Girl of the Roses' was another short film we were inspired by, again it was a silent film, but it gave us the idea of editing the film in black and white, even though our film had more of a modern feel to it we feel as though it gave it a grittier edge. Especially when it came to using shots that were meant to look like CCTV following the students throughout the college. Had we had more time we would have tried to edit the film with different colours (only using black and white when the shots were meant to look like CCTV). Roland Barthes argued that the horror genre like many others used ‘binary oppositions’ in order to show the contrast between good and evil in order to force the audience to be constantly questioning the specific genre that they would be watching. We used lighting specifically to connote different moods and underlying messages in our film. The girl walks down dark isolated streets, with mild street lighting around her, and when she is at college, happy and carefree she is always in bright lighting. But when she realises she is starting to be followed, she is verging onto darker paths and has to run straight into the unknowing darkness to try and get herself free from being followed. We applied typical protagonist and antagonist roles to our characters by representing them as binary oppositions. We did this by using different costumes - the geek wore a big woolly jumper, a fur hat and glasses, where as the cooler male character wore dark rocker type clothes, had a side fringe and wore a black hood. In a way we were challenging the stereotypes of teenage hoodies; making this hooded character the better guy over the geek. The use of lighting was also important to us when producing our film, 
we decided to make it a non-linear narrative, this was to try to keep the audience intrigued. After the first scene (which is in fact the last scene to our film) we show the audience that they are being taken back to events before the kidnapping by showing an intense flash of white, fading into normal lighting. This happens again when the female character finally falls down and is kidnapped.


 We used Roland Barthes theory of codes and conventions matching similar horror ideology and narrative to our film. Our film is not in chronological it is in episodic order, it starts with a flashback and ends with the same shot, the middle part showing what has happened in between. We noticed that many horror` films do this - leaving the audience wanting to know more, keeping them enthralled within the first few minutes of any film e.g the film 'The Grudge'. Following the concept of the horror type genre, we made sure the lighting followed the conventions of the genre - dark, dull and gloomy - for the majority of the film. We took inspiration from Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory too, to show the girl's vulnerability. We wanted the audience to look at her from more of a male's perspective of a selfish female: desirable (costume - low cut top, tight leggings and heels), vein (many over the shoulder and mirror type camera shots), vulnerable (wide shots of her walking up a hill drunkenly in high heels, alone in the dead of night). The geek seems vulnerable at the beginning of the film as he seems emotionally unstable - crying he seems jealous in an overbearing way - spies on the girl through the canteen window. But he becomes the dominant character, kidnapping and tying up the female in the back of his car. There is a definate role reversal of power within our film.


  A lot of research and consideration was taken when deciding what sort of age range and who are target audience would be. After collecting information from people (by creating and using questionnaires), generally asking people about what films they like and numerous brainstorms, we decided that a young teen age range would be the best (13-19). We wanted to show how different sins are all around everybody within daily life - even if you don't realise they are there. By choosing a younger audience we felt like they would be able tor elate to our film easier than an older type audience. Using the 7 sins as a base idea to our film worked out to be a great idea, because when we asked people to watch it, we also asked them to look out for the subtle sins hidden in the storyline. This meant that it was not only interesting to our audience, but it was as if we were challenging them and this meant they paid closer attention every time they watched the movie.

Mind Map...For Macro Elements

Macro Elements

GRAN:

• GENRE

• REPRESENTATION

• AUDIENCE

• NARRATIVE

Micro Elements

SCEM:

• SOUND
• CAMERA ANGLES
• EDITING
• MISE-EN-SCENE

Julian Mcdougall 2009 - Section A

Ten commadments for Media reflective writing:

1.  Focus on creative decisions informed by instututional knowledge
2. Focus on creative decisions informed by theoretical knowledge
3. evaluate the process -DON'T just describe
4. Relate your media to 'real media' at the micro level
5. Try to deconstruct yourself (this can be difficult)
6. Choose clearly relevant micro examples to relate to macro relective themes
7. Avoid binary oppositions
8. Try to write about your broader media culture
9. Adapt a metdiscourse
10. Quote paraphrase and reference.