Wednesday 21 October 2009

The Magic Heart

This film was to explore the therories of Todorov and Propp however since this was our second shoot we eventually did three for technical reasons and then took a lesson to save it and import it on the right programme to edit it. We eventually only editied it within 10 minutes hence it's quit rough. We were trying to apply a story that began with an equilibriam a problem and a new equilibriam. Our beggining equalibrium was not well enough establlished but our problem was the hypnotist charming the girl and our new equalibrium was when the hyponitist was dead and the false hero had taken credit for saving the princess but the princess was saved things werent quite the same. As for Propps therory we had the princsess as the girl being hypnotised, the villain was me with the braclett or magic heart, the hero was Dom who took the magic heart the magic object was the mirrorthe dispatcher and doner mary gives and the magic heart the mother was lucy and the false hero was steph who takes the magic object and claims victory to the mother. The mirror could have been made clearer mayby a close up to show it as a magic object. We showed narative enigma by showing the dead body at the end and not resolving the situation making the audience contemplate what the preffered reading might be and enthralling them. We added dialogue and sound to anchor the signifiers to navigate the audience to a preffered reading although text addes might have done this better and music. We had the binary opposites of male and female, powerfull and not powerfull, encompanied and lonely with the repressentation of youth, gender, hetrosexuality and disability in the pricesses in ability to have free will when hypnotised.

Tuesday 20 October 2009

Disability In UKTV Drama


All About me
(2004) a comedy starring Jasper Carrot and a charactre with cerebral palsy

The Story of Tracy Beaker finished 2006 childrens drama based on the books by Jacquelyn Wilson and a character with learning disabilities.

Phycoville (2009) a comedy involving a character with learning disabilities and a dwarf.

Doctor Who
a sci fi involves Davross and the leader of the cybermen as wheelchair users.

Casualty
a continuing series involves the character Mr Jordan who through his brain tumor has speech and memory disabilities.

Grange Hill a children’s drama in 2003 it involved a character with asperges syndrome.

Byker Grove a children’s drama where the character played by Dec known by the double Ant and Dec went blind.

Little Britain a comedy involving the character pretending to be disabled Lou.

Robin Hood (2006-2007) the recent BBC adaptation didn’t include the blind character like in the film

Bionic Woman ITV drama (2007) A character who has a car accident and is near to death is given prosthetic bionic limbs, special eyesight and the ability to jump from building to building.

Bleak House (2007) a BBC literary drama involved the wheelchair user who used the phrase “shake me up judy!”.

Little Dorrit (2008) BBC Also involved a wheelchair using character.

Eastenders a soap where Ben Mitchell is a hard of hearing 10 year old.

Saturday 10 October 2009

Representation of Gender In the Bunty for Girls and Closer Magazine



This edition of Bunty for Girls back in 1950 was one we reviewed. It represents girls as not normally having things by calling it "bunt for girls" as if it is unusual. The girl on the front and is waering a shor skirt, is pretty, thin, surouned by wildlife blonde, stupid for leaving food for the goat and a victim of this. This is a stereotypical reprensentation therefore it connotes girls should be these qualilties and if there not there abnormal. It is countertypical that the woman is outside but stereotypical that she is surounded by wildlife like in snow white the comic is signifying self beauty attracts natural beauty and happiness. There is an article in the comic where a woman does fight for feminism which is counter typical she therefore tries boxing a stereotypical mans role but when she see's a mouse it is the man that stereotypically saves her. The comic therfore implies that a woman cant do a man's job but the comic fails to show an countersteroetypical man more like the stereotypical woman thefore signifying how seperate the two sexes are. All the women in the comic are doing house work especially in the article "The Four Mary's" this is once again stereotypical while the men have proffesional jobs. The classes also seem to be very set with one woman discrimintating the lower classes but women appear to be of lower social class than men.

In a modern day closer however the pictures are all real, the women are thinner, less natural, more expresive, more dominant, the sotries are more shocking and have deeper materail, there are celebrities which the other doesnt and the text is more gossipy and bitchy. The pictures are real and women are thinner this siginifies girls should be this unaturally thin a stereotypical view of female beuty "get super toned legs" and other such like articles also pressurise this. The girls in it have more of a voice which is counter typical "marry me or else" but they are stereotypically more emotional than physical. The magazine pushes the bounderies more which is a stereotypical teenage ambition but countertypical to the conforms of 1950. This magazine conveys a more 3 dimensional representation of woman where on one hand they're vunerable, anerexic, depressive, weight gaining ugly looking woman showing how signifying stereotypically beuty is very important but countertypically so is hapyness although steotypically it conveys hapiness through losing weight by the diets they provide and makeup the advertise. The message is confusing. The other side to they portrayed is of bitchy, in charge and tumoling relationships of celebrity women this signifies stereotypically that it's ok for a girl to be like this. The men in the magazine are idolised as sexy hunks to be fought for and judged by women this is countertyical as the women are in charge. The wome in the magazine expecially the celebrities apear not to have proffesions and are famous for being famous this is stereotypical as it signifies girls should have nor profsion and be at home but unlike the Bunty it doesnt convey them doing housewrok The magazine is a stereotypical pink.

Young Film Makers Editing For Begginers



I went to editing for beginners hosted by Chris Hazel. Chris was an editor for BBC news who later gave up his job to teach at the festival and be an A level media examiner. Also in the group was Tom and Max from Essex. We used Final Cut Pro to edit a pre filmed piece about Suzie going to work. Firstly we were shown the basic controls: command s is for turning of and on the sound that played as you rewound something or fast forwarded it, to rewind we used the j key the more you pressed it the faster it went and to fast forward we used the l key. The arrow keys help you move frame by frame to accurately get a cut off point. We needed to trim off the excess film where nothing was happening so we used the command I button to mark an in point and the command o button to mark an outs point. We then dragged the frame to the overwrite box and deleted the original this new frame was exactly what we wanted to show. We could have also used the command c keys as a shortcut. Then we realized the nearly cut frames still took ages to interchange between each other so we double clicked on the join between them, then clicked on the frame we wanted to trim and clicked the -5 -1 +5 +1 buttons depending on how many milliseconds we wanted to add. To fade each frame into each other we right clicked on the join and clicked dissolve frames. Then we unlinked the green rings in the top left corner and dragged the sound so it fit for example over two frames showing the same scene. We also dissolved the sound into each other so the sound indoors and outdoors would flow. Chris said not to use too much dissolving as it gets low marks in A level. We used the +5 button on the beginning frame to lengthen it so we could add text. We then added text there was text that constantly was in a fixed position so its easier for the audience but we used text that could be moved to any position we shortened it to only fit the frame before it moved chris said having text on a moving frame also scores poorly. We dissolved the end of the test so it it faded out. We then moved on to a racing film to edit looking at sound. We had noisy car’s racing and a very loud heavy metal track so we pressed the green buttons to the right and moved the lined down to -12 the safe decibel level doing it by numbers rather than by ear so the sound level was always accurate. We then wanted to merge the sound as before but we couldn’t because we were asking it to make its own material to fade from hence why cameramen always leave time before and after filming so this kind of editing can happen. So we had to shorten the picture frame to merge the sound frame that way they both fit. We then had to cut out some of the track to leave space for commentary. So we marked an In point and out point and deleted it. We the as with the pictures dissolved the sound at the edges so it would slowly fade down. That was the end of the session Chris left us with the advice to keep it simple and not to add clichéd effects like a scratched film effect examiners don’t like this. I enjoyed the two days but for me it wasn’t worth missing the other lessons for. Most of the stuff we got taught could have been taught in lessons anyway. The screenings especially the music videos, documentaries and animations weren’t relevant but the relevant ones to us were in-between which was annoying and a waste of time but it was fun. The best part was being taught from a range of teachers with different skills and experiences. To make the trip better it would be good if they came in to our school, we saw relevant screenings on the projector and we were told how good they were. I liked the way we filmed in large locations like Bradford so if we could visit places every so often to film it helps us get inspired. It was more relevant to unit 2 than unit one but very helpful and motivating.

Sunday 4 October 2009

Semiotics

signifier & signified
the signifier is the detail while the signified is the term that tells us when the detail has been put to it's meaning

denote & connote
denotation= description of what you see and hear
connotation= the meaning of these factual details

binary opposition
oposites in drama for example rich and poor when they're togother they're described as being juxtoposed

Polysemy/Anchorage
polysemic= many meanings
anchorage= fixed and precise meaning made with text or dialgue

commutation test
always consider what we don't see the choices the producers have rejected

preferred/contested/ opositional reading
texts or polysemic but we mainly consider what the producers want us to follow of course they are open to contest or oppositional readings it is usefull to highlight these if the text is poorly constructed.

narrative enigma
mysterious eliments within a text form this

intertextual reffrence
when one text reffers to another eg red tint = like james bond titles

Shot Types

big close up
close up
medium colse up
medium shot
medium long shot
long shot
very long shot
two shot
over the shoulder shot
off camera interviewee shot
moving subject shot
high angle shot
low angle shot
tilted frame

Doctor Who

Characters: doctor good, shakespear good stereotypical tudor both intelectual therfore stereotypical reflection of intelects, martha good although 2nd to the doctor female and black stereotype as second in controll, witches stereotypically bad. Large contrasts between bad and good help the audience to differentiat and know the story.

Narrative: ends happily, useing shakespear script to cast spells and end the world.

Seting familier backdrops: stereotypical tudor setting dirty, warm, globe theatre, smogy and dark.

Camerawork: extreem close ups witches face, long shots set to show set, mid shots and a two shot when both at window

Dialogue: racsim to martha comments on todays pc, jargon and suggestive single words

Music: chirpy, medieval, low notes when something evil was about to happen, trumpets for triumph and action

Icons that relate to genre: Sci fi golden light warm friendle colourfal, blue cold light somthing bad, make up, cgi effects, jargon, title sequence dramatic with tardis.

versimilitude

how much the universe on screen seems real and beliavable

Purpose of Drama

entertain
educate
inform
reflection / comment on society and values

What you'd expect to find in a Drama

music, set, camera angles, cut scenes, costume, title and credits, effects, characters, stereotypes, countertypese, recurring story lines, time period (costume drama/ heritage drama) sold to US, lightine either realism (kitchen sink) or glossy (american) language dialect 0r lexis

Saturday 3 October 2009

Drama

Format:
DramaDoc
Docu Drama
Soaps Bones
Series
One offs
Mini-series
Mobisodes
Micro Drama
(Sub) Genre:
Crime:
Cop/Police
Detective
Bones
Health:
Doctor
Hospital
Format/ Genre
Hybrid:
Sci Fi
Teen
Costume Drama
Literary Adapatation