film clip practices

For our piece we practiced certain shot that we would be using. we used the stalker scene where our main character is being followed. These where filmed on a Samsung galaxy.

Henry jenkins

We have learnt about Henry Jenkins convergence theory in class. I was doing some further research into his theories to better enable myself to understand his theories when I cam across his blog.

http://henryjenkins.org/2006/06/welcome_to_convergence_culture.html

In his blog he talks about his novel that includes theories on convergence culture, as well as many other books in his archives that may be of help. The fact the a theorist would use a blog in order to promote his novel and his success show how mar media produced by the public has come.

Mirror Stage

This is an extract from a website (link below). 

"The idea of the "mirror stage" is an important early component in Lacan’s critical reinterpretation of the work of Freud. Drawing on work in physiology and animal psychology, Lacan proposes that human infants pass through a stage in which an external image of the body (reflected in a mirror, or represented to the infant through the mother or primary caregiver) produces a psychic response that gives rise to the mental representation of an "I". The infant identifies with the image, which serves as a gestalt  of the infant's emerging perceptions of selfhood, but because the image of a unified body does not correspond with the underdeveloped infant's physical vulnerability and weakness, this imago is established as an ideal- I toward which the subject will perpetually strive throughout his or her life.

For Lacan, the mirror stage establishes the ego as fundamentally dependent upon external objects, on an other. As the so-called "individual" matures and enters into social relations through language, this "other" will be elaborated within social and linguistic frameworks that will give each subject's personality (and his or her neuroses and other psychic disturbances) its particular characteristics."

http://www.english.hawaii.edu/criticalink/lacan/  

To simplify, when babies see themselves in a mirror  they identify themselves as I. The baby identifies with the image. 

This can be applied to media; people see a representation of a character or another person, they identify with certain aspects of that person and so strive to be like the represented character.

Althusser

Louis Althusser builds on the work of Jacques Lacan to understand the way ideology functions in society. He thus moves away from the earlier Marxist understanding of ideology. In the earlier model, ideology was believed to create what was termed "false consciousness," a false understanding of the way the world functioned (for example, the suppression of the fact that the products we purchase on the open market are, in fact, the result of the exploitation of laborers). Althusser explains that for Marx "Ideology is [...] thought as an imaginary construction whose status is exactly like the theoretical status of the dream among writers before Freud. For those writers, the dream was the purely imaginary, i.e. null, result of the 'day's residues'" (Lenin 108). Althusser, by contrast, approximates ideology to Lacan's understanding of "reality," the world we construct around us after our entrance into the symbolic order. (See the Lacan module on the structure of the psyche.) For Althusser, as for Lacan, it is impossible to access the "Real conditions of existence" due to our reliance on language; however, through a rigorous"scientific" approach to society, economics, and history, we can come close to perceiving if not those "Real conditions" at least the ways that we are inscribed in ideology by complex processes of recognition. Althusser's understanding of ideology has in turn influenced a number of important Marxist thinkers, including Chantalle Mouffe, Ernesto Laclau, Slavoj Zizek, and Fredric Jameson. (See, for comparison, the Jameson module on ideology.)
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/marxism/modules/althusserideology.html


He discussed ideology in his work looking at the way in which people lose their individuality and became subjects based on ideological views. Ideology represents the imaginary relationships of individuals to their  real conditions of existence. this means that he believed that ideologies are circulated by agencies e.g. media and help to construct people's identities; but because this is so subtle and covert members of society don't realise what is happening.  He thought that we are controlled by the ruling class. Their ideas of what's wrong or right, what we should and shouldn't do is inflicted upon us inevitably brain washing us until we believe that these ideas are the way of life. This can also explain why there are pre-defined ideas about gender,class, ethnicity and sexuality. This can be seen in soaps as we can easily categorise characters.

Gramsci

In Gramsci's view, however, there is not in any sense a single dominant class, but, rather, a shifting and unstable alliance of different social classes. The earlier notion of a dominant ideology is replaced by the idea of a field of dominant discourses, unstable and temporary. From this point of view, the media are seen as the place of competition between competing social forces rather than simply as a channel for the dominant ideology. According to Gramsci's view there are on the one hand the dominant classes who seek to contain and incorporate all thought and behaviour within the terms and limits they set in accordance with their interests. On the other hand there are the dominated or subordinate classes who attempt to maintain and to further the validity and effectiveness of their own definitions of reality. There is therefore a continuing struggle for dominance between the definitions of reality (or ideologies) which serve the interests of the ruling classes and those which are held by other groups in society. Culture, according to this view, is seen as the product of a much more vigorous struggle than is suggested in, for example, Althusser's view of ideology. Cultural domination arises from a complex play of negotiations, alignments and realignments within society.
https://faculty.washington.edu/mlg/courses/definitions/hegemony.html

The dynamic of a society can only be understood in terms of a system where the dominant ideas are formulated by the ruling class to secure its control over the working class. The latter, exploited by the former, will eventually try to change this situation (through revolution), producing its own ideas as well as its own industrial and political organisation. Upper classes pretend what they did was for the good of everyone and as the lower society had no other evidence to prove otherwise they believed what the upper classes said.

Some Girls

Some Girls focuses on four 16-year-old schoolgirls – their lives, loves, and mundane teenager preoccupations, including: school, boyfriends, careers and sex. They live within the same housing estate in South London, and attend the same local school, where they all play for the demoralised football team.

The chief protagonist, Viva Bennett (Adedayo), aims to "stay motivated" with her A levels, in an ambition to become a celebrity child psychologist, on Living TV – meanwhile, she psycho-analyses her friends. Viva lives with firefighter-dad Rob (Salmon), her sex-obsessed younger brother, Jamie (Nathan Bryon), and her stepmother – Anna Hitchcock (Wells), a New Zealander who also happens to be an unsympathetic PE teacher and football coach, at the girls' school – "Bitchcock".^[4]

Viva and her close friends' conversation spans history homework to their life goals, and they comprise:

• Holli Vavasour (Jonas), who is prone to violent but entertaining outbursts, and looks after her younger siblings, with Viva as a mother-figure (since her own is absent).
• Saz Kaur (Dhillon), an up-tight maths geek from a traditional British Punjabi/Sikh family, with a cynical but funny view of life.
• Amber Dean (Felgate), a well-meaning but gullible and dim blonde, who is obsessed with boyfriends.

(Synopsis form Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Girls_(TV_series)

We have studied episodes of some girls four our media written exam, as well as other tv shows and movies. I believe that "Some Girls" has a variety of topics to write about and would help to make a successful essay.

Youth Culture in TV

Present 

• Hollyoaks 
• Inbetweeners 
• Keeping up with the Kardashians 
• Teen wolf 
• Vampire diaries 
• Misfits
• Fresh meat 
• Glee
• Youngers
• Some girls 
• Game of Thrones

History

• Swallows and Amazons (1974) : white, middle class, adventure/ fun. "young".
• Grange Hill (1976): working class, mixed race, attitude, comprehensive school, pregnancy, drug abuse, racism, rape, bullying, sexuality etc. in London,
• Early days : white middle class
• Byker Grove (1990) : Newcastle, youth clubs, issue based drama, not as "hard hitting" as Grange hill.

Hypodermic Needle Theory

History and Orientation

The "hypodermic needle theory" implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences. The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful influence on behavior change.

Several factors contributed to this "strong effects" theory of communication, including:

- the fast rise and popularization of radio and television

- the emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda

- the Payne Fund studies of the 1930s, which focused on the impact of motion pictures on children, and

- Hitler's monopolization of the mass media during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi party

Core Assumptions and Statements

The theory suggests that the mass media could influence a very large group of people directly and uniformly by ‘shooting’ or ‘injecting’ them with appropriate messages designed to trigger a desired response.

Both images used to express this theory (a bullet and a needle) suggest a powerful and direct flow of information from the sender to the receiver. The bullet theory graphically suggests that the message is a bullet, fired from the "media gun" into the viewer's "head". With similarly emotive imagery the hypodermic needle model suggests that media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. They express the view that the media is a dangerous means of communicating an idea because the receiver or audience is powerless to resist the impact of the message. There is no escape from the effect of the message in these models. The population is seen as a sitting duck. People are seen as passive and are seen as having a lot of media material "shot" at them. People end up thinking what they are told because there is no other source of information.

New assessments that the Magic Bullet Theory was not accurate came out of election studies in "The People's Choice,"(Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet, 1944/1968). The project was conducted during the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 to determine voting patterns and the relationship between the media and political behavior. The majority of people remained untouched by the propaganda; interpersonal outlets brought more influence than the media. The effects of the campaign were not all-powerful to where they persuaded helpless audiences uniformly and directly, which is the very definition of what the magic bullet theory does. As focus group testing, questionnaires, and other methods of marketing effectiveness testing came into widespread use; and as more interactive forms of media (e.g.: internet, radio call-in shows, etc.) became available, the magic bullet theory was replaced by a variety of other, more instrumental models, like the two step of flow theory and diffusion of innovations theory.

( https://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20Clusters/Mass%20Media/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory/  )

Fast Girls

We have studied Fast Girls as part of our coursework. This is one of the option we have to write about in our exam.  I found I could write about gender, social class, ethnicity  and age.

Attack The Block

My Brother The Devil

A Taste of honey

Quadrafinia

moral panic definition

An instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem regarded as threatening the moral standards of society:the moral panic about ‘the tide of filth’ polluting our land
The term moral panic has been widely adopted both by the mass media and in everyday usage to refer to the exaggerated social reaction caused by the activities of particular groups and/or individuals. Such activities are invariably seen (at the time at least) as major social concerns and the media led reaction magnifies and widens the ‘panic’ surrounding them. This review starts by considering Stan Cohen’s seminal work on and analysis of moral panics – indeed it was his initial research in the early 1970s that popularized the term itself – and looks at Jock Young’s almost contemporaneous study of drug users. More recent studies that have reflected on and attempted to refine Cohen’s work, including Young’s revisiting of the notion that moral panics ‘translate fantasy into reality’, are highlighted as is the relationship between ‘signal crimes’ (Innes 2003 and 2004) and moral panics. It then considers some historical and contemporary examples of moral panics surrounding some quite different activities (and perpetrators of them) – in particular, garotting in mid Victorian England, ‘hoodies’ and paedophilia. The review concludes that there are key elements to moral panics and that these panics are the result of real events and actual behaviour and cannot be dismissed as myths.  http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/marsh_melville_moral_panics_and_the_british_media_march_2011.pdf

What makes up a youth culture film?

There are a few basic topics that can come up in a film to create a youth culture film. The film dose not need all of these topics but dose include a few.

• Struggles with parents- the child cant really on their parents, parents are not involved in their life's, not work/ drunk parents.

• Bad language- slang, swearing etc

• Romance/ love- relationships.

• Sex exploration- can lead to underage pregnancy.

• Partying- drugs and alcohol.

• Confrontation/ rivalry- gangs and violence between groups or others.

• Stereotype of social groups- teenagers put into certain groups because of how they act, look or speak.

• Anger/ angst.- towards others or parents.

Examples of youth culture films.

Here is a list of the youth culture films we came up with in class. These were off the top of our head; there are sure to be many more examples other than these.

• Breakfast club
• Ferris Bueller's day off
• Super Bad
• Mean Girls
• John Tucker must die
• She's the man
•  Angus thongs and perfect snogging
• Twilight
• Harry Potter
• American pie
• Submarine
• Pitch Perfect
• Grease
• St Elmo's fire
• Rebel without a cause
• Starter for 10
• Pretty in Pink
• St Trinian's
• Youth novel
• Legally blond
• Easy A

Theorists

Gramsci

He developed the concept of cultural hegemony } social class (middle class) dominate society by : their life  = normal, natural and common sense.

Giroux (1997)

• Media representations youths = empty category.
• DUE to media = ADULTS (no teenagers).
• Means DOES NOT reflect reality of teenagers.

Acland (1995)

• Media representations- delinquent youths = enhance hegemony.
• Done by ideal of 'NORM' adult and youth behavior = contrast deviant youth behavior               = unacceptable.

Hebdige (1979)

• Studies British youth subcultures (late 1970's).
• Focused on the reality of youth cultures.
• Subcultures = youths to express themselves and to challenge hegemony ( mostly through style).

Cohen (1972)

• Studied media response to mods and rockers riot (60's).
• Time 'folk devils' emerge in society.
• Reflect anxieties at the time = causing moral panic to occur.

Greg Philo

• Argues that } contemporary 'hoodie cinema' reflects middle class anxiety about the threat of the working class.

Gerbner

• studied the effect of television} perception of crime.
• Found} watched loads of TV= overestimate crime (mean world syndrome)
• News reports/ TV dramas/ films = lots of crime = influence perception of the world (CULTIVATION THEORY)

Final details

Locations

office _ my house 
woods -Danis house
Oxford- Woodstock 

Props

bag
phone
earphones

Costumes

jeans and sweatshirt
bag
french plait
hoodie
converse 

Actors

ourselves

Similar films

Questionnaire results

The results where put into survey monkey to be organised them into graphs that can be easily read.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-5Z8WV9S2/

This allowed us to understand who our audience is most likely to be.
The people we interviewed where mostly 16-20 and male.
The favorite film types where  action, adventure and comedy. Horror was in the middle of the results.
no horrors where favorite films.
This showed us how much More specific the horror genre was in the group of 15 that where questioned.

Audience research

Audience research

1.      Age

0-10               11-15               16-20               21-25               26-30               31-35            36+

2.      Gender

                     Female                    male

3.      What is your preferred genre of films (you may tick more than one box)

Action
Adventure
Comedy
Crime and gangster
Drama
Historical
Horror
Musical
Science fiction
War
Western

4.      What’s your favorite film? ______________________________

5.      How often a week do you watch movies on average (time=hours)

0         0-1         1-2         2-3         3-4         5-6         6-7          7-8         8-9         9-10         10+

6.      How often do you watch short films

Never                                             I've watched a few                              watch them 

frequently 

Final Storyboard

In this second storyboard we have included more detail into making it. we included short written descriptions, scene and shot numbers. this helps us for organisation and helps us to outline what we need to film. We needed to ensure the readers understood that it was the authors story that was being shown we did this by alternating between the author and the "story characters" we also included a narration of events by the author.

Script (unfinished)

SCRIPT 

She could hear the crunching of the gravel underneath her feet as she walked home from wok in the twilight. She began to feel the cold splatter of raindrops on her face and felt her long brunette hair dampen. quickening her pace, she continued on her journey home.

As she turned a corner she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as the feeling of being watched washed over her. pushing away he feeling she carried on her trek home.

As she passed the half way point home, the feeling of being followed persisted. whilst crossing he road she peered over her shoulder only to see a man innocently entering the butcher shop. shaking her head at her paranoia she carried on her way.

Coming upon the end of her destination she spots he man from the butcher shop headed in her direction in a car mirror. a shiver travels down her spine and she quickens her pace further.

Realizing the stranger is closer than before she begins to run. noticing she has spotted him, he begins to chase her. she turns around a sharp corner in the hope f loosing him but he continues to pursue her. Panic strikes and she decides to sprint for ( a hiding place)....

Editing

When our next lesson arrived we started to piece together the parts that we had filmed. This was slightly difficult as we obviously did not have all pieces filmed yet and had to estimate where some pieces would be. These can all easily be moved around when we have more scenes filmed. We plan to film the chase scene/ death scene next when available. For the authors character that is killed, I will be used and my brother has agreed to be the " stalker" the kills me.  Including another person in our work allows us to experience some form of directing although it also means that we have more of a scheduled to work around. This just means we have to organize ourselves better than before.

First session filming

At our first session filming we did a lot of the author scenes. this was set in an office. we used the office at my house for this scene. As the authors office is the first setting/ location in our short film. we used a zoom to create a panning effect. We could not used an actual pan effect as planned as the driveway surrounding the office window is loose gravel, meaning that we could not get a decent shot as the camera would have been shake.




Our original plan was to look through the window to the author but this was changed to be able to actually open the window and film through that. This was because we could not look through the window due to the reflection the light. By going through the actual window we managed to bypass the problem.




Once through the window we used various shots to show what the author was doing. At this point we where not just filming the beginning sequence shots but some of the middle and end shots as well. Filming them all at the same time helped the continuity of the shot story as none of the setting or props would have changed. the authors clothes where also all the same.



When we  started the editing we realized a few of our shots may have to be re done to be more effective and to fit in better with the flow of the story. We have yet to do this but will most likley do it in the near future.

Shot list

All the shots used are in chronological order.

We have made a short list. This is so that we have an idea of what shots we wanted to get in each scene. This is effective because when we do some filming it will give a starting point of what we need to do.  This will hep speed up the production and it might also inspire different shot that we could do. This is also dependent on the location we end up using as it may not have the space to allow certain shots.

Scene 1

• Dolly shot through window 
• Over shoulder shot of laptop 
• Close up of screen 
• Medium shot of window/rain 
• Long shot of side of writer/laptop 
• Medium shot of dog zoom out to see women walking down street (zoom to long shot)

Scene 2

• Close up of feet 
• Birds-eye view shot of walking 
• Worms eye of facial expression  
• Dutch angle of stalker around the corner (camera stays still while the actors move)
• Cuts back to writer (jump cut)
• Medium shot of writer 
• Point of view shot of laptop typing (narration)
• Woman sees stalker in car mirror (extreme close up of car mirror) 
• Long shot of shop window with stalker reflection 
• Low angle shot of them running 

Scene 3 

• High angle of running to hide 
• Point of view shot looking round from hiding place 
• Close up of her hiding, stalker comes into frame 
• Medium shot of side of writer 
• See writer type something 
• Stalker lunges directly for the camera, close up 
• Extreme close up of laptop closing 
• Long shot of getting into bed 
• Close up of the light switch (turning light off)

Scene 4

• Making breakfast, medium shot
• High angle of picking up newspaper 
• Reads headline, close up of face
• Drops glass, close up 
• Watch glass smash 
• Tight shot of headline
• Black out  

Although shot lists and our story line look very similar and are very similar it gives us something more to rely on when we are filming. it gives more detail to our production that saves time when we are actually filming. we don't have to think about what we want to do we can just do it.

Storyline

What happens in chronological order. This is a heavily detailed list of events.

Scene 1:

• Dolly shot through window of writer opening laptop and starting to write 
• Inside the house writing 'the pitter patter of rain'
• Close up up of the screen to see writing, 
• Shot of the window to see the rain start. 
• Another shot of writer, narrator says there "a dog barks at a tree" 
• Cut to shot of dog barking at a tree in a park

Scene 2:

•  Zooms out to a woman walking by the park 
• (Lots of different shot of the women walking)
• See a person in the background following her
• Stalker walking (over shoulder shot)
• Cuts back to the writer (point of view shot)
• We see the woman spot the stalker (looking in a car mirror)
• Women starts to run -beginning to chase
• (Lots of shot of chase)

Scene 3:

• Writer doesn't know what to write 
• Types something (and death grips the poor innocent girl) audience unable to see what she types
• Cut to killer lunging 
• Back to writer going to bed

Scene 4:

• Next day
• Getting breakfast 
• Goes to grab newspaper
• Sees the front page