2013 Post 17- Media Language: Camera

Media language explores the way in which the meaning of a media text is conveyed to the audience, this is through signs and symbols inferred by the audience in way the scene is set up and filmed, which are polysemic, meaning that they are open to many interpretations. Media text meanings can be formed in two different ways, how the signs and symbols are understood and the cultural background of the viewer.

Media language includes the way in which meaning comes across through the camera, such as shot size and camera angle. The Director has control over selecting the shots to help the audience unravel the meaning of a scene, focusing on the camerawork and lighting which is known as the cinematography.

To further understand media language I looked at the camerawork in a short drama film called ‘Codename: Simon’, by doing this I could form an idea of what techniques I could incorporate into our drama film.

Jibbing shot travelling up a character, they are the main focus and mysterious as the audience cannot see their face to form an identity. The camera comes to rest on a wide shot of a child, the audience realises that the astronaut is actually a cut-out and is surprised by the young child that is the focal centre of attention on the screen.

 

The camera is tilted in this scene from the short drama film ‘Vacuity’,(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDbm4hpVs58) this disorientates the audience. The viewer is encouraged to be confused just like the character on screen, and they can gain an understanding of what is happening on scene as the situation is made clear to them.

This wide shot is used in the short drama film ‘Husky’(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btbsueqSviA)  to convey the man’s isolation; he sits at the end of the bench, furthest from the camera and is thus more detached from the audience. There is a lot of empty space visible in this shot, reinforcing how alone he is, and because only his back can be seen he appears mysterious and is the sole focus of attention.

For our short film, a wide shot would be effective at distancing our main character from others and making him stand out. As well as this, a wide close up can have the effect of disorientating the viewer and providing a new perspective on our main character.

2013 Post 16- Representations of Women

I also looked at the representation of women in Drama films, as this is the genre for our short film and representations of gender should be considered. I created a 'Lino canvas' for this post which can be viewed on the link below.

http://linoit.com/users/sabwilkin/canvases/Representations%20of%20Women

2013 Post 15- Representations of Men

In this post I have researched the representations of men in the Drama film genre. I have created my post on Linoit.com as this was a creative way for me to gather my information and present it in a visual way.

My 'canvas' for this website can be viewed on the link below:
http://linoit.com/users/sabwilkin/canvases/Representation%20of%20men

2013 Post 14A- Audience Research Methods

Research methods

Audience research is highly important for institutions to predict audience expectations, to see if they will engage with their media texts. BARB provides official viewing figures for UK television audiences by monitoring viewing habits, Box office results are most often used for films and ABC measures data across a range of media platforms. New media is also increasingly used for predicting today’s fragmented audience, social networking sites such as Twitter trends can be tracked, Youtube views and online forum comments to gain insight into what is popular with an audience.

Quantitative research: Factual research like questionnaires and closed questions for gathering data, I have used this before when gathering audience feedback.

Qualitative research: More open questions for interviews and focus groups, this is useful for me to shape my text to fit audience preferences.

2013 Post 14- Audience Postioning

Audience reception theory

By Stuart Hall in the 1970s, he suggests that when a producer creates a media text it is encoded with meanings or messages that they wish to convey to the audience, whom will then hopefully decode it correctly to understand.

He identified three types of audience decodings:

Dominant- Audience decodes the message as producer desired and agrees

Negotiated- Audience accepts, rejects and/or considers the meaning of a text according to previously held views, often contradictory and includes their own views

Oppositional- Audience understand message but reject it due to political, cultural or ideological reasons, creating their own meaning

A film producer will use familiar codes and conventions, and audience expectations of aspects of genre and stars, to position an audience to agree with a text. This is known as ‘audience placement’ which is used to target an audience and make them believe the text is made ‘for them’. This can incorporate aspects of audience foreknowledge, stereotypes and conventions that an audience may already be familiar with, and audience identification wherein viewers are able to connect to a text if it expresses their lifestyles or attitudes.

Audience Positioning Techniques

Shot reverse shot

• Shot reverse shots are when the camera alternates between two characters to show their building relationship to the audience. This is usually during a conversation so the camera acts as a 'third character'.

• Reaction Shots reveal a character's reaction, usually in an extreme close-up, for the audience to identify an expression they can relate to.

• Point-of-View shots have the camera adopt the position of a character, showing the audience whatever that character sees through their eyes which directly involves them.

 

2013 Post 13- Film Rating

My group and I have assessed the content of our film against the BBFC’s age ratings to determine what classification may be awarded for our work. We were at first conflicted on whether it would be a 12A or a PG rating, as our film fits within both.

According to the BBFC, films classified as being suitable for 12 year olds and over are rated 12A, and only the video release is certified as a 12, there is no lower age limit for this rating. The ‘A’ is advisory for parents, they can decide to bring younger children with them to view a film of this rating if they desire, but content may be deemed unsuitable for the younger years.

The overall tone of a film can be the deciding factor that alters a 12A certification, our film’s tone could be seen as somewhat dark and may distress children under 12, which is why my group and I are considering the rating to be a 12A.

Although, our film will not contain excessive uses of strong language, and there will be nothing discriminative or sexual which fits within the 12A classification rather than a ‘15’ or higher, despite our initial target audience being of similar age to the characters in the film, 16 and older. Moderate violence is allowed within this film rating, as long as there is no heavy focus on detail and is justified by context; however there will be no aggressive physical violence in our film that may upset younger viewers, thus, overall our film would be more accepted within a PG film rating.

A PG rating stands for Parental Guidance, inferring that a film is acceptable for general viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for younger children so they should be accompanied by an adult. Parents have the choice to decide whether to allow their child to view a film or not, but the work itself should not be unsuitable for a child around 8 years.

My group and I initially decided to make our film for teenagers around 16 and older, not for a PG rated audience. However, not all films awarded with this classification have been designed for this ‘PG’ audience, ‘The Artist’ for example is a film enjoyed mostly by adults and would have been rated a ‘U’ if not for a scene of mild threat that increased the rating to a ‘PG’.  In our film the main character slowly spirals into madness, showing signs of anxiety and behaviour that may disturb very young viewers, thus our classification would not fit under the ‘U’ rating but the ‘PG’.

Further information on why 'The Artist' was classified as 'PG' can be found here, on the BBFC website: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/artist-2011

2013 Post 12- Audience Reception

During the planning of any media text the audience is always one of the most crucial factors, as they are how institutions are to make the majority of their profit.

I have looked at the Katz and Blumler theory of media Uses and Gratification, it focuses on how audience shape media than vice versa, suggesting that audiences take a more active role in involving media, like films, into their lives. People use media to fill certain gratifications, so types of media like the mass are competitive over gaining audience gratification, examples of these can be seen below:

• Information: Films used for satisfying audience curiosity, and keeping them informed, for example from films based on true stories.
• Personal Identity: For reinforcing models of behaviour and an audience can find out what interests them and narrow their viewing, to a particular type of genre for example. Our short film will be a 'Drama' genre, thus reaching a more niche audience as many mass films nowadays are hybrids of this genre, and young audiences can relate to the teenagers in our film.
• Integration and Social Interaction: For social empathy, interaction and connecting with others; films can be discussed and shared amongst people for these gratifications. Our short film could gratify social interaction as the young audience can socialised with friends/family for further understanding.

This website provides further information of the Uses and Gratification theory: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Communication_Theory/Uses_and_Gratifications

Technology Impact on Audiences

-Old media, TV/Print/Radio, has to work harder to maintain audience numbers. Newspapers continue making profit by printing less copies and switching to online distribution to reduce production costs.

-Digital technology has made audience fragmented, dividing them into smaller groups which are harder to define. To continue making profit, magazines, for example, are often distributed in hardcopies as well as online to reach as many people as possible, although this can bring forth the issue of piracy which affects the numbers of their audience. Search engines and websites also gain money from advertisers by carefully constructing ads to target specific audiences.

Audiences are divided into categories based on social class known as Demographics; producers being particularly interested in audience:

• Income/Status
• Age
• Gender
• Race
• Location

These shape media texts to particular groups by their defined viewing habits, e.g Horror genre films today are known to be most popular with young audiences. According to the demographic group table below that I created, our short film would be shaped for Group E, particularly students as they can relate the most with our teenage characters.

Group letter	Income boundaries
A	Well-paid professionals e.g. Doctors/Scientist
B	Fairly well-paid professionals e.g. Teachers
C1	‘White Collar’ professions e.g. Nurses
C2	‘Blue Collar’ professions e.g. Carpenters
D	Manual workers e.g. Drivers
E	Unemployed, Students, Pensioners

Demographics are often not enough for institutions to tell what an audience desires to see, therefore Psychographic profiles are used. These often refer to stereotypes by classifying specific audiences on their social class, lifestyle and personality characteristics based on the assumption that the media products they consume reflect their lives.

A table showing film psychographics clearly

From the table above I believe our short film would reach the 'aspirers' psychographic as they are typically a younger audience, although our film may also attract 'strugglers' as they may relate to our main character for escapism. The table can be found on this Slideshare that I found very helpful when researching film Demographics and Psychographics:

Demographics and psychographics from BigDproductions

A huge sum of money is also paid on audience research by institutions so that they can be assured that their product will make a profit. This can take the shape of questionnaires, focus groups and pre-film screenings; my group and I will consider creating an animatic of our film storyboard to show to a target audience for feedback, and there is also the opportunity to use sites such as www.surveymonkey.com.