Qualitative Research: questionnaire focus group Quantitive Research: Clip board questionnaire
Audience and groups:
Group A:
Doctors
Scientists
Lawyers
Well paid professionals
Group B:
Teachers
Middle management
Fairly well paid professionals
Group C1:
Junior management
Bank clerks
Nurses
'White collar' professions
Group C2:
Electricians
Plumbers
Carpenters
'Blue collar' professionals
Group D:
Manual workers such as;
Drivers
Post sorters
Group E:
Students
Unemployed
Pensioners
Audience Engagement: This describes how an audience interacts with a media text. Different people react in different ways to the same text.
Audience Expectations: These are the ideas the audience have in advance of seeing a media text. This particularly applies to genre pieces. Don't forget producers continually play with or shatter audiences expectations.
New sources of technology, such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, a allow audiences to access clips of films anywhere in the world at any point the audience wishes to do so. This therefore widens the range as to the size of the audience that a film can attract.
Old Technology
Old sources of technology, such as radio and film tapes, only allowed the audiences to either see or hear the film whenever it was being shown at a theatre or cinema, or being played/broadcasted over the radio, which will narrow the audience that the film is able to reach.
Niche media is known as narrowcasting and it is information aimed at a narrow audience such as a film addressed to a smaller group of people. An example of niche media would be How it's made, as it would only really attract people interested in the manufacturing of products.
Mass media is information addressed to a large number of people. An example of mass media would be Coronation Street, as it attracts a wide range of audience.
Katz and Blumler Theory
Katz and Blumler discovered from researching into audiences that there were three main elements that provided audiences with the pleasure of watching films. These three elements where;
Information
Using sources such as newspapers to retrieve information about current events which satisfies curiosity gaining a sense of security through knowledge.
Personal Identity
Reinforcement for personal values, this is to find models of behaviour, insight into one's self. For example Twitter can reinforce your own values by only following that certain criteria in which you are relating to.
Integration and Social interaction
Insight into circumstances of others; social empathy, identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging, interaction, enabling one to connect with family, friends and society. For example someone may tune into a TV drama so that they can relate and reinforce into their own lifestyle.
Act 1: is the first act of the film, usually is the first section of the film. Act 1 starts and sets up the film, there is a point which introduces the characters and lets the audience see what type of character they are and how they act. The main character has a target to reach, this turns out to be the main focus of the film. An incidentgets the plot of the film started halfway through the first act. Act 2: is the second act of the film, it takes up the last half of the film. In act 2 there are problems, which prevent the main character from achieving what they need to. The first Culmination is just before halfway through the film, the main character almost reaches their target. However a problem usually occurs At the midpoint the main character reaches their weakest and lowest point in the film as they seem too far away from reaching their target. Act 3: is the final act of the film, this is the final section of the film. The climax is when the plot of the film reaches its biggest tension between the two opposite sides.
Narrative is the order in which a film is told. In terms of Media and films narrative is the coherence/organisation of media texts (eg. the story). The narrative is needed to make sense of things. We connect events and make interpretations based on those connections. Narrative is correlated with genre as some genres have typical story-lines.
Narrative Enigmas
The purpose of this engages audience attention, maintains curiosity and interest within the narrative chain of cause and effect. (It is essential that you create enigma when making your own Opening Title Sequence - OTS)
Difference Between Narrative Story and Narrative PlotsA narrative story is what happens in the film which includes a backstory as well as those projected the story whereas a narrative plot is the order in which the story is told.
For example the series of events from a narrative story could be in this order:
Film genres are identifiable types, categories, classifications or groups of films that have similar techniques or conventions such as;
content
subject matter
structures
themes
mood
period
plot
settings
recurring icons
stock characters
narrative events
situations
motifs
styles
props
stars
Genres change and develop because of changes in the period in which the genre is being produced. Genres have also changed overtime with the introduction of brand new technology which allows a film to create new features.
Neale (2003) points out that generic norms and conventions may be recognized and understood by audiences, readers and viewers. Genre frames audience expectations, whereby viewers bring a set of assumptions with them and anticipate that these will somehow be met in the viewing experience, this brings audience pleasure. The demands of commercial practices necessitate that generic forms must somehow ‘guarantee meaning and pleasure’ in order to locate and retain a sizeable audience to justify a return on substantial investment. Steve Neale states that 'genres are instances of repetition and difference' and 'genres are not systems, they are processes of systemisation'. He also say's that, definitions of genre are historically relative and are therefore historically specific. Believed that there was a system of expectation and that by using own knowledge and applying conventions of the genre, the audience should be able to infer the narrative and storyline of the music video. He also declares that difference is essential to the economy of genre; mere repetition would not attract the audience.
Hybrid Genre
Ahybridgenre occurs when an author or other creative professional attempts to merge two or more genres.
Sub genre
A sub-genre is a sub-category of a specific genre.
A thriller is a novel, play, or film with an exciting plot, typically involving crime or espionage. A thriller provides the sudden rush of emotions, excitement, and exhilaration that drive the narrative, sometimes subtly with peaks and lulls, sometimes at a constant, breakneck pace. It keeps the audience on the "edge of their seats", akin to a sensation of hanging from a cliff, as the plot builds towards a climax. Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, and cliff hangers are used extensively.
The link aboveis really useful because it gives an in depth description of what a thriller movie is. Within the link it gives good examples of why an audience may want to watch a thriller and why they are intriguing. A good example of this is 'Audiences went to the cinema not simply to see but also to feel something which they would not ordinarily experience in real life.'
A good example of a modern thriller is The Purge Anarchy. The Purge is when one night a year, all crime including murder is legal for 12 hours. A man heads out into the chaos, intent on killing thugs as revenge for his son's death, but ends up rescuing a stranded couple being followed by a group of people hunting them down.
The men in thrillers, particularly The Purge, are portrayed as mentally and physically strong characters. They are shown as leaders/protectors of the group in The Purge, by doing this the men put themselves in danger to try and protect the women in the group.
Each man in the group stereotypically tries to be the alpha male of the group, which therefore creates competition between each of the males as to who can be the alpha male. The males are often shown to be as they are in control of the situation. Men tend to be less emotional than women.
Male characters are often seen as the “lone hero”, and have a lot of independence. This is also true of male antagonists, who are often portrayed as isolated but have power.
The setting of the scene is late at night in an urban city with no police around, so the males have to protect everyone they are with.
All members of the group are able and the same age, however as the group advances throughout the film some members become less abled when they are injured.
One of males in the group is in a relationship with one of the women in the group and he has to protect her from everybody else.
The males are of white race, which in America can be portrayed as the 'superior' or wealthier race.
Women in Thrillers (The Purge Anarchy)
Women in thriller and horror films often portray a variety of roles, younger females tend to have a sense of purity and innocence, and however older women can be portrayed as having great sexual appeal to the male members of the group.
Women in thriller and horror films are usually portrayed as being passive and dependent upon men. Women usually are not the protagonist, or feature any characteristics that would help to solve the issue, such as intelligence. The women members of the group in The Purge are often following the men and at the back of the group.
One of women in the group is in a relationship with one of the men in the group and she follows him to stop herself from being hurt and so she feels safer. Another pair in the group are mother and daughter and the mother is portrayed as the stronger character who has to protect the daughter.
The setting of the scene is late at night in an urban city with no police around, so the women have to follow the men in order for themselves to feel protected and safe.
All members of the group are able and the same age, however as the group advances throughout the film some members become less abled when they are injured.
The mother and daughter in The Purge are of black race, which is considered as the less superior race, and they are portrayed as less wealthy/lower class compared to the white members of the group.
We met the brief as we included all of the required shot techniques and we filmed everything that was required in the brief, which included a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character with whom he or she exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.
In the preliminary task we demonstrated match on action well, with the clip of Henry opening the door and the close up shot of the door handle moving. We also demonstrated shot reverse shot well by going from the shot behind Josh's shoulder, to behind Henry's shoulder as they took it in turns to speak. We also demonstrated the 180 degree rule when Henry walks towards the table after coming through the door he still appears on the right side of the frame and we did not cross the 180 degree line.
At first I found this task difficult as it was hard to get the camera in the right place to get a good shot without filming to high/low or without filming too close up to each character. It was also difficult trying not to get too much background into the shot compared to the amount/size of the person in the shot. Finally it was difficult to get the characters head in the correct position inside the rule of thirds.
We had an issue with filming as we had to re-film parts of the task due to losing some footage, we could not re-film the same footage straight away because the characters had different clothing on, so continuity editing would not have been achieved. However, we overcame this by restarting our filming. We managed to replicate the footage we had before as well as add some new parts, which improved our clip from the previous footage we had.
By creating this task I have learnt how to use the editing software Premier Pro. I now know how to, edit clips to make sure that the footage runs smoothly with no jumping from scene to scene, import video clips, import sound, add titles and how to export and upload videos to YouTube directly from Premier Pro. I will look more closely at where everything in the shot is positioned when it comes to filming again so the rule of thirds is applied in each scene and so that the correct amount of character is in the shot.
