Theory Theory Theory !

Firstly, in the introductory lesson with Ms Brown, we had to summarise a favourite film of ours and mine was Scott Pilgrim vs the World.
This film is based on a graphic novel series by Brian Lee O'Malley and it is a geeky comedy with comic book elements. It is like a romantic comedy as the main character, Scott, played by Micheal Cera, has to defeat seven evil exes to win his girl of his dream's heart, Ramona, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

We then list the Key Concepts, which are:
*Language - especially visual, including dialogue;
*Institutions - people involved in advertising, sound, etc.
*Audience - the target audience of a certain media;
*Representation - stereotypes, meanings, etc.

We can remember these Key Concepts by remembering 'LIAR' !

We also did a stereotype exercise, where we were given a character and put it in a spider diagram. My character was 'baby' and I've listed out typical characteristics like:
-needy
-cute
-troublesome
-bald
-easily influenced
etc.

Finally, we finished this lesson by watching and analysing the first episode of The Body Farm.
The Body Farm is a British forensic crime drama about a group of forensic scientists solving crime. It is said to be a spin off from another TV series Waking The Dead.

My homework was to write down my initial thoughts of The Body Farm and to watch another British drama - I chose to watch an episode of Holby City.

Preliminary Exercise - Continuity Task (so far!)

'Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom s/he then exchanged a couple of line of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule'

Firstly, I have planned out my task on paper - noted down what I want to film.
This piece of film will set in my dining room at home, with natural lighting coming from the window and I will have my younger brother and older sister as my main characters. The main props that I will have my characters to use will be a school bag with a exercise book from school in it , a chair and a newspaper.

I have also created a storyboard of three pages long (four frames on each page), of what I want to film.
In the first frame, I'd have a close up on the brother's hand as he opens his bedroom door. This will be shot from his point of view. Here we'll have a sound of the door opening.

Within the second frame, we still see the shot from his point of view and we see the sister on the other side of the room reading a newspaper and she glances at him then back to her paper again.

In the third shot, we see from the sister's POV, reading the newspaper/ Then she hears the door opening.

The fourth frame, the sister glances at the brother briefly then back to her newspaper.

In the fifth frame, we see from the brother's POV walk towards the sister and then sits down on the chair opposite her.

The sixth frame, we see a 'two-shot' where we see both charaters on the side. The brother sits down and goes into his bag to get his exercise book out. He then starts looking through the book. The sound of paper rustling and bag zipping.

In the seventh frame, still in two-shot, the first piece of dialogue is spoken by the sister.
Sister: So, little brother, how was your day at school today?
[This shot will now change to the 180-degree rule shot, where the camera is angled at the siter as she speaks]

The eighth frame, we now go into the 180-degree rule and we see an angle of the brother as he replies: "Oh, nothing much, just the usual."

The ninth frame, we see from the brother's POV as we see the sister reply: "Ah, alright. So what have you got there?"

The tenth frame, the shot then goes to tow-shot and the brother says: "Just some English homework. Need to get it done by tomorrow. Oh, I forgotten my pen!"

In the eleventh frame, from the sister's POV, she sees the brother walk back to his room.

Finally, in the twelvth frame, we see the brother walk towards the camera into his bedroom and see the sister in the background continue reading her newspaper.

'The Media Student's Book' fifth edition

I have found this textbook very interesting and useful as it contains up-to-date media-related subjects. Therefore, this textbook also let the reader know how the media changes rapidly in a space of a couple of years (internet , phones)

"Writing this edition we've been even more aware of huge recent changes in the media - and the other - worlds that we all navigate."

Whilst I have been reading through a good ten or so pages into the textbook, I've quickly learnt and now think a little differently about the media: on page fifteen of this textbook, "Viewers often assume that 'blurring' shows a photo or shot is 'truthful-because-not-polished-looking'.

It continues to explain that this is partly because of photojournalism and this blurry type of photo is called 'snatched' -when the image is shown not posed because of the poor lighting etc. But a 'snatched' photo could also be a hoax of some kind or a fake as quoted from the textbook: "as in several notorious (celluloid) examples of 'arranged' war footage..."