This storyboard shows the youths in its typical ‘stereotypical’ state. Showing this but then later on showing that the interaction between the youth and the police was not in a negative way. Showing this shot first will automatically make the audience think bad things about it, but then once the full video is shown it will emphasise the point that everyone (even people our age) think stereotypically of youths today.
Using the rock climbing wall as the location is to represent the climbing Robert did on his trip. Using a busy, energetic and active location connects the atmosphere and what is being said.
The use of archive footage (photo’s or videos) helps build the atmosphere and makes the story Robert will be telling feel more real (the audience will be connect more with the situations)
I think if the reason we did these shots is apparent to the audience and the intended meaning is accepted then this film should be successful.
three different media objects: one print-based, two television/film/web-based and with a mixture of factual and fictional. Examine them to see how far Todorov’s linear narrative structure and Propp’s notion of character functions and narrative units apply to the different texts. Write a brief description of how each of these character functions and narrative units move the narrative forward through the different stages.
Can you isolate other character functions and/or narrative stages in your media objects that Todorov and Propp did not isolate?Todorov investigated the narrative structure of Hollywood films. He argued that most, if not all, mainstream films were structured around five main stages:
Propp argued it was possible to group characters and their actions into eight character roles (or ‘spheres of action’) who have key functions.
1.hero: who seeks something to compensate for a lack of something else (money, a family etc.). Not necessarily ‘admirable’ or good but the person who carries the events of the story. 2.despatcher: who sends the hero on his way 3.villain: who hinders or is in competition with the hero 4.the false hero 5.donor: who provides an object with magic properties that helps the hero 6.helper: who aids the hero in his quest 7.princess: who acts as the reward for the hero and is the object of the villain’s schemes 8.father: who rewards the hero
EVER AFTER (film)
1 E – Starts off in a happy family everything she could want 2 D – Father re-marries a horrible woman, then dies. 3 R – After a Long time of putting up with them, she realises her step mother has no control over her 4 A – She attempts to reveal her true identity to the prince, but he declines it. 5 D2 – her step mother sells her to a horrible man 6 A2 – She hurts they guy so he lets her leave. 7 EE – She gets her prince and her freedom.
1.hero: Danielle 2.despatcher: The house keepers 3.villain: The Stepmother and step sisters 4.the false hero – N/A 5.donor: Leonardo divinci 6.helper: gustav 7.princess: the prince 8.father: N/A
THE DOMESTIC GODDESS (book)
1 E- She’s a top lawyer who loves her job and is doing very well for herself 2 D – She makes a huge mistake (or so she thought) She runs away and creates a new identity 3 R – She realises that it wasnt her mistake that she was set up 4 A – She goes to the firm to try get her place back and fails 5 EE – People realise she was telling the truth offer her a higher place in the firm but she turns it down for the simple life she’d learnt to love.
1 Hero – Samantha 2. Despatcher – Ketterman 3 Villian – Arthur 4 The False hero – Guy 5 Donor – The Geigers 6 Helper – Nathaniel 7 Princess – The job is the reward that they fight for. 8 Father – The firm
The group work –
““Genre…”
For this week’s task, we had to discuss different genres and the defining characteristics of these genres. For two contrasting genres in different areas, we chose to discus zombie-comedies (Zom-Coms) in the area of film and First person shooters in the area of electronic games.
Characteristics Zombie comedies usually consist of fairly well known comedy actors such as Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in Shaun of the dead and Matthew Horne and James Corden in Lesbian vampire killers, due to their previous works in comedy in film and TV. Usually most of the films in this genre category include quite a lot of gore, however it is clearly fake which adds to the comedy and not taken too seriously. Usually, outragesous weapons are used that would never be used in serious films such as rocket launchers in the cornershop.
In terms of first person shooters, usually the games are based around previous events in war history such as the D-DAY landings as displayed in games such as medal of honor and call of duty games. In quite a lot of current variations of these games social networking is incorporated into these games such as X-box live in order to make the games a lot more interactive.
Brief outline for new object We were then given the task to give a new outline for a media object in one of these genres for which we chose to do a zombie comedy film called “Two pints of Zomberg and a barrell of lead”
The film follows two pub owners who go on a booze run to France and find a new suspiciously cheap brand of larger called “Zomberg” they stock up on huge quantities and take it back to England to sell in their pub. But little do they know, anyone who drinks the larger will turn into zombies…
Subverted conventions and how it may affect audiences In this film, rather than the zombies taking up the majority like what seems to be the main convention of most zombie films, only the minority of the people in the film will become the antagonists due to the larger only being consumed in one small pub, unlike most films of this sort where the zombies are widespread and are the majority of people in the film.
Also the zombies will also be the main characters in this film, which is the opposite of the standard convention of films of this type. So this object will go against the conventions as it is not on the scale of an epidemic like most films in this genre. Secondly, hypothetically this may make more vulnerable and naive audiences paranoid about consuming unknown brands in future as they never know what they might contain. Most people usually shop for known brands these days as they are widely advertised and mediated and feel safe in doing so. “
My individual task.
Post reflections on what have you learnt from this exercise? Name some genre objects you currently consume. How do you think differently about any of them now?
From this task i found that it is difficult to put films into specific genre’s, but also that there are so many genres that split into subgeners which split into further subgenres, the boundaries of genre’s are very loose but each still has conventions. We chose Zombie-comedy. To me the combinationn of Zombies which are supposed to be scary and comedy is ingenius as its still a little scary for the people like to be jumpy when watching films but the comedy aspect gives is a light hearted feel – you still think its funny even if its scary. for example, i do not like scary films, however i watched zombieland and it was made funny through the script but also use of character – they had bill murray pretending to be a zombie.
Now when im looking at films i try to work out all the different genre’s in them, for example in Atonement is a good example for how a film can have so many subgenres – it is a romance film, but as it was set in earlier years it is a period drama but also involves war and mystery(investigation) when i watched that film after this task is was baffled by how i hadnt noticed all the different generes before and it also made me wonder whether all those subgeres will become a single genere of its own… maybe there are more films with the same subgenres. Get smart is also a good example, its a comedy/romance/spy film. Although its not a great film itself it shows how you can mix genres – although i have noticed that romance and comedy are a common pairing.
On Tuesday the 9th November we were given the outlines for the 72 hours assigment. Unfortunately i was not well that which put me at a disadvantage as i missed the first session which was to come up with ideas, However determined not to fall behind in this project i immediatly got in touch with my group members got myself up to date on what stage we were at in the process and then waited around til after the seminar (which only one member was allowed to go to) and joined in the big group meeting after so that we could go through what the final chosen idea was that all of group E were going to use to make this project.
My first impression of this project was to be immediatley worried because i know from experience how hard it is to work in such a large group as there is so many ideas and opinions going round that there were bound to be dissagreements, however this also gave us the oppertunity to experience what the proffesional working would actually be like as there are countless of bodies involved in every production – this was to be used as a team building and co-operating excersise (getting used to working in large numbers).
The idea that was finalised was that we were going to film us dubbing famous quotes from iconic films and we would do the voice overs ourselves as to avoid copyright issues.
The meeting we had after the seminar was fairly productive. we discussed the idea that was chosen with a few members of each group (e1, e2, e3, e4 and e5) present, came up with the films we would like and discussed how we could use the location to our advantage. this meeting was just to get ideas rolling – or so that is how it appeared as there were no ideas set in concrete.we made a list of all the films we thought had iconic moments everyone would recognize. we came up with these: Terminator, Star wars, Ghost, Taxi driver, Toy story, Dirty Dancing, Shawshank, Forrest gump, Jurrasic park, Anchorman, Lord of the rings, Harry potter, jaws, Matrix, pulp fiction, James Bond and Dirty harry. The only information that we gained from the meeting were the film choices we made and whether they were a transition or a room and which group was going to do which films. this is the list we ended that session with:
E1 – The terminator and Toy story
E2 – James Bond, Shawshank and Anchorman
E3 – Taxi Driver and Dirty harry
E4 – Star wars, Harry potter and forrest gump
E5 – Pulp Fiction and Dirty dancing.
Each group was to go off and research into their films – quotes, costumes ect. and to meet in our little groups the day after with all the information we had gathered.
When E4 met up the next day we had looked all looked into the films. I personally had researched into Harry potter, the props and costumes i found very simple and straight forward however when it got down to looking at a suitable quote for this project it was very difficult. I used www.imdb.com to help with the quotes from the first film. Aaron had looked into Star wars and Lee had looked into forrest gump. Now during this little meeting, showing eachother what we’d found and deciding what we could use, the group reps had a little group meeting of their own to discuss the final details of the production for example how it was going to be filmed and such. While aaron (our group rep) was at this little meeting we made a few notes on my laptop on the discussion we had while aaron was absent at his meeting
“Star wars Darth vader: If only you knew the power of the dark side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father. luke skywalker: He told me enough, he told me you killed him Darth Vader: No, i am your father
Harry Potter Hagrid: You’re a wizard harry Harry: Im a what?
Forrest Gump Gump: life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get Jenny: Run forrest, run. (transition)
Stuff that needs to be done
– Book out the camera and clapper board – fill in form – write script
OUr GROUP WORK Forrest gump – Lee : white/cream suit, blue shirt, box of chocolates
Harry potter – Sammie: Grey jumper, glasses, red scar, tie Star wars – Aaron: Darth vader costume johnny: black shirt, black trousers
reflection – pre aaron return: pretty productive, have had loads of idea’s and concsidered everything we will need to do/get for our parts – still need confirmation from the reps of the groups. could do it to a silent movie soundtrack – use a dolly to make it look more proffesional.”
Once aaron had returned and told us the final desicion there was disagreements on the fact that some members wanted to used voice overs that were pre recorded that could be edited onto the audio later whereas others wanted to do live dubs, However it was too late and final desisions had been made. I personally was struggling to see how the group was going to get the project done in 72 hours however kept hope that if the ones that had the energy towards this project (me being one of them) kept pushing that everyone would get a part and it would go smoothly.
It was decided that the voiced would be pre recorded on mobile phones then played into the microphone during filming therefore not having to edit it later on. i thought although the concept was there it probably wasnt the best of ideas as the quality of sound could be poor and using different phones, each phone would have different sound recorders so the recordings wouldnt sound the same. Dealing with what we had been given our group met up and did our recordings. here are some video’s of the practises.
We also did a mini run through video’d on a mobile phone of what we wanted our final peice to look like, this would also help the camera man as he would be able to see exaclty how we wanted it.
this is the mini video
We all agreed as group E to meet at 6:00 on thursday evening to do the recordings.
This post is basically to respond on the things we were told on the handout that we would need to do – this will be published but filled in along the way.
” what you will need to do:
Decide on the number of characters in the recording
Write the audio script
Decide the time period
Decide upon the location, interior or exterior, rural or city
Consider the range of counds that you will use
Day or night? sounds are very different at different times
We were told for the next project we were to do a 2 min (approx) radio recording of a major part of our characters life.
Before we even thought about what part we were going to use, we watched a few clips, the aim was to make us realise all the little sounds that are put together in all pieces of media, no matter how small and insignificant we may think it is, they make a huge difference to the realism of the piece.
For this project we were going to need actors – this was a chance to get to know the performing arts students.
When we were being introduced we started off by ‘selling’ our story – which is the part in our characters life that we are doing this radio piece for.
We then sat back and the performing arts lot got to choose which pitch they were most interested in. Our pitch got a few people interested which is good for us as that means more options. after exchanging details with the volunteers we went back and as a group had a talk about what we had chosen and what more we needed to do. We decided that the first thing we needed to do was get the actors familiar with the characters which meant showing them our work book and possibly having a Q & A session. We also decided that as the part we had chosen was Maggie finding out she was pregnant, we needed to do some research into views of out-of-wedlock pregnancies in the period we are looking at (which we would do in our own time and review our findings as a group later on). It was important that while we were there together as a group we finalised the plot and the characters. this is what we came up with:
Plot – Maggie becomes ill and doesn’t know why, the family doctor discovers that she is pregnant and tells the mother outside Maggie’s bedroom. (we also thought about adding in the father somewhere, however that wasn’t finalised)
Another little activity we did to try to develop this plot and also to help the actors further was write the 4 characters down and give them each 3 emotions(reactions) to work with.
Maggie – Confused, Pleased(secretly) and scared.
Mother – Worried, Apprehensive and sympathetic.
Father – Angry, Ashamed and disappointed.
Doctor – Understanding, Sympathetic but still professional.
we also thought about how they would address each other – this is important because if we decide that improvising is needed with the actors then if we give them little hints like how they would address the other characters they will know where their character stands amongst the others.
Maggie Mother – Maggie
Father – Margaret
Doctor – Miss/Ms Baker
Mother
Maggie – Mother
Father – Agatha
Doctor – Mrs Baker
Father
Maggie – Father
Mother – Pet name e.g. dear, darling
Doctor – Mr Baker
Doctor – would be called by his professional name by all.
That was as far as we got in that session however we were told to think of other ways to help the actors out such as hot seating as it is a great way to get a ‘outsiders opinion’ on the story and to give the actors some input into what they are doing rather than giving them a script.
CONCLUSION OF RESEARCH IVE DONE
After doing some research into what would have happened, i found that in that time they would have sent their daughter off to a family member that lived far away for her to return once the child had been born to preserve her reputation (and the family’s).
Having discovered this, it presents a problem as i know now we should have researched into this when doing the initial outline of her life as it is a huge difference to how we had her life planned. Although this presents as an issue, we will use it in a positive way and learn to be more thorough next time.
we were told to bring in magazines and to take a photo out of the magazine that we thought was interesting and to make a personality from it. We then had to partner with another person, and join the two to make a little background story. i joined with sarah and these we’re our pictures…
We then had to join with another group and make a story with all our pictures.
OUR STORY
character 1 was a witness to a murder and went on the run, and confides in a classy escort who takes her to character two to hide away from the murderer. She becomes a escort herself and is forced to work with many different partners to keep her identity hidden and to keep a roof over her head. it turns out the murderer is a valued customer of the escort agency and when he uncovers her disguise he tries to take her, however character two, although she seems hard with her girls, protects her.
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