Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Sexuality- 90210
Before Teddy has 'come out' to society with his sexuality. Clip shows how society has put him under pressure to 'conform' to the stereotype of an alpha male. Also shows the reaction of one of his friends to this revelation.
After Teddy has 'come out' and confronted society with his sexuality. This clip shows the reaction of his group of friends, who take a positive approach to his homosexuality- shows how society has changed and the acceptance of being gay.
Sexuality-TV Drama
Sexuality definition:
| Noun: |
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Thursday, 15 November 2012
Disability- A Touch of Frost
How overall we feel the character is portrayed...
The dictionary definition of disability is 'a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movements, senses, or activities'.
In society today, we tend to sympathise with the disabled, it’s a highly credited subject with an accumulation of charities across the world trying to raise money to care for and give the disabled a 'better life'. This always gives us the impression that the disabled constantly need tending to and looking after as they are handicapped and therefore unable to do anything for themselves.
In the TV drama A Touch of Frost, we are introduced to a disabled character called Billy who has Down's syndrome. In the clip, the first scene we are introduced to is him walking and even staggering through a woods covered in mud and blood with cuts and grazes on his face and body. As he is walking through the dark mysterious looking woods he is slightly lit up which makes you think that he is guilty of something as he is the only character in the woods looking very uneasy and scared, the fact that he is lit up also highlights this point. The non-diegetic music also adds to the mysterious atmosphere in this scene along with Billy’s dirty and grazed appearance at this time. Billy is then alerted by the diegetic sound of the police searching through the woods with dogs and torches and starts to run away, this again makes the audience think that Billy is guilty, because if otherwise he would have no reason to run apart from if he is scared in the dark (this would also make sense because of his childish nature relating to his disability). But after watching the whole clip you are faced with the storyline that Billy has something to do with his friend (Trisha's) disappearance and the audience is left unclear about Billy’s innocence in relation to this crime.
In society people tend to look down on the disabled because they are seen to be less able than others (however this has been completely ruled out this summer after watching the Paralympic Games and the athlete’s abilities despite their disabilities). But in A Touch of Frost the audience is made to feel like Billy is looked down on because of his disability, this is shown through the high angle camera shot of Billy sitting down when he is being questioned by the detective, this makes Billy as a character look inferior to the rest of the adult characters around him and therefore the viewer’s feel that he is seen to be less important as a character in that scene and pity him.
Billy is also treated like a child in this scene, the detective is seen to be condescending and his Mother also adds to this when she says ‘let me clean him up first’ like he is an incapable child that can’t look after and clean up himself. This is shown through the tone of voice the adults use towards him (which is quite patronising) and therefore the viewer’s feel uncomfortable and feel empathy towards Billy because even his parents treat him as if he is younger than his physical appearance and state.
This scene at Billy’s parent’s house in his front room feels very secretive and adds to the ever-growing suspicion over Billy’s innocence. The high angle and over the shoulder shots in the poorly lit room and dark furnishings (which connote sadness and guilt) emphasise Billy’s involvement and the audience feel as though they are eaves dropping in the conversation as Frost is shown in dark shadows with Billy looking vulnerable and guilty his Father is sat next to him with his arm round him looking very protective like Billy has something to hide and further extends the audience’s questions over Billy’s innocence.
At the end of the clip the audience are left very unclear and confused over Billy’s level of innocent in relation to the missing girl. This is good in relation to the TV drama as it is a mystery/crime drama and is made to leave the reader hooked on the narration and want to watch more of the episodes to find out the rest of the plot. I would definitely agree as a viewer that I am left like this and want to watch the end to find out Billy’s thorough involvement in this crime.
Saturday, 3 November 2012
Friday, 2 November 2012
Prometheus
Prometheus is about a hovering space craft departs that an Earth-like world, a humanoid alien drinks a bubbling liquid, and then starts to disintegrate. The alien’s remains cascade into a waterfall, his DNA triggers a biogenetic reaction.
The film is directed by Ridley Scott who had directed and produced films like Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Gladiator, Hannibal, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven, American Gangster, and of course Prometheus.
Jon Spaihts was one of the writers, also the writer in ‘Alien Saga’. He was known as the ‘go to guy for space thrillers’, he produced high-value screenplays.‘Lindelof is the writer of the comic book miniseries Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk for Marvel Comics, which takes place in the Ultimate Marvel universe and began publication in January 2006. Despite being a six-issue miniseries, production was suspended after the second issue in February 2006 due to Lindelof's heavy workload elsewhere; however, the last of the scripts were submitted to Marvel in 2008 and the series resumed publication in March 2009.
The film has some well known actors;
-Noomi Rapace
-Michael Fassbender
-Guy Pearce
-Idris Elba
-Logan Marshall-Green
The running time of the film was 124 minutes, and filmed in English. The original budget for the film was $130 million, and it had a total box office of $402.48 million, which made the film a huge success from the audience.
“Prometheus entered production in April 2010, with extensive design phases during which the technology and creatures which the film required were developed. Principal photography began in March 2011, with an estimated US$120–130 million budget. The project was shot using 3D cameras throughout, almost entirely on practical sets, and on location in England, Iceland, Spain, and Scotland. It was promoted with a marketing campaign that included viral activities on the web. Three videos featuring the film's leading actors in character, which expanded on elements of the fictional universe, were released and met with a generally positive reception and awards.”
Prometheus Ad Campaign
Prometheus ad campaign reaches 15m Twitter users, but was it worth it?
20th Century Fox tried to tap into the viral power of Twitter on Sunday night to promote the impending release of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi movie Prometheus.In what was heralded as a world first, a new three-minute trailer for the film was screened simultaneously online, on Channel 4 and on social TV app Zeebox.
Viewers were then encouraged to tweet about the film using the hashtag #areyouseeingthis.
During the next ad break, Channel 4 screened a 40 second spot which included viewer’s tweets.
Channel 4 said it fitted with its strategy to pioneer innovative and impactful marketing solutions, but it did it actually meet either of these criteria?
Word-of-mouth agency 1000 Heads monitored activity on Twitter around the hashtag during the past week.
The results show that there was a spike in activity on Sunday night, peaking at more than 4,000 tweets, and the hashtag was trending for a brief period.
The tweets shown on screen were all positive, but this wasn't the case on Twitter.
Credit to David Moth for this blog post
Thursday, 1 November 2012
Project Prometheus
Here is a link to the website 'Project Prometheus' aside from the film's original film website it also has this one which is a fantastic method for viral marketing. It offers exclusive, videos, games and snapshots of the film.
http://www.projectprometheus.com/
http://www.projectprometheus.com/
How is media convergence important for audiences and institutions?
How is media convergence important for audiences and institutions?
Without media convergence I personally doubt the film industry would be where it’s at (success wise) today. The key areas of marketing, distributing and exhibiting a film all rely on media convergence to ensure the film is a hit with their target audience. It ensures a market for the film before it has even been released which is key to make sure it can succeed in the box office and make the revenue it deserves.
During the production of ‘Attack the Block’ the British film industry hardly recognised the importance of media convergence. It used a small segment of social networking (Twitter) to virally market the film with the occasional ‘teaser’ post to entice the audience in before the film’s release, however it wasn’t used enough to create a viral word of mouth necessary to help really market the film. However, Big Talk Productions, UK Film Council, StudioCanal and Film4 all worked together to produce, market, distribute and exhibit the film. Seen as Attack the Block was a British film, with a fairly small budget, four smaller companies such as these working together is ideal to help the success of the film. This is because they all have experience in working with smaller films (such as Shaun Of the Dead) and have previously achieved success in knowing the best ways to produce, market, distribute and exhibit films such as Attack the Block within their budget. But, Attack The Block was still promoted in the usual ways of; TV adverts, cinema trailers, teaser trailers, UK & US official trailers, posters, magazine adverts, a soundtrack available for purchase on ITunes etc., interviews with TV programmes and journalists in the UK and US and exclusive interviews with the director Joe Cornish talking about the upcoming film with journalists in the UK and abroad. To add to all of this the film/media magazine Little White Lies dedicated a whole issue to Attack the Block. With all of this media used to help promote the film, Attack the Block was still only a small budget, British film and was therefore at a disadvantage when promoting and marketing the film before its release, especially outside the UK.
On the other hand we have the film Kickass. Still a British film, but working with a larger budget and larger production companies such as Universal Pictures, Lionsgate, Marv films and Plan B Entertainment (which is owned by Brad Pitt) is was already at an advantage compared to Kickass as these companies were on a much larger scale and were able to market and publicize the film more heavily. The good starting point with Kickass is that it was also written as a series of comic books alongside the film which helped to market the film through its media convergence and also helped to attract a more varied audience. Kickass also released five different trailers and four TV spots to help promote the film, despite its surrounding controversy. Kickass also took to film critics on forums, blogs and websites such as Rotten Tomatoes after it’s released which really helped its promotion through viral marketing and showed free distribution of its trailers and TV spots. Kickass was also very heavily advertised through its poster campaigns which were not only being distributed professionally by its advertisement campaign, but Kickass’ film ‘geek’ fans also produced their own versions of posters which concluded into a substantial amount and really helped to market the film through media convergence. Alongside all of this Empire and Total Film magazine covered the film and its journey from page to screen and film reviews were available on their websites too. The film was also pitched at San Diego Comic-con and the Empire magazine Movie-Con. All in all, this huge amount of marketing and promotion through media convergence was significantly important to its success in the Box Office and DVD/ Blu-Ray sales.
Media convergence is becoming more and more important, especially as technology is advancing; viral marketing is becoming more essential in the promotion and marketing of films. As stated before things like Social networking are becoming a huge part of the film industry, and mid-production marketing is happening more often thanks to this. The advance in technology is creating ways in which the audience can gain an interest in films throughout its production right the way through to its exhibition and sales. The music industry is more commonly working alongside films with soundtracks being released in accordance with films and helping to market them through different windows. In conclusion I would definitely argue the significant impact and importance of cross media convergence happening within films today is a positive and its ever growing methods of doing this are a real credit to the film industry and its importance for audiences and institutions.
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