Cumbers's Blog

Thriller Conventions

In the opening 5 minutes of saw there are lots of factors that contribute to making the film look appealing and dragging the audience in. The start of the film has the opening credits which are dark and the text matches the setting. So in this case the titles were like waves and the setting was dark and in the water. The dark start gave the effect that something scary may happen from the opening minute or two dragging the audience in closer. The lighting plays a large factor in the start as it creates the sense of fear and wonder. When the lights do turn on and the camera shows the setting with a wide shot. This shows the seriousness of the situation and adds the effect of making the audience wonder where and why they are there. Then it does a point of view shot of the second charachter to the main charachter to show how he has been asleep for so long that when the lights come on his eyes blur. The camera plays alot of key shots at one point by showing the scene then the two charachters then a dead man in the middle of the room . It then zooms in on the dead guy and then his gun and his speaker in his hands. This makes you wonder who he is, why is he there, what has happened and what is the speaker and gun for? The editing techniques that link all the different parts are very well done as they are structured to make the opening like a quiz. It makes the audience question why and what on everything making the audience become sucked in on the film. Overall the camera and the mes on scene is set perfectly in the opening 5 minutes of saw as it gets the audience sucked in and wondering what is going to happen and how is it all going to be uncovered. It also introduces the audience to the main charachter.

Viewing Figures

BBC 1 6 Sept 2009

Dramas: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

BBC2 6 Sept 2009

ITV1 6 Sept 2009

Dramas: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 23.

In the Figures above there is a very hight amount of the top ten shows being soaps. The Figures were more than or exactly half of the top ten in ITV and BBC 1 of the programmes being soaps. I believe these shows capture the audience’s consumptions because they have 3 main pointers:

1. People get attracted as they feel they are watching a different life and see all the different situations in life and feel like they are actually there to witness it all. Also it plays games with you to try and get you attracted by leaving you on multiple cliff edges on all the sub story lines.
2. Another thing that drags people to the soaps are the ways of which it is spoken about in magazines, friends, family and even through social networks and general conversation leading people to finding out whats going on and get attracted as it is very exciting then they watch it and get drawn by all the little cliff hangers and have to keep tuning in.
3. They are on at times where people have finished eating there dinner and want to watch tv. This is around 7 30 when so many people are watching the tv so it is sort of prime time so they will watch it as it has so many people watching it and will know it is a good show to pass the time.

Representation In The Inbetweeners.

In the Inbetweeners there are lots of different representations e.g. Gender, age, sexuality.

In the scene above gender has a very important part as it shows how a typical teenage boy acts towards the opposite sex. The boys simply play with a frizby because they believe it has more of a attraction to the girls as they can get involved. We see here the girls are only included as the boys are trying to impress and attract there attention. So the girls are a sub storyline. The boys are shown to be sex pests who are just trying to get to girls to use them for just one thing. So the boys are represented in many ways and the girls are sort of represented as objects who come into the show to be used or stared at by the boys.

 The show shows a typical group of teenage boys and how they act. They are all different stereotypes of teenage boys today. The charachters are:

• Will Mackenzie – smart, confident, well read, quick-witted and outspoken.
• Simon Cooper - smart, confident, romantic.
• Jay Cartwright – confident, sex pest, loud.
• Neil Sutherland - confident, slow, crazy.

In the Inbetweeners the boys are the storyline and the girls are only included if the boys are either looking at them or trying it with them. the representation of gender in this show is very strong towards the male side and how they act. It is aimed at people aged around 16 to 25 as it is around the age the charachters are.

Preliminary Task Video Edited.

In class the other day we was set a task to edit our videos that we filmed in the preliminary task. To do this we used Serif Movie Plus X3. I am use to doing alot of video editing with different softwares and they are all generally close to each other with the layout. But with serif it had the timeline and the bottom the preview screen on the left at the top and the effects and extras on the right at the top.

The first thing we had to do was to import our file from the hard-drive. This was done by going to the media pane and clicking the plus sign and then finding the file on the media hard-drive under AS Preliminary tasks. Then when it was imported we had to drag it down onto our timeline.

Secondly we had to cut the outtakes and the poor scenes out and make it so it connected together with great continuety and effects. This was done by watching the video and when it came to a bit we wanted to cut we paused it and pressed the cut button under the little preview screen with a scissor on it,  and then played it till the end of the bit we wanted to get delete and cut it there again then right clicked and pressed delete.

After we had our selction of video set out perfectly we had to then link the pieces that we had specifically cut out and make sure the video could link together with sound, continuety and without breaking the 180 rule. This was a difficult task as we had a scene of coming through the door three times and it was hard to get the angles to match up and link to the next angle perfectly.

Then we had managed to link the videos we had to add the opening titles and credits. This was hard as when i put the titles in it decided that it would have a black fade. We everntually stopped this and had a explosion effect and then faded into the start of the movie. Once the titles looked good we moved onto putting the credits in and this worked perfectly with it fading in as the video was coming to its end.

Once we had the video with the continuety and the 180 rule we deicided to make it funnier and edit in two sounds. This was difficult as we got the sounds but they were too long and if you cut certain bits you missed either the best bit or a important bit but after playing around for a while we managed to get the sound perfectly timing.

We then made sure the video was ok and had all our things we wanted including the match on action shot, 180 rule and the continuety throughout. Then we exported it to our profiles on the hard-drive and uploaded it to youtube (as shown above).

Preliminary Task Video

Gavlaaaa… Smithstaaaaaaa… Gavin and Stacey.

I do watch a lot of tv but most of the time when i am watching tv it is sky sports news. When i do watch something else though it is generally a comedy but there has always been one thing i always watched and had to be on the channel on time and never miss it. This was Gavin and Stacey. A story of a Essex boy meeting a Barry girl (Wales) through work and making a relationship and then a marriage from this. It is the funniest program i have ever seen. I could watch every episode over again and still laugh and it would never get boring.

This to me is the greatest show ever because, the whole cast is just perfectly put together. Everyone has a genius and different characteristic. This is what attracts me to the programme, the way the cast’s different personalitys create a very funny scene and create problems due to the differences.  

My favourite character has to be Smithy. Smithy is a different charachter that suits this programme perfectly. He is Gavins best mate who loves his food, drink and quizzes. Smithy is a very loud and emotional charachter who presents a typical essex boy perfectly. He has a very strong bond with Gavin and Gavins parents, Pam and Mick. He is very much like a family member of the shipmans (Gavins surname). Another factor of why Smithy is the greatest chrachter is he relates to a family member of mine. My Middle brother Ash. Smithy makes me laugh with everything he does and this is why i like him so much.

To me i believe Gavin and Stacey is the best tv show as it is aimed very much at my age group to around 30 year olds. It is a funny comedy and has some personal touches and can be watched by lots of different varietys of people as it has a very wide range of scenes.

Preliminary Task and Camera Overview

In class today we was set a task to work in groups to practise filming and get use to a DV Canon video camera. This was a task to try and work on different skills in media. The task was to….

Person 1 walks down corridor and opens a door, enters a room, sits down at a desk and asks another person, who  is already sitting at a desk,  if they can borrow a DVD (or some item). Person 2 agrees. The person who asks to borrow the DVD then leaves.

To be able to do this task we had to get into groups and go off to a area and try and fulfill the desired requirements for the task. My group consisted of Joe Woodhall, Joel Vickers and me. We went off to the lower school block to get this footage as we knew there would be maybe a couple of rooms free to use. We later found out that there wasnt any so we all came together to think of a funny video using our imagination. After the planning for a few minutes we had our drafts made in our mind and began to start filming our scenes. Joe was the camera man, I was person 1 and Joel was person 2. Our idea was to have a comedy scene with a funny setting and a very crazy idea for person 1 to borrow. So we came up with toilet for our setting and a pen for person one to borrow for an exam. I had the thought of the camera angles to come in at to add the extra effect. We had everything planed out perfect which was a huge bonus as we only had twenty minutes to plan it and film it so to get it planned perfectly and so quickly made the task easier.  We managed our time to perfectin and had a video shot perfectly with even a couple of funny accidental outakes in time. The task we was set was completed and i feel very proud of the work we created.

DV Camera

The camera and its uses

The camera has lots of features:

• Record
• Zoom
• Fast Forward
• Rewind
• Pause
• Play
• Overwrite
• Change the cameras Video specs

We used all these features on the camera in our first small project. This was only the bascis of what the camera can do there is alot more features that we havent yet used or learnt how to use.

Another thing i also learned was how to put the DV tape in the camera and take the battery on and off and also how to rewind and view a scene to see whether i should overwrite this part of the tape. This was all beneficial as it opens up to me different tricks and effects i could use using these simple camera options.

Why I Want To Take Media.

Why I Want To Take Media.

I want to take media as I believe it has a large effect on modern society. If I took media it would help me to understand the reasons why it is such a powerful medium, and I will be able to use this knowledge to good effect in my future career.

I have many skills that I can bring to the Media classes, which I feel would be of great benefit. For example I have created many videos for other people, and also for the schools PE Department. Some examples can be found here:

• P.E Video – (is on www.cooperscobornpe.co.ukwebsite but is locked by the VLE to which i do not yet have a log in).
• YouTube video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7n9NVeweEg&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eyoutube%2Ecom%2Fuser%2FCheeksVonDeeks&feature=player_profilepage

 Another key skill that I have is html web development. I have created a website for the Old Cooperians Rugby Football Club that I maintain, and update when required. The website can be found here: http://www.oldcooperiansrugbyclub.co.uk/. The website is an on-going project, and is not yet complete, but I am working in my spare time to improve content and layout. 

I have always been into computers, and I have learnt many skills in the last few years that would be of benefit in a Media classroom. I have a deep understanding of how computers work, and so can solve problems quickly and efficiently. I also am quick to leanrn new software, and feel that this skill will be of particular benefit as we progress through the year.

 These are the skills i have that i can apply to media studies to which i am sure will help me and give me an advantage in the course.

Thanks for your time.