Friday, 23 February 2018
Cuffs Exam Question 2
How is sound used to create meaning? Give at least two examples.(5marks)
Notes
Non digetic sound with the everyday noise of a bustling pier
Squeal of the JCB's tires
Non digetic sound with the crashing of the glass and the whirring of the JCB forklift
Digetic Radio walkie talkie off screen sound, we listen to the conversation. Contrast with the shock of the robbery. As they hear this they jump into action, cueing the post production editing of an up tempo song playing.
Police sirens is non digetic, there is music in the background to add a rhythm
As they are called into action, the main police officers voice becomes harsh and loud. Each officer shouts at one another to convey information.
Sounds of the police cars adds to the effect of the police car accelerating, this conveys the way they are driving.
The song changes and ups the tempo even more and also becomes louder.
Inside the van, an announcement requesting back up
The rookie police officer blunders with the commentary of the situation at hand. This is digetic.
My Answer
The smashing of the glass also connotes images of violence and the action of the scene. Partnered with the sounds of people in distress, this gives off the effect of anarchy.
Without the post production music and sound effects added would put the viewer in the dark. The squealing of the wheels and the roaring of the engine connote danger and a sense of urgency. The squeals show the reader the high speed at which the car is driving. The screeching and the earsplitting siren also connotes police urgency as you usually hear it when the police are called into action.
Post production music, also adds a certain tone to a specific event happening on-screen. When the chase scene begins, up tempo music starts playing in the background to make the viewer on edge. This is effective as the specific choice of music will connote certain emotions such as urgency and fear.
Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Media Question 8
On the front page of the observer, they have boxes containing the story you will find if you decide to click on them. They have a punchy Title and on the smaller ones, a small description of what the story entails. There is a subcategory called featured, which are the trending/important stories on the Observer website. This is important as it can bring more people into their site to read their stories they have on offer. There is also an image on the front of the boxes that have a slight relation to the story too. The colour scheme of the Observer is classy and is considered as professional colours, which on a newspaper website shows the sophisticated nature of it.
The typeface used is important too. There are two different types of typefaces, Serif and Sans Serif. Sans means without, the Serif is the detail on the side of the letters. So Sans Serif means without Serif. Arial font (The one used now) is an example of a Sans Serif font. Serif fonts make the reading of big text extracts easier as the brain sees the font linking to the other words. This is why it is used so frequently on older broadsheet newspapers. In this case the Observer newspaper website uses Serif font as it is more sophisticated than a Sans Serif.
The uses of narrative change from each story, The main story on the front page is in first person as the person who wrote the story refers to themselves as I. The next story is in third person and refers to the guy in it (Jordan Peele) as his name, this is third person. There is also a story written in the second person, this is referring to the reader as you or your. It is an effective way of breaking the fourth wall and connecting to the reader, as it seems they are talking to someone rather than a page on a website.
The first story on the front page is a controversial and involves gender politics.This is engages the reader as it is a sensitive topic to talk about, this will overpower the moral side of the reader and their curiosity may get the better of them.
Friday, 19 January 2018
My Media Production Company
IGNITE FLIMS
I named my production company is named IGNITE FILMS. I did this because it is based on my username on many gaming platforms that I use on a daily basis. I brain-stormed for logo ideas. I got ideas from a marketing workshop i visited and logos i had made prior to this one. I will show you the steps i went through in order to create the image above (my header) and the Ident which is on my Youtube Channel which is linked last.
I opened up my copy of Photoshop CS6 2018 and created a 1920 x 1080 canvas with a black background. I made the background into a layer and named it Gradient. I chose the Ellipse tool to make a circle, to make is perfect i held Ctrl + Shift in order to make it a perfect circle. i filled it to be white and thus the main circles had been born. The dotted lines were made with the Ellipse tool again, however i changed the line to dotted and made it smaller. I proceeded to add some text in a font i downloaded called Laser84. Laser84 is an 80's style font that is really aesthetically pleasing to me. I added stroke to it and made the stroke 5px large. Next i created a clipping mask to be able to make the circle and the stroke on the font look like a galaxy. To do this, i place the image on the canvas and made it the bigger than the main circle. I right clicked the galaxy image layer and created the clipping mask. I created many versions of the logo using differing images.
I also created my Media Eye-dent. To do this i used two programmes Adobe After Effects CS6 2018 and Adobe Premier Pro CS6 2018.
First of all I downloaded the Saber plugin for Ae for the fire effect. I created some flare for the background by using the particle effect, moving it to the bottom right-hand-side of the screen and changed the settings of the particles so they would float and spread them out. Please note that the type of particle was shaded sphere. Then i coloured them a nice fiery orange colour. The reason i chose orange is because it links to the name of my media productions company, IGNITE being the verb to ignite a fire. I then imported a transparent PNG file of the logo into the composition. Please note a transparent image is going to be easier to use when doing this as you wont have to keylight the background.
Next I added the Saber plugin to my logo. The style of effects had a really wide choice, however i found the fire choice and applied it. I changed the layer it would effect to the logo and toned down the brightness of the flames as you could not really see the words in the logo. The actual fire effect was also altered as the fire interfered slightly with the parts of the logo, linking things that should not be linked. After the effects had been changed to my preferences I added the logo again, this was to allow the fire effect to fade out when the logo faded in. I added keyframes from the two second mark to the three second mark to make the fire take time to fully form and slowly disappear. After that had been successfully applied I proceeded to add the effect, Venetian Blinds, to the unaffected logo to make it fade in. I changed the width of the blinds to 10 and changed the direction to 45 degrees. I set it so that from the two second mark to the three second mark it would fade into its full form.
Youtube Channel for the Ident
I named my production company is named IGNITE FILMS. I did this because it is based on my username on many gaming platforms that I use on a daily basis. I brain-stormed for logo ideas. I got ideas from a marketing workshop i visited and logos i had made prior to this one. I will show you the steps i went through in order to create the image above (my header) and the Ident which is on my Youtube Channel which is linked last.
I opened up my copy of Photoshop CS6 2018 and created a 1920 x 1080 canvas with a black background. I made the background into a layer and named it Gradient. I chose the Ellipse tool to make a circle, to make is perfect i held Ctrl + Shift in order to make it a perfect circle. i filled it to be white and thus the main circles had been born. The dotted lines were made with the Ellipse tool again, however i changed the line to dotted and made it smaller. I proceeded to add some text in a font i downloaded called Laser84. Laser84 is an 80's style font that is really aesthetically pleasing to me. I added stroke to it and made the stroke 5px large. Next i created a clipping mask to be able to make the circle and the stroke on the font look like a galaxy. To do this, i place the image on the canvas and made it the bigger than the main circle. I right clicked the galaxy image layer and created the clipping mask. I created many versions of the logo using differing images.
I also created my Media Eye-dent. To do this i used two programmes Adobe After Effects CS6 2018 and Adobe Premier Pro CS6 2018.
First of all I downloaded the Saber plugin for Ae for the fire effect. I created some flare for the background by using the particle effect, moving it to the bottom right-hand-side of the screen and changed the settings of the particles so they would float and spread them out. Please note that the type of particle was shaded sphere. Then i coloured them a nice fiery orange colour. The reason i chose orange is because it links to the name of my media productions company, IGNITE being the verb to ignite a fire. I then imported a transparent PNG file of the logo into the composition. Please note a transparent image is going to be easier to use when doing this as you wont have to keylight the background.
Next I added the Saber plugin to my logo. The style of effects had a really wide choice, however i found the fire choice and applied it. I changed the layer it would effect to the logo and toned down the brightness of the flames as you could not really see the words in the logo. The actual fire effect was also altered as the fire interfered slightly with the parts of the logo, linking things that should not be linked. After the effects had been changed to my preferences I added the logo again, this was to allow the fire effect to fade out when the logo faded in. I added keyframes from the two second mark to the three second mark to make the fire take time to fully form and slowly disappear. After that had been successfully applied I proceeded to add the effect, Venetian Blinds, to the unaffected logo to make it fade in. I changed the width of the blinds to 10 and changed the direction to 45 degrees. I set it so that from the two second mark to the three second mark it would fade into its full form.
Youtube Channel for the Ident
Friday, 5 January 2018
Exam Question LEGO MOVIE POSTERS
The slogan has been used to appeal to the average LEGO builder. The wording used in the slogan makes is appear if the creators of the film are going to 'assemble' the film on the release date. This relates to the average LEGO builder as they are 'assembling' the LEGO sets. The verb assembling also makes the film stand out compared to other films, as their release date, coming 2018 seems bland.
The images in the posters feature the main and central characters in the center so that movie goers or people that have seen the movie can affiliate themselves with characters in the film and build an emotional bond with them. The figure of each character in the posters also are LEGO character models. This creates a sense of nostalgia for parents watching the film and knowledge that the film is child friendly and won't have serious gore in it. For the children the blocks and the way the characters have been shown in their LEGO models will create a correlation between the things they love to play with on a regular basis and the fun times they have had with individual character, many of them coming from iconic LEGO sets. The scene is also completely made out of LEGO bricks adding to the assembly aspect.
In the ensemble poster, the facial expressions show a lot of what personality each character has. The large majority of characters have a serious face on as if they are about to go to battle. There is one character who stands out though, Emmit. Emmit's face is him looking completely out of his mind scared. This is an effective use of both comedy and it allows the viewer to see aspects of themselves in Emmit. People usually themselves as the nobody, and they want to make a difference. Emmit is that sort of character which we can relate to. He is also placed in the center so we know he is the main character.
The image on the ensemble poster has an explosion in the background showing Lord Business with an angry expression. The explosion acts as the spectacle of the the poster. The animation of the film provides an element of escapism from the film.
The images in the posters feature the main and central characters in the center so that movie goers or people that have seen the movie can affiliate themselves with characters in the film and build an emotional bond with them. The figure of each character in the posters also are LEGO character models. This creates a sense of nostalgia for parents watching the film and knowledge that the film is child friendly and won't have serious gore in it. For the children the blocks and the way the characters have been shown in their LEGO models will create a correlation between the things they love to play with on a regular basis and the fun times they have had with individual character, many of them coming from iconic LEGO sets. The scene is also completely made out of LEGO bricks adding to the assembly aspect.
In the ensemble poster, the facial expressions show a lot of what personality each character has. The large majority of characters have a serious face on as if they are about to go to battle. There is one character who stands out though, Emmit. Emmit's face is him looking completely out of his mind scared. This is an effective use of both comedy and it allows the viewer to see aspects of themselves in Emmit. People usually themselves as the nobody, and they want to make a difference. Emmit is that sort of character which we can relate to. He is also placed in the center so we know he is the main character.
The image on the ensemble poster has an explosion in the background showing Lord Business with an angry expression. The explosion acts as the spectacle of the the poster. The animation of the film provides an element of escapism from the film.
Friday, 8 December 2017
Exam Question 8 Gratifications
The Blumler and Katz theory suggests that people use the media to satisfy their needs. They managed to narrow it down to four key main ideas:
- Escapism from everyday life
- Surveillance and information
- Personal relationships
- Personal identity
The LEGO movie does very well at the escapism aspect of the theory. The LEGO movie is an action/thriller genre movie, the LEGO explosions and very cleverly animated fight scenes create a tense atmosphere. The atmosphere helps to divert people from the worries of everyday life and focus on the scenes happening in front of them.
The personal relationships are dealt with very efficiently within the LEGO movie. The viewer can relate to Emmet well as he is the nobody and humans naturally tend to be pessimistic and criticize themselves a lot harsher than other people. The average viewer will relate to the small guy or the 'underdog' this makes the audience take a shine to Emmet, which makes him such a great main character. The same goes for Lord Business, he is portrayed as the antagonist. In the movie he releases the Kragle which is the super glue that Lord Business plans on gluing the entire city together and make sure no one can change the way that the city is. He wants people to follow the rules as if it was a bible.
Surveillance is not really covered as thoroughly in the LEGO movie. so there is not much to explain about on that front.
The personal relationships are dealt with very efficiently within the LEGO movie. The viewer can relate to Emmet well as he is the nobody and humans naturally tend to be pessimistic and criticize themselves a lot harsher than other people. The average viewer will relate to the small guy or the 'underdog' this makes the audience take a shine to Emmet, which makes him such a great main character. The same goes for Lord Business, he is portrayed as the antagonist. In the movie he releases the Kragle which is the super glue that Lord Business plans on gluing the entire city together and make sure no one can change the way that the city is. He wants people to follow the rules as if it was a bible.
Surveillance is not really covered as thoroughly in the LEGO movie. so there is not much to explain about on that front.
Thursday, 30 November 2017
Music Magazine - Contrasts
PREP: Analyse the media language of the MOJO cover below. Use the terms that you have learned.
Compare and contrast the cover with another magazine cover, drawing attention to the similarities and differences, and saying what the genre codes and conventions are.
The contrast cover can either be your own cover or another professional cover.
There are two photos above, one of the MOJO magazine featuring David Bowie as the main splash and the other a Billboard Katy Perry magazine. Both these magazines have similarities and differences that i shall highlight.
A similarity they both have is the placement of the main splash. The photo taken is a full-body shot and they are put in the center of the magazine with their eyes looking right at the potential reader. Both of the pictures have the music artist covering part of the magazine logo as well which is effective as the reader can still see a majority of the logo so regular readers know its a MOJO magazine or a Billboard magazine. Both magazines have other stories within the magazine showing an insight as to what is in the issue.
The Katy Perry magazine places Katy right in the center of the magazine. This diverts the magazine from portraying Katy Perry as being a provocative character, but rather a strong and independent woman. The MOJO magazine does the same as David Bowie is standing in a very dominant pose which in the army is 'at ease'. These postures help to convey their personality. Katy Perry has many curves in her posture which is a very feminine look, as men tend to be portrayed as have wide shoulders and being quite stocky. The curves in Katy Perry's posture contrast with the curves in her hair making her look very soft and natural.
A big difference in the magazine covers is that the Katy Perry Billboard magazine lacks a Pug which could have a major effect on sales of the magazine as it does not promote a special feature or once in a lifetime free item included with the magazine. The use of Pugs help to boost sales as it draws the reader in as if the magazine includes a once in a lifetime opportunity only included with this issue of the magazine.
Another bid difference between the magazines is the position of the main splash text on the cover. The MOJO magazine has the surname of David Bowie positioned right in the center of the page in order for the reader to find it easily. In contrast, the Billboard magazine has the main splash of Katy Perry on the left hand side of the cover in a bigger text size than that of the other stories involved with the magazine. The pro of having the main splash text in a significantly bigger size and font is that it draws attention to the main splash of the magazine. Human brains are very good at detecting anomalies in certain patterns. The difference in size and in font draws the attention of the eye very quickly.
Compare and contrast the cover with another magazine cover, drawing attention to the similarities and differences, and saying what the genre codes and conventions are.
The contrast cover can either be your own cover or another professional cover.
There are two photos above, one of the MOJO magazine featuring David Bowie as the main splash and the other a Billboard Katy Perry magazine. Both these magazines have similarities and differences that i shall highlight.
A similarity they both have is the placement of the main splash. The photo taken is a full-body shot and they are put in the center of the magazine with their eyes looking right at the potential reader. Both of the pictures have the music artist covering part of the magazine logo as well which is effective as the reader can still see a majority of the logo so regular readers know its a MOJO magazine or a Billboard magazine. Both magazines have other stories within the magazine showing an insight as to what is in the issue.
The Katy Perry magazine places Katy right in the center of the magazine. This diverts the magazine from portraying Katy Perry as being a provocative character, but rather a strong and independent woman. The MOJO magazine does the same as David Bowie is standing in a very dominant pose which in the army is 'at ease'. These postures help to convey their personality. Katy Perry has many curves in her posture which is a very feminine look, as men tend to be portrayed as have wide shoulders and being quite stocky. The curves in Katy Perry's posture contrast with the curves in her hair making her look very soft and natural.
A big difference in the magazine covers is that the Katy Perry Billboard magazine lacks a Pug which could have a major effect on sales of the magazine as it does not promote a special feature or once in a lifetime free item included with the magazine. The use of Pugs help to boost sales as it draws the reader in as if the magazine includes a once in a lifetime opportunity only included with this issue of the magazine.
Another bid difference between the magazines is the position of the main splash text on the cover. The MOJO magazine has the surname of David Bowie positioned right in the center of the page in order for the reader to find it easily. In contrast, the Billboard magazine has the main splash of Katy Perry on the left hand side of the cover in a bigger text size than that of the other stories involved with the magazine. The pro of having the main splash text in a significantly bigger size and font is that it draws attention to the main splash of the magazine. Human brains are very good at detecting anomalies in certain patterns. The difference in size and in font draws the attention of the eye very quickly.
Wednesday, 22 November 2017
02 MUSIC: MOJO COVER 2017
How representations on magazine covers reflect the social and cultural contexts in which they were produced
- Claims they are the biggest UK music magazine
- For those truly obsessed with music.
- Claims that the MOJO magazine is the music expert
- A magazine of high values and integrity
- Claims that if your featured in one of their magazines you matter
- Carefully crafted music archive
Sex Pistols Information
The Sex Pistols were a punk rock band that were active between 1975 and 2008. They were a very loud and in-your-face band that did what they want regardless of how society portrayed them. The Sex Pistols were controversial band as they did many things that were considered socially unacceptable such as swearing on TV and slouching and singing songs about controversial things happening in the world. The group would sometimes refer to themselves as being anarchists and rebelling against the state. They brought a very harsh and rebellious mood to the music industry that before-hand had never been seen before.
In the MOJO magazine cover they use two main colours, acid yellow and hot pink. This is because they are contrasting colours and the album 'Never mind the Bollocks' had the Sex Pistols in hot pink with an acid yellow background. This means if a Sex Pistols fan walks by the magazine, they can tell its about the Sex Pistols as the colours are quite prominent of the cover.
On the cover, above the magazine logo, there is a sneak peek of a article about the Allman Brothers. The position of it is very important as it is above the logo which means the article is important. The Allman Brothers was an American rock band formed in 1969 founded by brothers Gregg Allman and Duane Allman. Duane Allman died 1 month before his 25th birthday, however, the band carried on.
The Sex Pistols were a punk rock band that were active between 1975 and 2008. They were a very loud and in-your-face band that did what they want regardless of how society portrayed them. The Sex Pistols were controversial band as they did many things that were considered socially unacceptable such as swearing on TV and slouching and singing songs about controversial things happening in the world. The group would sometimes refer to themselves as being anarchists and rebelling against the state. They brought a very harsh and rebellious mood to the music industry that before-hand had never been seen before.
In the MOJO magazine cover they use two main colours, acid yellow and hot pink. This is because they are contrasting colours and the album 'Never mind the Bollocks' had the Sex Pistols in hot pink with an acid yellow background. This means if a Sex Pistols fan walks by the magazine, they can tell its about the Sex Pistols as the colours are quite prominent of the cover.
On the cover, above the magazine logo, there is a sneak peek of a article about the Allman Brothers. The position of it is very important as it is above the logo which means the article is important. The Allman Brothers was an American rock band formed in 1969 founded by brothers Gregg Allman and Duane Allman. Duane Allman died 1 month before his 25th birthday, however, the band carried on.
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