Media in the online age

How significant has the Internet been to media audiences?

The Internet has had a significant affect on media audiences as it has created many different opportunities for people to view different media products.

The Internet plays a big part in movie sales, as the Internet has many pirated films on it the piracy reduces the revenues and therefore the investments into future projects are lowered which in turn has a major affect on the films being produced and distributed. As the investment of future projects is lowered the films being produced will have reduced quality, will be less risky so we will see more films which are all similar lowering the variety shown at different multiplexes. Although 3D has been around for many years we're are only just seeing a rise in 3D films being produced again, this is a way to combat piracy, it means they will be harder to film with a regular camera and won't be of good watchable quality when posted onto the Internet on different films downloading sites.

Before the rise of the online media consumers would purchase VHS or DVD's from high street retail shops such as HMV and high street supermarkets such as Tescos and Asdas. Recently HMV has gone into administration as the sales of DVDs and CDs has decreased. This is due to a rise in media products being distributed on the Internet. The way films are marketed is through advertisement such as posters, trailers and magazines within magazines there are usually different critic reviews. The use of the Internet and user reviews (Web 2.0) has changed the way films are reviewed sites such as IMDb and rotten tomato allow anybody to review and rate a film which introduces the theory that consumers are now fast becoming producers.

The way films are viewed now has also changed due to the rise in online media. Legal streaming sites such as Netflix, LoveFilm and NowTV are a cheap, fast and convinent way to access and watch films. Sky Box Office which is pay per view is also another way to view films quickly without leaving the comfort of your own home which is in turn bringing down the sale of hard copies of DVDs. You also have a larger varity of films online. Other sites which are illegal ways of streaming and downloading films are letmewatchthis, movie2k, sidereel and many others, the benifits of downloading like this is that again you are in the comfort of your own home and users have ablity to upload diiferent medias and rate the quality, the disadvantages of downloading igllegaly is that the qualatity isn't what it would be like if it was viewed in a cinema or brought on DVD or Blu-Ray.

Keen Theory

Case Study: The Avengers

The Avengers (2012) Based on Marvel Comics

 

 

The Avengers could have also been promoted by some of the Heroes in the film previously being in films which only featured them; giving the audience a sense and feel of the characters already maybe making them want to watch a film with all of them in it.

·         “‘Iron Man”

·         “Captain America”

·         “The Incredible Hulk”

·         “Thor” which also featured Loki

 

Tony Stark/Iron man – Robert Downey JR

Steve Rogers/Captain America – Chris Evans

Bruce Banner/The Hulk – Matt Ruffalo

Thor – Chris Hemsworth

Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow – Scarlett Johansson

Clint Barton/Hawkeye – Jeremy Renner

Loki – Tom Hiddleston

Nick Fury – Samuel L Jackson

 

 

Directed by Joss Whedon

Produced by Kevin Feige
 

Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Released May 4^th 2012

Official Trailer uploaded by Marvel on YouTube on 11^th October 2011 has 19,261,951 Million views

There are Tony Stark/Iron Man memes that are created by the audience

On IMDb the rating for Avengers was 8.3 out of 10 from 473,281 users

http://marvel.com/avengers_movie/

Website where you can find more out about the main characters in the film and interact slightly
You can download screensavers, twitter backgrounds, facebook covers, apps and other different things you can download to use

Budget: $220,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $207,438, 708 (USA) (4^th May 2012)

Gross: $623,279,547 (USA) (28 September 2012)

Audience Theories

For A2 I had to create a film campaign which included a teaser trailer a poster and a magazine cover. We decided that we would make a teaser trailer for the horror/thriller genre. The plot was about a group of friends who got a phone call from a mysterious ‘Caller’ who told them to kill their friends.

The target audience for our film was for between 15-24 year olds as this age group is the most likely to go and see a horror/thriller film, we aimed mainly at the C2, D, E social grade on the socio-economic scale, we chose to aim it at these people as they can relate to the story more and the troubles the girls are going through as the characters if real would be also put into this social grade. The 4 C's can also be applied to highlight who would watch our film I think the mainstreamer is the main target for our film as they are the biggest group.

Horror/ Thriller films are created for the main purpose to scare people, which is what ours was intended for. The audience goes to see the film to be frightened which is entertainment to them. If the audience believe that the film is not scary the film wouldn't have done its job and they won't recommend it to other people they know. 

I don't think that the effects model (hypodermic needle) applies to our film in great detail as there isn't a great message that we are trying to give out. Although the main purpose of our film is to scare and thrill the audience it could also possibly highlight the growing use of technology and time that teenagers spend on their phone, as our film is about 3 teenage girls getting a phone call from a mysterious person they don't know, I don't think that teenagers are aware of how much they use new technology and the effect it has on them and others around them. 

Having knowledge and an understanding of audience theory is key to creating a good film idea which can then be incorporated into our teaser trailer, it helps us to understand what kind of people we want to watch our film and what will appeal to them the most, we can do this by using pyschographic profiling  which is the 4 C's Cross Cultural Consumer Classification. Also helps to create a charater the target audience can realte to and identify with.

Refer to the conventions of real media texts and both your first and second year productions?

Three examples from both

Specific vocabulary and generic conventions

Narrative conventions

AS opening sequence

·         We looked at signs opening sequence the soundtrack

A2 teaser Trailer, Magazine and Poster

·         Looked at real magazines such as Total Film and Empire and took ideas from that 

·         Didn’t use actors names within the subtitles

·         Looked at real film trailers

For AS I had to create an opening sequence and for A2 I had to create a film campaign which involved making a teaser trailer, a magazine cover and a poster. Both pieces of coursework involved an element of filming; while only the A2 coursework involved using Photoshop to create two of the products asked for.

Before starting my opening sequence I had to first complete a preliminary task in which we had to make sure it included a match on action shot and an over the shoulder shot. By doing this preliminary task we got a feel of how to use the camera and how to edit our work.

To create an opening sequence to the best of my ability I watched real opening sequences on YouTube to help me get ideas, I watched ‘Signs’ opening sequence, by watching this it helped me to get an idea of what soundtrack would be best to use in my opening sequence as the context of the film was similar to what we wanted to portray in our opening sequence. I watched a variety of other opening sequences and found that most used the music to create a feeling within the audience. I also took notes on the camerawork that was used in some of the opening sequences I found that in horror/thriller opening sequences a lot of close ups and long shots were used.

My A2 coursework involved a lot more research as there were more products to create, for the teaser trailer I looked at real teaser trailers of different genres of films to get a feel of how different genres used different camera angles and editing. Once we chose what genre we wanted to do which was thriller/horror, I focused more on those type genre teaser trailers, as the editor I looked at the editing and music more than anything, I found that both the editing and soundtrack were fast paced which added to the suspense and tension of it, we used fast editing and soundtracks in our teaser trailer as we wanted it to be as real as possible, in our teaser trailer we didn’t use titles of actors names unlike most real teaser trailers we did this because although we wanted it to look real we didn’t want the attention to be taken off of the contents of the teaser trailer. To create the poster and magazine cover I looked at real ones such as the poster for The Strangers and Dead Silence, and for the magazine I looked at Total Film and Empire. I looked at these and took ideas from them and stuck to the layout of them so mine looked as real as possible.

Syd Field - Three Act Structure

The three act structure is a way of dividing screenplay into three parts the setup, the confrontation and the resolution.

The first act is to find out who the main characters are, their relationships and the world they live in. An incident occurs which the main protagonist character tries to deal with which later leads to a second incident which is a more dramatic situation, known as the first turning point. Which allows the audience to identify three things...

1. Signals the end of the first act 
2. Ensures life will never be the same again for the protagonist
3. Raises a dramatic question that will be answered in the climax of the film

The dramatic question should be framed in terms of the protagonist's call to action. This is known as the inciting incident, or catalyst.

The second act, which is also known as 'rising action' is the protagonist's attempt to solve the problem shown by the first turning point, only to find themselves in a situation that keeps getting worse. Part of the reason protagonists seem unable to solve their problems is because they don't have the skills to deal with the protagonist. They have to learn new skills and figure who they are and what they are capable of, which in the end changes who they are.

The third act shows how the story and subplots within the film are resolved. The climax,or 'the second turning point', is the scene or sequence where the problems/incidents of the story are brought to their most intense point and the dramatic question which the audience see in the first act is answered, leaving the protagonist and other characters with a new feeling of who they really are.

G325 Exam

In the exam there are 2 sections (section A and B) in which we have to answer 3 questions.

In section A there are 2 questions.

Question 1a - we have to write about both our AS and A2 coursework relating to...

·         Digital Technology

·         Creativity

·         Research and Planning

·         Post-production

·         Using conventions from real media texts

We have to describe and evaluate the skills we have acquired and how they have developed

Question 1b - we have to choose to write about either our AS or A2 coursework relating to...

·         Genre

·         Narrative

·         Representation

·         Audience

·         Media Language

In section B there is only 1 question (question 2) which is about Media and the online age. We’re focusing on film and music.