The contextual study I am taking this semester is Music in Popular Culture, I have been working so hard trying to do an assignment for the class and it has been extremely time consuming… luckily it is about something that I actually enjoy. I decided to choose the topic of gender issues in the Music industry which I never really thought much about. I never really think about the in-depths of lyrics in a song but more the tune/beat of the song. This issue stood out to me in media in general with the idea of music video’s, Instagram posts etc… When thinking about this I constantly see women having to project themselves in a provocative way in order to gain the same attention as men. Why do women have to paint themselves in make up and wear minimal clothing in order to gain attention? Men can be covered head to toe in clothing and wear no make up but still we classify them as ‘sexy’ or ‘handsome’. See, this is something that I really will never understand in the media with gender issues and how even I feel myself I have to subject myself more then men, editing my photos to cover a blemish or putting on a filter to make myself look more tan. We are constantly consumed by this but we never actually think about it because it is what is seen as normality today in the media. It would take a miracle for this to change and for women to not show themselves as this but it really frustrates me that this what is now considered normality for media. When ever I think about this I think about Madonna and how even though she is older she still shows herself to be sexy and young when really thats not what she is anymore… Good on her if that is what she wants to do but I don’t agree with the sexualisation in media and feel like it is an issue that will continue to grow and never actually be fixed.
This is what I mean if anyone doesn’t quite understand…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHW5RVvg2v4
This reading was a bit of a blast from the past with my year 12 media class where we focussed closely on the protagonists relationship with the audience and how they need to create an empathic relationship in order for the audience to form a relationship with the character. I have always understood the idea of a protagonist and the characteristics they need in order to be successful- but particularly in this reading it stood out to me the point raised about how the audience needs to draw empathy for the protagonist, but sympathy is optional. I have never thought about this closely but it seems true, it is 50/50 to the idea that we either like or hate the protagonist, but they always have to do something in order for us to share an interest in them (empathy) otherwise it wouldn’t be a successful film. See, if I was ever to create a film I would automatically think I needed a protagonist with a sad life, in a bad situation in order to gain interest from the audience from the beginning. This is shown in the reading that this is not always what has to be done, in order to have a successful film your protagonist needs to at least have the chance to desire something and have hope in order to complete the ‘3 act setup rule’ otherwise audiences will not engage with the directors intentions the way that was hoped.
I always find films most interesting when it isn’t shown straight in your face that the protagonist has an issue, I like to be challenged in order to find out what will happen e.g. something bag happening to someone really good- it makes us have empathy for them more rather them feeling sympathetic to their situation. I have a lot of thoughts running through my head about this in regards to films I have already watched: but this will defiantly be something I will comment on later in regards to relationships between the protagonist and the audience.
Within reading this reading I wanted to apply the ‘3 act set up rule’ to one of the Documentaries that I have closely analysed myself. I watched the Documentary Film ‘SuperSize Me’ Directed by Morgan Spurlock where he conducts himself in a 30 day diet of only eating McDonald’s. Although he doesn’t directly play out the 3 act rule, the way the movie is set up he falls closely to it.
At the beginning of the film he clearly shows the relationships with people that will help him through this diet. We see that himself is the protagonist whilst his girlfriend, dietician and doctor are all antagonists that have an influence on him. This is the first rule of any documentary film to establish characters and the relationships that they have. I have never thought about this in much detail, but it seems that all documentaries are the same in this. No matter how different the plot or what the film is about it is always set up in these 3 steps in order to convey successfully to the audience what the director/producer is wanting to say.
Next the audience is shown the complications in Spurlock conducting this 30 day diet, we see how hard it is for him to consume so much sugar, the effects of him being really sleepy, putting on weight and not being able to live his life correctly like he did before.
The 3rd part is the climax, where Spurlock is at his lowest, he is bias towards his opinion of McDonald’s being really bad for you so we can see that he defiantly emphasis’s the symptoms more, but he helps the audience to realise the effects without them having to risk themselves. This is the part of the film where we can see that Morgan although McDonald’s claims he didn’t, but has influence on McDonald’s were they took away the supersize option of meal and added a new ‘go active’ plan. This is the part of the film were the central character resolves the issue, and in this case not only in the film but globally.
I think it is important to analyse media in the way that the producer wishes you too. In specifics from the beginning of a documentary film you should be able to understand the motives of the film, see there will be complications and usually a resolution. It is rare that the film will not have a resolution in the Documentary genre but for some cases this can happen with on going issues.
I really enjoyed this reading and it has automatically made me analyse films to understand from the beginning what might possibly happen and the directors intentions for the audience.
I found this exercise a bit of a blast from the past as in my last year of school we spent a lot of time filming and editing together different shot types. I think this is important to experiment with because in a successful film you can see the perspective of different characters to understand the narrative more clearly and the intention of the producer/director.
One problem I encountered when editing this was making it flow together more or less because we filmed outside and inside. I feel as if I needed to have a few more cutaway shots in order to transition from being outside to inside. For the mean time to overcome this I used a fade and just continued on the interviewing technique to make it look like the interviewer was just selecting random people about survival to university. I feel as if the most successful shots were the interviewing ones because we zoomed in on the faces of both the interviewee and interviewer to see their reactions to the questions and emotions. I feel as if this put a more personal front on the film to show they actually cared about what they were interviewing about. What I personally discovered about the camera techniques is that it is best to have the interviewer on the side of the frame so you can see the location of where you are shooting and also if someone walks into the frame the composition works well so that you can see both people (mid waist up) and also the surroundings they are in.
Next time if I was to do this exercise again I would film more tracking/cut away shots to transition from being outdoors to indoors so the film flowed more chronologically.
In our Lectorial today we focused on narrative structures/stories and why they matter. I personally found this quite an interesting part of media because it makes us as the audiences think about what the intentions are of a director/producer and what they want us to gain out of the media they produce.
One example that our Lecturer gave us to help clarify this was the film ‘Mistaken for Strangers’ by Tom Berninger. We watched the first scene of the film where we were already able to analyse the first narrative code of sound. This automatically informed the audience that this was a documentary about a band and set in a informal direction. I personally really liked the way this film was created because it was filmed from a brother about a brother and I can relate to that because nothing is ever to formal with someone that you know really well which is exactly what Tom Berninger showed in this. He also really proved the character of his brother Matt because he didn’t just talk about the band he was in The National, but showed evidence of his character.
I personally have never thought into much detail about the narrative of films but this made me realise the classic way a film goes e.g. the protagonist (main character who the film is based around) and the antagonist (usually more then one). There is always a climax/issue in the film and usually resolved towards the end. Now when I think about films myself and the narrative style it is interesting to see what you first take from the film in the beginning scenes.
how individual films, newspaper stories, photographs, audio recordings , websites and so on have been treated as objects to critically analysed in terms of their construction and communication of particular meanings between producers and audiences. How do we/audiences ‘make sense’ of texts?
This statement really made me question about the relationship between producers and audiences in regards to how the producer wants the audience to interpret the media they are releasing, and how we actually interpret it. What I specifically thought of when thinking about this was ANZ bank ATM’s in Auckland City, New Zealand with their ‘GAY ATM’s’. People were interpreting this the complete wrong way to I think what ANZ wanted them too. Many people of the gay community saw it as much of an insult as the ATM was bright and sparkly, rather then supporting gay marriage in NZ. I think it is important when media like this is being created about touchy subjects the business needs to be really clear about what they are communicating in order for people to not get offended and not getting a bad name.
Since I wasn’t in class last week I have some catching up to do in order to advance my skills with editing both sound and video. In our Workshop we firstly we discussed about how to use audition and editing sounds. I didn’t ever think that something like this would be very complicated, but syncing the sounds together so it flows is a bit more difficult then suspected! We also learnt how to use camera’s and tri-pods properly for later use in the year. We did a interview task on the camera to get some basic skills about filming. I did a lot of camera work at school, so most of it is just refreshing my memory although putting it together in a different program is a harder task.
I have always had a huge passion for photography so the second reading that we had to do this week really interested me and I feel as if I understood (for once) what the writer was saying and what he meant about photography and what it represents.
Today we rarely see a photograph without a caption or title. For example you see on social media all these photographs people have taken of what they are doing, or where they are and all of them have a caption. You very rarely would see an image on Instagram without a caption or description of what the photographer wants to say about it. This reading links into the idea of textual analysis and about how without a title or caption people take their own interpretations of the images. For example I feel that in order to produce to the viewer a photograph with meaning and something that you really want them to understand- you need to work with what is available. When I did photography last year, my 3 final boards had no sort of description about what was being photographed, which meant that I needed to shoot these images in a way that the marker would clearly understand what I was trying to demonstrate. This is a tough part of photography I believe because there is no wrong image, photos shouldn’t necessarily need a caption to tell you what is going on because the photograph speaks itself. The way you personally interoperate the image is not wrong, but a well structured and thought about image should speak directly to the viewer for them to understand the photographers intentions.
This morning I felt that I would get into my reading’s early as I have a lot of extra curricular on this week and wanted to get ahead of myself. At first looking at this reading it didn’t interest me so much and took me a while to get into it but their was a few key points that really stood out to me and made me relate them to my everyday live and the link it has to media. What really stood out to me firstly in this reading was “There is no such thing as a single, ‘correct’ interpretation of any text. There are large numbers of possible interpretations, some of which will be more likely than others in particular circumstances.” This made me realise that everyone looks at media differently, and technically there is no wrong or right way at looking at something. I feel people get so confused by this as you feel as you are constantly judged by the way you in take media and if it is different to how other people would. This personally relates to me for example if i’m listening to a song or looking at a photograph around other people, I feel shy to comment about what I interpret from it because sometimes I have a completely different idea to others. There is always a approach that for example a photographer or the singer is trying to give off to the audience, but the way you take it in or act upon it should never be wrong because we all think so differently.
I have watched every episode of every season of Criminal Minds and never have got bored of it. Some could say that it is the same stuff happening in every episode- there is a murder and it is solved by people who seem to be the smartest criminoligists and investiagtors known to man kind. I noticed a turn in the recent few episodes of season 10 where they are carrying on a break about one of the man characters being targeted and held hostage. It interests me to think about why they do this? are they trying ot attract more viewers? are people not watching the show as much anymore?
I saw this exact same thing happen in Grey’s Anatomy which I posted about a few weeks ago. T.V shows all seem to have the same intentions of trying to kill off a main character in order to engage more personally with their viewers. I know this show is unrealistic and not every crime can be solved as easy as they make it- but thats the fun of it. That is why people find it so interesting because it is so unrealistic. It makes me feel distress about these T.V shows when they try and kill off main characters- they are risking the fact of loosing viewers who only watch it for that characters role, but then again taking that risk means it creates much talk about the T.V show again in the media and engaging people to comment about what has happened through social media.
I feel as if it is always risky to make these moves about which characters leave the show or die because it can create distress for the viewers and either gain more or loose. Personally for me in the recent shows of Criminal Minds it has just made me angry because they never say why Derek is being targeted or who is targeting him. I guess this is what they want people to think so they keep watching their show. Its clever but annoying because it drags out the main point much more then they should.
Once again Criminal Minds has won my mind and I will watch ever episode on time until my favourite character is safe and sound.