Camera Shots/Angles

In this post I will be talking about the range of camera shot three different scenes/moments in three films.

'Soft' directed by Simon Ellis:
The first one I will be looking at is the start of 'Soft' directed by Simon Ellis (video to the right). The 14 minuet film starts with a clip from a camera phone filmed by the youths. The quality of this part is very poor to exaggerate that it's being filmed by the youths. This is also used a lot through out the short film to portray parts of the film through the youths perception. The camera then goes to a high shot angle showing the quiet suburb neighbourhood and the Dad parking and getting out his car. After this the camera changes to a medium close up of the stairs, it uses the rule of thirds in this shot by putting the stair banister in the middle as it isn't important. The shot shows the boy walking down the stairs, hearing his father come in then quickly go back up to show he is trying to avoid him. The camera then changes again to a medium shot showing that the father is in the kitchen making himself a drink.

'The Holiday'
I next noted the camera shots at the end of 'The Holiday', this is one of my favourite films so thought it would be really interesting to analyse (video to right watch from 6.35). The camera starts as a medium shot of the young girl (Olivia) running down the stairs, the camera moves with her showing the Christmas decorations on the stairs (this portrays that it's December). The camera then tracks out to show her Auntie Iris (played by Kate Winslet) spinning her around. After this the camera tracks slowly into their faces to show that they were happy and laughing, the camera then goes to a medium close-up again. This medium close-up shot stays until Iris stops spinning round her niece and kisses her. The camera then follows the two characters as they move into the other room with a medium long shot before changing again to a close-up of Iris smiling. The camera changes using a reverse angle shot to a medium long shot, showing Miles (played by Jack Black) joking around with Iris' other niece Sophie to show Iris is watching them. There is then another reverse shot back to Iris to show she is thinking about her relationship between her and Miles. After that there is then two more reverse shots of Miles looking at Iris and Iris looking at Miles these shots are both close-ups to depict their emotions. The next shot is another MS of Amanda (played by Cameron Diaz) walking into the lounge before there is another RA to show Iris, Miles, Olivia and Sophie all on the sofa before returning to the MS of Amanda and Graham (played by Jude Law) walking/dancing towards her. The shot stays there to show them both dancing and show there was a close relationship between them before another RA shot of the sofa. After that there is a CU of Graham smiling at them all (portraying a happy ending to satisfy the audience). The shots continue as MS and CU to show the relationships between all the characters and them all dancing before there is a MLS of the window which tracks out before showing the credits.

'The Lion King'
I next looked at Mufasa's death in 'The Lion King' because I knew this scene had good camera angles to show the status between both characters (clip to the right).
The shot first appears as a medium high angle shot of Mufasa holding onto the rock. The view represents how Scar sees him and portrays Mufasa as very vulnerable, there is then a reverse angle shot to show Mufasa looking at scar this a low angle shot to portray that Scar has all the power in this situation before returning the shot back to Mufasa as he slowly starts to fall. After that there's a low medium long shot to represent the relationship between the two brothers and both their status. The next shot is a close-up of Mufasa feet slipping of the rock and scratching it, this exaggerates the fact that he is falling. This quickly changes to another close-up of the rocks falling to exaggerate that he is falling even more.  The next three shots move very quickly, it starts as a  low angle close-up of Scar showing no emotion that Mufasa is falling however Scar then shows anger and moves forward, the next shot is a BCU of Scar holding onto Mufasa's paws, then there is a CU of Mufasa roaring. After that there is another MS to show Scar getting closer to kill his brother (building the pressure) and an extreme close up of Mufasa in horror before a big close up of Scar letting go of Mufasa (killing him). The next shot is a low angle shot showing Mufasa falling towards the audience then into the stampede. A quick CU of Simba is then shown to portray the horror on his face this then zooms out to a long shot, to depict how helpless he is.

Semiotics

In our third lesson with Mrs Griffiths we learnt about connotations and denotations. We started with an activity where we saw signs and then wrote the connotations we associated with them. This included a smiley face J which I associate with happiness and a pound sign £ which I link with money. There were also colours that we connoted in this activity. I believed connotations of green were natural and environmental however I also thought it was sometimes showed jealousy. For red I thought it depicted love and danger.

Important vocabulary we learnt:
Semiotics- Studies of signs
Connotations- a meaning attributable to an image beyond the obvious denotational level
Denotation- the first and simplest level of meaning an image

Observing Sound in The Orphanage- Regression Scene

On the 13th September my class watched the Regression Scene in The Orphanage (Scene to the right). We concentrated on the sound in this scene, listening to the soundtrack, sound effects, dialogue, diegetic and non-diegetic sounds.

Soundtrack (non-diegetic):-Starts with a violin portraying a mysterious environment however it then suddenly changed from painfully high (which makes the audience feel uncomfortable and not at ease) to lower quickly. This sudden change exaggerates the tension in the scene.

Sound Effects (non-diegetic):-Footsteps of the psychic walking (creaking floorboards) are put in the emphasise that the women is alone. They also give a spooky effect to her.
-Children talking and crying out for help get louder and quieter throughout the scene to depict when the women is near them and build up tension.
- Camera zooming in and out

Dialogue:- They gave the man a deeper voice to give him more presence (as if the audience is there with him)
- They also made the women's voice sound distant to make the audience see her a vulnerable and alone

Diegetic sounds:- Man writing the route she is taking with a pencil is emphasised
- Rich crisp sound of man turning the radio on
- Light flickering (this gets louder and faster)
- High pitch sound of radio/TV starting
- Man walking downstairs (Creaking steps- signifies how old the building is)

'The Orphanage' Opening Sequence

Last lesson we looked at the opening sequence of 'The Orphanage' a Spanish horror film by J.A Bayona, we focused on the sound, setting, genre, storyline and characters of this scene.

Characters:
The Lone Character (Laura)
-Young
-Female
-Innocent
-Costume is old fashioned (1940s/1950s)

Older Women (The Caretaker)
-Appears to be hiding her emotions
-Does not show face
-Seems mysterious

Setting/Location:
-Spanish countryside, 1940s/1950s.
-The summery outside setting was juxtaposed to the dark mysterious setting inside the orphanage portraying it as evil and not safe
-The garden was surrounded by trees and shadows making it feel closed off from the outside world
-In the garden there was a strange looking scarecrow foreshadowing the future

Sound:
At first there is diegetic sounds and sound effects of birds singing, insects and children playing to set the scene (a typical summers day in the country side). After this a non-diegetic cheerful high pitched piano comes in, however this slowly saddens as we see the caretaker answer the phone. This again changes when the caretaker walks down the steps and it becomes more mysterious and louder.

Genre:
Psychological horror film

Storyline:
A young girl (Laura) playing "Uno, Dos, Tres, Toca la Pared" [One, Two, Three, Knock on the Wall] with her friends, at first she appears to be alone, the camera is far away showing a wide shot and making her look vulnerable, the camera gets closer and shows a close up to Laura. It shows a silhouette of her friend reaching out to her from behind, however because the camera is so close the audience cannot see she is a child and it looks as if someone is trying to grab Laura. The children then chase one another in the field with Laura laughing and playing. The children run and play by a strange looking scarecrow which I believe foreshadows the Tomás' sack mask (which appears later on in the film).  We then see the older women (The caretaker of the orphanage) receiving a call, she confirms that Laura is going to be adopted, although she has not told Laura yet. She opens the doors to the garden/field and walks down the steps. She mumbles "Laura, you are going to miss your friends" to herself.

(See snap shots below)

Television theories

On 11th September we studied theories on TV from the 1920s till the 1990s (see picture at bottom).

 The first theory we looked at was The Hypodermic Needle Model this was a theory dated from the 1920s. It suggested people 'passively received the information transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the data.' and did not take into account individual opinions assuming they were heterogeneous.
However this theory soon failed because the audiences are not all passive.

The next theory we studied was The Two Way Flow Theory (also known as the Limited Effects Paradigm). This theory was in the 1930s/ 1940s by Paul Lezerfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet and took into account peoples opinions. It all started when Paul, Bernard and Hazel decided to interview people who voted in the presidential election to see why they voted for certain people. This led them to believe we only filter information that we like and we have a choice in what we want to watch for example, if we like football we will filter the news we hear about games/scores where as if we don't like it we tend not to listen or process the information even though we are being told the same thing.

The third theory we learnt was from the 1970s by Blulmer and Katz The Uses and Gratification Theory. Blulmer and Katz came up with four reasons why people watch television: diversion (escaping reality), personal relationships (emotional support), personal identity (finding yourself in TV) and surveillance (to find out information). They believed the four uses would expand as media expands.

The last theory we found out about was The Reception Theory in the 1980s-1990s by Stuart Hall.He believed we could produce media for certain gender, class, age, ethnicity etc (this is known as preferred reading). He thought the audience received text by encoding and decoding.

See this link for more details:
 http://marlboroughmediastudies.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/audience-theories.html

What is media?

In my first media lesson with Mrs Griffiths (10th September) we learnt what media is about. We started with writing a description of the media saying it refers to the different channels we use to communicate information in everyday life. We then discussed what is media and came up with a list of media we use this included TV, magazines, films, radio etc. After doing this we talked about what our favourite things were in each type of media for example my favourite TV show is ‘New Girl’ because I find it funny and my favourite pop song at the moment is ‘Little comets- Jennifer’ as it is a feel good song and puts me in a good mood. (See table below).

Starting AS Media Studies

Hello welcome to my Blog. This blog will be used to contribute to my AS Media Studies coursework. I will be posting links, pictures, videos etc. to help me on my journey of A-Level Media Studies.

 In my first media lesson of year 12 Mr Buckmaster gave me useful websites to look at including his blog www.marlboroughmediastudies.blogspot.co.uk, the Guardian newspaper www.guardian.co.uk, the OCR www.ocr.org.uk, the Art of the Title website www.artofthetitle.com which has many opening sequences and Pete Frazer's blog www.petesmediablog.blogspot.co.uk which I have looked at. However I found many of the information he posts very useful. 

I chose Media Studies as an A-Level because of my love of theatre and film. My sister is also currently in her second year of A-Level Media and really enjoys it; I have watched her process of making an opening sequence and found it really interesting. I am also taking Drama and Theatre Studies at A-Level after enjoying it significantly throughout my Marlborough education, so will be up for playing a role in our project and really enjoy directing. I also learnt a lot about lighting, sound, costumes and more whilst studying GCSE drama last year which I hope will help my Media Studies too.