TV DRAMA: ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

This week's practice exam question is based on an extract from Orange Is The New Black (2011, season 1, episode 1). It is an award-winning drama.
It is based on a memoir of a woman's experiences in prison. The series received critical acclaim and many awards and nominations including 12 Emmy nominations.

In point: 32.50 "Seriously, shut it off!"

Background: Sentenced to 15 months for a crime committed 10 years earlier, Piper Chapman leaves her supportive boyfriend Larry for her new home: a women's prison. She grapples with the racial dynamics of prison life and learns some of the rules.

Extract: "I wasn't Ready" 
In point: 32.50 "Seriously, shut it off!"
Piper Chapman is on the beach with her boyfriend Larry shortly before she is taken to Lichfield Penitentiary in the prison van along with other new inmates. She travels with Marollo and Watson. 
Out point: "I wasn't ready"

Out point: "I wasn't ready."

Look at the extract as a whole first, noticing the use of contrasts:

• the contrasts between the two settings (beach and prison)
• the ways in which characters are represented (Piper before incarceration / Piper in prison; the optimistic prisoner and the cynical prisoner; the aggressive officer and the sympathetic officer) 
• how the two photographs are taken (act of love, act of domination)

THE FILM INDUSTRY: MARKETING LEGEND

Assess the importance of marketing in the media area you have studied. [50]
(CIE 9607/02 Key Media Concepts Section B 2015)

Your exam essay might ask you to write about marketing films, so we prepare detailed case studies that are interesting to read and easy to remember. Here is Legend (Dir.  2015) Working Title. We view the WT website and the Legend trailer.

Read Mark Kermode's review  TOM HARDY DIVIDES AND CONQUERS AS THE KRAYS

Then read this article from  Screen Film Summit: marketing Legend 

10 December, 2015 | By Tom Grater

Insight was given into three of the year’s standout British film campaigns.

The people behind the releases of three of 2015’s standout British film camapigns discussed their processes at the Screen Film Summit today (Dec 10)
Hugh Spearing, head of marketing at Studiocanal, presented Legend, which stars Tom Hardy as the East End’s notorious gangster twins Ronald and Reggie Kray.
The film opened to £5.1m over 5-days and went on to take £18.2m in the UK, the company’s second highest-grossing film behind Paddington. 

A legendary concept

When approaching Legend, Hugh Spearing and Studiocanal believed from the start that they had the concept for a hit.
“The reason we got involved in the film was the central idea of Tom Hardy, who was becoming an iconic British actor, playing both of the Kray twins, iconic figures themselves,” said Spearing.
The company took the project to Cannes, showing rehearsal footage of Tom Hardy in character at the festival, an approach Spearing described as highly successful: “It sold incredibly well before it even started shooting.”
In the first week of production, the company released a still of Tom Hardy in character as both Ronald and Reggie Kray; even though the image wasn’t a part of the actual film, it proved very popular, particularly online, and is still used to promote the film today.
The next step was releasing an initial teaser trailer for the film, which quickly became Studiocanal’s biggest trailer ever in terms of online interest. “That meant we knew there was interest” recalled Spearing.
As a result of the buzz generated, he said the company felt confident utilising “a big budget across all types of media”.
In particular, the social media campaign for Legend proved highly successful. “It was our most successful and engaged campaign to date,” recalled Spearing.
The company also managed to make use of the burgeoning stardom of Tom Hardy, who Spearing notes is often reluctant to do much press or social media but in the case of Legend was very engaged.
The resulting hype saw the film open strongly and go on to be one of 2015’s top 20 releases in the UK.  “It didn’t just work in London,” noted Spearing, referencing the film’s success in locations such as Portsmouth, Norwich and Sheffield.

Finally, read how Benjamin Lee's two star review (The Guardian, 9.09.15) was spun into movie marketing gold.

TV DRAMA: SELF/LESS

Today's textual analysis for TV drama is actually a film extract, but the skills are the same.
Find SELF/LESS on Netflix and analyse the opening. We start in class to practise the skills together then you complete for prep and email it to me. 

The characters are Damian Hale (a dying tycoon)
Martin (Hale's right hand man and friend)
Baldwin (the young man summoned to the restaurant; he has insulted Hale)
  PREP 

Section A: Textual analysis and representation (50 marks) Candidates answer one question based on an unseen moving image extract.

1 Analyse how the extract from SELF/LESS constructs meaning, including the specific representations of individuals/groups/events/places, through the following technical elements:

•• camera shots, angles, movement and composition

•• sound

•• mise-en-scène

•• editing.

MARKING SCHEME

Use of terminology: 10 marks …………………………../10

Use of supporting examples: 20 marks………………/20

Explanation / argument / analysis: 20 marks……….../20

Total /50

In point: start of film

Out point: the end of the lunch

THE ART OF THE TITLE

DAYS OF HEAVEN (Terrence Malick, 1978)

Set in 1916 and telling the story of a tragic love triangle, this film evokes both the period and genre in its opening sequence, which reflects Malick's knowledge of photography and willingness to use little studio lighting. 


The film's cinematography by Morricone models itself on silent films, which often used natural light. Malick also drew inspiration from painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Edward Hopper (particularly his House by the Railroad), and Andrew Wyeth, as well as photo-reporters from the turn of the century, such as Alfred Stieglitz, Weegee (Arthur Fellig) and Jacob Riis. The street scenes capture the urban poverty of the period and explain the desperation of the film's protagonists whose future is precarious . 


We have studied Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange as an example of the power of photography as reportage and its use in social change; the close-up of the infant's and young woman's faces exert a strong appeal and tug on our heart strings. The films concerns with social difference and the need for financial security are hinted at by the stills of the girl in the wedding veil and the three young women drinking tea intercut by shots of manual workers of various kinds.


The subject matter gradually moves from the urban to more of the rural, reflecting the narrative trajectory of the film.


The enchanting orchestral music echoes the use of musical accompaniment in silent film to suggest emotion.


Period colors (brown, mahogany and dark wood for the interiors) and period costumes from used fabrics and old clothes to avoid the artificial look of studio-made costumes. The colours create the illusion of period photographs, street journalism: an essential part of creating verisimilitude or 'real life' on screen. As a result, the footage is imbued with the quality of documentary truth, of scientific 'fact' which allows the viewer to engage fully with the world of the film. 


Art of the Title comments: Firing a mix of critical thought and mesmerizing immersion, Dan Perri's title design for Terrence Malick's Days of Heavencombines street level photojournalism and credit-to-character inferences drawing the curious eye at will, the ears aswoon with "Carnival of the Animals - The Aquarium" by Camille Saint-Saens. You are nowhere if not here, with these people, in the Gilded Age of American history.'


'And then the last shot of the opening title sequence] subtlety shifts us from photos and into the world of the film. In a masterful move, the last shot perfectly replicates the same look of the previous images, but...it is one of the actors, Linda Manz (in a photograph taken by Edie Baskin.) It’s through her perspective that we will take this journey so it is fitting that she is the one who bridges the gap from the opening credits into the first shot of the film'. Read the analysis by Cinema Sights

SHERLOCK HOLMES (Guy Ritchie, 2010)

Watery cobblestone logos and longitudinal linotype layer, lace and lash Prologue Films’ opening and end credit work for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. Key visual codes include pen-and-ink line wash drawings that emerge from live action film, handwriting in ink in a flowing Victorian hand complete with ink spatters for authenticity, sepia colour tones and the quality of foggy London pea-soupers that conjure up a shady, dangerous underworld where crime lurks in the shadows.

SE7EN (David Fincher, 1995)

Se7en is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements. The now classic opening sequence to Se7en that helped rejuvenate title design in mainstream cinema. The dvd has a long video about the making of this sequence. Title Designer: Kyle Cooper

TV DRAMA: GREY'S ANATOMY

EXAM WORK
Textual analysis of TV drama: extract from Grey's Anatomy.
The extract is on the school's Google Classroom.
Practising analytical skills for successful exam technique: how to identify a technical code (that is, an example of media language such as camerawork, editing, mise-en-scène or sound) and explain how it is used to create meaning.

For example:
The establishing shot is a bird's eye view wide shot of the harbour and busy city of Seattle. This situates the scene of the drama and reflects the tone of the whole piece which is set in a modern hospital with the dynamic cast of a busy. team of medics and surgeons. The rapid hard cuts combined with the upbeat, fast-paced non-diegetic sound track establishes the city as a bustling modern hub of activity, the centre of action. 

Dr Bailey is introduced by the camera tracking back in the hospital corridor as she walks her toddler son. What is unusual about this scene is the disjuncture between what the audience sees and what they hear: we see a calm mother silently guiding her tiny child's first steps and his radiant face in close up, full of the joy of achievement and the promise of discovery. However, the soundtrack is a voice-over monologue of an absent female adult speaker describing her frustration: she aspires to be a first-class surgeon but bemoans her inability to focus as she is held back by a love affair that she cannot forget. The effect is to spark questions in the audience: we are intrigued by the intimate confession, the promise of dramatic complications and the visual metaphor of the toddler at the start of his life's journey, as Grey is at the threshold of hers. The parallel but different paths excite our curiosity.

Bailey is witness to the next major trigger of the drama and tension of the extract when her boss Dr Webster triumphantly pins a news bulletin about a prestigious award to the staff noticeboard. In the two-shot of the pair, close-ups of Webster's face showing smiling satisfaction contrast with Bailey's impassive and guarded reactions. 

The brief verbal exchange between Dr Bailey and her boss Dr Webster that follows this generates more tension and drama for the audience as it is made clear though a series of close-ups of their faces, with reaction shots, that the news that Webster brings about the award will affect Dr Christina Yang badly. Bailey's clipped  response "Yes, sir" deflates him. This lets the audience deduce at the same time as Webster that the award will cause problems not just bring honour to the hospital. Webster's face crumples and he sighs. By contrast, Bailey is presented as more tough and realistic about the event. She takes the information in her stride, but she shows better knowledge of the team.

Of central importance in the narrative is the intense scene in the therapist's office in which Dr Meredith Grey confesses how her fantasies about a fellow surgeon obsess her. The mise-en-scène reflects the confidentiality of the situation: a sofa with plump cushions, low level lighting and soft furnishings contrast with the clinical atmosphere outside the therapist's haven. The narrative is delivered through a series of close-ups on Meredith's face as she confides her concerns and shot-reverse shots with the therapist who leads her to the conclusion and self-revelation that she must face reality without Derek. Diegetic sound dominates this scene to allow the audience to focus on Meredith whose body language is tense as she leans forward. She is represented as driven by the ambition of becoming a top surgeon but is also characterised as someone who suppresses her emotions. She comes across as taut and earnest, demanding 'tools' to deal with her fantasies. The medical jargon positions her as a medic with a perhaps desperate faith in professional intervention.

By contrast, the object of her affections Derek is constructed as easy-going, self-confident and romantically successful in the scene where he encounters his new conquest, Rose. The sexual tension between the couple is depicted through the two-shot in the elevator despite their complete avoidance of physical contact. For the audience, the promise of future romance is delivered through the dialogue in flirtatious undertones with smiles playing on lips. The light-hearted non-diegetic mood music creates the meaning that their new love affair is fresh, easy and going well.

A key scene in the narrative about the impact on the medical team is set in front of the notice board. The four-shot of the interns who swivel to hide the notice when Christina arrives is comedic in framing but also fraught with tension. Christina's head is shot from behind in the centre of the frame. It blocks the audience's view of the notice, generating our curiosity. as the identity of the winner is still withheld. Christina's reaction is conveyed in the close-up of her set face as she turns away: she is abrupt but outwardly stoical. Her ambition and self-control are made clear but also her deep disappointment as she cannot stay or confess her upset. Her friends' loyalty in their efforts to shield her feelings position them as a close, supportive team.


PRACTICAL
Additional activities:
How to use Fuzel collage tool to create composite images including animated photos (and choose the template, fill, text)
How to upload photos to Blogger, position, caption and delete them.
How to add a hyperlink.
How to add items to the side bar (add a gadget > blog), name them
How to add the search engine
How to customise the main background and the photo behind the title.

CREATE YOUR BLOG

In class, we launch individual blogs which should be attractive, easy to read and well organised.
PREP Customize your blog by changing the width, the background image and the title bar.
Aim for an individual but 'media' look.

Customize your title:

Add the following PAGES by clicking on Pages then New Page: 
FOUNDATION PORTFOLIO
CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

REPRESENTATION: MEDIA LANGUAGE

As we look at various screenings, we aim to consider how the media language constructs representations through  CAMERA MOVEMENT, SHOT TYPES, EDITING and MISE-EN-SCENE. Let's apply these to an extract from American TV drama.
Here are CIE's expectations: