AS MARKS

THE PRESS: THE FOURTH ESTATE

Please take the opportunity to see The Post (dir, Steven Spielberg, 2018).
Next year, you will study media law, including press regulation and the balance between the freedom of the Press and the regulation of the Press.
As a group, you have arranged film outings together, so here is an important one for you.
In class, we watch the trailer.
Alan Rusbridger, as editor of The Guardian, wrote on 19.11.2010 about the Press:

Q.3: CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

How did your production skills develop throughout this project? Examples are here and here
Present your response in Emaze with illustrations. The 'page turning' technology of YuDu may no longer be available free.

• research the genre, specific genre codes
• suspense, enigma, tension, thrill: function of film opening to hook audience, not reveal all
• realism, props, costumes, setting, lighting
• the role of visual codes
• tripod; hand-held "When making the prelim, I learned how to bubble the tripod..." "i used only tripod work in the prelim but for my Foundation Production I had the freedom to use hand-held..GoPro..."
• ellipsis in narrative; motivated edits
• Key characters should be prominent in the first and last shots in a sequence to signal their importance.
• camera angles serve different specific functions
• continuity editing using iMovie or FinalCutPro; "The prelim required only shot reverse shot, but in my film opening, I..."
• Adobe After Effects
• PhotoShop stills pulled in
• iStopMotion to make your production company ident
• function of sound
• 180 degree rule "In my prelim, I learned to observe the 180 degree rule...In my film opening, I practised using this by..."
• titles
• organization of cast, equipment; planning tools like shot lists and call sheets
• you went to the BFI study day on UK Cinema: Audiences and Institutions. Did anything there help you to think about your film making?

CHECKLIST

Time to seek individual guidance, if desired, on items in your checklist: go back to the end of last week and look.
I will show you innovative ways of presenting feedback quotes such as by using call-outs.

HOW DOES YOUR PRODUCT USE OR CHALLENGE CONVENTIONS?

Looking at narrative theory, especially Todorov and Barthes

NARRATIVE THEORIES

• Tvzetan Todorov - suggests narrative is simply equilibrium, disequilibrium, new equilibrium
• Vladimir Propp - characters and actions (31 functions of character types)
• Claude Levi-Strauss - constant creation of conflict/opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only end on a resolution of conflict. Opposition can be visual (light/darkness, movement/stillness) or conceptual (love/hate, control/panic), and to do with soundtrack. Binary oppositions. 
• Roland Barthes Action/proiarectic code & enigma code (i.e. Answers & questions). Read about Barthes' Five Codes here
• David Bordwell on narrative: see his blog on understanding film narrative here
• See our class blog post 

In class,  we revise each theoretical framework and seek to apply the relevant ones to our own productions in answer to one of the questions asked in the Creative Critical Reflection

HOW DOES YOUR PRODUCT ENGAGE WITH AUDIENCES?

• Applying the uses and gratifications model of audience behaviour 

USE POWERPOINT WHICH YOU THEN UPLOAD TO SLIDESHARE
Here is an example of what ideas we developed when thinking about how Blumler and Katz applied to Robotica: 

How Does Your Product Engage With Audiences?

According to Blumler And Katz, Audiences use media to gratify needs (the uses and gratifications model of audience behavior). Our film opening provides audiences with escapism, entertainment and diversion. Our film opening has fast paced editing and we take our audiences into the exciting world into artificial intelligence and business. It also includes a sense of danger and threat as the robot starts to develop his own sense of will and by the end he has acquired his target, Tony, the final scene shows Rick trying to stab Tony in the hand. The visual spectacle helps compliment the entertainment we have produced drone shots and beautiful shots of Canary Wharf, we filmed shots of tall buildings and the reveal of the life size robot helps contribute to the entertainment.

Our film touches on very topical issues, the satisfaction of knowing what is happening in the wold helps the audience stay engaged, the news report at the start of the piece immediately engages the audience, there is a lot of interest into the way robots communicate with humans like Alexa And Siri. Books such as Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark help people understand the risks of AI. Is technology our servant or our master?

Audiences tend to use media to reinforce there sense of personal identity, that is there beliefs and values. Therefore while most of us in the west tend to embrace new technology and feel that it could serve us, We are also concerned about our privacy being compromised by the government eaves dropping or technology being used against us. Initially our young entrepreneurs are presented in a very positive light as they are innovative and shown in a creative way and they want to create a product not for the money but for the advance of technology. The moment of truth comes, however, when audience realize that the owners are cutting corners and are more interested in making money that testing there products a lot before it is launched. In terms of narrative theory this is the moment of disequilibrium.

The fourth use of media text is to gratify the need of making relationships which can be understood in two ways, the first way was our relationship with on screen characters. As indie film makers we cannot cast big names like Martin Freeman. I learnt at my BFI study day on UK cinema that having Martin Freeman as part of the deal secured the funding for Dyson And Nyman's Ghost Stories (2018 Warp Films) We have unknown's however we chose attractive personable actors in order to engage the audiences sympathy's, it is also important that they are young and making there way in a very tough world, which increases our sympathy for them even when they cut corners. Whilst UK audiences would definitely understand and recognize the scenarios, in our film i think that transatlantic audience would also warm to themes such as these because there is a tradition of start  ups and new tech companies in places like silicon valley which are very much admired which are held up as models of entrepreneurship.

PRODUCTION BLOG

Your blog SHOULD include the following. You will have class time to work on these next week, such as on Wednesday 7 November.
   
Audience research; audience profile 

Your character development such as interviews or 'hot seating'


An account of  group decisions, shoots, edits

Research into your chosen genre with evidence of how you have investigated how popular that genre is with your target audience (such as box office returns), how the theme might attract your target audience ( such as it being topical - like AI  - or perennially fascinating - like psychological drama). This should include the style  / visual /sound codes common to your chosen genre such as common elements of mise-en-scene, common shot types / angles / edits /use of sound. (Morgan dir, Luke Scott 2016; Humans  C4 2015,written by Sam Vincent and Jonathan;  Brackley; short film High Maintenance; I Robot dir, Alex Proyas, 2004)

Your film opening discussed in the light of narrative theory and uses and gratifications model of audience behaviour

Audience feedback on decisions made during the development of your production, including any before / after evidence of changes

Your thoughts on how you would attract and address your audience

Regular reviews of shooting days and edts: what went well / what challenges were posed / what problems did you solve

Any lighting tests

Details of the reasoning behind casting, location choices, costume decisions

Research into music / sound with decisions about your choices 

Drafts of scripts of any dialogue

Call sheets 

Shot lists

Storyboard