SECTION A EXAM 1A)

For my A2 media coursework, I created a music video, the song used was "You my Everything" by Ellie Goulding and I was the star, which meant that I performed and lip-synced throughout the song. For AS I created a short film opening that was a couple of minutes long, the title was 'Fixation' and it was a horror film, which involved stalking.

Starting AS level I had no knowledge in media, meaning I had never used an editing programme. We was introduced to adobe premiere pro, which after a couple of attempts I started to enjoy and learn to use. I have had an interest in camera's for quite some time meaning that I knew quite well how to achieve different shots and how to work the video camera's. I had also worked with audacity which is a programme that allows you to record voice-overs, and this became useful.

For our film opening I only used basic effects such as fading and adding sound effects. I extended my knowledge further during A2 level, a music video involves many more faster cuts, which was a lot different to the film opening. For my film opening we only shot once, whereas for our music video we had 5 re-shoots as we massively underestimated the amount of footage that we would need for all the fast cuts. Taking my basic knowledge from AS level, I used the fading effect to merge one shot into another and make it flow faster, although this was not needed as often as the film opening as fast shots were required to keep the audience interested and keep up with the pace of the song.

As I wanted my music video to look as professional and creative as possible I decided to explore further into adobe premiere pro's effects. This involved using effects such as making the image appear multi coloured, and a strobe effect which was useful in parts that the pace picked up of the song so the image was paraell with the beat. Also the layering effect and slow motion was used often throughout our video, as I wanted some scenes to look almost psychedelic. The slow motion really helped to achieve this effect and allowed the audience to almost feel a part of the video, as the motion may make them feel slightly dizzy allowing them to feel the way that the star was portraying.
For our A2 piece we decided to film most of the video outdoors, and I underestimated how difficult this would be. This involved using a generator which neither me or my group at used before, to get the lights to work outside as we were filming at night. As we were filming at night, some of the shots came out slightly grainy and the colour was wrong. This meant that I had to do some colour correction in editing to make the colours look more true to what they should. This technique really helped to make our video look professional as the shots looked sharp. Looking back at my AS film opening, this would of been useful in helping to also make that look professional.

Over the two years I feel like I have turned my small knowledge of editing, to quite a large amount of knowledge.

Representation Question

Looking at my AS film opening 'Fixation' we used a stereotypical representation of teenagers. During the opening we featured teenagers at a house party, the teenagers were seen drinking, laughing and having a good time. In post production we added a strobe effect to create a sense of distortion for the audience, this allows the audience to feel almost as if they are at the party. Our target audience for our film opening was teenagers so we used the party to allow our audience to feel a sense of self representation. Cohen's theory represents different media groups as a whole, in our opening we did not present teenagers as a population in a positive light, we showed underage drinking and loud parties as the only thing that teenagers do. Also it shows a tweet that James sent out about his party, which represents that teenagers are not sensible when it comes to sharing private information online.

As there is no dialogue throughout our opening sequence we used the facial expressesions of our teenage actors to represent teenagers, throughout the opening sequence the teenages are shown laughing and smiling which represents as a whole teenagers are care free and happy.

We used our film opening as a way to subvert to stereotypes of gender that are seen in forms and conventions of stereotypical 'stalker' films. Usually you would see a man that is obsessed with a woman but we challenged this idea by having a teenage boy being stalked by an older woman. This makes our film opening rather controversial and original. The first character that we see in the opening is Eileen she is sat infront of a board that is covered in information about James. The lighting is very dark and the main focus is the board. By showing Eileen in dark lighting represents her personality. Also we used costume to represent the two characters personalities, using the binary opposition theory, Eileen is dressed in all black where as James is dressed more colourful, representing that Eileen is miserable and alone whereas James is happy. The use of binary opposites allows the audience to follow two different characters and see how they interact with eachother, which makes it more interesting and entertaining for the audience. We used costume and lighting to represent Eileen's personality as we chose not to show her face in the opening sequence as we wanted this to be the main enigma code throughout the first half of the film, it allows the audience to create an image for themselves of what they make think that Eileen looks like.

Although in contrast to this Eileen is conforming to stereotypes as stereotypically women are obsessed with males and male attention and this is what she is doing, trying to get the attention of a male. McRobbie looked at how men and women are portrayed in the media, Eileen conforms to her theory by being subversive to males although in contrast to this Eileen subverts to McRobbie's theory as she started that women are portrayed as weak whereas in our film Eileen is the villain and has the upper hand towards the male.

Sound was a key part in making Eileen appear to be a villain, when we first see Eileen the music is eerie and continues to be throughout the opening sequence, the use of tracking shots and quick cuts mean that the audience are following Eileen's everymove drawing them in.

Apply theories of narrative to one of your productions:

      The production that I am looking at is Fixation which is a film opening that I made last year in AS level. The first character that we see within our opening sequence is Eileen she is dressed all in black and we cannot see her face, there is also no dialogue. Using Barthes action code even if there is no dialogue the audience are still being told a story by the action that is seen on the screen. We see Eileen in front of a board with lots of information about a boy called 'James' at the moment we do not know who James is and why Eileen has this information. This creates an enigma code, the audience are asking themselves several questions such as who is the woman dressed in black, why is she gathering this information about a young boy and who is the boy? The non diegetic music that we can hear also helps to tell the story, the music is eerie and helps to build up an atmosphere, drawing the audience in as the music changes pace. The music used is parallel to the images shown on screen which are dark and mysterious. Pathetic fallacy is also used as whenever Eileen is shown it is either in a dark room or at night time, where as when James is shown it is in a bright room. Eileen is also dressed in all black which suggests to the audience that she is a dark character, not to be trusted. 
       In our opening sequence we subverted to Propp's theory. Propp stated that most of the time the character in distress is a weak woman such as a Princess although in our opening sequence the person in distress is James, a young teenage boy who is usually not represented as being weak in stereotypical conventions of films. We conformed to Propp's theory as our Dispatcher is an older strong man, as the plot continued into our film we planned that Eileen's husband had gone away after the death of their son as a coping mechanism, and he decided to come back to find James in Eileen's house. Eileen is portrayed as the villain, but in reality as the plot continues we find out that Eileen has her own villain which is mental health issues that she has, which makes her the way that she is.
      We conformed to Todorov's theory of equilibrium by having several obstacles for the characters to overcome throughout the film. In James case his first obstacle is too throw a good party, he overcomes this when lots of people turn up, James must then overcome the obstacle of the 'police' coming to his house which turns out to be Eileen, James must find a way to get out of Eileen's house to overcome this obstacle. Finally once James has been rescued he must get over the traumatic experience. Eileen also has several obstacles that are shown throughout the film, the first obstacle that she must get over is the death of her son, then she has to get over her husband going away. To get over these obstacles she uses James. When James is freed she has to get over him leaving, and finally she must try and get over her mental health issues. Everything is resolved for James in the end as he gets freed from Eileen's house. Although we subverted to Todorov's theory in Eileen's case as we leave her on more of a cliff hanger and never find out whether she recovers from her mental illness, so all does not end positive for Eileen. The use of several obstacles for each character allows the audience to follow the characters journeys and become more involved with them on a personal level, this keeps the audience engaged throughout the film.
     In our opening we conformed to Levi Strauss' binary opposition theory. Within our film opening the two main characters are represented as being completely opposite, Eileen is always presented on her own which suggests that she is lonely where as James is shown with several friends which shows that he is popular. James is dressed colorfully where as Eileen is dressed all in black which shows that James may be more happier with his life and himself where as Eileen is not. Also this could represent that James is celebrating whereas Eileen is grieving. The clear binary opposites between the two are that James is a male where as Eileen is a woman, and James is a teenager whereas Eileen is a middle aged woman.

Representation Plan

What Where Why?

Age

Gender

Actors

Costume

Lighting

Camera shots

Sound

Editing

What?

-We use a stereotypical representation of teenagers.

-We subverted to stereotypes of gender, boy being stalked by older woman.

Why?

-During the opening we featured teenagers at a house party, drinking and having a good time. We used a strobe effect to create a sense of distortion for the audience almost making them feel like they were there. Our audience was teenagers so we wanted to make them feel a sense of self representation.

-We see Eileen in front of a board with all information about James, we wanted our film to be new and original to engage the audience, stereotypically it would be a man after a young girl. Although in contrast to this Eileen is conforming to stereotypes as stereotypically women are obsessed with males and male attention and this is what she is doing, trying to get the attention from a male.

Cohen- Teenagers are not represented in a positive light, shows them at a party, drinking and being disorientated.

Propp- Subvert to propp's theory as he states the person in distress is using a princess, weak woman etc but in our case it is James.

McRobbie- Eileen conforms to her theory by being subversive to males although she is portrayed as the villain rather than being weak so subverts to the theory in this way.

Binary Opposition- Eileen portrayed as bad, alone, old and dark. James portrayed as popular, young and happy.

Negative representation of older woman, more positive of the teenager.

Narrative Question Plan

Apply theories of narrative to one of your productions

Propp
Villain- Eileen, who had her own villain (mental health)
Protagonist- James
Dispatcher- Husband comes back to surprise her, after she thinks that hes gone missing.

Todorov
Eileen needs to get over the death of her son and her husband going missing. James has to get over being taken.

Levi Strauss 

2 main characters are opposite, Eileen no friends, mental health, bad, old.

James, popular, happy, good, young.

Barthes

Why James? What possessed her to stalk him?

Eileen dressed in all black shows her dark character. 

Theorists

Narrative Question