Revision Notes

Analysing Images

Analysing Images: The way in which an audience ‘reads’ the meaning of a media text image.

Polysemic: Open to many interpretations.

The meanings of an image depend on 2 things:

• The way the signs and symbols are ‘read’
• The cultural background of the person ‘reading’ the text

Meaning is conveyed through media languages which can be verbal and non-verbal, visual and aural.

Non-verbal communication: Seeing characters in a moving image. This includes the gestures, facial expressions, clothing and props in a film as well as where the characters are placed in the frame.

Media languages include the way the camera sees the scene through shot size and camera angle, and the way the actors interpret the script.

• Typically the camera shows a scene from the position of an observer watching action as it happens.
• The camera can take the position of a character and show his or her point of view – this is a POV shot, as we see the action through the eyes of that character.
• The camera can see the action from any number of different viewpoints depending on how the director wants us- the audience – to perceive meaning in the scene.
• The camera can move on a dolly to give a smooth tracking shot, or the lens of the camera can move to zoom in or zoom out. The effect is that the character is shown in a variety of shot sizes.

Denotation and connotation

These are two important words concerned with the way an audience analyses an image, and comes from semiotics the study of signs and symbols.

Denotation: is the basic, literal meaning of what is in the picture or scene.

Connotation: different interpretations suggested or implied by the text, often associated with additional meaning, values, and context.

The connotation depends less on the facts as shown in the picture, and more on our interpretation of the scene depending on our cultural knowledge and signs shown.

Mis-en-scene

Mis-en-scene: elements of acting, location, set, production, design, cinematography, costume and make-up, which are put in a scene to contribute to the meaning.

This adds to our enjoyment of a movie or television programme as it looks naturalistic- that is it represents real life. It can also add meaning to a scene.

Things to look for in lighting:

• Is the lighting hard – lots of dark shadows and hard edges as in film noir
• Or soft were the scene appears cosy and the light is diffused and may be slightly misty
• Where does the main or key light come from? Does it come from more less where the camera is placed or from the side? It may come from an obvious source such as a street light (the umbrella sequence in ‘singing in the rain’) or from the back to give silhouettes, or the side to be dramatic and emphasise facial features
• Some genres have lighting conventions such as horror where monsters and bad characters are lit from underneath
• A toplight can produce a spotlight effect that does with musicals. In fantasy films a toplight suggests a character has superior magical power
• Naturalistic lighting. A police or cop drama, and most soaps, will try to create a very flat, strip-light look to an office setting.
• The sun
• Colour. Film makers like to use filters on their camera lenses for a variety of reasons.
• Three dimensional lighting. Most characters in a scene from a good quality fiction film will be lit up from 3 sources (three pointing light)

Make-up can be used for:

• Emphasising importance
• Realism
• To suggest the look and feel of the time
• Creating a parody

The Acting

• Is the actor creating a believable role? Not necessarily realistic
• Appearance – how the actor appears in the role – large, small, the right size. Costume and make-up can help an actor build a character
• Movements – an actor’s movements can enhance the believability of the character, and increase the information the audience is receiving about the character
• Gestures – gestures are helpful to creating the character
• Facial expressions – important in whether a character is sympathetic or not, and for reading emotions such as love, fear and pain.
• Vocal delivery – very important in delivering the lines so that comprehensive meaning is understandable to the audience

Soundtrack

Media language involves the use of sound and music to convey meaning and often to work on the emotional impact of the scene. The soundtrack of a film is a mix of:

• Dialogue recorded on location
• Dialogue recorded after filming – and dubbed in sync with lip movement
• Diegetic sound or music
• Non diegetic sound or music
• Sound FX
• Commentary

Andrew Goodwin's Music Video Theory

Andrew Goodwin has identified a number of key features in music videos. They are:
- A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
- A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
- Genre-related style and iconography present.
- Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
- Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
- Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.


Britney Spears's video -

I think that Andrew Goodwin's music video theory applies to Britney Spears's music video because Britney Spears is the 'star' of the music video and is always the central focus throughout the video. The shot types are often close ups of Britney too.
There isn't much relationship between the visuals and the lyrics apart from the small part in the middle where it is suggested that Britney is singing about the boy that she is in love with and he appears on the screen.
There voyeurism throughout the whole video because the audience get to feel like they can sit and watch Britney in a guilt-free context. The fact that she is a female would also encourage male voyeurism.

09/02/11 Media lesson

BEFORE TODAY'S LESSON WE HAD:

Filmed footage for advert 1
Filmed footage for advert 2
Uploaded the footage
Took away footage that wasn't needed for advert 1
Started again - re-uploaded footage

Everything is going really well at the moment. We are working effectively as a group and trying to get as much done in a lesson as possible.

TODAY'S LESSON:

In today's lesson we were cutting away all of the footage from the tape that we didn't need. This took a while because there was so much footage and lots that we didn't need. We had to re-upload the footage because we were trying to cut away footage a different, much harder way. We were advised to do it again and we also thought it would be better for us and allow us to progress quicker.
We discussed which order we thought that the footage should go in. It doesn't follow the storyboard exactly because our ideas have progressed since then and when we were filming for the footage it was hard to stick to the storyboard because everybody was coming up with really good ideas. So we ordered all of the footage once we had agreed on where it should go for advert 1 so that we can begin doing our transitions and stuff on it next lesson.
People that weren't using the computer to edit were discussing ideas for the audio to put over the advert. A small amount of research was also done on this.

NEXT LESSON WE NEED TO:

-Discuss whether we are going to have a voice over and if so, get that organised.
-Get rid of even more footage from advert 1 that we don't need.
-Begin editing parts of the footage in ways that it's going to look best and decide where that is going to go because it might effect the order of the advert.
-Try and cut our footage down to 1 minute - if not, shorter! (Eventually it will be 30 seconds)

My Individual Storyboard

I got my individual ideas from the analysing PSA's in Wednesday's lessons with Katherine and researching on Youtube for videos to see what impact they gave me. After looking at all of the videos i came to the conclusion that the advert needs to be quite graphic but acceptable to avoid complaints. The less graphic adverts didn't have an effect on me and didn't really leave me thinking about how serious taking risks such as sending pictures around to people or talking to people who you don't really know and meeting them could be. Video links that have influenced my group's main ideas were the videos that influenced my idea too. They were the most impacting, creepy ones and they were the ones that gave the better effect.

Description of my storyboard -

A teenage girl (person A) is on her way to college in her mum's car just like a normal day. She pulls up to college and notices a random college student (person B) wondering around with an image of person A (the image is representing a photograph that the girl had been sending around on the internet to males). Person A runs over to person B and asks where person B got the image from. Before person B looks confused and before they answer the question person A has noticed another image of her on the wall ahead. Person A runs over to it and tries to remove it. It peels off with ease like a piece of paper stuck a wall but when she looks back up it had re-appeared. The message here is that no matter how much you try and get rid of the image, once it is on the internet it stays on there because it is always retrieveable from somewhere. Person A panics and runs into college where the images are everywhere (on walls, doors etc) and other college students are talking about her to eachother, pointing and whispering. Person A makes her way to her lesson and she tries to take them down off the walls along the way and begins to get scared. She thought that going to her lesson would calm everything down and the teachers would protect her but when she walks into lesson (late) the teacher is busy pointing at the photo of her on the Smart Board. This is to symbolise that he has infact seen the image, so it is getting into the hands of adults. Person A runs back out of the classroom and nearly makes it out of college but she bumps into the cleaner who is looking like a 60 year old male. All around him darkens and he looks very creepy. The image of her is on his body symbolising that he has got hold of the image through the internet. He winks, and slowly walks away. He fades out and text comes up with the message of the advert and saying where to get help, websides, telephone numbers etc.

PRE-PRODUCTION + Final Ideas - Group Work

As a group we have all decided to create 2 30 second PSA's based on online safety. We are going to do one aimed at adults and one aimed at teenagers.

The idea is to make it clear that online safety is really important and if you don't take it seriously it could seriously affect your life. Also it is to make parents aware of what their children are up to online and teach them about it properly so that they don't end up ruining their lives at an early age when they don't understand the full extend of what they are doing.

30 Second clip for Adults (any gender, any age) NATHAN'S STORYBOARD - We're going to use children in this advert as the main focus so that the parents that are watching can relate to the broadcast and it should make them want to protect their children from what could be happening to them.
It's going to have a small amount of complication in it, such as the story being told backwards throughout the clip so that it takes a while for the audience to understand it but when they do it gives them that shock that we need them to have to take the broadcast seriously.
We are going to put some sad, relative music to the broadcast just to set the mood of it. There isn't going to be speech throughout the advert so that it leaves it to the public's imagination which can often be the most effective technique in PSA's. There will be implied speech, but you will not be able to hear their real voices.
 Because there is going to be a small child involved, everything will be exaggerated (mise-en-scene wise); to make the child look more vaulnerable. For example the child's clothes will be as suited as possible, and their setting (bedroom, etc) will be very child orientated.

A video that inspired our idea - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2Z48UcTdQo&feature=related

30 Second clip for teenagers (14-17 any gender) MY STORYBOARD - In this clip we are focusing on making quite simple but still using the shock tactic. To do this, we are introducing everyone's worst nightmare - paedophiles. The advert is going to have a bit to think about so it's going to make the audience try and piece the advert together but it's also quite simple. We are not actually going to make it 100% clear of what the girl in the clip had actually been doing, but we are going to make it obvious and make the audience use their head a bit. You would have to take notice of the clip to understand the meaning behind it. At the end to shock the public, we are introducing a paedophile to frighten the audience a bit and make them think twice before posting something they shouldn't be posting on the internet, or just to generally be careful of what they are letting everybody on the internet see.
We aren't sure on what music exactly we are using yet, but we dont think there is going to be any dialogue until right at the very end when the paedophile is introduced to the audience because this might make him have even more impact on the public.
It's going to be filmed around college so that teenagers can relate to it a bit better. Also, using college helps demonstrate how it can really affect your lifestyle because it can be related directly back to the audience as their school/college. Everybody involved in the clip is going to be dressed in normal teenage fashion just as you would find around college and act that way too.

A video that inspired our idea - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT1GvPQG904

Public Service Broadcast - Secondary Research

A public service announcement (PSA) or community service announcement (CSA) is an advertisement broadcast on radio or television, for the public interest. PSAs are intended to modify public attitudes by raising awareness about specific issues.

Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets that receive some or all of their funding from the public. Public broadcasters may receive their funding from individuals through voluntary donations, a specific charge such as a television licence fee, or as direct funding by the state.
Public broadcasting may be nationally or locally operated, depending on the country and the station. In some countries, public broadcasting is run by a single organization (such as the BBC in the UK and the Austrailian Broadcasting Cooperation in Australia), broadcasting national and regional radio and television services. Other countries have multiple public broadcasting organizations operating regionally (such as the ARD stations in Germany) or in different languages. In the United States, public broadcasting stations are always locally licensed, but range from stations that mostly broadcast programming from national networks such as the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), to stations that broadcast content of local interest.

In 1985, the UK Broadcasting Research Unit (1981–1991) defined public service broadcasting as involving:

1. Geographic universality — The stations' broadcasts are available nationwide, with no exception. Generally, the "nationwide" criterion is satisfied by either having member stations across the country (as is the case with PBS) or, as is the case with most other public broadcasters around the world, the broadcaster's use of sufficient transmitters to broadcast nationwide (as with ABC Radio National across Australia).
2. Catering for all interests and tastes — as exemplified by the BBC's range of minority channels (BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 3)
3. Catering for minorities — much as above, but with racial and linguistic minorities. (for example S4C in Wales, BBC Asian Network, Radio-Canada, and Australia's multicultural Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)).
4. Concern for national identity and community — this essentially means that the stations mostly part-commission programmes from within the country, even if more expensive than importing shows.
5. Detachment from vested interests and government in which programming is impartial, and the broadcaster is not be subject to control by advertisers or government. Even when a broadcast medium is removed from corporate and government interests, critics argue that it may nonetheless have a bias towards the values of certain groups, such as the middle class, the politics of the incumbent government, or in the case of partially or wholly commercially funded networks, the advertisers.
6. One broadcasting system to be directly funded by the corpus of users — For example, the licence fee in the case of the BBC, or member stations asking for donations in the case of PBS/NPR.
7. Competition in good programming rather than numbers — quality is the prime concern with a true public service broadcaster. Of course, in practice, ratings wars are rarely concerned with quality, although that may depend on how "quality" is defined.
8. Guidelines to liberate programme-makers and not restrict them — in the UK, guidelines, and not laws, govern what a programme-maker can and cannot do, although these guidelines can be backed up by hefty penalties.

Not all of these points apply to public broadcasting in other countries.

The more graphic the better? - Interview with Mum

Question - What are your views on graphic public broadcast announcements? Should they be allowed?

Response - I'm all for it! I dont think they should be on in the day time because of little ones... it will frighten them. But i dont see the point in showing them if they arent graphic it's not going to get the message across is it? It does annoy me when people complain about drink drivers and people on drugs and things like that and yet when the government try to do something about it by showing advertisements they complain about that aswell! It's like they cant do right from wrong!

Question - So you would be ok with really graphic advertisements?

Response - Yeah. Providing they don't show them in the day time because of children.



From this i can consider making a PSA for adults quite violent because both my Mum and Dad say that they should be more graphic but not around children because they don't want them to be scared by it. They say that they should be showing more graphic ones in the late-evening for adults to watch.

Media Coursework - 'The Cow Advert' Primary Research (INTERVIEW)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0LCmStIw9E

I asked my Dad questions after watching the advert based on what he thought about it and what he found effective. I chose this advert because it was banned from television after being described as "too graphic" and "inapropriate".

Question 1 - In one word, how do you feel right now after watching this?

Response 1 - Shocked. I heard that advert was quite a bad one.

Question 2 - Which parts do you think are most effective?

Response 2 - Probably the fact that it actually shows the car accident and doesn't cut it like they normally do in adverts. Also, the fact that the girl in the back thinks that she is alive and fine and then a car comes and crashes into her side too. I think that it's good that they show briefly what happens after the crash too with her getting airlifted and the look on her face when it's all happened. They should do that more often to get the reality across. If people could see what really happens it might make people think twice.

Question 3 - So do you think that these broadcasts aren't as effective as they could be?

Response 3 - No way! They could really be effective if they just showed footage of what really happens. People should be exposed to stuff like that to get the full understanding. The adverts on television at the moment - even the ones that get complaints - are pathetic compared to real life situations. I understand that some aren't suitable for children but they could show them later on at night when children are supposed to be in bed and adults are still awake. Its not like children can drive anyway so it’s not going to affect them by not watching it.

Question 4 - So what sorts of things would you like to see in public service broadcasts that isn't already in them?

Response 4 - Well just making sure that real footage appears in all of them. Stop wrapping the situation up in cotton wool and let people see those serious situations for what they are. The idea is to make people aware, but it's not is it? It's showing them a fraction of what really happens.

Question 5 - What sort of topic -if you could choose- would you choose to do a PSA  based on if you could do it as graphic as 'The cow advert'?

Response 5 - The effects of drug taking. Adverts make them look not all that serious. Of course everyone is going to say they are marvellous and fun but it doesn't show long term effects. All they do is go on about the biological effects like in that advert... what was it? Talk to Frank? With all of the different effects of Cannabis. Everyone knows that by now - especially if you’re smoking it. It's like people smoking cigarettes, everyone knows the biological effects but loads of people are still smoking! They need to make them more graphic about lives being ruined through it - and that’s not necessarily the drug-taker's life. Prison sentences for not even being the main guy behind all their drug runs and stuff. It's so easy to get lost into that kind of life and yet drug using is still happening everywhere when to me; it's just as serious as texting when driving. It still kills you, and you can be held responsible for killing others but the difference is young adults and adults drive and everyone can take drugs... but doesn't that tell you something? What the law considers as 'children' are taking drugs these days too with no idea what it could do to their lives. 

Media Coursework - 'Fire Kills' Primary Research

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57XocAzLs34

The muffling of the mixed noises at the beginning makes the audience try and piece together what has happened because of the close-up shot of the man's grey looking face and the muffled sounds. Anyone watching would assume that whatever has happened isn't good. The main suggestions that came to mind that either he had been hit by a car and was coming out of conciousness, or was dead and it was just what was going on around him.
When the camera zooms out, the man gasps deeply, as if he has just came into realisation of what has happened to him and begins to hysterically cry. There is a bandage on his arm, indicating that actually he isn't dead because the hospital wouldn't have just bandaged a mans arm up if he was dead.
As the camera zooms out even more it allows the audience to take note of the setting. The setting is presumed to be the man's house which is brown and worn with crispy wall paper, stained floors and melted toys etc. This suggest that his house has been burned down in a house-fire. As this is happening the voice of what sounds like a young girl saying "daddy" echoes throughout the house and throughout the man's head. It is implied that there was a housefire and the man lost his family due to it.
A voice-over then goes on to say that "a fire doesn't have to kill you to take your life". It offers a help-line for if their are any questions or if you would like a handbook on the matter.

I found this advert very effective as it's not like the usual advert which involves a criminal offence and what that could do to your life - this advert is something that everybody can benefit from in day-to-day life. It's aim to to raise awareness to have your smoke alarm batteries checked regularly to avoid losing your family. The fact that a child is involved injects valnerability into the advert because it makes the audience think 'poor innocent child' because the advert isn't indicating that it was the child's fault. The man looks very distraught and from the beginning when you think back to it - very ill. The whole situation looks as though it has caused the man some psychological damage due to the beginning where it looks as though he doesn't really know what's going on and looks lost. I would assume that the target audience would be anybody who has a family because the advert would make them think that they don't want that situation to apply to them.

From this advert, i would like to take using children into consideration so that it will really tug the heart-strings of the audience. You don't need a family to create a reaction of sympathy for children because people without children can sympathise for others with children. Children are considered vaulnerable so it can make the p/s/a more impacting. Also, the use of the muffling music leaves the advert to the audiences imagination at parts which i think can be very effective if you can't get across the intensity. I would like to consider using this too.

Public Service Announcements/Broadcasts - Katherine's Homework

Analysis:

The public service announcement i will be analysing is an announcement from 'Think!' to raise awareness about the effects of drink driving.
I personally think that this advert is very impacting, it shows the decisions that he is making and the consequences all in one short 30 second scene. It shows to the audience that a careless decision will resolve into something serious and deadly.

There are some effective signifiers used such as the crashing sound. Signified, it means that there has been a car accident. The sound is a signifier because there is no car present on screen when the audio starts. This is effective to the audience and also impacting because the image isn't there of the cars, which leaves it up to the imagination of the audience.

The crutial part of the advert is to raise awareness that car crashes do happen when people are under the influence of alcohol and put people in danger and not necessarily you that is going to get hurt just because your the driver and the one under the influence. The advert shows the girl being thrown about in a violent manner, with her face smashing on glass on the table which could symbolise the car wind-screen smashing onto her face. Her body is left crippled and bent, clearly indicating that she is in fact dead.

The man begins to panic and look upset and scared about what he has done which also could influence the audience to panic with him and feel a small amount of what he is feeling. This is designed to stop the audience of the public broadcast to be frightened by what they felt and not to drink drive themselves in order to avoid that emotion. The emotions they feel only last for a couple of seconds and after a while they will fade away. This made me feel grateful for the fact that the emotion can go away after a few seconds and i know that if i were to drink and drive and put somebody in danger i wouldn't be able to get rid of that emotion and would have to live with it for the rest of my life. I think other people watching the announcement would feel that way to, and it subconciously persuades the public not to commit this serious crime.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsY_Co-p8Bw