01 TV - CUFFS

 Understanding the social and historical context of TV in the 2010s

using your green Fact Sheet 

MARKETING: MAKE A FILM POSTER FOR YOUR FILM

We are studying how Warner marketed the Lego Movie. Part of their campaign was a set of posters. 

PREP Now that you have finished your trailer, make a film poster advertising it.

Use PowerPoint. Add a screenshot from your own film as background. 

Pick another image from your film. Use 'remove background'.

Add the film title, cast, release date and tagline. Look at the poster for A Quiet Place and others that inspire you. Tenet is unusual as most text is horizontal.

03 HIP HOP MUSIC VIDEO

PREP for Friday and Monday 7 December. Write the first draft of your Statement of Intent. Open the link to see what you have to do. Post the draft on your blog under the title STATEMENT OF INTENT You now have 2 hard copies each of completed Statements for guidance.

FILM SHOOT: Filming today ready to use green screen when editing

TRACKS: Stressed Out (Oli), Same Thing (Asa), Let You Down  (Matt) 

CUFFS

 Below are the kinds of points that you might make:

Media Language: you may analyse the extract in terms of media language, for example:

•   the mise-en-scène of Peel’s tight-fitting black cat-suit costume sexualises her for a male audience

•   Steed calls out to Peel with the line: ‘Mrs Peel?’ which is a sign of respect and suggests a time when women were referred to by their marital status rather than by their first name

•   the use of the set-piece fight sequence between two male characters is a convention of the genre 

Media Representations: you

 may analyse the extract in terms of representation, for example:

•   the inclusion of a strong female lead who uses her intelligence to solve the case challenges stereotypes of men being in control and holding all the power

•   the obvious sexualisation of Peel through her tight-fitting costume is a common stereotype of the genre

•   Peel’s need to be untied and saved by Steed supports more traditional gender stereotypes

•   Steed refers to Peel’s weight, as he unties her, which conforms to the gender stereotype that women should be concerned about their appearance and weight 

Media Industries: y

ou may analyse the extract in terms of media industries, for example:

•   the programme is scheduled on primetime Saturday night television 

  with little competition from other channels

  the large budget allows for more sophisticated camerawork and a 

range of more interesting locations which would appeal to a wider television audience

•   post-watershed scheduling allows for under-currents of sexual 

  tension between the male and female character
• 
  

•   the post-watershed scheduling also allows for a more sexualised 

  female character in Peel 

Media Audiences: you

 may analyse the extract in terms of media audiences, for example:

  the extract offers the audience entertainment and diversion, e.g. the light-hearted humour of the extract when Peel is freed by Steed versus the suspense of the confrontation between Steed and the blacksmith

  strong female character could attract a female audience to a genre which had traditionally had a predominantly male audience

 

Media Contexts: you may analyse the extract in terms of media contexts, for example:

  changing attitudes to gender representations through the portrayal of Emma Peel reflecting a time in which women were taking on more dominant roles in society and popular culture

  undermining of the positive female role through the way that Emma Peel is sexually objectified and requires ‘saving’ by Steed

Extended response that makes judgements and draws conclusions

You must make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the extract challenges traditional representations of gender. You may conclude that the extract does or does not challenge traditional representations of gender and are to be rewarded to the extent that they support the judgements through an analysis of relevant examples from the extract in a clear and logically structured line of reasoning. 

FILM MAKING

Your Google Classroom link here

PREP Write a brief account of what you did to film your trailer today. For the next prep on Wednesday, after editing your trailer, complete the write-up and upload your trailer. The first two are at the bottom of this post.

We look at the trailer genre and discuss how its conventions (= what elements are usually in trailers).

• editing is not continuity editing (as the narrative arc is long)
• inter titles between clips (= writing) about the director, actors, awards, pull quotes
  
• additional inter titles explain the narrative (THOSE WHO HAVE SURVIVED / LIVE BY ONE RULE / NEVER MAKE A SOUND
  
• sound track build to the climax
• release date
• film title
  

We watch A Quiet Place as a possible model for us to copy (=make a swede)

 

01 AVENGERS: SOCIAL CONTEXTS

CLASSWORK & PREP

We watch The Avengers (chapter 8 only) on Clickview to prepare for the following exam task:

3 In this question you will be rewarded for drawing together elements from your full course of study, including different areas of the theoretical framework and media contexts.

How far does the extract challenge traditional representations of gender in order to reach a 1960s television audience?

In your answer you must:

• analyse the extract’s use of gender representations

• make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the extract challenges or conforms totraditional representations of gender including stereotypes. [15]

01 AVENGERS: SOCIAL & HISTORICAL CONTEXTS

PREP Use Clickview to watch The Avengers episode. As you watch, look out for the ways in which social and historical contexts have influenced the programme.

Just for interest at this stage, below is the kind of question that would appear in our exam:

5 The Avengers

Explain how historical contexts influenced the portrayal of heroes and villains in television programmes. Refer to The Avengers from 1965 to support your answer. [10] 

Social and historical contexts:

•  the 1960s was a time of rapid social change and the programme reflected the desire of the television professionals to push social boundaries. Peel’s character was a strong and sexy ‘heroine’ who was very different to the usual female characters found on television at this time

•   Steed’s hero character was styled for an overseas market; he was presented to fit the international stereotype of an English ‘gent’ in order to appeal to an American market as Series 4 was sold overseas and introduced the world to the UK in the 1960s

•   ‘foreign’ villains, often found in The Avengers, reflected society’s concerns over spys and ‘outsiders’ (enemy within) operating in the UK during the cold war

•   the influence of gender inequalities: Emma Peel is represented as an intelligent career woman and there is a central male/female ‘hero/heroine’ pairing at the heart of The Avengers – reflecting women’s increasing public role in British society in the 1960s

•   the heroes in The Avengers are white and heterosexual, which suggests that this was considered the norm in the 1960s and any representation outside of this was not accepted by society, reinforcing the marginalization of minority groups such as these in Britain at this time

•  the heroes overcome the villains with relative ease - Steed and Emma polish off the `Eastern European' soldiers and villains speedily in the closing sequence, thus reassuring the audience of an assumed British superiority at a time when the Cold War was at its height

•   Historical context includes the social, cultural and political context of the time.

•   Context should move beyond the theoretical framework of representation, medial language, audience or industries.

•   Candidates may refer to other programmes of the time in their response in addition to discussing The Avengers. 

 

Yr 10 CUFFS

PREP Watch this extract of Cuffs on Clickview: chapter 5 

Answer the following 2 exam questions on your blog:

1 Analyse how camerawork is used in the extract to create meaning. Refer to at least two examples from the extract in your answer. (5 marks) 

2. Analyse how far the extract creates a humorous view of policing. In your answer you must:

• analyse aspects of the extract using examples to support your analysis

• make judgements and draw conclusions about how far these aspects create a humorous view of policing. (10 marks) 

Example of how to answer on camerawork:

•   sweeping aerial shot of Brighton pier connoting a glamorous seaside location

•   bird’s eye view of the small police car driving through the streets of Brighton on a call-out, carrying connotations such as danger, excitement, and urgency

•   the use of an over-the-shoulder shot of the beach sign, as we arrive at the sign at the same time as the police officer, connoting surprise and anticipation of what is to come

•   slow pan / track of the new recruit police officers as they are introduced to the audience connoting authority and power

•   high angle long shot of the beach scene showing the police officer outnumbered by the group of men on the stag do

•   any other relevant analysis 

• 
  

GOOGLE MEET & CLASSROOM

 Here is our link https://meet.google.com/lookup/gq2ruowmhs

mrlep7n

Year 10 - 02 NEWS

Open the OCR fact sheet below and save to your 02 NEWS folder on your desktop

Read the OCR guide here - open the pdf link

PREP Please read the sections called Print Newspapers, Funding and Historical (first 3) ready for a test next lesson!

 

Yr 10 NEWSPAPERS - 02 MUSIC & NEWS

 We look at a1960s edition of The Observer, one of our set texts and complete our viewing of the Aberfan disaster clip on Netflix's The Crown (S2, E2). 

We draw attention to some of the camerawork and the ways in which people are represented in addition to following the narrative 

• the use of CU to show characters' feelings and reactions 
• the use of high angle shots to emphasise the sheer volume of tiny coffins)
• the use of the Queen's profile and the immobility of her face to suggest her distance

We compare the 1960s The Observer with a print edition from this week:

• the skybox with soft news, celebrities and popular culture exemplifies its 'tabloidization'
• its massive pictures with bright colours contrasts with the  monochrome
• we also note the serif / sans-serif fonts of the masthead title

PREP Start in class by downloading the 3 copies of The Observer from the OCR website and save to your folder 02 NEWS on your desktop

1. Find one example of the representation of a woman and say how she is represented.

2. Find another contrasting example of a woman and say how she is represented

2. Find one example of a news story about the Cold War

3. Find one example of a story about a domestic disaster

4. Find one example of a story about a European disaster

01PROMOTING MEDIA: LEGO MOVIE VIDEO GAME

WHAT DO AUDIENCES ENJOY IN THE LEGO VIDEO GAME?

Today we watch the Lego Movie Video Game walk through.

 • As we know, media practices are widely connected to Blumler and Katz’s Uses and Gratifications theory, in terms of the audience’s sense of identity. The sense of actual identity and aspirational identity can be seen in the use of a first-person protagonist (to associate directly with the gamer) and the ‘quest’ to explore new worlds in The Lego Movie Video game. The theme of good versus evil is often a key social value in video games and is at the heart of this game too. 

• Arguably the target audience for the video game is younger than the film. This can be seen through its level of difficulty, which provides a younger audience with an entry point to the franchise, without needing to watch the film. Criticism was mixed for the game and its narrative as it takes elements of the film’s narrative but lacks the cohesion and humour of the film. Critics recommended seeing the actual movie and seeing the gameplay as a stand-alone. 

• The Lego Movie Video Game is a cross-media promotional product as it advertises a range of Lego characters and icons, like the superheroes and ‘Benny the Spaceman’. Both the movie and the video game are part of a larger Lego video game franchise that existed before The Lego Movie resulting in intertextuality for the audience and a deeper relationship with the Lego brand. The superheroes featured (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman) are also part of the larger Warner Bros./DC superhero franchise so the video game also acts as an introduction point to those characters and helps to cross-promote this superhero franchise in terms of other Lego video game products (e.g. Lego Batman) and films (e.g. Justice League). Purchasing the game provided childhood nostalgia for parents (a brand they might have played with when young themselves) and allowed them to play with their children. This also illustrates how the audience for video games might interpret the same product differently, e.g. young and old getting different pleasures from the product. 

• The Lego Movie Video game was number 1 in the All Formats Chart, the sixth Lego video game to do this. It was released available across a wide range of popular console, PC and Mac platforms. • The Lego Movie Game for mobile devices included in-app purchases but required a larger memory (over a Gigabyte of space) which met to further mixed responses. 

• In the same week (Feb 17th 2014) there were five Lego video games in the top 40 All Formats Chart meaning that Lego games made up one eighth of the total chart. 

• The game was released onto mobile devices due to the market being worth around $21 billion in revenues. As the game appealed to families and children alike the hope was they would attract a mixed-age audience. 

PREP

The Uses and Gratifications audience framework offered by Blumler and Katz suggests that audiences use media to gratify needs for:

• escapism, entertainment, diversion
• surveillance (finding out what's going on in the world) 
• forming relationships (both with on-screen figures and in real life through sharing pleasures with friends & family)
• shared values and beliefs (we identify with certain people as heroes, hope that villains will be defeated, want a particular set of values to be restored and so on)

01 PROMOTING MEDIA: LEGO MOVIE

1. We study the 5 Lego posters  of Emmet, Wyldstyle, Lord Business and Vitruvius
2. We view a walk-through of the video game and note what the audience pleasures consist of.
3. If there is time, we read the review by Stuart Beedie:
   "Today’s blockbuster franchises rarely exist simply to sell themselves – they double as advertisements for a raft of goods, from tie-in video games to personal appliances. A film studio is never just a film studio, but a small subsidiary of a conglomerate, with revenue to be raised by the many arms of the octopus..."

PREP Get to know a bit about The Lego Movie (2014) by watching the trailers or, if you have access, a bit of the movie itself. We will not be tested on the whole movie, but we do need to understand its appeal to its audiences.

For instance, it is really interesting to watch the Behind The Scenes of the Lego Movie 
which opens with the question: "What is The Lego Movie? Well...." then explains it.
Useful to note comments such as 

• "The whole world is created out of Lego bricks and populated with Lego figurines."
• "Emmet is just this normal guy who is thrown on this crazy adventure with some famous personalities."  
• "There were some big egos."
• "Like all my movies, Batman is the main character and this is no exception."
• "The cool part is, all these Lego worlds come together... there are superheroes, Ninjas, knights, pirates, a space dog, a space cat.." 
• "Wyldstyle, she's the most awesome kick-butt hero of all time, a strong role model for girls everywhere."

Read the OCR pdf guide to the Lego movie video game: industry and audience here

Read the OCR pdf guide to the Lego Movie: industry here

Making the Lego Movie Ad Break

Lego ensemble poster

In Section B, there are three questions on how media is promoted.
Your case study is The Lego Movie, its marketing (ad break trailer  & advertising posters) and the video game. Below the specification is the exam paper.

Question 6 = one mark. Question 7  is worth 4 marks, so write half a page.

Question 8  is worth 10 marks. Write a page and half. Refer to theory.

PEGI regulates the video game industry. Open the link to see PEGI's website. Pan European Games Information.
Film companies release video games that are linked to films in order to promote the film. They market a number of related products as a form of media synergy, with each product cross-promoting the next.
Read this interesting article about the synergy of the Lego movie franchise.

 

Wyldstyle poster

Lord Business poster

Emmet poster

Yr 11 MUSIC VIDEO

PREP Revise both music videos  by watching them. Check the lyrics. Read the notes below, which support today's revision on media language, media representations and media audiences.

Wheatus Teenage Dirtbag

Avril Lavigne Sk8ter Boi

How we wrote Teenage Dirtbag by Brendan Brown, singer / songwriter

I’d had the riff in my head since college. I wrote Teenage Dirtbag lying on a futon staring at the ceiling in a rented apartment on Long Island, New York. The song is fictional, but has a bit of scenery from my childhood.

On stereotyping & representation: I wanted the chorus to be defiant. When I was 10, there was a drug-induced, satanic ritual homicide by some teenagers in my neighbourhood. This guy lured his friend into the woods and stabbed him in the name of Satan. The murderer was wearing an AC/DC T-shirt, and after the murder, those letters came to mean Anti-Christ/Devil Child. I was an AC/DC fan, so I became a dirtbag in the eyes of the authorities of my little seaside town. And when I sing, “I’m just a teenage dirtbag”, I was like, “Well, what difference does it make, because you’ve made your mind up, haven’t you?”

On representation: Back in the 80s, the traditional American high school experience and the prom date was already in the culture...The song was story-based, almost like a folk song, and I liked the way it set the scene of this classic American high school. As a teenager in the US, you think about the prom the whole time. It’s sort of like your wedding. You imagine it’s gonna be some crazy night where the stars align – or it’s going to be terribly tragic. Teenage Dirtbag is a song about rejection, but then the good guy wins.
Ruffle-front dress shirts in pastel colours are a perpetual go-to in teen movies (again, the movie this is from is about college students) to make dorky characters look super-dorky.

On stereotyping & representation: The girl in Teenage Dirtbag is wearing “Keds and tube socks” because I was setting the narrative in the 80s. I mentioned Iron Maiden because The Number of the Beast was the most notorious example of “Satan rock” of the time. The boyfriend character was based on a nameless conglomeration of the many douchebag bullies who wanted to show you their father’s gun. (In some versions of the lyrics, the boyfriend brings a gun to school.The word “gun” was censored in the song because the week Brown presented it to Sony was the one-year anniversary of the Columbine massacre.) And I sang both the male and female parts because, when I was getting beat up, a lot of bullies were homophobic. I wanted to irritate them by putting on a female voice.

 

On genre and audience: I wanted it to sound like Metallica and AC/DC from the waist up and Public Enemy from the waist down. I wanted those choruses to be explosive....When we play it, the crowd sing so loud we can’t hear ourselves.

Our comments in class:

The singer is stereotyped as a 'loser' in the high school world. Others make L shapes to insult and humiliate him. His cap with ear flaps, his check shirt and his gentleness construct him as an outsider, as weak. He is jostled in the corridor and pushed to the floor. However, the chorus tells another story: inside, he's strong, he won't give up on his music or his dreams. He shares this confidence with the audience in the performance scenes who are right behind Wheatus, identifying with him.

A Deep Dive Into Avril Lavigne’s Sk8er Boi Video

Can we make it any more obvious?

Words: Mike Rampton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Avril Lavigne’s masterpiece Sk8er Boi – is a lot of things. It’s a love story, a cautionary tale, a romantic tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, a can’t-lose karaoke go-to and a guaranteed dancefloor filler.  

0.01 Here we go, and it’s immediately all kicking off. There’s a load of spray paint – the edgiest of all paint formats.

0.07 7th St & Spring St is in LA, of course. There’s an ice-cream shop there now called Little Damage that looks quite nice.

0.14 Old technology was truly, truly awful. This was cutting-edge shit back then. This is a Motorola Timeport Skytel Pager, and every word of that model name is more depressing than the one before it.

0.21 Riding a bike while on a bus is both rude and silly. We all like wheeled transport, pal. You’re not special.

0.22 Here she is – Avril La-vloody-vigne herself. Ledge. Born in 1984, she was just 18 when Let Go came out and she was propelled to worldwide fame. Lavigne’s parents realised she was a talented singer when she was just two years old and joined in with hymns. The Lavignes had a strictly religious household, and young Avril was quite sheltered – she was forbidden from singing the song Strawberry Wine because of the mention of alcohol.

0.23 “I know what it’s like to be a skater and have all the preps or whatever look down on you because you dress differently and act differently,” said Lavigne in a 2002 interview in which she pronounces the word “about” amazingly. “And I didn’t like that. People judging you by the way you look. I know what it’s like to be in that situation, so I decided to write a story about what I saw between different groups in high school.”

0.32 He was a punk, but is, or was, Lavigne? Close friend and guitarist Evan Taubenfeld told Rolling Stone: “It’s a very touchy subject to a lot of people, but the point is that Avril isn’t punk, but she never really pretended to claim to come from that scene. She had pop-punk music and the media ended up doing the rest”. Lavigne herself said, “I have been labeled like I’m this angry girl, [a] rebel … punk, and I am so not any of them. […But] I like to listen a lot to punk rock music, you can notice a certain influence of punk in my music. I like an aggressive music, but pretty enough heavy pop-rock, which is what I really do.”

0.33 Punk and ballet aren’t strictly opposites, really. Choreographer Michael Clark was once known as the punk of the ballet world. Karole Armitage, similarly, has been dubbed “the punk ballerina”. Also both of them sometimes involve really silly shoes and dressing all in one colour.

0.34 ‘What more can I say?’ sings Avril. Loads! The rest of the song! There has been speculation that Lavigne based the story on her own life but swapped the genders of the protagonists, yet also speculation that it might have been inspired by a girl who wouldn’t go out with Lavigne’s then-boyfriend Deryck Whibley (of Sum 41) in high school.

0.44 This is a cafe, and cafe is a French word. Fun fact: Due to her father being born in France, Lavigne automatically qualifies for a French passport.

0.46
The big non-secret gig is at noon, and it’s 10 to, and they’re just leaving. Ridiculous. These pop-punkers. For how many people in this video are messing about on various wheeled things, you don’t see Lavigne on a skateboard, but she is seen on one in her previous video, for Complicated. Interestingly, in the downtown area of Lavigne’s hometown of Napanee, Ontario, skateboarding is banned.

1.04 There’s presumably only about seven minutes to go now, and the roadies are only just unloading the amps, speakers, monitors and all the other stuff. Disgraceful.

1.10  Look, there are things that by necessity have to be done last-minute for a guerilla show.

1.15 Alright Lavigne, you’ve won it back with those extremely good, heavy, air guitar strums. 

1.28 A weird thing to think about is that the video is less than halfway through, but the story is totally complete. There’s one more twist to come, involving the romantic role of the narrator, but the story of the ballerina and the skater is over. Also, magnificent three-syllabling of ‘dow-ee-own’.

1.40 The band behind Lavigne aren’t who you can hear – they were recruited after the album was recorded by producers and sessions musicians. Among other session musicians on the album was Josh Freese of Vandals, A Perfect Circle and occasional Weezer fame.

2.17 That’s a lot of extras, isn’t it? This video was directed by Austrian director Francis Lawrence, who went on to make similarly big projects Constantine, I Am Legend, three of the four Hunger Games films and Red Sparrow. He also directed Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance video, for which he won a GRAMMY.

2.47 That’s a very good ‘Yeah, that’s me’ lip-lick from ol’ ‘I’ve got a camcorder’ over here.

2.51 A career best three-syllabling there, with ‘whir-hir-hirld’.

2.54 That is so many extras. So many. 

3.01 So, it’s time for the big question. The big question with this song is, who’s the dick? Is it:

• The ballet girl
• The ballet girl’s friends
• The Sk8er Boi himself
• Avril Lavigne

There’s a strong case to be put forward that all of them have moments of dickishness. The ballet girl, obviously, is a dick for dumping Sk8er Boi even though she liked him just because her friends disapproved. Ballet girl’s friends are dicks for being all snobby about his baggy clothes, and then continuing to watch his rock career blossom while never mentioning it to ballet girl, even going as far as booking tickets for to see his show and not telling her. But it also sounds like Sk8er Boi spends a lot of his time moaning to his new girlfriend, Avril Lavigne, about a girl who dumped him five years ago, and spending all your time slagging someone off who isn’t there to defend themselves isn’t cool. And then there’s Avril herself, who just seems to be taking a bit too much joy in the plight of a lonely single mother just because she once dated her boyfriend. This song shouldn’t be called Sk8er Boi. It should be called C0ll3ct10n 0f D1ck5.

3.04 It’s all cut very quickly, but it’s possible a girl is being trampled to death here. It’s all syncing up with the song!

3.13 THE PO-PO! IT’S THE PO-PO! RUN, EVERYONE!

3.22 Unless that’s her car, that’s criminal damage. As Lavigne told the Guardian in 2002, “I do a lot of things that are very rebellious, but it’s not like I’m sniffing coke or doing dirty stuff.”

3.28 This image, the very end of the video, was used as the cover of the single. That’s maybe not the most exciting note to end on, but anyone who isn’t emotionally exhausted by this point hasn’t been paying attention. What a goddamn banger. Sk8er Boi? There’s none gr8er, boi. We aren’t good enough for it. Oh, yo though, do you want to see this song performed on Sabrina The Teenage Witch? Yeah you do!