Avatar

Avatar is a 2009 American science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron. It follows the story of  paraplegic marine, Jake Sully who after becoming paralysed from the waist down decides to take his place in a mission on the distant world of Pandora, where in exchange for spinal chord surgery that will fix his legs agrees to collect information about the Na'vi people with the use of an "avatar" identity. After connecting with the native tribe and falling in love with Neytiri Jake then is torn between his orders and protecting the place that he learns to call home.

The main stars included in Avatar Sam Worthington who plays the leading character Jake Sully, who is known for his role in Clash of the Titans, Terminator Salvation and a voice role in the 2010 video game Call of Duty, Black Ops, Zoe Saldana who plays Jakes love, Neytiri who has been involved in Star Treck and  Pirates of the Caribbean: The curse of the black pearl, and Sigourney Weaver who plays Dr Grace Augustine who is known her her roles in Alien:resurrection, Holes and her voice part in the 2008 film Wall.E, a long with other actors such as Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriquez and Joel Moore.
Avatar is more commonly known as an American Science fiction film, but also falls under Action, Adventure and Fantasy genres. I feel this is done to make the film appeal to all audiences, making it a four quadrant movie. The film is also rated 12A this also benefits the film as it means most, if not all family member can watch and enjoy the film together, with its original and enthralling storylines, helping to create a larger audience. All of this meant the film didnt have a designated audience, it would appeal to a mass audience and make the film a four quadrant movie. The film was also massively publicised as it was the first proper 3D film, this meant even if the film didn't completely appeal to you, you'd probably go and watch it, simply for the experience. The film is due to be re-released in cinema's, this showing the overall want and success of it.
 The film had an estimated production budget of a huge $310,000,000, and an opening weekend in American alone took a staggering $4,007,750 being shown on 812 screens. The box office taking were a humongous figure of $760,505,847, taking over double the amount of the production budget, making the film a tremendous success. 
The production companies for Avatar were Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Dune Entertainment, Ingenious Film Partners and Lightstorm Entertainment. The film soundtrack included songs from the music sensation Leona Lewis.
More than a thousand people worked on the production. In preparation of the filming sequences, all of the actors underwent professional training specific to their characters such as archery, horseback riding, firearm use, and hand-to-hand combat. They received language and dialect training in the Na'vi language created for the film. Prior to shooting the film, Cameron also sent the cast to the jungle in Hawaii to get a feel for a rainforest setting before shooting on the soundstage. Filming for Avatar took place in Hawaii, California and New Zealand in a number of separate locations such as Hamakua Coast, Hughes Aircraft and Stone Street Studios, along with many other. The amount of time spent filming Avatar is unknown as it was anounced that Avatar would be done at 24 frames per second despite Cameron's strong opinion that a 3-D film requires higher frame rate to make strobing less noticeable.According to Cameron, the film is composed of 60% computer-generated elements and 40% live action, Cameron himself said he has been preparing for this production even since finishing Titanic and worked for four months prior to scheduled filming on nonprincipal scenes.

Production process comparisons

Compare the differences between the production process of British and American production companies:
   There are numerous camparitive differences between the British and American production companies and their production processes, the largest and most importantly being money. With American production companies, funding, bugeting and overall costs are massively steep compared to British funding. American films get millions of dollars for busgeting costs, the most expensive being the 2009 phenomenon film Avatar, who's budget was a huge $310,000,000 which then went on to create a gross of $760,505,847 in USA alone, this compared to British film funding and cross intake is a mountain compaired to a molehill. The 2009 British film Moon,by Duncan Jones had a measely busget of £5,000,000 which to date has made a gross of £5,009,677, making barely more than the budget amount. This is a huge comparison between the American and British film companies. However there are exceptions such as the 2009 Harry Potter and the HalfBlood Prince, which for a British film had an overwhelming budget of £250,000,000 simply due to the popularity and huge marketing campaigns for the film, aswell as the previous want for the books and games for the book, this ensuring to production companies the film was a garanteed success.
   Another huge comparison of the production process of British and American production companies is casting, this making a huge difference to not only the amount of audience attraction, but marketing and schemes and success of the film overall. American actors are known worldwide, and with the use of a hugely known actor/actress in a film makes it alot more appealing to larger audience groups. The use of a worldwide recognisable actor or actress such as Angelina Jolie, Brad Pit and Jim Carrey will massively increase the popularity and 'want to see' appeal of the film. Angelina Jolie alone has an anormous casting cost of over £17,000,000 this being well over the amount a British film would receive for their whole busget funding, making such actors American based workers, this massively impacting on the appeal British films would get due to casting.
   A massively important comparison is simply the size of production, this again mainly down to cost, American films do things on a much larger scale that British films could ever imagine. They create films for 4 quadrant audiences with flexible genres and themes, this drawing in large audiences ultimately raking in the turnover money for the companies involved. They have the ability to advertise and market their films to an overwhelming level due to the vast amount of money they can throw into the prouction, these marketing schemes not only being in USA, but worldwide, this helping the film to become a success all over the world. The amount American can fit into their budget for marketing compared to the lack of marketing British production companies can afford shows a vast comparison between the two countries, and could be an integral part in the success of American films or the Lack of British films.
   American film industries market to a much larger scale, and within their production process rely on the film going out all over the world, being a hit in most if not all countires it hits, however British films only ever become even close to becoming comparitive against American films popularity wise when they become such a success in Britain that they gain unforseen recognition from other countires, making them a huge success. Slumdog Millionaire the 2008 success started of with a mear £15,000,000 budget barely nothing in the world of American film budgets, but became such an overnight success in Britian it gained large recognition in American causing a film phenonenon all over the world pulling in an unforeseen £365,257,315. This being on of Britians most popular films of all time, simply due to the film recieving the recognition it deserved.
   When researching the comparitive differences between American and British production companies and how their production processes massively impact their popularity and the gross profit they gain, i was overwhelmed with the huge difference between budgeting. Its clear that American films have more accessibility to make their films a success, mainly down to funding, but i didnt realise the sheer scale of the budget they recieve especially compared to to lack of budgeting and funding British films recieve. Costing differences i feel has the most influenctial impact on the compartitive differences between the two production companies.

Preliminary Magazine Work!

As a newbie to photo shop, i was excited but nervous to start my magazine cover and contents page, so i began to plan my work on A3 paper, so i could visualise my work and plan exactly how i wanted it to look. i chose to model my magazine around a girly magazine, such as vogue or look, i chose to do these as these are magazines i read myself, and i know what it is that makes me want to read these. at first i thought i wanted a really colourful magazine, however after battling putting pictures and font onto a coloured background, i found there was too much going on and it looked more messy than making it work. I chose to use jack as my model for my magazine, simply because i feel his fashion would entise people to read it, i also chose to photograph him in different areas around the school as it was a college magazine! i chose to use the photo on my front cover as i felt it would work well in the space i had and also leave room for my magazine name and article teasers. i then chose to use my other photographs as an old time photo booth stip, i wanted to do this as i felt it was original & unique, but also a sweet way to show many different photos in a small area. the first thing i did for my magazine was to chose fonts,this i found very easy as i was told about a website called 'dafont.com' this really helped and aided me to find fonts that i feel worked well together. the next thing was the cut out my front cover photo with the magnetic lasso tool, this i found awefully time consuming and tricky, but i worked as hard as i could to cut out all the bars behind jack! 



Representation Of Ethnicity

In our lesson today we were studying representation of Ethnicity, we considered many different ethnic groups and the main stereotypes that people portray people of those ethnic groups to be.
MEXICAN - Wearing sombrero's, Wearing ponchos, Eating nachos&Tortillas, Drinking tequila slammers and to be family orientated.
IRISH - Drink Guiness, Grow&eat potatoes, Leprecorns, Good jockeys, Ginger, To be gypsies, To be called Paddy.
INDIAN - To eat curry, To wera Hijab, To have henna, To have arranged marriages and have lots of kids.
AMERICAN - To be overweight, To be underweight, To be fake, To be ignorant, To be racist&patriotic.
ENGLISH - To be snobs, To drink tea, To drive Mini Coopers, To be a 'Chav', Union Jack and to eat Fish&Chips.
BLACK PEOPLE - To wear bandanas, To be athletic, To be a hooligan, To be violent & related to drugs and drug dealing.
MUSLIMS - To wear headcoverings & To be terrorists.
Alot of these sterotypes for different Ethnic groups have a lot to do with media representation and how audiences and viewers of programmes are fed stereotypical interpretations for the serparate ethnic groups.
After watching short clips of numerous Tv drama's, we were asked to pick a clip from one programme and concentrate on how Ethnicity is represented. The Tv programme i chose to use was skins, i chose to study Ethnicity within skins, as its a programme i know and have watched and one i feel that shows a large range of Ethnic backgrounds within the storyline, and as you can see from the picture below, also has a range of different Ethnic characters.

The episode i chose to watch was Episode 3, from series 3, where Thomas arrives alone in the Uk from congo, his family are due to arrive in a few days, and he has to find somewhere for them to live, he finds an abandoned flat on an estate, little does he know its owned by local gangsterm Jonny White, his new landlord, who isn't going to let him live there for free. After fending for himself, and trying to protect his family, he has a few encounters with some new friends & comes up with an unconvetional money making scheme to solve all of his problems. There are many negative stereotypes in this episode against black people, it shows how Thomas tries to take advantage of his friends Aunt, and how he gets involved in drugs and drug dealing trying to make money for him and his family. However it also shows how hes athletic, independant and shows how he would do anything he could to look after his family.

Animoto

In our lesson we were asked to research a film and put all the found information into an Animoto slide show. We were told to make them as interesting as we could and include the following information:
-Genre of the film
-Cast
-Director
-Breif Plot
-Box Office Gross
-Film budget
The slide i made was for the american comedy 'The Hangover'. I love this film and have watched it over and over again, it was actually really interesting to research the funds for the film and box office gross figures for the UK and the US. I tried to pick music i thought would go well with the theme of the film and represent the film as well as it could as that would be the only sound a watcher would here, and this would give a great insight to the sort of film it is. I struggled to put in all the information i wanted to into the slide, as the text boxes had limited amount of characters that could be included, however this was the only difficulty i had making my Animoto.

Moon - Duncan Jones

After watching Moon by Duncan Jones we were asked to identify the audience, as the film has a Sci Fi genre this automatically rules out large audience groups, many aspects stop it from being a four quadrant film.  Moon is the first feature film directed by commercial director Duncan Jones, and had a budget of £5 million, this prevented the film from being a four quadrant massively. The use of a small cast aided Jones to decrease casting costs and helped to allow him to stick to his budget, this however could have massively effected the amount of audience the film appealed to. The film was specifically written as a vehicle for actor Sam Rockwell, this as said before will have helped with casting costs, but could have lost appeal to certain audience members due to Rockwell being arguably unknown. Some films do amazingly well, drawing in a large audience simply through the actors used, the better known the actors are, the more likely the film is going to succeed.  Moon was produced at Shepperton Studios, London, England, where it was filmed in 33 days, this limited the special effects of the film, and really reduced the amount Jones could do as he had spacial elements to consider. Marketing and Advertising for the film was not within the film budget and was extremely limited, Jones even resorted to asking people to interview him, participating in home interviews from unknown journalists who were simply interested in the film. This lost the film the ability to be huge, due to the lack of people the film was presented to. After the film was produced it was launched by Jones at Nasa, this was hugely beneficial for the film and helped to not only promote the film, but also helped to establish it as a serious science fiction film. However, this only appealed to a certain type of audience, yet again limiting the audience. Due to all of the above, i feel the audience of Moon is hugely limited, its clear Jones is massively devoted to broadening the appeal of Moon, however the film being such a Sci Fi specific genre, i feel limits the audience to mainly appeal to Sci Fi fans, these mainly being male, and varying in age.

Directors

For our media course, we were put into small groups, each given a different director, and told to create a prezi presentation, here is what i learnt about my direction, and the other directors from other presentations!
The director my group were given was spike jonze, and below is the prezi presentation we created.

Wes Anderson
Born in texas, May 1st 1969, Wes Anderson is an an American film director, screenwriter, actor and producer of features, short films and commercials.  He characterises his films with many similiaries such as casting actors numerous times for many different jobs, most popular being Owen Wilson, he uses bold yellow font, and uses similiar sounding tracklists for his songs, this making all his work recognisable and identifiable. He targets his audience at middle class adults with alot of disposable income, this being made increasingly clear in the American Express advertisement, that he not only directed but also starred in. Anderson is also a great lover of symmetry within his work and has an overwhelmingly strong fan base shown by his 2 Oscar nominations.


Shynola
Shynola is collective name of a group of 4 visual artsists based in london, formed by Gideon Baws, Chris Harding, Richard Kenworthy and Jason Groves. The name shynola is a reference to the film 'The Jerk'. Shynola often uses creative and imaginative animations and focuses on unrealistic themes within their work. They have worked on a number of projects, most notably a number of music videos for varying artists. They have a mass audience, mainly middle aged.


Hammer & Tongs
Hammer & Tongs is the creation of Garth Jenning and Nick Goldsmith. This name has been repeatedly popular within the music industry, directing and producing music videos for Supergrass, Vampire Weekend and Blur along with many other popular names. They have also ventured out into the film world directing films such as Son of Rambo and Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. Puppetry is a very common theme used and makes their work very recognisable.


Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is a French film, commercial and music video director born May 8th, 1963. Started out as a drum player in a small unsuccessful band, but found larger achievements Directing. He has directed music videos for famous artists such as Paul McCartney, Kanye West and The White Stripes along with many others and has undergone commercial work for names such as Smirnoff Ice and Levi, these were viewed as very strange works, and his work for Levi never aired on television as it was deemed too strange. 

Representation of Disabilities.

In class we were studying the represenatation of disabilities, the two clips we chose to concentrate on were Forrest Gump and seven pounds. We chose to use these clips as they show physical impairment, sensory impairment and learning difficulties.  In the first clip, there is a negative attitude shown towards forrest for his disabilities, his disabilities are shown through close up shots of his legs, contrasted by medium shots showing the boys on bikes chasing Forrest, who is seen in the distance, trying to get away. We then chose the second clip, which also shows the negative attitude people have towards the disabled, through cross cutting angles in the scene scenes showing the two actors are in coversation, the represenation of the disability is shown through diagetic sound through the computer reading what the character can't see, and through the disaolog in the scene, all helping to assure the audience that the story line holds a character with a disability.  

British Appeal Of Hot Fuzz

When rewatching the opening section of hot fuzz, we were told to take note of the all iconic factors which an audience may associate with Britain, these are what we noticed as a class:
Posh (snobby) characters. Use of Queen. Council estates (run down areas). British cultural experience. Countryside. British Punk music. Private schools. Self deprecating. Irony. Bad Boy cover. British siren. British songs. Police uniform. Driving and Cycling. Chess. Whistle. Father Christmas. Use of bell. Police station. Silhouette. Police badge. Canterbury University. London schooling.Run down factories. Union Jack. Lion. 'tit'hat. Metropolitan police department. China Town. Chavs in hoodies.Vauxhall Astra. Fencing. Karate. Armed response unit. Handcuff motif. Knife crime. Wishing well. Pub-underage drinking. Ginger. Taxi. Church. Rain. Vodefone UK. Road signs. Hotel. Open tire place. Accent. Shining links. Cross work. Manner; 'i beg your pardon'. Bernard (british name) Swans. Castle Suite. Jumper. Cobbled road. Glam Rock. Pint Pumps. Fish&chips. 'Pints'. Football scarf. Bad teeth. Timber Frame work. Graffiti. War memorial. Traffic Cone. Harry potter boy. 18+ alcohol sign. 
Hot Fuzz was created by four production companies, these being, Working Title, Universal Studios, Studio Canal and Big Talk Producations, we were then asked to research them.


Working Title
Working title is a British film production company, founded by Tim Bevans and Sarah Radclyffe, 1983, the company is based in London. The company is not co-owned by Eric Fellner and Tim Bevans. In 1992, PolyGram became the company's corporate Backer, this opened alot of doors for the company and helped it to become a major Hollywood competitor, Polygram was sold to Universal in 1999, making the company much larger allowing them to become more of a success, creating larger and more accomplished films such as Wimbledon, Shaun of the dead and Hot Fuzz.





Universal Studios
Universal Studios is one of the 6 major movie studios, and has been creating films since 1912. The company was founded by Carl Laemmle, it is one of the oldest American movie studios still in continuous production today. Since the 1950's Universal Studios has been a major tourist attraction and hosts behind the scenes tours. Famous films produced by Universal Studios would be Frankenstein and Hot Fuzz.





Studio Canal
Studio Canal is a french based production and distribution company, which is part of the canal+ film group, and it owns the third-largest film library in the world. The company was founded in 1988 by Pierre Lescure. Studio canal helped the funding for Bridget Jones' Diary, a film that had great success in Britain, this being a factor into why Hot fuzz was received so well.





Big Talk Productions
Big Talk Productions is an English film and television production company established in 1995 in Nira park. The company, located in London, has produced films such as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz; it is also known for its British sitcoms such as Spaced and Free Agents. Simon Pegg,Nick Frost, Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey are several actors that have risen to fame under Big Talk's production banner.

Hot Fuzz.

In our lesson we watched the opening sequence of Hot fuzz and analysed the editing and status of how Nicholas Angel is portrayed at the start of the film.  During the opening scene of Hot Fuzz, the first camera angle used is a long shot. You see Nicholas Angel walking into the building and he is surrounded by a light- which could be interpereted as a halo of 'gold'. Instantly the audience know his important to the film, due to him being the centre of attention, we also know his serious status within the film due to the fast pace of his walking, making it more like a march.

During the end of this clip, the camera angle changes to a close up of his face, allowing the audience to develop their understanding of the Policeman by his stern face and military attitude, these two clips allow the audience to perceive the character as a typical Police officer, hostile with a severly strict attitude.

We then get more of an insight to Nicholas Angel through the use of a voice over, displaying cross scenes of him walking through the police station, to flashback scenes of memorable and victorious achievements through his life and during the training for his career. This allows the audience to see the character as career driven and hard working, but also allows them to see how he would be a threat to other police officers due to his non stop drive to be the best.

The cross cutting of these scenes wasn't done smoothly, this i feel is done purposely, it shows chaos within the scenes, and possibly how being in the police force could/has cause chaos in his life. The use of overlaying scenes and the build up of sound from the scenes i feel reinforce this as it bombards the audience almost too much information, showing how Angel is always on the go and his job never really ends.

The scenes you see him working in the policeforce, not just training he is shown twice communicating with elderly citizens, this allows the audience to possibly see the possible popularity he has within the community. However, this could also show his lack of social skills as he's only shown communicating with people of the same age, possibly showing the narror mindedness of the character.

After watching and closely analysing the opening scene of Hot Fuzz, it allowed me to realise and grasp a true understanding of how camera shots and angles can be used to make an audience perceive something that may not entirelybe correct, they can be used to add dramatic effect to certain scenes and truly allow the audience to see exactly what a film industry would want them to see and think of the characters and story line without them even realising its happening.

Preliminary Excercise Magazine Cover

As a preliminary task we were asked to produce a front cover and contents page that would be suitable for a school magazine. When considering my magazine I felt i needed to create something that I would read, or something that would go down well with students from my current school, so i chose to use a Sixth Form student from my school and take photos of him for the front cover in parts of the college that students may recognise.
The first thing i chose to do was plan my front cover on A3 paper, so i could find an appropriate place for all the needed information and chosen photographs, shown by annotations and sketches, but would also help me to visualise what the magazine would look like.The designs we did had to meet certain standards such as only using three fonts, maximum, which were all clear but attractive, a bar code somewhere on our cover page, our main title clearly resented at the top of the page and a main figure taking up the majority of space on the cover. When considering what my magazine would look like, i thought about magazines that i would read, as i felt my magazine audience would be people of a similar age to me. I focused on the look and style of magazines such as vogue and look magazine, as i feel these are magazines that appeal to my age group but are also clear, precise and well thought out, with edgey and colourful twists that would help it to draw in a younger audience.

I found these magazine to be appealing due to the bold colours, differentiating fonts and the iconic stars on the front covers. These to me, all integral aspects of making a magazine sell, as their known celebrities that would draw in readers. They also have references to style and fashion not only in the photographs but also in the topics of the articles.

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The 5 C's Of Media

1.Camera Angles:

• When 'telling' the audience where the film is set, use a long shot, this lest you show all the inportant information. The subject takes up the full frame, or at least as much as comfortably possible.

• A medium shot is the most commonly used shot in cinema, it is used to show any character interaction.    Shows some part of the subject in more detail while still giving an impression of the whole subject.

2.Continuity:  Generally refers to visual errors disrupting the flow of the film, confusing the audience.

3.Cutting:  this is essential, otherwise films would be in real time and never end, it allows the director to change location, main use is to either add pace to a scene to make it exciting or to slow it down for dramatic emphasis.
4.CloseUps: Used to show the audience something/someone important.  A certain feature or part of the subject takes up the whole frame.
                        

5. Composition : this allows more than one thing to be in a shot at once, so the audience can see the backdrop for example as well as a prop all in the same scene.

Hello

Media studies has always fascinated me, as a great lover of music, the creativity and ideology for the stories behind music videos has always enticed me to delve into the world of how they are made. A favourite band of mine would have to be 'Band of Horses', their an odd looking band but their music is known for being out of the ordinary, their albums have an Indie genre with an edgy Rock twist!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMFWFhTFohk&ob=av2e
As well as music, I have a great passion for drama, be that plays, television drama or the film industry, and after studying drama studies at both GCSE and A Level, i feel i have a great knowledge and understanding on how to convey a contagious buzz that radiates from the performance on stage and reaches out the audience. I have a great interest in the production of films and would love to see the connection between a performance on stage and how that attracts the audiences attention with the production of a film. I also feel that advertising in an integral role for attracting attention for the film industry, this is a huge part in how a film company would attract an audience and generate press observation, this all helping to make a film a success.

The final thing that attracted me to take Media Studies is my love for fashion, this i feel being very important for the creation of a magazine covers and articles. I'm constantly reading fashion magazines, my favourites being Look magazine, Company magazine and Vogue. I love Topshop, and although i feel it's popularity is in way both a good and bad thing, i feel its a shop that helps you stay up to date with the Fashion Industry at a price thats reasonable for everyone. My favourite designer would probably be Vivienne Westwood as i feel her creations are modern and edgy but also completely wild and add an insanely unique touch to all her products! I absolutely Love her shoes!!