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.