1. A2 Media Studies G325: Critical Perspectives in Media

2. G325: Critical Perspectives in Media – An Introduction The purpose of this unit is to assess your knowledge and understanding of media concepts, contexts and critical debates. You are to show your understanding of one contemporary media issue and evaluate your own practical work in reflective and theoretical ways.

3. G325: Critical Perspectives in Media – An Introduction You will have a two-hour examination at the end of this unit. You will be required to answer two compulsory questions, on your own production work, and one question from a choice of six topic areas – Media and Identity. The unit will be marked out of a total of 100 marks, with two questions on production work marked out of 25 each, and the media theory question marked out of 50.

4. G325: Critical Perspectives in Media – An Introduction There are two sections to this Unit:- Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production (50 marks) Section B: Contemporary Media Issues (50 marks)

6. The first requires you to describe and evaluate your skills development over the course of your production work, from Foundation Portfolio to Advanced Portfolio.

7. The focus of this evaluation must be on skills development, and the question will require you to adapt this to one or two specific production practice

9. Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production The list of practices to which questions will relate is as follows:- Digital Technology Creativity Research & Planning Post-Production Using Conventions from real media texts In your exam, questions will be posed using one or two of these categories!!

10. Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production Question 1(b) requires you to select one production and evaluate it in relation to a media concept. The list of concepts to which questions will relate is as follows:- Genre Narrative Representation Audience Media Language In your exam, questions will be set using one of these concepts only!!

11. Three essential tips for Question 1 (a)

12. Plan and prepare before the exam Question asked can only be a combination of two of the five things eg Digital technology + any other, or creativity and any other. Write about how your skills have developed. Identify examples from your work which you can adapt to different questions.

13. 2. Consider the marking scheme Explanation/analysis/argument – 10 marks Examples – 10 marks Terminology – 5 marks

14. 3. Think about where you are at the end of the course And what you have learnt in other areas of it. You are not just giving an account of what you did but you are reflecting upon it in the light of all your learning.

15. Media Language Mise en scene Sound Editing Camerawork

16. Media Language Mise – en- scene settings decor props lighting costume make-up colour character body language and movement

17. Lighting Lighting is essential in conveying the mood or atmosphere of a scene. The viewer can be drawn to objects or characters which are brightly lit or can be made nervous by shadows and obscured parts of the film frame. The three main types of light used in film are: 1. The key light. This is usually the brightest light. 2. The back light. This is often used behind characters to make them seem more rounded and less one dimensional. 3. The filler light. This helps to soften harsh shadows which might be thrown because of the key light or back light.

18. Lighting These three types of light can be directed from different angles in order to produce different effects. ‘Underlighting’ describes and effect where the main source of light within a scene comes from below. This often has a distorting effect on the object or character being lit and can be used to make the character or object seem threatening. Horror films often use underlighting in order to make the audience feel scared of a character or fearful of an object. ‘Top lighting’ describes light which comes from above. This is often used to highlight the features of a character and make them appear more glamorous. ‘Back lighting’ is when the light source comes from behind a character. If the only lighting in a scene is backlighting, then silhouettes can be created. This could be used to create mystery around a character and tension in the audience. Some genres of film use specific types of lighting to create effects. Scenes in examples of Film Noir often use pools of light rather than full lighting. This is to generate the mystery and suspense which is at the heart of all Film Noir examples. Identify what the dominant type of lighting is in the sequence you have chosen and then consider what meanings it is helping to generate.

19. What types of lighting are used in the following images: C B A F D E

20. Media Language Sound Voice over Dialogue Diegetic Non diagetic Synchronous Asynchronous Parallel Contrapuntal http://www.filmsound.org/marshall/index.htm

21. Contrapuntal sound http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQNqFfXSt38&feature=PlayList&p=5A19F91438FC6218&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0JloE4Or6E – official original trailer

22. Media Language • What are the denotative and connotative levels of meaning?• What is the significance of the text’s connotations?• What are the non-verbal structures of meaning in the text(e.g. gesture, facial expression, positional communication,clothing, props etc)?• What is the significance of mise-en-scène/sets/settings?• What work is being done by the sound track/commentary/language of the text?• What are the dominant images and iconography, and what is their relevance to the major themes of the text?• What sound and visual techniques are used to conveymeaning (e.g. camera positioning, editing; the ways thatimages and sounds are combined to convey meaning)? http://www.katpad.co.uk/media%20website%202000/keyconcepts.html

23. Create a concept/mind map for Media language comparing it to your AS and A2 work. Include: Sound Mise – en – scene Editing Camerawork

24. digital technology • How has digital technology helped you to capture your ideas for media production? • What benefits do digital technologies offer over analogue? Are there any disadvantages? • How did digital technology influence your work in post-production – for example in the creation of video effects, or the manipulation of images. • How have your skills with digital technology developed, and how has this influenced your productions? • What role might digital technology plan in the distribution of work such as yours?

25. creativity • What features of your work would you say are original to you? • Which media texts and producers have influenced your creative decisions? • How successfully does your work engage its audience and provoke its interest? • Consider some of the creative choices you had to make during the course of your production – how to use cameras, lighting, dialogue, colour etc. How did you make these decisions, and how did these contribute to the final production?

26. Creativity http://s1skills10.blogspot.com/ http://petesmediablog.blogspot.com/2010/01/creativity-g325-questions-on-production.html

27. Creativity Now mind map all the creative processes we have discussed linking them to your AS and A2 work.

28. research and planning • How did your research into genre contribute to your production work? • How did your research into audience contribute to your production work? • How did your research into institutions responsible for the production and regulation of the media influence your production work? • What pre-production planning techniques did you employ (scripting, storyboarding, shot-listing, flat-planning etc.)? How effective was your planning – how did it help you in the production phase? • What did you learn from planning your first production that helped you to improve your planning for the second? • How did you use audience feedback to influence your production work while it was in progress?

29. post-production • How much of your text was ‘created’ only in post-production? • What technologies did you use to modify your raw material. How did this change the meaning of your work? • How much did you manipulate sync sound or create new sound for your text? What effect did that have on your text? • How much of your footage ended up ‘on the cutting room floor’ (unused) and why?

30. using conventions from real media texts • In what ways have your productions used or developed conventions adopted from real media products? • In what ways have your productions challenged or played with conventions adopted from real media products? • In other words, is your work generic, or postmodern – or both? • Some media producers adopt a style of working that is quite distinctive – explore how work you have produced may have been influenced by your own favourite producers/directors/designers/publishers.

31. Do mind map referring to an influence that has inspired you throughout your course.

32. Question 1 (b)

33. Modular Narratives in Contemporary Cinema by Allan Cameron Modular Narratives “articulate a sense of time as divisible and subject to manipulation”. Cameron has identified four different types of modular narrative: • Anachronic • Forking Paths • Episodic • Split Screens

34. Anachronic modular narratives Anachronic modular narratives involve the use of flashbacks and/or flashforwards, with no clear dominance between any of the narrative threads. These narratives also often repeat scenes directly or via a different perspective. Examples include: Pulp Fiction and Memento.

35. Forking-path narratives Forking-path narratives juxtapose alternative versions of a story, showing the possible outcomes that might result from small changes in a single event or group of events. The forking-path narrative introduces a number of plotlines that usually contradict one another. Examples include Groundhog Day and Run Lola Run.

36. Episodic narratives Episodic narratives are organised as an abstract series or narrative anthology. Abstract series type of modular narrative is characterized by the operation of a non narrative formal system which appears to dictate (or at least overlay) the organization of narrative elements such as a sequence of numbers or the alphabet. Anthology consists of a series of shorter tales which are apparently disconnected but share a random similarity, such as all ‘episodes’ being survivors of a shipwreck.

37. Split screen narratives Split screen narratives are different from the other types of modular narrative discussed here, because their modularity is articulated along spatial rather than temporal lines. These films divide the screen into two or more frames, juxtaposing events within the same visual field, in a sustained fashion. Examples include Timecode.

38. Idenitify the narratives that apply to your A2 production.

39. Representation http://longroadproductionevaluation.blogspot.com/

40. Stuart Hall suggests that there are three different positions that the reader of a text can occupy when trying to interpret a text, they are:Preferred Reading Negotiated Reading Oppositional Reading

41. Preferred reading is when the reader fully shares the text's codes and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading i.e. the most dominant reading.

42. Negotiated reading is when the reader partly shares the text's codes and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests - this position involves contradictions.

43. Oppositional reading is when the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the text's code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference (radical, feminist etc.).

44. Roland Barthes:Roland Barthes concentrated some of his work on a discussion of how myth operates in society and he discussed this in the context of denotation and connotation. Connotation and denotation are often described in terms of levels of representation or levels of meaning. Denotation - the literal, 'obvious' or 'commonsense' meaning of an image.Connotation - is used to refer to the socio-cultural and 'personal' associations (ideological, emotional etc.) of the image. These are typically related to the interpreter's class, age, gender, ethnicity and so on. Images are more open to interpretation - in their connotations than their denotations.

45. Ferdinand de Saussure: Semiotics is the study of the social production of meaning from sign systems. A sign could be made up of something which physically resembles the object in some way (icon), or has a direct link between it and its object, it is somehow connected i.e. smoke indicates fire (index) or it can be something with no resemblance at all and it communicates only because people agree that it shall stand for what it does (symbol). The reading of a sign is determined by cultural experience of the reader. Semiotics pays great attention to the role of the reader in realising and producing meanings out of texts.

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