Textual Analysis and Representation (The 7 key areas of representation)
You need to understand how the technical elements (in the last post) create specific representations of individuals, groups, events or places and help to articulate specific messages and values that have social significance.
Particular areas of representation that may be chosen are:
Gender
Age
Ethnicity
Sexuality
Class and status
Physical ability/disability
Regional identity
Textual Analysis and Representation (The 4 key areas of textual anaysis)
Camera Shots, Angle, Movement, Composition
Shots: establishing shot, master shot, close-up, mid-shot, long shot, wide shot, two-shot, aerial shot, point of view shot, over the shoulder shot, and variations of these.
Other transitions, dissolve, fade-in, fade-out, wipe, superimposition, long take, short take, slow motion, ellipsis and expansion of time, post-production, visual effects.
Sound
Soundtrack: score, incidental music, themes and stings, ambient sound.
- Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull = $786.6%
- Star Trek = $2.003 billion
Universal:
- Parent company: NBCUniversal
- Owned by: Vivendi
NBC Universal Television
NBCUniversal cable
NBC News
NBC Sports group
-Market share: 26.8%
- Jurassic World = $1.665 billion
- Kick Ass 2 = $60.7 million
- Fast and Furious (Franchise) = $3.907.312.431
Walt Disney Pictures:
-Parent company: The Walt Disney Studios
- Owned by: The Walt Disney Company
Walt Disney studios motion pictures
Disneynature
Walt Disney Animation Studios
Disney theater group
-Market Share: 12.8%
- Dumbo = $1.6 million
- Mary Poppins = $102.3 Million
- Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead men tell no tales = $320 Million
Warner Bros:
-Parent company: Time Warner
- Owned by: Four Brothers
Warner Bros Inc Entertainment
Warner Bros pictures
Warner Bros Animation
- Market Share: 16,3%
- Harry Potter (Franchise) = $15 billion
- Interstellar = $675 million
- The Hangover = $467.5 million
Why did Ex Machina succeed at the Box Office?
Ex Machina was a film that did succeed at the box office but
many people thought it wouldn’t do due to the following reasons. Some people
have the opinion that the film had little satisfactory closure because it
doesn’t have the conventional happy ending. The ending is unconventional where
Ava escapes and leaves her creator dead and the romantic interest is locked
away to die. Traditional sci-fi films have endings where the hero gets the
girl. Unlike most box office films that have a lot of action and explosions in,
Ex Machina fails to have these elements and has little exposition.
The $15 million independent British film succeed with this
cheap budget due to there being few actors in the film. The main three
characters that are in the film is Nathan Bateman played by Oscar Isaac, and
the other two characters, Ava played by Alicia Vikander, Caleb smith played by
Domhnall Gleeson. These two characters are not seen to be highly regarded
actors for a box office film. However, they both will be characters in the new
Star Wars film coming out soon. Ex Machina was directed and written by Alex
Garland who has been successful in screenplay and wrote “28 days later” and
“never let me go”.
As there were few
actors in the film, there was a greater reliance on the script. In some areas
of the film it lacks pace and takes a long time to understand what is going on.
Unlike other films where the story line is virtually given to you, this film
allows your imagination to decide what you want to happen. This film is quite
simple as the budget was small, to create the robots no CGI was used. The film
was shot live action, so the robotic parts were made and the camera took
different shots each time Ava moved. As the budget was small, they couldn’t
afford CGI and in a scene where Ava puts clothes on, this was to save money and
save time as they didn’t have to film as many frames.
The film only had 2 locations where it was filmed, one was
at the Pinewood studios for 4 weeks and the other was at theJuvet hotel in Valldalen, Norwayfor 2 weeks. Filming only took 6 weeks as there were only ten characters in the
film. The house in the film was where most of the filming took place and the
house was real so no set was needed.
Ex Machina was funded by Film Four and DNA films. It was released
in the UK and US. Ex Machina is an indie sci-fi thriller, which didn’t appeal
to millions of people. The film was seen by people known as “film buffs” as
these are people who enjoy just watching films, this is one of the reasons why
the film succeed. These types of people are what made profit go up. The film
lost a lot of audience to the “Avengers age of Ultron” as they were released at
the same time. When the films came out the Avengers was shown on screens all
over the U.S whereas Ex Machina was shown on smaller screens. This was to make
the viewing of the film do film buffs and prevent bad reviews whilst the
Avengers was popular. As the number of viewing fell for the Avengers, this gave
Ex Machina the chance to be successful at the box office as there weren’t other
films like it.
Ex Machina made $36.9 million at the box office, this is a
success as most films need a budget of at least $100 million to make a good box
office film. Ex Machina didn’t have the common four quadrants that most
blockbuster films have, it could only appeal to half of the quadrants. This is
because in the film full frontal nudity was shown and this made the film as
over the age of 25 to watch it. This ignore the age bracket of people under 15
who could have been potential viewer of the film which could have brought
profits up higher.
The marketing team who had to promote the film came up with
the idea to make a Tinder account for Ava. People who would click on it would
be asked questions by Ava. The questions would be similar to the ones Ava was
asked in the film like, what makes a person human, where they would meet and if
they attracted to Ava. The Tinder app would then have a link to an Instagram
page that promoted the film. Tinder complained about the account saying that other
users could think it was fake, this meant publicity for the film. The publicity
meant that people had now heard of the film and it may have encouraged them to
go and see it. Due to Ex Machina using clever marketing skills it succeed being
a low budget film which may have not done as well at the box office without
thought out decisions when to release or promote the film.
To conclude, Ex Machina succeed well at the box office, it
made a profit and managed to encage viewers like film buffs to help with keeping
the film on screens during The Avengers. The film was screened behind the
larger blockbusters which everyone wanted to see, however these films would get
bad reviews as everyone had seen them. On the other hand, Ex Machina could then
promote the film more widely once film buffs created a popularity on social
networking about the robots and Ava. Ava
and the robots could have been represented for the male gaze as they were naked
for a lot of scenes and would do what Nathan and Caleb told them to do. The
film’s success was a good accomplishment seeing that the budget was very small
but it manage to make a good profit from well thought-out marketing and
distribution ideas which made the film stand out from other blockbusters.
Tuesday, 13 October 2015
Mise-en-scene: Skins
Tony and his bedroom
Tony as a character is well thought out and stylish, he wants to look good to impress people. He works/flexing etc. In the scene where he is working out, a mini montage is used.
Tony is presented to have a cleans face, his hair is tidy, he also is quite plain looking, people don't know what to think about him.
He is very confident and knows what he is doing with his everyday life.
His relationship with his dad is seen to be that Tony is in charge as he manipulates his dad. His relationship with effy is good, in the scene he is helping and sticking up for her.
Tony's room isn't the stereotypical boys room, it's bland but bright and minimalist compared to effy's room which is untidy and dark. As Tony's room is like this, it could suggest that he has OCD. This is also suggested by how Tony wakes up in the morning, he is awake before his alarm and when he is in his bed it wasn't creased.
There are lots of movie posters and books that he is interested in, showing he is more intelligent than most teenagers.
He's in the centre of the frame in most shots.
Countryside setting, church bells in the background.
Luther
Set in a city, similar to London, both characters are high up on a city bridge with large buildings surrounding them, which makes them appear smaller in frames.
The next scene is set in the woman's apartment, which is quiet and mysterious to the audience, the look of the apartment is simple and bland as well as the furniture.
The apartment also has props that suggest the woman is intelligent, for example there is a telescope on the balcony, meaning she could be scientist and gives a more masculine feel to the apartment.
Both characters have smart professional clothing on, both wearing coats meaning it must be cold.
The woman is wearing makeup with red lipstick, along with red hair, the colour suggests danger and passion.
The woman seems to have a lot of power over Luther, she touches him and speaks over him throughout the clip .
Monday, 12 October 2015
Script for documentary
Iron man 3 is an action, adventure, superhero film which is
enjoyed by many children and men who like this genre of film. The film is a
sequel from the past two films “Iron man”
and “Iron man 2”. The film is part of
a franchise and Marvel is the creator of the comic book adaptations. The third
film has been directed by Shane Black who replaced Jon Favreau who was the
original directed of the previous two films. The film is being made and produced
at Marvel studios and was distributed by Walt Disney pictures. Kevin Feige
produced the film as well as Marvel. The film was written by Drew Pearce and
the director himself to get across his vision for the film. The film was granted
$200 million. It made $1.2 billion making profits for Marvel and Disney, even
though participants like Robert Downey Jr. took their fees from the film, as
well as the $90 million or so owned Paramount because of its previous
distribution deal with Marvel. The film was a major success and was the second
highest-grossing film of 2013 overall and second highest-grossing film at
domestic box office released in 2013. The film stared the brilliant Robert
Downey Jr. who played the main character Iron man. There were many other famous
stars involved in the film including Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce,
Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau and Ben
Kingsley. From taking five months to buying it on the 18th of
October 2010, Walt Disney Studios agreed to give Paramount $115 million for the
worldwide distribution rights to Iron Man 3. In February 2011, planning for the
film began when directors and scriptwriters were confirmed. Filming began in
Wilmington, North Carolina on May 23rd 2012, at the EUE/screen gem
studios. A scene was filmed at the Wilmington International Airport. The port
of Wilmington was a location for the oil tanker in the climactic battle, as
well as the soundstage recreation of the dock. Another scene in the film where
the house crumbled was filmed on a hydraulic-powered guibo platform that could
bend and split into two pieces. The inside of the house had practical effects,
including debris ad explosions, made by computer graphics which added exteriors
and Iron man’s armour. There were four main filming locations such as Malibu,
California, Rose hill, Tennessee, Miami, Florida and Washington DC. Chris
Townsend was the visual effects supervisor for the film. There were over 2,000
visual special effects shots featured in the film, which were worked on by 17
studios. The film was filmed in 2D and 3D and was available at IMAX theatres. A
problem that the film faced was due to the following release of Iron Man 2
which caused conflict between Paramount Pictures, which had distribution rights
to certain Marvel Properties and the Walt Disney Company, Marvel Entertainments
new corporate parent, interrupted timing and the distribution arrangement of
the third film. The film’s marketing strategies could be seen as easier as the
film already has a fan base from the previous 2 films, the publicists want to
appeal to existing fans and attract new ones. To do this and to promote the
film, in July 2012 at the San Diego comic-con international, new Iron man
armour from the movie was on display. A question panel was held where Shane
Black, Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Jon Favreau and Kevin Feige talked about
making the film and parts of the movie were shown. The first television advert
was shown during the super bowl in the US. To also promote the film, the
marketing crew made a trailer for the film, they also promoted it on social media.
The film was premiered at Hollywood’s El captain theatre, many of the cast and
crew attended. The film has been a major success and is now available on VOD
and DVD blu ray.
