Media Revision Board

Cross Media Convergence is the process of different areas of media converging (joining) to create a different experience; this can be cinema joining computer games for cut scenes and trailers (God of War III and Assassins Creed III)

Cross Media Convergence can have many affects in any area be it the core game design of the game or whether it be the marketing strategy for the game using the internet.

Assassins Creed 3 is the most pre-ordered game ever - perhaps because of their huge marketing campaign?

Crowd Funding.

Kickstarter is an organisation that allows people to put their ideas out to the public and get some feedback, this then allows them to get a feel for the audiences reception on the project and also collect funding from the audience in order to create it, this cuts out the major publishers such as Ubisoft and allows the smaller game developers to have complete creative control over their project and furthermore adapt it to their target audience with the feedback of the backers. This allows the audience to play an Active role rather than a Passive one in games such as AC3.

"Double Fine Adventures" is a prime example of a kickstarter project, as you can see down below from the facts table they recieved $3,336,371 from 87,142 backers. Tim Schafer wanetd the return of the Point and Click Adventure genre of games and put his ideas out to everybody over YouTube and Kickstarter, these were greatly recieved and he made his intial sum of $400,000 in just under a day, and in the one month slot that it was open, $3 million.

Indie Games.

Independant Games otherwise known as "Indie" Games are video games created either by a small group of people or commonly an individual that develops a company after gaining success from this. (Minecraft and Notch -> Mojang are a good example of this.) They develop these games mostly without financial support from publishers.

Independant games mainly started development on PC systems but over time due to the more widely available variety of developer software out there now, they are expanding onto many wider platforms such as the Xbox Live Arcade, Steam and OnLIve.

Minecraft is a sandbox indie game originally created by Swedish programmer Markus "Notch" Persson and later developed and published by Mojang. It was publicly released for the PC on May 17, 2009, as a developmental alpha version and, after gradual updates, was published as a full release version on November 18, 2011. A version for Android was released a month earlier on October 7, and an iOS version was released on November 17, 2011. On May 9, 2012, the game was released on Xbox 360 as an Xbox Live Arcade game, co-developed by 4J Studios. All versions of Minecraft receive periodic updates.
 

Exam Techniques.

When writing an exam essay question you should always read the question and break it down into understandable wording that you can clearly get a structure for, once you have this you should follow the following plan of layout making your 4 main bulk paragraphs relevant to the question.

Exam Terminology.

Publishing: The publishing of a game is very wide consisting of the genres (Can be multi-genre) and narrative as well as more core foundations such as the Target Audience.
Distribution: Distribution is how the audience receive the game upon completion (Online Retailers, Physical Stores and Steam).
Marketing: The marketing of a game is how the game is advertised (Assassins Creed III had a huge television marketing campaign).
Design and Production: This can also include the narrative and general design structures such as the game engine. (Moai and Anvil Next).

Media Homework

Successful critera for a band 4 exam essay:

- Do a clear plan of how you are going to answer the question.
- Make sure your facts and answers are relevant to the question before starting.
- Always use the wording of the question in your answer.
- Use relevant and accurate terminology in your answer.
- Use facts and figures that are relevant to the given question.
- Back up every point you make with a different fact to the last.
- Start every paragraph with the wording of the question in order to make it relevant.
- Use both sides of the argument well and develop each with examples.
- Use a lot of argument indicators in order to make it successful e.g. "However".

My opinion on the learning in Media:

Our style of learning in Media Studies is different to that of my other subjects. In Media we do a lot of group work and gather our collective thoughts in order to understand the task at hand and we pool the resources as a key revision tool for the exams. Currently we are doing a lot of paste exam questions in order to prepare for our exam, We are learning how to break down the question at hand in order to understand it better aswell as how the layout the structure of our answer. I like all of the learning in Media but my favourite is project work in which we either gather collective research in groups or we do a practical task such as moving around the class and working together.

Assassins Creed III Research

Publishing:

Target Audience;

The franchise first attracted a younger audience with the first Assassin's Creed hence the rating was 15+ while Assassins Creed 3 is an 18+. The franchise has grown up along with the audience to maintain its faithful fans. This new game has been marketed as the perfect time to buy into the Assassins Creed franchise and has tried to widen its audience. You would expect the main audience to be teenage boys but the game is also popular with middle aged men that were the first generation to grow up with the gaming industry and experience all the changes from Tetris all the way to this new Assassin's Creed.

The PSP version has the main character as a female. The target audience for this version is aimed more at females as they would be able to relate with this female. As a female it goes against the normal stereotype and instead the character is fighting and killing men. All the stereotypes are subverted unlike the other versions that follow the stereotypes. The game includes lots of different genres and because of this appeals to a wide audience. The new character is bigger, stronger and better at fighting which appeals to boys that are "obsessed" with war. Assassins Creed has captured the imagination of many people.
The game will has been released alongside other popular franchises such as Call of Duty, Halo and Forza Horizon all competing over the same target audience so by widening this audience with the PSP, online game play and multi-genre. These aspects make it competitive in the market against other games. 

Narrative;  

The story starts with Connor. After Charles Lee informs a young Connor that he wishes to speak to the elders of his village, he returns to find the village burning, causing the death of his mother. Later, a teenage Connor is told by a village elder that the reason no one is allowed to leave the valley is because they are there to protect the Temple. After showing the woman the symbol of the Assassins, she tells him to leave the valley, finding Achilles Davenport, an Assassin, and convinces the fighter to train him.

After collecting supplies to rebuild the decaying homestead, Achilles presents Connor with the Aquila, a ship Connor can use to patrol the Eastern seaboard. Connor soon is taken to Boston, where he is finally dubbed Connor Kenway, after Achilles' son.

As Connor learns the art of being an assassin he is brought into the cities of Boston and New York as well as a large open area called The Frontier. After being made a full-fledged member of the Brotherhood by Achilles, Connor sets out to eliminate the Colonial Templars. William Johnson is first assassinated after he attempts to purchase the land in which Connor's people reside on. Connor next targets John Pitcairn, who leads the British forces at Bunker and Breed's Hills. After he is dealt with Connor next targets Thomas Hickey whom Connor discovers is plotting to assassinate George Washington.

Upon travelling to the Caribbean and pursuing a boat, Haytham and Connor find Church and kill him. The two then travel to meet Washington. Here, Haytham discovers a letter revealing that Washington has ordered the removal of all the Indigenous tribes from the land as a number of which have supported the British. One of the lands to be removed is Connor's own despite the tribe being completely neutral. Connor severs his ties with Haytham and Washington and takes off to protect his tribe's village. Connor finds the village safe, but the wise woman has dispatched several tribesmen to turn back the Colonials sent to purge the village. Connor neutralizes them to avoid conflict; however he is forced to sacrifice a friend mentally blinded by Lee.
Connor becomes torn in his mission to eliminate the Templars with the thought that he could possibly turn his father for good. Connor sets off to pursue Lee who has been disgraced by Washington and taken refuge in Fort George. Connor infiltrates the fort only to find Haytham. Haytham reveals Lee has escaped (with the medallion) again and he and Connor engage in battle. Now accepting that his father will not turn, Connor kills Haytham, who refuses to repent in the end.
As Desmond plays these events out in the Animus he is occasionally taken out in order to find power cells crucial in the process of exploring the temple. The efforts take Desmond to locations including Manhattan and Brazil. During these trips, he encounters Daniel Cross, an Assassin-turned Templar who was responsible for nearly wiping out the Assassins in 2000 by killing their Mentor. While exploring the temple Juno tells Desmond the events leading up to the first cataclysm. It is during one of these lectures that Desmond reveals that him killing Lucy was no accident and that he chose to after the Apple revealed to him that Lucy was a double-agent and intended to take the Apple to Abstergo.

Connor now pursues Lee again. After pursuing Lee into a burning ship the two come to a stalemate after falling through a section of the ship. Connor is impaled in his side by a piece of the ship. Lee asks him why he continues to persist even though the Templars only rise again and again. Connor replies, "Because no one else will", and shoots Lee in the chest. A mortally wounded Lee escapes in a ferry across the lake with a badly injured Connor in pursuit. Connor finds Lee in a pub taking one last drink and finishes the job by stabbing Lee in the chest. Connor takes down the portraits of the Templar members in the secret basement and burns them, signifying the end of his journey. In addition, his return to his home village (shown before) is detailed further- upon arrival he spoke to a hunter that had been camping there, who revealed that the new U.S. Government had sold the land his village rested upon to settlers in order to settle war debts. He also travels to the pier in New York, seeing the last of the British Redcoats leave America for good. However, at this same encounter, Connor sees the beginnings of the slave trade present in the newly formed nation- right next to the pier of citizens cheering at the departure of the British there is a stand where a slave trader is peddling three of his "wares".

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_III

Genre;

Assassin's Creed 3 is very much a multi-genre game. Fantasy, adventure, strategy, beat em up, sandbox, sci-fi, puzzle, stealth and racing. This makes the game very immersive and allows the gamer to explore and spend many hours completing the missions, collecting or just enjoying this virtual world which in this new assassin's. One minute you can be tearing apart some guards the next collecting collectibles. This makes the game incredibly varied and diverse. The game is mostly third person which means that the camera is behind the character.

Not many games have this multi-genre so assassin's creed 3 doesn't have many competitors and is different from other popular franchises such as Call of Duty, Halo and Need for Speed. The multiplayer in the Assassins Creed has been included since Brotherhood and has been mostly successful. It is a different concept from the usual team death match on most first person shooters and includes players hunting each other. The genre of the multiplayer is very much stealth and is popular for its inventiveness.

Development:

Game engine - Anvil next;
Can do weather cycling (random weather), Create crowds of at most 2000 , the world changes over time to do things like growing plants or making damage to buildings permanent. The characters in the game have artificial intelligence. In the crowds each person has their own personality, wind and water simulation is so accurate you use the actual naval techniques to aim at the enemy, when the character walks through snow his footprints are remembered for the duration of the mission. This shows continuing sales figures because the player wants to see how the game improves via the small details like weather and crowds. An example of this is when people pass by the shop windows.

Game design;
Characters - The characters have stayed quite similar. The protagonist in each is a healthy thin attractive man who kills men via some fluent fighting style. Also the women in each game are thin, big breasted and appealing to men. However the way in which the protagonist moves is more fluent and smooth compared to previous games, like in Assassins Creed where Altair would only run left after stopping running forward.
World – How one interacts with the surroundings and in the case of Assassin’s Creed 3 how the free running system works. This is evident when one runs free as Connor. Instead of the dilapidated buildings we start free running through trees and up cliffs. This makes the long time player want to continue playing as it shows the evolution of skills from the easy blocky buildings to the intricate branches. It also makes the player feel like they are achieving something as they have been playing through the evolution so they feel they have got better at controlling it.

Game Software - This is how the hardware is used. The software is the content of the game in its basics. This involves the graphics and how they improve. In Assassin’s Creed the graphics are ahead of its time but we focused more on the buildings and looks. Now in Assassins’ Creed 3 we focus more on the character and the background. An example of this is the first protagonist Haytham when he boards a boat. His face is uncovered unlike the previous games and we see how the better graphics affect his face. Also in the background there’s new motion (a sea moving or people passing windows). The long time players will wish to play the new game to see how the graphics have advanced. 

Marketing:

On 28th September 2012, Ubisoft announced that they were to spend £4million on marketing in anticipation of the release of Assassin's Creed 3. This is the largest spend on the promotion of a product by the developer, in a big push to up intake compared to the losses of the previous game, despite its 9 million sales.
This helps sales figures in an obvious way, the more people who see it across the TV, radio, advertising boards etc, the more people are aware of it, and then they look into it, find a large network of exciting "exclusive reveal" videos on the internet and get excited for the game, and want it when it comes out.

On YouTube, you can find a wide range of videos showing interviews and new features of the game. These helped build up anticipation for the game from fans, without revealing too much. This is a good way of promoting something as it comes at absolutely no cost whatsoever, but is a great way of building up excitement and draw in more people who pre-order because they are watching the videos and want the game as a result. The videos have over 1 million hits each. As well as those, there are numerous trailers for different parts of the game, such as the new storyline, the new character "Connor", the new weapons and various others.

In total, across 4 consoles, there are 7 different editions of Assassin's Creed 3. The Standard Edition is available on Xbox 360, PS3, PS Vita and PC. The Limited Edition, which includes various extras which come with the game disc, including a belt buckle and a large embroidered colonial flag, and is available on Xbox 360 and PS3. The Digital Deluxe Edition is available just on PC, but comes with various add-ons from past versions of the game, like favourite missions and a "Best Of" soundtrack. Available on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC- the main 3 consoles the game is available on- are the Special Edition, the Join Or Die Edition, the Freedom Edition and the UbiWorkshop Edition. These each come with their own arrangements of extras, including exclusive lithographs, an encyclopedia and rare prints, among others.
This helps the franchise develop sales figures as collectors and "hardcore gamers" will buy a number of, or at least the most expensive edition. This helps bring in much more money to the franchise, at little extra cost to them. It also helps the franchise establish itself as it shows the commitment from the developers and designers.

Distribution:

http://www.gem.co.uk/

Assassins Creed III has been distributd across many different platforms including Xbox-360, Playstation 3 and the all new PS Vita. This has enabled the game to be distributed on  a much wider scale which allows customers to get hold of the game very easily. The marketing for the game shows an advertisement of the game and also advertises the fact that it is sold at the Game store.

The Game store itself has both a physical store and an online store. On the online store customers can order and even pre-order the game for bonus features. The physical store allows the exact same capabilities in both pre-ordering and buying the game directly.

With Assassins Creed III been a sequel in the popular Assassins Creed franchise, most local game stores and even some supermarkets now sell the game. This distribution allows the game to be recieved by customers in a wide variety of locations without an effort to find it.

Aswell as been sold widely throughout stores, The most common distribution for the game is online, not only can big retailers that have physical stores sell the game online, but companies like Amazon and Play.com are distributing the game widely because of their trusted customer base. This allows the game to be distributed on a huge scale for customers and shows how the game is getting to the audience.

When the game is ordered online the customer can either pick the game up from the store that they purchased it from or they can choose to have the game delivered directly to their home which allows the game to be sold to more and more people that can't get out to a physical store.

Waterloo Road

Waterloo Road

Waterloo Road, Season 8 Episode 2 (Spirit Child)



Gerard Findlay (Antagonist)
Gerard Findlay is the Headteacher of Haverlock High. He has a feud against Michael Byrne, the Headteacher of Waterloo Road. In this episode he actually helps Mr Budgen respay his car after it has been vandalised by students of Haverlock and he doesn't want Grantley to get the police involved.

Lula (Neutral, but mainly a victim so we feel sympathy towards her)
This episode is the first time we see Lula. At first she is presented as coming from a stereotypical African family where her uncle doesn't speak English. She is a very mixed character who we gain sympathy for due to the way she is harshly treated by her Uncle and the pastor.

Mr Byrne (Protagonist)
Mr Byrne is very quiet in this episode. He doesn't do too much other than tell Grantley not to tell the police as he doesn't want to cause trouble between Waterloo Road and Haverlock High.

Lula's Uncle (Antagonist)
Lula's Uncle is immediatly shown as being a vicious figure. We see from the start that he scares Lula, and he won't listen to what she wants. He is very religious and doesn't believe in any other methods for trying to help Lula. He is also very vicious towards the teachers at the school.

Tom Clarkson (Protagonist)

Mr Clarkson is presented as a bit of a hero in this episode. Despite what happens to Lula he doesn't give up on trying to help her, and he manages to persuade Lula's Mum to come and rescue her from her Uncle and the Pastor.

Lula's Mum (Antagonist)
Lula's Mum is very quiet in this episode. At first she appears as being very ill, but we later see that Lula's Uncle is actually trying to control her, and that despite what we previously hear she can speak English and she helps Lula out and gets rid of Lula's Uncle.

Connor Mulgrew (Neutral)

Connor is a bit of a troublemaker. He tries to get his mum caught out after having Vodka in school, but then he owns up because he feels guilty. At the end of the episode he accidently sets the house on fire, and because his mum is recovering from drinking he tries to pin the blame onto her.

Christine Mulgrew (Neutral)

Christine is a teacher who has a drink problem. She is caught with alcohol in the school but her son takes the blame for her. At the end of the episode Connor sets the house on fire accidently and blames in on Christine.

In this episode we see the conflict between the binary opposites. According to Levi-Strauss most films and TV Dramas are based around conflict between binary opposites. Hero V Villain, Good v Evil and Love v Duty. In this episode Lula and her Uncle are the opposites and stand for Good v Evil. As is usually the case with most TV shows and films good eventually triumphs over evil, despite always looking like evil will come out on top. The story follows a linear structure, where it is all in chronological order. The clips all work as a chain, with something in between the seperate storylines which develop through the storyline. These include Connor and his Mum's drink problem, where Connor accidentally sets his house on fire and Gerard Findley and Michael Bryne's Feud over Waterloo Road and Haverlock High.

We see Love as a duty of care reversed. Normally we'd expect the uncle to be the one showing love towards his niece, but what we actually see happening is Tom loving Lula and showing her care and the Uncle not really being interested. This is a role reversal which helps Mr Clarkson look like a hero. This helps to provide the ending, when Tom managed to get Lula's Mum in just in time and manages to to prevent the exorcism and allow Lula and her Mum to restart their relationship with one another.

This episode manages to fit in with Todorov's theory of narrative equilibrium. We have an Equilibrium where Lula is starting at school, however this doesn't last long before she is already causing trouble by stepping out in front of Mr Clarkson's car. The disruption starts fully when other students try to interact with Lula, she reacts very badly to it and causes problems. Lula recognises this when she tells Mr Clarkson about her Uncle and how he plans on taking her to the pastor for her exorcism. The attempts to repair this start when, after being taken out of school by her uncle, Tom and Lula's mum stop the exorcism from happening, and the police are contacted, and for the main storyline we see the happy ending that was expected. To an extent it also conforms with Syd Field's 3 Act Structure, although nowhere near as well as with Todorov's theory.

The roles of the characters don't conform with Propp's Character Types Theory. We have Tom who is the hero in this episode, Lula's Uncle who plays the role of the villain, Lula's Mum as the helper and Lula as the princess. But we don't have anyone who acts as a donor, dispatcher or false hero. In Waterloo Road many of the characters are based on Stereotypes. Lula and her family are based strongly on a typical Western African family with the way they speak French and being very religious. Whenever Lula's Uncle is on the screen the camera is always looking up at him to try and make him seem as big as possible, while with her Mum we always see her from a long way and dressed as being very ill, almost the opposite of Lula's Uncle.

Assassins Creed Research

Assassins Creed (The Original). Assassin's Creed is a historical action-adventure open world stealth video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows. On April 16, 2009, Ubisoft revealed that the game has sold 8 million copies to date. Ubisoft also revealed that Assassins Creed as a franchise has sold over 29 million copies.

The Video Game Research

The Structure of the Video Game Industry is quite simple;

- Developer
- Publisher
- Marketer
- Distributor
- Hardware
- Retail
- Consumer

I got this structure from this website:
http://www.slideshare.net/cigdemkalem/the-games-industry-industry-structure

Another website that explains a bit more in the fields of Computer Game Publishers, Computer Game Developers, Distributors and the Hardware Manufacturers is:
http://www.obscure.co.uk/articles-2/industry-overview/


The 5 most important games ever

Wii Sports is a sports game developed and published by Nintendo as a launch title for the Wii video game console (and the first title for this console), and part of the Touch! Generations. The game was first released in North America along with the Wii on November 19, 2006, and was released in Japan, Australia, and Europe the following month. It was included as a pack-in game with the Wii console in all territories except Japan, making it the first game included with the launch of a Nintendo system since Mario's Tennis for the Virtual Boy in 1995. Wii Sports is now available on its own as part of the Nintendo Selects collection of games and is no longer a pack-in game for the Wii. Overall, Wii Sports has been well received by critics and received awards from the gaming press and entertainment community. It is the best-selling video game of all time as of 2009, having outsold the previous best-seller, Super Mario Bros., also published by Nintendo. As of March 2012, 79.60 million copies of the game had been sold worldwide. The game has become a popular means for social gatherings and competitions among players of varying ages. It was followed by a sequel, Wii Sports Resort, in 2009.

The Sims is a strategic life-simulation video game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Its development was led by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity. It is a simulation of the daily activities of one or more virtual persons ("Sims") in a suburban household near SimCity. In 2002, The Sims became the top-selling PC game in history. As of February 7, 2005, the game has shipped 16 million copies worldwide. Critics praised it with positive reviews. It has been a success in many ways - attracting casual gamers and female gamers (the latter making up almost 60% of players). Open-ended gameplay has been done before in games, such as the farming-based simulation series Harvest Moon, but The Sims has certainly gained popularity for this particular style of gameplay. In March 2009, Electronic Arts announced that The Sims, as a franchise, has sold more than 110 million copies.

Space Invaders is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to defeat waves of aliens with a laser cannon to earn as many points as possible. It was one of the forerunners of modern video gaming and helped expand the video game industry from a novelty to a global industry. When first released, Space Invaders was very successful. Following its release, the game caused a temporary shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan and grossed US $2 billion worldwide by 1982. The game has been the inspiration for other video games, re-released on numerous platforms, and led to several sequels. The 1980 Atari 2600 version quadrupled the system's sales and became the first "killer app" for video game consoles. Space Invaders has been referenced and parodied in multiple television shows, and been a part of several video game and cultural exhibitions. The pixelated enemy alien has become a pop culture icon, often used as a synecdoche representing video games as a whole.

Call of Duty is a first-person and third-person shooter video game series franchise. The series began on the PC, and later expanded to consoles and handhelds. Several spin-off games have also been released. The earlier games in the series are set primarily in World War II. They then move on to Modern Warfare, set in modern times. The series has shifted focus away from World War II. “Modern Warfare” was followed by “Modern Warfare 2”, set in modern times, and “Black Ops”, set during the Cold War. The Call of Duty games are published and owned by Activision and published for Apple OS X by Aspyr Media. Most have been developed primarily by Infinity Ward and Treyarch. As of November 11, 2011, the Call Of Duty series have sold over 100 million copies. As of March 31, 2012 there are 40 million monthly active players across all of the Call of Duty titles, with 10 million “Call of Duty: Elite” users and 2 million paying annual members. Over 1.6 billion hours of online gameplay have been logged in the latest game in the series, “Modern Warfare 3.”

Grand Theft Auto (commonly abbreviated GTA) is a video game series created in the United Kingdom by David Jones and Mike Dailly then later by brothers Dan and Sam Houser, and game designer Zachary Clarke. It is primarily developed by British developer Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design) and published by Rockstar Games. The name of the series is derived from grand theft auto, a term referring to motor vehicle theft. The series has won multiple awards. The series is set in fictional locales heavily modelled on American cities, while an expansion for the original was based in London. Gameplay focuses on an open world where the player can choose missions to progress an overall story, as well as engaging in side activities, all consisting of action-adventure, driving, occasional role-playing, stealth, and racing elements. The subject of the games is usually a comedic satire of American culture, but the series has gained controversy for its adult nature and violent themes. The series focuses around many different protagonists who attempt to rise through the ranks of the criminal underworld, although their motives for doing so vary in each game. The antagonists are commonly characters who have betrayed the protagonist or his organisation, or characters who have the most impact impeding the protagonist's progress.

One upcoming game for around Christmas; Halo 4

Halo 4 is the fourth direct sequel into the Halo series with multiple spin-off's being made.

343 Industries, who have taken over development of the main Halo series from creators Bungie, have described Halo 4 as being darker and more story-driven than other games in the series. It sees Master Chief and Cortana crashing on a mysterious Forerunner planet and battling against mechanical enemies known as the Prometheans. These guys can toss back plasma grenades, protect themselves with hardlight shields, and deploy turrets. After years of fighting the Covenant, it'll be good to test our Halo skills against a new foe. Much of the story is shrouded in mystery, but the antagonist is rumoured to be Didact, a great Forerunner general that fans of Halo's expanded universe may remember from Halo Legends.


The changing of the Video Game Industry

The video game industry is changing due to new advances in technology; Instead of being purely console based, the video game industry is changing as around 50% of people prefer playing on their mobile devices using games on app stores such as Apple or Android.

This website explains the changing of the video game industry as described above;
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/video-game-industry-continues-shift-122000746.html

Mock Exam - Worst Paragraph Improvements

In contrast to the high pitch music representing the homosexual women, when we are shown clips of the heterosexual man, a low pitch music is played with drum beats which creates a sense of masculinity of the man, This non-diegetic sound has the connotation that homosexuality is a feminine trait both in lesbians and gays and not at all masculine

First Mock Exam Improvements

In the first scene of the clip there is a loud part of music played over the clip as they are walking to the arena, this music is played at a very low pitch with drum beats and a trombone and it creates the effect that they are forced to walk to their own death. This is a great connotation of their class and status as it shows the fighters are just another possession of the rich people and makes the fighters seem a slave like status. This music is then followed by two pieces of music which are juxtaposed to each other, one is extremely tense and loud as the final two fighters are fighting which creates a sense of danger and fright for the fighters but allows the viewer to sympathise with those, this music is then contrasted with a more upbeat and melodic piece that is played quietly while we watch the rich people chat amongst themselves during the fight. These music pieces contrasted with each other emphasise the fact that the fighters are such a low class and status that they are just the possessions of the rich who are just using them for their entertainment.

There are a wide variety of camera shots used in this extract of the film. One of these is a camera shot from up behind the higher class looking down on the fight which may represent the class and status divides between the two because the rich are looking down on the lower class. During the final fight in the clip we see many different camera shots; each with different connotations.One camera shot was at a low angle looking up towards the fighters showing their masculinity and strength but in the same shot you can also see the higher class in the background looking down at them which shows that although the fighters may be strong, they are still a lower class than the higher class. Within the fighters there are different levels of status too, camera shots clearly show this because towards the end of the fight, the black fighter is shot at a low angle looking up at him while the white fighter is shot at a high angle looking down at him, this shows his power and superiority over the other fighter. There is one shot in this extract which is particularly good at showing the class divides, this shot is at ground level inside the box the fighters are held inside looking through the door, at the bottom of the screen we can see the fighters being shown as the lowest class, in the middle of the screen we can see the guards and their leader which may represent the middle class of people but then above those we have the higher class looking down on both of them being shown as the highest class.

Mise-en-Scene is also used to great effect in this extract of film because although the black fighter is shown as a higher status than the other fighters, gestures given by the higher class show that he is still of a low status and class. Towards the end of the fight when the black fighter has the opportunity to kill the other, he hesitates for a while, then one of the higher class women sticks her thumb down which gestures for the fighter to "kill him", this shows again her authority over the fighter and her role as his "owner". Another part of the behaviour and gestures shown of the upper class emphasising the class divide is during the fight, When the men are fighting for their lives below, the higher class are passing around food and the higher class men are discussing something completely irrelevant to the fight, this shows that for the higher class this is just another form of entertainment, this again reinforces the class and status of both sets of people. Towards the end the black fighter rebels against the hierarchy by not obeying the higher class orders to kill him but instead throwing the trident towards them and then running and climbing up the wall towards them, this symbolises him climbing up the class and status ladder.

The setting of the clip also shows the representation of class and status. In the first scene we see the men walking from their cages towards the arena, The setting of this scene is all dull using only deep browns and greys which suggests the lower class people. As they leave their cells and walk towards the arena there is a shot from behind the cage which shows the fighters as "trapped". Once the men enter the arena they are forced into another small box like cage like a caged animal, this suggests that the fighters are seen as such a low class to the higher class people that they are treated only as well as wild animals are. As the main fight begins we see the viewing platform raised above the arena in which the higher class are observing the fight from. This connotates the fact that they are higher above the fighters not only literally but figuratively too.

The clothing of each set of people is different, In the opening scene of the extract the fighters are seen wearing grey/brown rags suggesting the low class and status of them. In contrast to the fighters set of clothing we see them directly contrasted with the guards clothes who are the middle class in the scene, they are seen wearing some browns but also some red which shows their status above the fighters. Finally the clothing of the higher class is all bright colours like red and white, this connotates their hierarchy by showing them in royal colours such as red. The red in their clothing may also represent danger and the danger that they are to the lower class fighters in the extract by making them fight to their death. When the fighters enter the arena to fight they are made to take off the grey rags they have exposing only a very small piece of armour, this connotates the vulnerability of the fighters as they are fighting with exposed flesh.

Media Film Coursework

Today in Media Studies we showed the class our final edited draft of the short film we have created. First the class were shown one viewing of the film, then they were shown a second viewing during which they had to take notes on the successes and failures of the film; Those notes are listed below;

Successes;
-The music was synced very well to the actual clip (particularly the start of the clip).
-All of the camera shots were used to a good level.
-Good use of colour in the scenes (Mise-en-Scene) during the locker room scenes and the general running as the background of the locker room is red as well as the hoodie worn by the actor is red, this shows clear representation of danger within the film.

Failures;
-Continuity error as in one scene the sleeves of the actor are rolled up but in the next they are rolled down.
-The running as to find the murderer was too long and lost some of the suspense.
-The storyline was unclear as you couldn't work out why the actor was running around.

Presentation Criticism

In this weeks lesson of Media Studies we made a presentation on Waterloo Road, this was then uploaded onto my partners blog address; http://elliottwalsh96.blogspot.co.uk/. The criticism we recieved for this is listed below:

Good use of images
Good use of Terminology
Good links to the theories/binary opposites
Make more attractive (GIFS, Videos)
Could have used more on editing, mise-en-scene and music, but what is there is good.

Could make it better presented and more interesting
Should mention camera shots and sounds
Nicely laid out
Good use of pictures
Good technical language

Terminology is well used
Need more on mise-en-scene

Chunks of text need breaking up
Needs a conclusion
Needs to be more appealing

More terminology but good reference to the theories
Less heavy text

Good analysis of characters and detailed
Clear understanding of structure etc
A bit text heavy, needs more pictures
Flows well, a bit short. Needs more info.

I am quite pleased with this criticism on the whole, I would improve the blog presentation further by taking the ideas of improving the presentation of it on board like breaking the text up more and adding more images, videos and colour.

Questions on the Clip.

Today in Media Studies we were put into groups of four people and given these four questions to work through, the questions were based on the five minute clip of a drama programme that we watched last week.  The questions and our answers to them are listed below.

Why represent the police in this way?
They represent the police in this way because the creators want to make you side with the immigrants and make you see the police as antagonists (villains). This subverts the role of the police who are usually good. They also represent them in this way to show a sense of realism, this means that they do it to show that not everything has a happy ending and also destroys the belief that everything will be fine in the end. They may have also represented the police in this way to show them as faceless, unthinking robots as they don't seem to react to anything they're doing when they are ruining lives.

Why represent the immigrant workers in this way?
The creators of the programme represent the immigrant workers in this way in order to make you sympathise with the workers and again see the police as the villains. They may also have done this to send a message out that immigrant workers are treated unfairly in the UK like in the programme, in which they have to have low-end jobs even when they are qualified for better roles (e.g. Adam is a qualified doctor but is made to be a cleaner). The way that they represent the immigrant workers in some seems almost puts us in the room with them so you feel emotions for the workers such as fear when the workers are all hiding in the closet and fretting, Sympathy for the workers when Ibrahim gets caught and is taken away and grief when the character Sue is cleaning out Ibrahim's locker and sniffles as though she is crying.

What stereotypes are being adhered to or subverted from in this clip?
The Police - The police stereotype is usually one that is good, they are normally protectors of the society, but here on the other hand, they are subverting the stereotype by presenting them as nonchalant, uncaring, just "doing their jobs" when actually they are destroying peoples lives.
The Immigrants - The stereotypes of immigrants are usually a bad one such as unclean, de-humanised, stealing jobs, large families, unskilled and violent, but this clip attempts to de-construct this stereotype.
They do this with each character; Adam - Religious, caring and a trained doctor, Ibrahim - Treated incredibly roughly without provocation.

Can you hypothesise the purpose behind the mediation of this clip?
One reason this clip is mediated is to inform people more about immigrants and immigration and destroy the stereotype and made to challenge peoples pre-conceptions of not only the immigrants, but the police too. The main root cause however is simply to entertain an audience and make money from that.

Stereotypes

In yesterdays lesson of Media Studies we explored two main areas. One was looking at pictures provided by the teacher and thinking of "Connotations" of that picture. "Connotation" is a word of which we learnt the meaning of today; in the context of our lesson it basically means words we associate with that image. Our first image was that of a sunset or sunrise, the main connotations our group thought of were Relaxing and Calm. The next was an image of a rose, the connotations of this that were thought up by the group were that of romance and love. The final image we were shown was an image of Arnold Schwarzenegger dressed in his costume for "Conan the Barbarian", a lot of the connotations from this were about masculinity and strength, but some also came up as gay because of the outfit not fitting into today's modern age.

After that we took a short look at the study of signs; also known as "Semiology". This was done by our teacher showing us about twenty different signs and then asking us to name each, this was made harder by some hidden signs that did not exist. We were then asked how we knew what the signs meant, one way was for a stop sign in which somebody answered that the colour red can symbolise danger. We were then asked to think whether that concept would work in the east in places like China, this wouldn't because of the fact that the colour red is associated with luck in China rather than danger.

The next part of the lesson was spent on exploring stereotypes, we were shown various examples of stereotypes such as Germans cheating with their beach towels and grannies always knitting. We looked at stereotypes in two different ways. The first way was that the class were shown four images and we had to state the stereotype for each, one was; a hoodie, a phone, an MP3 player and some trainers with the stereotype being youths and young kids, another was a flat cap, glasses, a beard and walking stick with the stereotype being old aged man, the final images were a chefs apron, a frying pan, a vacuum and an oven with the stereotype being women. The other way we looked at stereotypes was by been told a stereotype like "Blondes" and then writing connotations that we associate with that stereotype such as dumb.

To end the lesson we took a look at a sample exam in which we are shown a clip of a drama programme a few times and we have to watch and make notes on different things in it, in particular we were asked to focus on the "Mise-en-scene" which looks at the props, costumes, colours and setting of the video clip. We were shown a clip in which the immigration officers raid a hotel and capture an immigrant that couldn't hide in time. The question we were given to this was "How did the video clip represent the immigrants and the police?". We worked on this for the remainder in the lesson and had to get ready to give a presentation for the following lesson.

A taste of Media Studies.

In our first lesson of Media Studies we had a few different discussions on various topics, our first discussion was a discussion of what "clever" means to us which was followed by a discussion to find the ways of teaching we prefer, enjoy and benefit from most. Our decisions as a class would decide which ways we are taught throughout the course. To start we were shown two images, one of Itchy and one of Scratchy from "the Itchy and Scratchy show" and we were asked which was more "clever" even though the both got the same grade in school. Next we were told the ways in which both of the characters got the grades.
Scratchy got his grades from copying work off the board and using essay plans from teachers and then re-using that information in the exams, Itchy on the other hand got his grades from finding his own ways of writing essays and making his own plans. We were shown both characters a few years later and found that Scratchy couldn't get a new job after losing his last one because he couldn't apply any knowledge from his exams, however Itchy managed to get a new job after losing his last as he could apply the knowledge into his work place such as group work.

After those discussions we were shown the syllabus for the year and the topics and layout of the exams and coursework for the course ahead of us, after receiving a few sheets of paper we watched some of the coursework of the previous year of Media Studies students. The pieces of coursework were each 2 minute clips to a fiction film that they had created in groups of 3-4 people. We were shown this to show us what we are expected to do.