CONSTRUCTION: MAKING OUR PRODUCTION IDENT

In today's lesson we created our production ident for our film company, which we had already decided would be called Vault 15 Productions. We printed off a picture of a vault door and our production company name in a font we felt suited our production company's messages and values: it was bold, clear but unique with the angular letters. We used a website called Dafont (www.dafont.com) to generate our production company logo.
Our idea for our ident was to have a vault door spinning and then opening (which we would use StopMotion for), with our production company name around it. This is what we created; we had to use two copies of the picture to make the  animation appear real. We had to use a scalpel and board to cut out the handles of the vault so we could make it turn in our animation. To make the animation look effective, we had to make sure the image stayed in the same place and that we used slow, smooth, small movements so the animation flowed.

INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS: QI AND THE IT CROWD

QI

Institutional contexts:

•                  The media channels‘/stations’ brand identities

 •                  The media channels’/stations’ ethos and histories (only relevant if they affect   programmes)

 •                  Regulatory (eg Public Service Broadcasting) requirements

QI is broadcast on Dave and BBC 2. Dave used to be called UKTV but re branded as Dave in 2007 to create a 'strong and noisy personality'. This new brand identity was based on the idea that 'everybody knows a bloke called Dave' to make the channel more relatable and memorable to its viewers, and give the channel a 'personality'. Dave shows programmes such as QI, Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You. Dave's brand slogan is 'the home of witty banter' and shows predominantly comedy programmes, such as QI. 

On the other hand, BBC 2 is a Public Service Broadcaster; it's aim is 'to inform, educate and entertain'. QI fits well with this remit, as it covers a range of 'quite interesting' information about subjects like history, science, nature and food. At the moment QI is on it's twelfth series (Series L). It is shown on BBC 2 every Thursday at 22:00 and 23:05 and every Friday at 22:00 and 23:05. Many QI repeats are shown on Dave regularly, for example on Tuesdays at 20:00, 21:00 and 22:00; as well as at 03:15, 04:15, 21:00 and 22:00 on Wednesdays; additionally it's shown on Saturdays at 21:05 and 22:30

 •                  The media channels’/stations’ target audiences.

BBC 2's remit is 'to be a mixed-genre channel appealing to a broad adult audience with programmes of depth and substance. It should carry the greatest amount and range of knowledge building programming of any BBC television channel, complemented by distinctive comedy, drama and arts programming.' QI fits this remit very well because it offers a range of knowledge and trivia on multiple subjects, as well as incorporating humour to appeal to a wide range of people. 

Dave describes their target audience as a 'core 16-34 male audience'. QI's broad range of topics and humour makes it a suitable programme for such a large age group: young men as well as older ones. Stereotypically, QI would appeal to a male audience as there is a lot of slapstick and often crude jokes. 

The IT Crowd

Institutional contexts:

•                  The media channels‘/stations’ brand identities

 •                  The media channels’/stations’ ethos and histories (only relevant if they affect   programmes)

 •                  Regulatory (eg Public Service Broadcasting) requirements

The IT Crowd is broadcast on Channel 4; a Public Service Broadcaster. 

"The public service remit for Channel 4 is the provision of a broad range of high quality and diverse programming which, in particular:

• demonstrates innovation, experiment and creativity in the form and content of programmes;
• appeals to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society;
• makes a significant contribution to meeting the need for the licensed public service channels to include programmes of an educational nature and other programmes of educative value; and
• exhibits a distinctive character."

The IT Crowd suits this remit because it appeals to a niche audience and focuses on an original 'situation' as part of the situation comedy: an IT department of a big business. Because of its ingenuity as a programme and the niche brand of humour, the IT Crowd also fits the remit as having a 'distinctive character'. The IT Crowd had four series as well as a special; repeats are not currently being aired. 

 •                  The media channels’/stations’ target audiences.

According to Channel 4, 'Audiences lie at the heart of everything we do at Channel 4. Our unique model means that we aim to have as wide an appeal as possible while also reaching out to specific demographics under-served by other broadcasters' 
The IT Crowd suits this target audience because of its niche audience it reaches out to 'specific demographics'; people a sophisticated brand of humour that is often subtle and clever, not just slapstick or physical. Channel 4 appeals to both males and females of a broad age range; The IT Crowd suits this because the comedy is not rude or offensive and can be watched by a family audience. 

CONSTRUCTION POSTS

These are my two posts on construction; the filming of our film opening, Erica. We have to get a couple more shots before we can edit, so I don't have an editing post yet but these are the two posts on constructing our films so far.

29/10/14 | PRODUCTION | FILMING

Over this half term break Harriet, Amber and I met up and filmed for a day. We filmed using a Canon 550D video camera and a tripod to create steady shots. We filmed several quick shots from when Erica (played by me) is at home and going to bed, when she gets back up and escapes out of her window and when she comes back to her room again and goes back to bed. Amber was in charge of makeup, I contributed costumes and Harriet did a lot of the actual filming. We all contributed in setting up shots as we each had our own ideas as to how to construct each shot and we each had a turn at filming. Amber did a lot of directing the shots.

We spent 4 hours filming these scenes as we tried to get the same shot from different angles and shot types to make the film more interesting and draw attention to certain shots. Overall this filming was successful as we managed to film quite a lot of the shots we needed and included a range of shot types such as close ups, mid shots and mid-long shots in order to add interest to our film.

3/1/15 | PRODUCTION | FILMING

Today Harriet, Amber, Nikki Granger and I met up at Harriet’s house to do some more filming for our film opening, Erica. We filmed using a Canon 550D video camera. One problem we faced was that as we were filming after dark the lighting wasn't very good, however we overcame this problem by using torches to create eerie lighting, and this worked quite well. We did not use a tripod for these scenes as we wanted them to be handheld so they were disorienting and created a spooky atmosphere. We filmed a lot of shots for the main part of the opening, when my character Erica is walking down the street, sees Nikki’s character being bullied by Amber and Harriet’s characters, and then stalks and kills them. Amber again did the makeup for the scenes and both me and Amber helped style hair as part of the costumes, for example I gave Nikki plaits to make her look young and innocent. Amber and Harriet directed most of the shots but we all contributed our own ideas. We also all took a turn filming. I was mainly responsible for organizing getting everyone together and finding someone to play Faith (Nikki’s character). 

We spent 3 hours filming these scenes and I feel it was successful. We got a range of shot types such as canted angles, close ups and tracking shots.

CALL SHEET FOR FINAL SHOOT

During today's lesson I created a new call sheet for the final piece of filming our group needs to do; the flashback bullying scene between Erica and two bullies at her school.

GCSE Media Studies Call Sheet for Psychological Thriller

Shoot date: 10/2/15

Location: Claremont Fan Court School, Claremont Drive, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9LY

Camera equipment:

Canon 550D

Lighting equipment: N/A

 Crew: Eleanor, Amber, Harriet

Harriet Mobile:  07*********                                          Email Address: harriet@gmail.com

Eleanor Mobile:  07****556**                        Email Address: eleanormcchesney@gmail.com               

Amber Mobile: 07********                                             Email Address: amber@gmail.com

Props:

N/A

Wardrobe Erica:

School uniform (skirt, tights, jumper, school shoes)

Wardrobe Bully 1:

School uniform (skirt, tights, jumper, school shoes)

Wardrobe Bully 2:

School uniform (skirt, tights, jumper, school shoes)

THE IT CROWD

I read the script for an episode of the IT Crowd called Yesterday's Jam. This is what I analysed:

How are the characters constructed?
Jen - As a sociable girl who's not really very intelligent because of the way she can make friends instantly (such as with the woman who beats Roy with her shoe) but she is not very knowledgeable about things like IT, for example, when she doesn't realize her computer is not plugged in.
Roy - As short tempered and lazy but desperate to be popular and get a girlfriend because of the way he doesn't answer the phone for as long as possible when it rings and when he does he gets very angry when the person on the other end doesn't understand what he's saying ("why don't you come down here and make me then?"). However he also tries to impress girls like Jen when he first meets her by pretending to be intelligent and sophisticated ("I believe it was Tolstoy who said...").
Moss - As very clever when it comes to technology but completely uncomprehending of subtlety such as when Roy pretends to be talking about Tolstoy and he doesn't understand why ("When have you read Tolstoy?" "Why are you giving me the secret signal to shut up?")


In what way are Roy and Moss 'standard nerds'?
Things they say - use of technological language such as 'system core tablet', 'thread' and 'programming code' that no one except someone very interested in computers (a stereotypical 'nerd') would understand 
Things they do - they don't know how to interact with girls, for example Roy getting beating regularly by girls he's frustrated with on the phone; they sit alone in the basement all day and are surprised when they have a visitor like Jen (for example when they enter, look surprised, put on deodorant and re-enter to try and impress her); they order two books to check the text isn't different (when Moss says "I got the child edition and the adult edition just to check there are no differences in the text"), which is something most people would not be interested in doing.

What is comic about Jen's appointment as IT manager?
She seems to know nothing about IT (for example naming the same thing different ways "emails, sending emails, receiving emails, deleting emails") yet Denholm is taken in and says that "you certainly seem to know your stuff". Therefore it is comic because although it is clear to the audience that Jen is incompetent when it comes to computers Denholm seems to believe her. 

QI AUDIENCE PLEASURES

I went to the BBC website at www.bbc.co.uk and found clips of QI, a comedy panel game hosted by Stephen Fry and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. I watched and analysed the clip called 'A Mind Blowing Snack' from series L which you can see here.

Audience pleasures in the clip:

• You see familiar people (Stephen Fry and Alan Davies) who are in every episode and so you form an on screen relationship with them and their personalities (i.e. Stephen Fry as the erudite intellectual and Alan Davies as the scapegoat). Relationships is one of the four gratifications of consuming media in the Uses and Gratifications model, and is a way audiences get pleasure from watching TV shows like QI. You feel you know the characters and are included in their jokes and banter.
• Alan Davies is consistently the scapegoat and always falls into the trap of saying the most obvious answer rather than the 'quite interesting' one. In this clip he does just that by asking if the green food is wasabi causing the sirens to go off. This gives the audience pleasure because it makes them feel safe in that they can watch from the comfort of their own homes and answer rightly or wrongly without such public humiliation. It also endears the audience to Alan as they feel sympathy for him always being the one to get the question wrong. This also helps in creating the on screen relationship with the panellists.
• There is physical humour, for example when Jason Manford comically fans his mouth after taking a bite of the green horse radish. This exaggeration is humorous and so gives the audience pleasure.
• The audience gets pleasure from watching Johnny Vegas take a big mouthful of the horse radish and then realise his mistake as it is very spicy. This gives the audience pleasure partly because his pain is humorous as he over reacts even though you know it is not as bad as he says and partly because they are relieved not to be in the same situation (similar to the idea of not having the sirens go off if you get the answers wrong). Johnny's over reaction is humorous to the audience because they know he is mainly putting it on; he uses physical humour like pulling faces and irony, for example telling Stephen Fry it would have been useful if he'd put up the pictures of the horse radish first instead of 'giving us some and saying 'Put that in your mouth'". He also jokes that he will be "flying home" and that he can "see through walls", entertaining the audience and playing up to them. This kind of humour from comedians on the panel is typical of QI and is one of the pleasures as they get to see other familiar faces such as Jason Manford, Aisling Bea and Johnny Vegas in this clip.

3/1/15 | PRODUCTION | FILMING

3/1/15 | PRODUCTION | FILMING

Today Harriet, Amber, Nikki Granger and I met up at Harriet’s house to do some more filming for our film opening, Erica. We filmed using a Canon 550D video camera and torches to create eerie lighting as we were filming after dark. We did not use a tripod for these scenes as we wanted them to be handheld so they were disorienting and created a spooky atmosphere. We filmed a lot of shots for the main part of the opening, when my character Erica is walking down the street, sees Nikki’s character being bullied by Amber and Harriet’s characters, and then stalks and kills them. Amber again did the makeup for the scenes and both me and Amber helped style hair as part of the costumes, for example I gave Nikki plaits to make her look young and innocent. Amber and Harriet directed most of the shots but we all contributed our own ideas. We also all took a turn filming. I was mainly responsible for organizing getting everyone together and finding someone to play Faith (Nikki’s character).

We spent 3 hours filming these scenes and I feel it was successful. We got a range of shot types such as canted angles, close ups and tracking shots.