520. Film viewing – Audience Feedback Questionnaire

audience-feedback-questionnaire-17309

519. SIGNS, CODES and CONVENTIONS

MISE-EN-SCENE (French for ‘put in the scene’)

EDITING
Some important edits are called: continuity (or ‘Hollywood’) edits; MTV (’music television’) edits; cross-cuts; follow-cuts; match-cuts; jump cuts; eye-line matches; dissolves; fades; montages; bridging; flashbacks…

SHOT TYPES

Establishing shot / long-shot / mid-shot / close-up / point-of­ view shot / soft-focus…

Semiotics is the name given to the study of the way by which meaning is created in the world, especially in the mass media. It is based upon the Idea of ’signs’ and ‘codes’, ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’.

A sign is the basic unit of meaning in semiotics. A sign is any individual thing that signifies meaning; for example, your clothes are a group of ‘fashion signs’ which signify meaning (perhaps you are trying to look ‘cool’?). There are two ways that signs create meaning: all signs have a literal meaning, which is called their denotation; but, depending on the context, many signs also suggest other ‘layers’ of meaning, which is called their connotation. For example, an image of a girl dressed all in white denotes just that, I.e. this is what you ’see’; but it may also connote innocence or purity (and all that this means in our society and culture), i.e. this is what you ‘think’.
Connotation, therefore, is always more than the denotation. Signs rarely work alone. They are most often combined with other signs to form a code.

A code is a group of signs that we recognise as going ‘naturally together’ to signify meaning (e.g. a rose is a sign; but being handed to a girl by a boy could create a ‘romance code’ and suggest love).

Film and TV codes are often called technical codes because technical equipment is used to create them.

There are three ways through which codes and signs can signify meaning: Iconicity: an iconic sign or code looks just like the thing it seems to represent, e.g. an image of a cowboy seems to be just that; but it is called iconic because it suggests far more than it should: for example, our culture tends to associate extra meanings with the idea of ‘cowboy’, such as toughness, heroism, masculinity, etc. Iconic signs are never reality: they are a representation of reality.

Indexicality (an indexical sign or code) in a sign directly suggests meaning because what it shows seems to be the result of something we associate with the thing it represents, e.g. smoke suggests fire, sweat suggests exercise, appearance can suggest wealth, etc. This can be a short-cut way for a film director to create meaning.

Symbolism (a symbolic sign or code) suggests meaning because we have learned this meaning in our culture; a symbol, in itself, has no association with what it means, e.g. a red heart shape suggests love; letters combine to make words, etc. The meaning we gain from codes is said to be culturally determined which .means that our culture ‘taught’ us that particular way to interpret the meaning. For example, when we see our national flag, the Union Jack, we see more than what it simply denotes – a piece of coloured cloth: patriotism and pride, etc.

An important code is an enigma code. These codes put a fascinating question in the mind of the audience that only watching the movie will answer. They tempt the audience to watch and are often used in trailers. A convention is simply a way of doing something that we are so used to we usually fail to notice it; conventions can seem ‘perfectly natural’ or ‘realistic’ yet are anything but. So: women in cowboys tend conventionally to be either ‘very good’ or ‘very bad’ – and this seems ‘normal’ within the genre of cowboy movies; the wheels of a car always screech; guns always kill outright; a punch always knocks a person out cold.

Genre and narrative are important media conventions that are covered later, as are editing techniques and-the use of certain shot types (such as an establishing shot sequence or montage – see later).

Cinema and TV codes are created within an area bounded by the edges of a screen. By controlling what objects and action are in this frame, a film director creates what is called a mise-en-scene.

Asking questions such as ‘who, what and where’ of the characters and objects and their relative positions, expressions, appearance, costume, make-up, scenery, props, lighting, sounds, etc. in a mise-en-scene will help you analyse it.

Try to consider what effects are created in a mise-en-scene’, what meaning they have (their denotation and, most importantly, connotation), how they have been created and why they were created (which will be the director’s purpose – perhaps to develop a character, a mood, the storyline or plot and sometimes to explore a deeper meaning or idea, i.e. a theme).

Editing is the placing of separate shots together. This allows a director to manipulate space and time ­hundreds of miles or weeks of time can be reduced to a few scenes that appear perfectly natural and believable to the audience. A montage is a most important editing technique. It is a series of shots that are edited together to create a kind of ‘individual unit’ of meaning.

Continuity edits – especially matched cuts – are called ‘Hollywood editing’. This creates a sequence that seems to flow naturally on from the previous one, and in which the edits are ‘invisible’. These have the effect of creating a realistic and seamless flow to a story or narrative (see below) where one event leads naturally onto the next.

Jump-cuts are dramatic edits; MTV edits are rapid sequences of fast jump cuts used to create a conscious effect as used first in pop-videos;

cross-cuts/parallel editing follow different actions such as two people talking; follow-cuts follow an action to its consequence, e.g. a character looking edits to what they look at

eye-line matches are a kind of follow cut).

A sound-bridge is a sound edit that allows sound from one shot to cross into the next to create continuity.

An establishing shot is usually the opening shot of a sequence; it ’sets the scene’ and locates the action. It is often followed by a mid-shot followed by a close-up shot.

A subjective point-of-view shot (POV) is at eye-level and appears as if you are viewing the scene from the character’s perspective (as in ‘Blair Witch’).

An objective point-of-view shot acts as if you are an observer secretly looking into a scene.

CAMERA ANGLE Eye-line match / high / low

CAMERA MOVEMENT Zooming / tracking / panning / hand-held

LIGHTING High key, neutral, low key

‘DIEGESIS’ AND SOUND

VISUAL EFFECTS / SFX

NARRATIVE

GENRE

ICONOGRAPHY

THE ‘STAR SYSTEM’

REALISM

‘Verisimilitude’

‘Generic verisimilitude’

‘Cultural verisimilitude’

Camera angles can signify meaning, e.g. a subjective POV high angle shot can crate a superior feel. Different camera movements can create significant meaning – a zoom or tracking shot into a close-up of a face can create emotion, a pan across a war scene can suggest violence; POV tracking shots and POV hand-held camera shot can create tension and involvement by making you feel as if you are a part of the action.

Lighting can create atmosphere and mood as well as signify meaning, e.g. in a horror movie, light and shade are important codes of meaning. High-key lighting is harsh; soft-key lighting creates a romantic atmosphere, spotlighting picks out a character from a group, etc.

Diegesis means the ‘world of the film’: if something seems to be a part of the ‘world of the film’, it is called ‘diegetic’. So, sound that is a part of the action is diegetic sound, e.g. wind noise, screeching cars, etc; but sound that is added’ to create, most often, mood or atmosphere is called non-diegetic sound. Diegetic sounds may also be added in after filming, or may be exaggerated for effect (e.g. loud footsteps).

SFX (special effects’) often use computer-generated graphics to create compelling realism and meaning.

The use of a narrative structure is a major convention of cinema and TV. We are all immersed in narratives and have been since childhood as we tell of or hear about the complex events of the world not in the form of long-winded complex details or bald information but as absorbing and interesting stories. Yet this way of explaining real as opposed to fictional events greatly oversimplifies reality whilst at the same time; paradoxically, appearing very realistic and believable. For instance, real events are rarely clearly ‘connected’ by such simple ’cause and effect’ relationships as in stories (i.e. this leads to that because…). Yet in narrative they always are. And in the real world people are not either good (i.e. ‘heroes’) or evil (i.e. ‘villains’); but in narrative they always are to some degree at least. And so on. For better or worse, we tell and hear of world events as narratives and media producers know this and use it to create media texts that rely on narrative structures and forms to be absorbing, compelling and convincingly realistic. Because of this, filmed narratives can easily trick us into thinking we are viewing a real ‘window on the world’.

Genre means the type/kind of narrative being told, e.g. detective, sci-fi, horror, etc. Genre defines a text by its similarities to other texts. Importantly, when we watch a genre film we have many pre-existing expectations of the types of characters, setting and events we want to see (prediction is a major aspect of our enjoyment of a film, and genre helps this). Genre conventions are an important way a director can create believable ‘versions of reality’ because we fail to see that what is shown is not reality at, all, but a media convention that we have become accustomed to seeing in that kind of film. So… we don’t mind the owner of a casino being horribly killed because we see him, in the gangster genre as naturally a ‘villain’. Film companies use genre to sell and make films: a popular genre creates a greater chance of commercial success; and genre can be cost effective, making it cheaper to write new stories and reducing the need for entirely new sets. Iconography is an important aspect of genre. We come to expect to see certain objects within the mise-en­-scene of a particular genre, for example, in a Western, we expect to see dusty lonely roads, saloon bars, cowboy hats and horses, jails, sheriffs badges, etc.; in a modern horror film, we expect lonely girls, ‘normal’ objects, use of dark and light, etc. These ‘genre indicators’ are called the iconography of the genre. Celebrities and film stars are an important part of the iconography of cinema and TV.

Different stars can be important signifiers of meaning. They can create expectations of character and action, help identify genre, and create powerful iconic representation of such as masculinity and femininity. Cinema and TV are able to offer high levels of ‘realism’: the bright screen, the clear and powerful Dolby sound, darkened room, etc. are highly compelling and persuasive. Such ‘appearance of reality’ is given the odd name of verisimilitude. This is yet another convention of course – there is nothing ‘realistic’ about an image on a flat screen.

There are two kinds of verisimilitude: generic verisimilitude is the ‘realism’ that convinces us because of the genre we are watching (in the horror genres it seems highly realistic for a vampire to sink his teeth into a person’s neck); cultural verisimilitude is the kind of reality that convinces us because it looks like the way things are or should

512. The Parts of a newspaper. Parts of a magazine

Parts of a Newspaper
Layout, typical features and technical terms Some or all of these may be found on the front pages of newspapers.

! Box-out – A small part of the page, shaded in a different colour.

! By-line – the name of the reporter, if they are important is often included at the beginning of the feature, rather than at the end, or not at all.

! Caption – typed text under photographs explaining the image.

! Credits – the author of a feature may be given credit in the form of a beeline. Photographs may have the name of the person who took them or the agency that supplied them alongside them.

! Crosshead – this is a subheading that appears in the body of the text and is centred above the column of text. If it is se to one side then it is called a side-head.

! Exclusive – this means that newspaper and no one else solely cover the story. The paper will pay their interviewees, buying the story so it cannot be used by another paper.

! Feature – not necessarily a ‘news’ item (current affairs), but usually with a human-interest angle presented as a spread.

! Headline – this is the main statement, usually in the largest and boldest font, describing the main story. A banner headline spans the full width of the page.

! Kicker – this is a story designed to stand out from the rest of the page by the use of a different font (typeface) and layout.

! Lead Story – the main story on the front page, usually a splash.

! Lure – a word or phrase directing the reader to look inside the paper at a particular story or feature.

! Masthead – the masthead is the title block or logo identifying the newspaper at the top of the front-page. Sometimes an emblem or a motto is also placed within the masthead. The masthead is often set into a block of black or red print or boxed with a border; the ‘Red-tops’ (The Sun, The Mirror, The News of the World) are categorised by style and the use of a red background in the masthead.

! Menu – the list of contents inside the paper.

! Pugs – these are at the top left and right-hand corners of the paper and are known as the ‘ears’ of the page. The prices of the paper, the logo or a promotion are positioned there. They are well placed to catch the reader’s eye.

! Secondary Lead – this is usually only a picture and headline, it gives a sneak preview of a story that you might find inside the paper.

! Sidebar – when a main feature has an additional box or tinted panel along side of it.

! Splash – the splash is the main story on the front of the paper. The largest headline will accompany this, along with a photograph.

! Spread – a story that covers more than one page.

! Standfirst – this is an introductory paragraph before the start of the feature. Sometimes it may be in bold.

! Strapline – this is an introductory headline below the headline.

! Tag – a word or phrase used to engage a reader’s interest in a story by categorising it e.g. ‘Exclusive’, ‘Sensational’.

!Tip-on. a promotional item, such as a magnet or game piece, affixed to the cover of a publication.

507. Print Screen on a Mac – and other hints

Built-in Mac Screenshot Commands Key & Combination Result :

Command+Shift+3 Capture entire screen and save as a file

Command+Control+Shift+3 Capture entire screen and copy to the clipboard

Command+Shift+4 Capture dragged area and save as a file

Command+Control+Shift+4 Capture dragged area and copy to the clipboard

Command+Shift+4 then Space bar Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and save as a file

Command+Control+Shift+4 then Space bar Capture a window, menu, desktop icon, or the menu bar and copy to the clipboard

One handy trick to know about when using the dragging methods (Command+Shift+4) is how the cursor crosshairs work. To delineate an exact pixel region, the cursor crosshairs should overlap the top and left edges of the area you want to capture, but extend one pixel below and to the right of it (see Figure 2). This technique works with the selection crosshairs in other applications as well

462. Media terms for revision

AUDIENCE
http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/audience.htm
http://www.stevewlb.zen.co.uk/Frame.htm
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/audience.html
http://www.mediaed.org.uk/posted_documents/Audience.html

INSTITUTION

http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/institution.htm
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/Institution.html

GENRE
http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/genre.htm
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/genre.html

REPRESENTATION

http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/representation.htm
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/representation.html
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC30820/represent.html

NARRATIVE

http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/narrative.html
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/narrative.html

SEMIOTICS
http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/semiotics.htm

IDEOLOGY
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/ideology.html

405. Film statistics link

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/

353. MIGRAIN – Media Key Concepts

migrain-lesson-1

171. Evaluation – audience feedback questionnaire

Audience Feedback Questionnaire Office Use

I am: (Please circle) What area/ town do you live in? Demographics
Female
Male
Age Range: (Please Circle) What is your occupation?
0-12 13-18 19-25 (or student or benefits)
16-35 36-50 50-65
65+ Evaluation
1 What is the Film about? 1

2 Were you entertained? Bored? Confused? 2

3 What was your favourite moment? Why? 3

4 What was your least favourite moment? Why? 4

5 Who was your favourite character? Why? 5

6 Who was your least favourite character? Why? 6

7 Did the film have an effect on you emotionally? 7
Please explain

8 Did you learn anything you did not know? 8
Please explain

9 Would you like to see anything changed or added? 9
Please explain

10 Who do you think the intended audience is? Why? 10
Please explain

11 Which Media company do you think, would produce this film? 11
Please explain

12 What age certificate should this film carry? 12
U PG 12A 15 18 R18
13 On a scale of 0-10, please rate this film (10 is highest) 13
0 2 4 6 8 10
Please explain

157. AS MEDIA VOCABULARY FOR ANALYSING THE MEDIA

The following are words and phrases you need to know. Add to these terms any brief definitions you need. 1)    PRODUCTION OF MEANING

ANCHORAGE

CONNOTATION

CONVENTION

DENOTATION

IDEOLOGY

INTERTEXTUALITY

LANGUAGE CODE

MYTH

SIGNIFIER

STYLE

SYMBOLIC CODE

TECHNICAL CODE

GENRE

CROSS-GENRE

GENRE

ICONOGRAPHY

NARRATIVE

ACTION CODE

ACTS

ADDRESS

BINARY OPPOSITION

CHRONOLOGY

CLIMAX

CLOSED NARRATIVE

CLOSURE

CODA

ENIGMA

ENIGMA CODE

FIRST PERSON NARRATION

FLASHBACK

FRAME NARRATIVE

IMPERSONAL NARRATION

INVESTIGATIVE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

MULTISTRAND NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

NARRATIVE

NARRATIVE CODE

NARRATOR

OMNISCIENT NARRATOR

OPEN NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

PLOT

PLOT POINT

POINT OF VIEW

STORYTHEME

THIRD PERSON

NARRATION VOICE

REPRESENTATION

ACCESS

CONSENSUS

DEVIANT READING

GHETTOISE

PREFERRED READING

REPRESENTATION

STEREOTYPE