Camera Shots, Angles and Movement

In this lesson we looked at camera shots, angles and movement all used on a film set, TV programme or a viral video. The following screen grabs are the camera shots we looked at during the lesson:

 Zoom in shot on Edward's eyes. We can tell this by how close Edward is to the camera, and we can see his eyes clearly.

                                                

Low angle shot on Jacob's transformation from human to wolf. We can tell this by how high the wolf is in the air, this allows the audience to get a sense of fear whilst watching this scene.

                                            

​​​​   Medium long shot of Edward and Bella, we know this because they are not too close to the camera and not too far away, so that we (as an audience) can see them properly and clearly.

  Reverse angle shot from behind Edward's shoulder, we can tell this by the way in which the camera has been postitioned. The camera is just over the shoulder of Edward, so it gives the audience a view from Edward's point of view and the angle in which he is looking.

            Dutch angle shot of Jasper in the baseball scene. A dutch angle is an angle where  the character or protagonist is differently alligned to the camera. In this screen shot, Jasper is at a slight angle in comparison to the camera; the camera is straight.  



Semiotics

What are Semiotics? 
Semiotics are the study of signs. It helps us to understand how humans 'read' or make meaning of the images, pictures and visual signs that they see.


There are three individuals who developed semiotics: 

• Ferdinand de Saussure
• Charlie Pierce
• Roland Barthles 

A sign refers to a meaning other than itself; it works as a pointer to think in a certain way. This meaning depends on the culture of the individual reading the sign. Most of our communication is via signs, such as grunting, hand gestures, sounds or drawn symbols. 

During our lesson with Mrs Griffiths, we had a task to complete to see what we could connote from different signs and words, these signs could have more than one meaning. We could connote different meaning's from the sign depending on our interpretations of the sign. 

Sign What is denoted?	The meaning (s) what is connoted?
£	Pounds, money
$	Dollars, money
!	exaggeration
©	Plagerism
☺	Happiness
♥	Love, romance, relationships
♫	Musical, music
A rose	Love, romance
The moon	Night time
A cross	Religion
A teardrop	Unhappiness or happiness
A bead of sweat	Hot
white	Light, purity
black	darkness
Green	Freshness, jealousy, natural
blue	Cool, water, calm
Red	Danger, hot

The table above is what I have connoted from each of the signs given, some people within my class may have different connotations to what I have, this is because each individual interprets things differently. 

TV Drama

Denotation - the first and simple level of meaning of an image
Connotation - a meaning attributal to an image beyond the obvious denotational level 

Different genre's of TV drama's: 

• Romance
• Soap opera
• Murder Mystery 
• Tragedy
• Science fiction
• Action
• Comedy
• Period Drama 

Media Representation

Media means being in the middle or beneath things. People and places you see on television or in film are representations of a real person or event if it is a documentary or imagined in a particular way if it is fictional like a feature film or TV drama. 

Representation of: 

Age

Disability 

Ethnicity

Gender

Regional identity

Sexuality

Social Class

The Four Television Theories

In our lesson with Mrs Griffiths we learnt about the different television theories which were created before the television we have today. The four theories were as followed in chronological order: The Hyperdermic Needle, Two Step Flow, Uses and Gratification and The Reception Theory.

1. The Hyperdermic Needle theory was a theory created in the 1920's. The theory suggested that people were passively receiving information through a media text or propaganda without challenging it, it didn't take into account people's individual opinions but they assumed everyone liked the same information. 

2. The next theory we looked at was the Two Step Flow theory. This theory was created in the 1930's/1940's by Paul Lezerfeld, Bernard Berelsdam and Hazel Gaudet. They all realised after interviewing a number of people that different people process different information according to what they enjoy hearing about the most. For example some people would like to hear about the football or rugby so therefore they would only filter information on that other than something they wouldn't like to hear about. 

3. The third theory was produced in the 1970's by two people called Blulmer and Katz, this was the theory of Uses and Gratification. They came up with four reasons why people watch television these were:
Diversion: escaping everyday activities or routine
Personal Relationships: using the media for emotional support
Personal Identity: finding yourself in a particular show/series in order to connect to it  
Surveillance: to find out information 
They believed that if media expanded these reasons would expand too.

4. The final theory was created in the 1980's/1990's, it was devised by Stuart Hall. He thought that we could produce different media to suit different gender, age, class, ethnicity, this is known as preferred reading. He also thought that an audience received text by encoding and decoding.

The Orphanage: Regression Scene

Last lesson our class watched the Regression Scene of The Orphanage. Click on the link at the bottom of the page in order to watch this scene. In class we analysed the sound with in the scene, we made notes on soundtrack, sound effects, dialogue, diagetic and non-diagetic sounds. The notes below are the notes in which I made, the first time I watched the scene. 

Soundtrack (non-diagetic): Violin start playing in order to create an "unknown" feeling/environment for the audience, the violin's suddenly stop and a high pitched sound takes over making the audience feel as if something bad is going to happen and then it changes to a lower deeper sound. 

Sound Effects (non-diagetic): 3 minutes 10 seconds into the Regression Scene, Aurora starts walking along the landing, her footsteps are emphasised in order to give the audience a sense of mystery, make them feel uncomfortable and also for the tension to build up. The camera constantly is zooming in and out, whilst Aurora is walking around. There are also children screaming and shouting in the cupboard, their voices seem to get louder and then quieter when Aurora is near them. This gives the impression to the audience that Aurora is unsafe. 

Dialogue: The writer of the Orphanage gives Aurora a quiet voice in order to portray to the audience that she is scared, uncomfortable with the situation in which she is in and that she is vulnerable whilst she is alone upstairs. 

Diagetic sounds: The man is following Aurora's moves as she travels around the house by using a pencil and a piece of paper. The noise of the pencil increases in order to build up and create tension. The radio sound starts to get louder, the lights start to flicker and the TV's suddenly go off. 

The Orphanage: Regression Scene link

The Orphanage: Opening Scene

The Orphanage
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Writer: Sergio G. Sánchez

We watched the opening scene of The Orphanage in order to analyse the characters, their relationships, genre and location to try and work out what the film would be about. Click on the link to watch the Opening Scene.

Characters: Laura

• A young girl
• Alone
• Singled out
• Innocent 
• Wearing old clothing (1940's)

Characters: Old Lady 

• Hiding emotions
• In charge of orphanage
• Don't see her face
• Mysterious

Relationships between Characters

• All interact with eachother e.g. playing 
• All socially friendly towards one another 
• Old Lady seems to care for Laura 

Genre

• Psychological horror film

Location/Setting

• Old historical Orphanage 
• Spanish countryside, middle of no-where
• Garden was surrounded by trees, giving the impression it was closed off to the outside world
• A scarecrow, didn't look like the average scarecrow
• Tell by the costumes and props that the film is set in the past (1940's) 

Useful Websites

In our first lesson with Mr Buckmaster, he gave us a list of websites in which will be helpful for our AS media studies, the following websites are the ones which I think will help me the most. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

http://www.artofthetitle.com/

http://www.marlboroughmediastudies.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.petesmediablog.blogspot.co.uk/