Research: Textual Analysis

The writing in bold is a quote in one of
the reviews about Double Idemnity on
imdb.com

Double Idemnity (1944)

1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036775/

• The blonde wig that Barbara Stanwyck is wearing throughout the movie was the idea of Billy Wilder. A month into shooting Wilder suddenly realized how bad it looked, but by then it was too late to re-shoot the earlier scenes. To rationalize this mistake, in later interviews Wilder claimed that the bad-looking wig was intentional.
• The door to Neff's apartment opens away from, rather than toward, the apartment. This was a violation of the Los Angeles Fire Code.
• [first lines] Building attendant: Well, hello there, Mr. Neff.
• Referenced in The 55th Annual Academy Awards (1983)
• Bill Wilder also directed films such as, Some Like It Hot (1959), Sunset Blvd. (1950), The Apartment (1960).

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Indemnity_(film)

• James M. Cain based his novella on a 1927 murder perpetrated by a married Queens, New York woman and her lover whose trial he attended while working as a journalist in New York.
• An immediate hit with audiences despite a campaign by singer Kate Smith imploring the public to stay away on moral grounds.
• Double Indemnity was nominated for seven Oscars, but did not win any.
• Double Indemnity was adapted as a radio play on two broadcasts.
• In 1945, Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the B movie studios of Hollywood’s Poverty Row, was set to release a blatant rip-off titled Single Indemnity starring Ann Savage and Hugh Beaumont. Paramount quickly slapped an injunction on the cut-rate potboiler that remains in force to this day. PRC eventually edited its film down to 67 minutes, re-titled it Apology for Murder, and sold it to television in the early 50s as part of a syndicated half-hour mystery show.

Our analysis of Double Idemnity

Understanding audiences

Above are the different types of audiences that you come across.

Understanding narrative theory as linked to genre

What is the difference between niche and mainstream?
Mainstream is often termed as 'broadcast audience' who consume popular texts, such as soaps or sitcoms, and a niche audience is much smaller but influential. Examples of a mainstream audience; friends, TopGear, 'heat' magazine and 'Guardian' newspaper. Examples of a niche audience; 'All Out Cricket', 'Birds', 'RaceCar'. The difference between these two audiences is that the mainstream targets a very large group of different people, while the niche target a smaller group of people with a unique interest.

Media Audiences an Introduction from alevelmedia

Propp theory
Vladimir Propp was a critic in the 1920s, he was essentially interested in the narrative of folk tales. He noticed that folk tales were similar in many areas, and that they were about the basic struggles and appeared to have stock characters. Characters have a narrative function; they provide a structure for the text:

• The Hero - the character that seeks something
• The Villain - who opposes or actively blocks the hero's quest
• The Donor - who provides an object with magical properties
• The Dispatcher - who sends the hero on his/her quest via a message
• The False Hero - who disrupts the hero's success by making false claims
• The Helper - who aids the hero
• The Princess - acts as the reward for the hero and the object of the villain's plots
• Her Father - who acts to reward the hero for his effort

Examples of this theory: 'The Dark Knight', 'The Dispatcher', 'Avengers Assemble', 'Batman and Robin', 'The Amazing Spiderman', 'Batman Begins', 'Spiderman'.

Todorov theory

Izetan Todorov was a structuralist linguist, he suggested that stories began with an equilibrium or status quo where any potential differences are in balance. This is then disrupted by some event, which sets the chain of events, the problems are then solved so that order can be restored into the world of fiction. He suggested that conventional narratives are structured in five stages: 

1. A state of equilibrium at the outset
2. A disruption of the equilibrium by some action
3. A recognition that there has been a disruption
4. An attempt to repair the disruption
5. A reinstatement of the equilibrium

Levi Strauss theory

Claude Levi Strauss studied hundreds of myths an legends, he found out that we as humans make sense of the world through people and events by seeing and using binary opposites, he found out narratives are arranged around the conflict of binary opposites.

Examples of binary opposites:

• Good vs Evil
• Black vs White 
• Boy vs Girl
• Peace vs War
• Civilised vs Savage
• Democracy vs Dictatorship
• Young vs Old
• Man vs Nature

Genre

Conventions of Film Noir - Psycho

• Psycho has a piece of music that is used all the way throughout the film but is mainly recognised for the iconic shower scene, in Film Noir the music is mainly string based e.g. violins.
• Filmed in black and white, the limited colour range makes it feel more sophisticated, but creates a more tense atmosphere when it comes to crime scenes and the killing of the femme fatale.
• Mainly set in a less likely city of choice, this could be to make the film more disorientating as its not a well-known city, for example the city in Psycho is Phoenix, Arizona.
• Sex is usually featured in Film Noir's.
• A murder.
• There is always a femme fatale who is usually the one who has the sex scene and who gets murdered. Also, they usually have dreams that have not been achieved but are what drives them, for example the Femme Fatale in Psycho wishes to get married to the man she is cheating with and to settle down instead of having to cheat with another woman's husband.
• The man she's cheating with has money and is a liar, e.g. says he wants to get married to her.

• Everyone always have cigarettes and alcohol.
• The femme fatale has an idea which may help her to have her dream but it involves doing something wrong that will get her into trouble.
• There is something that interrupts her plan.
• Always filmed with low lighting to create a dark atmosphere.
• The narrative is typical Film Noir, the audience know the basic outline of what will happen, there will be a crime, the anti-hero and femme fatale will fall in love and the femme fatale will die. Film Noir audiences like knowing what's likely to happen, yet they don't know how it's going to happen and this is what entices them.
• Psycho has the famous shower scene with the violin piece of music in the background to go with it. This has affected a lot of films that have come after it and that are being made in the present time, it has given some films ideas for other iconic murder scenes with their own branded background music to go with it, however the idea has been inspired from watching Psycho's famous shower scene.
• The film fits the experience of what a Film Noir audience are looking for, it has all the key conventions of a typical Film Noir.

Review of the Sweded film we watched in class

My group and I have not got round to finishing and uploading our Sweded films yet but it should be completed shortly. In our last media lesson we watched some other groups Sweded films and from watching these I learnt that:

• It doesn't need to look/be perfect; just a rough, quick 4 minute video, shots/scenes could be shot once and that's the copy which will be used.
• Planning and explaining any mistakes or things you had to learn while making your Sweded films must be posted to your blog to earn more marks.
• The title of the film should be shown in the Sweded film.

After watching these Sweded films and seeing that they don't have to be absolutely perfect before they are uploaded to our blogs because we can upload them and change, edit or add something to them at any point if we state that we have done so. I am also feeling more confident with my groups Sweded film and am hoping to have it complete or as much as we cand do up on our blogs soon.

The other groups sweded films that we watched were:

1. Sam S, Sam B, Chris and Georgia's - Sweded Ted

http://asmediastudiessamshepherd2013.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/sweded-film.html

    2. Courtney's - Sweded Les Miserables
http://codonnellasmediaproductionschs2014.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/my-sweded-film-les-miserables.html

   3. Morrighan's - Sweded Avengers
http://morrighanasmediaproductionsschs2014.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/first-project-sweded-films.html

Sweded 21 Jump Street

So far, my group have filmed over half of our Sweded film of 21 Jump Street so we still have to complete and edit that. I also need to teach my self how to embed a video to my blog instead of pasting the links to them in a post.

Again, as I have taught myself how to embed the video to my blog, I able to do that and it is easier for anyone looking on my blog to view it.
Media AS swede from Sophie Mace on Vimeo.

The task was organised by me, Sophie, Cal and Ruby. Sophie was the camera woman, I was the director who organised where they stood what they said and how they did it, Cal was one of the main characters. We came up with the script together. However, one of our challenges was that we had asked James to be our other main character but he did not do media with us so it was hard to find time where we all had spare time to film the sweded film. Another problem was that we were trying to make it too perfect in such a limited amount of time, a sweded film is just a rough copy which you could do in one take. A creative idea that we had was t have me and Ruby stand behind James and Cal in the graduation scene (00.43-00.47) so that it didn't look like only those two were there when there is meant to be a whole class of them.

Typical film noir images

Our version: The woman is shown in a light brighter than the man so I tried to increase the brightness but also the contrast so that more of the shadow fell over Cal's face like in the original photo. With the organisation of this photo Cal is brought to the front and the camera focuses on him more than it does on me like in the original photo, this is to show the males importance and dominance over the woman. 

Our version: In the original picture the woman stands out in contrast to the background, I have tried to do this in our version by focusing the saturation on me so that the background blackens out and I have tinted myself so that I stand out from the background. With the mise-en scene, the woman has a plain background, hence why I have a plain black background behind me, this is so we are not distracted from her, the lines of shadows from where the lights were faced makes both of us stand out more so that people are more able to focus on our bodies more.

Our version: In the original photo, the mans shadow stands out so in our version we had to set up the lighting so that we could catch Cal's shadow in the photo, to make his shadow more noticeable I made adjustments to the brightness. Having the cigarette in his hand shows his power as a man, cigarettes are quite an expense to pay for so it shows that men have money.    

The Avengers Opening Sequence Analysis

The Avengers Opening Sequence Analysis

This is a slideshow of my analysis for the opening sequence of The Avengers, I had to copy the link into my blog post as I created the slideshow on Slideshare.net but I have not yet learned to embed a slideshow onto my blog from this website. My next step will be to learn how to do this myself.

I have taught myself how to embed slideshow and videos onto my blog, I did this just by playing around with it until I worked it out, it didn't take too long for me to work this out and this is now easier because anyone viewing my blog can look at the slideshow/video there instead of having to click on a link that will take them to a different website to view it.

The Avengers Opening Sequence Analysis from emlouiise

Health and Safety

We looked into the health and safety of using VDU's, but at this moment in time we have not yet started filming on locations, although we will take a look at health and safety when the time comes to it.

The Codes and Conventions of an Opening Sequence

Activity 1

How successful are they at identifying conventions?

The first ‘Conventions of an opening sequence’ from emiliefreddie and the second slideshow ‘Codes and conventions of opening sequences’ from kcasmedia (http://asmediaproductionsschs2014.blogspot.co.uk/) were the most successful at identifying the key conventions of an opening sequence, every slideshow stated and identified the main ones, but the first and second both went into detail and explained what each convention meant and where you would see/recognise it in the opening sequence.

Who is the audience?

The audience is Media students and for people who have an interest in the media and films/TV programmes.

What is the purpose of the presentations?

The purpose of these presentations is to give the audience an understanding of what key conventions should be in an opening sequence, to teach people who are wanting to create a film, TV program or an opening sequence, so that they have all the correct conventions in their opening sequence.

Is the format successful?
The format for most of the slides was simple and clear to read, making it easier to learn the key conventions. The third slideshow 'An Analysis Of The Opening Sequence Of Vertigo' from Media Studies had a horrible, messy format which made it complicated and boring to read.

Did they identify ALL of the conventions accurately?
Again, most of the slides did identify and describe the key conventions accurately but the third slideshow kept going off the topic and didn't get straight to the point by explaining what they key convention was in a way that people would remember.

Activity 2
The core conventions of an opening scene for a film

• Title of film
• Key cast members names
• Producer 
• Distributor
• Director
• Editor
• Executive producer
• Sometimes accompanied with music

Activity 3
Analysis of the opening sequence of the film Se7en (link here). There are very obvious key conventions met in this opening scene; one of which is the cast members and production/directing/distributing/editor team names being shown, the second key convention met is the music playing throughout the opening sequence which reflects the genre of the film which is Film Noir/Thriller and there are no lyrics in this apart from right at the end of the sequence where the artist sings "You bring me closer to God" which is a hint that religion plays a part in this film, and scenes being shown in the opening scene are ones of where a crime/murder is being planned, also the persons hand being shown who we presume is the murderer is writing in journals and there are close ups of the words being written which mention the 10 Commandments and what is wrong such as homosexuality etc, so the opening scene helps provide a clue of what the film might be about but doesn't give enough away for you to know which entices the viewer to watch more. Unusually the title of the film is shown but not for very long and not very clearly so you 'might miss it if you blinked'.

"the opening sequence is considered one of the most innovative of its era"

I agree with this statement. I agree that this opening sequence is innovative because it was very thoroughly thought out as to how it would be filmed, the producers of this opening scene decided that they wanted it to be as realistic as they could make it, the journals which are featured in this opening sequence belong to a murderer so they decided they wanted it to be written by hand, "He knew that he wanted it to be drawn by hand, because it was from the mind of the killer, and I was taking that further, wanting it to be like the killer did in the film opticals itself." this was innovative because most films would have taken the easy, cheaper option of just getting the journals printed whereas they were all handwritten in Se7en.