'The Lost Generation'- A2 (OCR) media studies documentary about youth culture.
This is a youth culture documentary produced by another A level student called 'The Lost Generation'.
I liked this docmentary because the its shot in the same sort of way i want to shoot my documentary. Obviously the subject is different as theirs was on youth culture and how youths are viewed by older people in society and mine is about cyber bullying. But the shots used in their docuementary are similar to the ones i want to use. They make the interviews more interesting by using clips of youths over the interview so you arent just watching the subject speak. an example of this is at 1:58. This documentary has given me more ideas and has made me think more about how i am going to shoot and edit my documentary so i am getting the right feeling across to the audience.
Tuesday 18 December 2012
Friday 7 December 2012
Production desicions- interviews
I need to make a few final decisions about wheather to interview people at home or at school, whether to use a male or female, young or old narrartor, and what questions will be good to ask as a Vox pop around school.
Interviews
When interviewing people about their experiences with cyber bullying i need to make sure they are comfortable to openly talk, most people would be most comfortable being interviewed at home where they feel safe and secure and are more likely to talk openly about their experiences. Also the interview being shot at home makes the story more personal and the audience will feel more in touch with the story. On the other hand if i interviewed people in the school environment it will help the audience to understand the age of the subject and their innocence. Although people will be less open in school and may not cover all the issues of cyber bullying that they may have done at home. This is a link to a website with documentary interview tips.
In conclusion i think that it will depend on the depth of the interview to determine whether i interview at school or at home. Becuause if its just a short interview where a student is talking about a friends experience or a small personal experience then i think it will look better and it will take a lot less organising rather than if i did every interview at the subjects homes. Also having the short interviews at school will emphasise the importance of the more personal interviews where a subject talks about a very personal experience that may be quite a sensitive subject in their home where they are safe and secure and can talk openly.
Interviews
When interviewing people about their experiences with cyber bullying i need to make sure they are comfortable to openly talk, most people would be most comfortable being interviewed at home where they feel safe and secure and are more likely to talk openly about their experiences. Also the interview being shot at home makes the story more personal and the audience will feel more in touch with the story. On the other hand if i interviewed people in the school environment it will help the audience to understand the age of the subject and their innocence. Although people will be less open in school and may not cover all the issues of cyber bullying that they may have done at home. This is a link to a website with documentary interview tips.
In conclusion i think that it will depend on the depth of the interview to determine whether i interview at school or at home. Becuause if its just a short interview where a student is talking about a friends experience or a small personal experience then i think it will look better and it will take a lot less organising rather than if i did every interview at the subjects homes. Also having the short interviews at school will emphasise the importance of the more personal interviews where a subject talks about a very personal experience that may be quite a sensitive subject in their home where they are safe and secure and can talk openly.
Production decisions- Vox pop questions
Questions????
I need to decide on what questions would be best to ask people in a vox pop round school about cyber bullying. They need to be questions that you can get quick answers from. they need to be easily answered so everyone knows what your talking about and wont struggle to answer the questions.
Production decisions- narrator
Narrator
As i am making a docuemtary the narrator plays a huge role in getting the audience interested in whats on screen, i need to find someone that has good communication skills e.g clear voice, good language someone that the audeince can relate to e.g young but im not sure whether i should have a teenager do it or maybe someone older that the audience will pay more attention to? The sex of the narrator i think should be male, i think this becuase bullying is mainly done by boys, and i think if you have a boy talking about it and saying how its not good then maybe others will listen. If i had the choice of a celebrity i would use a young modern role model for young people that teenagers know and like and who they would listen to and trust. Someone like joey essex (only way is essex star) would be good as hes a teenage icon that is huge at the moment, so if he started talking about cyber bullying and how its wrong i think teenagers would take in the information much more, but obviously i cant use him. This is a link to a website where it tells you 'how to make a great documentary narration'
Wednesday 21 November 2012
Exploring national identity
What is a British film?
I think it’s a film that is made in Britain, with British actors and funded by British money, it would also be made by a British director and it would show links to British culture in the films.
According to the department of media culture and sport (DCMS) and the UK film council (UKFC) the official definition of a BF (British film) is based on where the funding came from, who supplied production money, how many British cast and crew are employed.
British films in 2012
· Sky fall (James bond)
· The Sweeney
· The woman in black
· Wrath of the titans
· The hobbit
· The pirates: band of misfits
Wednesday 24 October 2012
Second life- a virtual reality world
History of Second life
Second life, where you can choose your own avatar, build your own house and buy and sell clothing, is still the best-known virtual world in this country. Launch in 2003, it claims up to 20 million registered users, although only about 1.4 million have been active in the past 60 days.
Time line
In 1999, Philip Rosedale formed Linden Lab. He made Second Life, developing computer hardware allowing people to immerse in a virtual world.
In 2005 and 2006 Second Life began to receive a lot of media traction, including a cover story on Business Week magazine featuring the virtual world and Second Life avatar Anshe Chung. By that time Anshe Chung had become Second Life's poster child and symbol for the economic opportunities that the virtual world offers to its residents.
On December 11, 2007, Cory Ondrejka, who helped program Second Life, was forced to resign as chief technology officer.
In January 2008, residents spent a total of 28,274,505 hours "inworld", and, on average, 38,000 residents were logged in at any particular moment. The maximum concurrency (number of avatars inworld) recorded is 88,200 in the 1st qtr. 2009
In 2008, Second Life was honoured at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for advancing the development of online sites with user-generated content. Rosedale accepted the award.
In May 2009 concurrent users averaged about 62,000. As of May 2010 concurrent users averaged about 54,000. The perceived decline in concurrent users over this time correlates precisely with new policies implemented by Linden Lab reducing the number of bots and campers.
In June 2010, Linden Lab announced layoffs of 30% of its workforce.
In November 2010, 21.3 million accounts were registered, although the company has not made public figures for actual long-term consistent usage.
What are the conventions?
Avatars
On second life you get to create your own avatar to represent you in the virtual world. You can be a real animal, mineral, vegetable, fictional animal e.g dragon, or human, you can even make your avatar look exactly like you!
Economy
In second life there is a virtual economy, people trade in the currency linden dollar. There is a currency exchange so you can pay real money for linden dollars on second life, also you can exchange linden dollars for real money but it takes a lot of linden dollars to get much real money.
Distribution
It is distributed through the internet. This means literally anyone that wants to play it can, as long as they have internet connection. You can pay for a membership which gives you more freedom but most users just play for free as you are still able to do lots without a membership.
Audience
As second life is distributed over the internet it means that the potential audience is massive. It is aimed at people aged 16 and over but because it’s such a vast virtual world there is something for all ages to do which means some younger people use it.
Second life web 2.0 convergence
Second life users can use social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and twitter to keep in contact with virtual reality friends when they are not on second life. Also companies can advertise their merchandise on the virtual world and even have pixelated products for sale.
Change in media
AS Evaluation
Self evaluation
Our production is about an innocent girl who has something taken from her by a stranger and this bracelet means a lot to her. She notices it has gone when she is getting ready. You then see the bracelet appear in someone elses hand who you realise is the stalker.
This idea came about from firstly picking a genre. We decided to go with a horror/thriller because we both liked the genre and we felt it was the easiest to do.
We had many ideas before we came to this idea. This idea came about from discussing different ideas which we could inject into our production. We had a list of different things we wanted to include then came up with the idea of someone losing something close to them.
Production process
For our production, we set out dates in which we would film and shot lists, so once we were on location we could get straight to filming.
Once we had filmed everything, we set out a rough edit of our production which allowed us to see which shots worked and if we needed to re film anything. We then continued with the editing process until our production was complete.
Continuity in the production process
We felt continuity was an important part of out production as it allowed it to be understood by our audience.
Continuity- during the editing of ‘innocence’ the importance of good continuity became clear to me as i could see whether the production flowed well and everything fitted together to make the viewer understand everything that was going on in the scene/ sequence.
What we would improve?
Firstly, we were not very organised and we found that we had to change the dates of our filming because of different reasons. We also didn’t complete a storyboard, which would of been useful to take to filming locations.
We also decided that we should have looked closer at camera shots and angles as when on location we just used which we felt worked well. Although this is also a positive thing as it allowed us to experiment with the camera.
Our production is about an innocent girl who has something taken from her by a stranger and this bracelet means a lot to her. She notices it has gone when she is getting ready. You then see the bracelet appear in someone elses hand who you realise is the stalker.
This idea came about from firstly picking a genre. We decided to go with a horror/thriller because we both liked the genre and we felt it was the easiest to do.
We had many ideas before we came to this idea. This idea came about from discussing different ideas which we could inject into our production. We had a list of different things we wanted to include then came up with the idea of someone losing something close to them.
Production process
For our production, we set out dates in which we would film and shot lists, so once we were on location we could get straight to filming.
Once we had filmed everything, we set out a rough edit of our production which allowed us to see which shots worked and if we needed to re film anything. We then continued with the editing process until our production was complete.
Continuity in the production process
We felt continuity was an important part of out production as it allowed it to be understood by our audience.
Continuity- during the editing of ‘innocence’ the importance of good continuity became clear to me as i could see whether the production flowed well and everything fitted together to make the viewer understand everything that was going on in the scene/ sequence.
What we would improve?
Firstly, we were not very organised and we found that we had to change the dates of our filming because of different reasons. We also didn’t complete a storyboard, which would of been useful to take to filming locations.
We also decided that we should have looked closer at camera shots and angles as when on location we just used which we felt worked well. Although this is also a positive thing as it allowed us to experiment with the camera.
My media idea- Cyber bullying documentary
My idea is a documentary about cyber bullying and its effect on young people in and out of school. I want to have interviews with the victims of cyber bullying, the actual bullies themselves, social networkers that have witnessed cyber bullying, and teachers that have to resolve cyber bullying problems that are brought into school.
I created a presentation to show my media class so i could explain my production idea. Click Here to see the presentation. Presenting my idea to the class was good as they gave me good feedback on what to to do and what not to do. They also gave me new ideas that made me think further about different camera shots and interviews i am going to do in my documentary.
The bridge
In class we watched a film/documentary about people commiting suicide on the golden gate bridge in san fransisco. Drector Eric Steel, set up camers on the bridge over a whole year in 2004 to capture footage of the 'jumpers' as they commited suicide on the bridge. Pople have mixed views on Eric Steel and his documentary as he films people commiting suicide but does nothing to stop them. But on the other hand some people believe its not anyones place to decide whether they live or die. Its like documentaries on animals where you see a predator catch its prey, should you stop it? or should you leave it because its only natural?
Eric Steel spoke to family members of the 'jumpers' who explained what they had been going through before they commited suicide. Many of the subjects in the film had been suffering from mental illnesses, like depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorders.
I found the film really interesting as it gave an in site into what suicidal people are going through and why they choose to take their own life, its also interesting to see how different family memebers and friends deal with whats happened to their loved ones.
In one interview,a mother and sister of a suicide victim are explaining what the victim was going through at the time it happend. You can immediately tell that the mother has much less simpathy for her daughter than the sister does, the way the scene is shot and how the subjects are positioned in it also suggest this. the colours in the background behind the sister are much softer and lighter than the colours behind her mother.
Eric Steel spoke to family members of the 'jumpers' who explained what they had been going through before they commited suicide. Many of the subjects in the film had been suffering from mental illnesses, like depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorders.
I found the film really interesting as it gave an in site into what suicidal people are going through and why they choose to take their own life, its also interesting to see how different family memebers and friends deal with whats happened to their loved ones.
In one interview,a mother and sister of a suicide victim are explaining what the victim was going through at the time it happend. You can immediately tell that the mother has much less simpathy for her daughter than the sister does, the way the scene is shot and how the subjects are positioned in it also suggest this. the colours in the background behind the sister are much softer and lighter than the colours behind her mother.
Research into similar products- Youtube documentaries
I have done research into similar products to find out how people produce these types of documentaries, how they portray them to the viewer and what types of camera shots and angles they use to show interviewees in the documentary. I have looked at YouTube cyber bullying documentaries as many of them are made by un professionals that just want to get there view across to the peoople on the internet addressing the cyber bullying problem, watching these has given me a good idea on what mine should turn out like.
They are mostly low budget productions but thats what i wanted to look at, as mine is a low budget production aswell. i am also going to look at a high budget documentary that has been produced by a big institution like the BBC. This will allow me to see the differences between the high and low budget productions. This is a Link to a radio programme about cyber bullying in and out of schools made by the BBC. This is also a BBC production by Richard Bacon a radio and tv presenter that has suffered from cyber bullying, it is called 'the anti social network' I was very interested by this short documentary as it has been made by a man with real intensions to find out why people do it and what they get out of it.
This is a short YouTube documentary on cyber bullying that has also been made by a student as a entry to a college.
This is another YouTube documentary about a boy called Tom Mullaney that suffered from cyber bullying on the social networking site, FaceBook.
Online TV
The way people access and watch media products has massively changed over the past decade. Audiences used to watch it through there TV in the living room and that was it. But nowadays audiences can access media products not only through their digital TV's but also on smart phones and the internet through online TV websites like BBC Iplayer, ITV player and 4od. In class we were set the task of researching about one of these online TV websites. Me and bryony looked at ITV player and made a short Presentation on it. We looked at things like who its aimed at, what type of audience will use it? And how easy it is to use.
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