Lesson notes 29th September

Sound and music 

Sound within a media text should:

Reinforce the mood/atmosphere of the scene.

Enhance the audiences emotional experience.

Suggest a characters thoughts and feelings.

Build a sense of continuity.(e.g sound bridges help moving in and out of scenes) 

Key terms learnt:

DIEGETIC SOUNDS- Sounds within the scene, for example a radio playing in the background. the source doesn't have to be shown in order for it to be diegetic.
NON-DIEGETIC SOUNDS- Sounds that are outside the world of the scene, an example of this would be a them tune, voice over or noises outside.
PARALLEL- When the mood of the audio track follows the mood of the image track.
CONTRAPUNTAL- When the audio track contradicts the image track.
SOUND BRIDGES-Sounds that take us from one scene to another

Camera angles lesson notes

camera angles

Key camera angles: 

EXL- extreme long shot. 

Can be taken from as much as a quarter of a mile away.. Used for scene setting and is used to show exterior.

LS-long shot.

full shot showing entire body,head at the top of the shot. Focus is on the person but background detail is visible

MLS- medium long shot.

shows from about thighs upward and again focuss on the person or figure although some background detail is visible. 

MS- medium shot.

shot from the waist up and is used a lot in dialogue scenes 

MCU-medium close up.

 shot from chest upwards giving little background detail. Used com manly in dialogue scenes, as shows clear facial expression. 

CU-close up.

Shows very little background, most background is blurry as main focus is the shoulders and head of the person. Used to make the viewer uncomfortable

BCU- big close up.

Close up of the face of the person. Used to show emotion and to unsettle the viewer, could also be used for dialogue but not often. 

ECU- extreme close up.

Extreme version of a close up. Magnifies beyond what human aye would see. No background detail is shown. 

low angle-

Gives a sense of confusion. Gives the Person a sense of powe and authority. Background will be sky or ceiling but nothing at usual eye level 

high angle-

Makes subject smaller and powerless. Becomes part of a wider picture and is slightly surreal? 

Worms eye view- 

View of an object or person from below. To show third perspective, also shows someone's strength and to make someone look more powerful. 

Canted angle-

To show disorientation to the viewer, usually to show subject has been drinking or is on drugs. Surreal and strange. 

Birds eye view-

Shows a scene from directly overhead. Very unnatural... Again used to suggest a bigger picture to the viewer and to make things look insignificant. 

Eye level- 

Fairly neutral shot, camera is positioned as though it is a human actually observing the scene. Usually 5 or 6 feet from the ground. 

Lighting homework, photographs taken in school and evaluation..

Lighting Homework

• Horror: this photograph was taken in a dark room with the door open so that we could control the light source and make sure that only a certain side of Lucy was in the light. The dark background further contrasts with Lucy making her the focus of the photograph. The darkness of the background symbolised the unknown and goes with the horror theme.

• Thriller: this photograph was taken in a corridor, and we simple turned off the lights and took the photo with flash. The dark corridor is again to make the photograph more scary and suspenseful and the figure being at the front but also the side allows the viewer to see what's behind.. Making the person in question more vunerable.

• Sci-fi: this photo we took again in a dark room. We shut all the blinds and instead shone a torch through a colander to achieve the spots of light on Lucy's face. We wanted the contrast between light and dark to be more intense than it was in order for it to look more surreal but the idea worked as a whole

• Period drama: this photograph we again took in a dark classroom. Again we used a torch but this time it was used in order to create a shadow on the wall. I was slightly turned to the side and not looking at the camera so we could imitate an old fashioned portrait, as they were usually painted sideways on, or at an angle.

•  Comedy or TV show: this photo we took in natural light. We wanted the audience to be able to see the face as they would in real day to day life to achieve  verisimilitude, the colander was used for a strange and "comic" effect. 

Photos taken at home

Analysis of edits of short film

On our second lesson we were set to film a short film using and experimenting with the camera angles and techniques we learnt about in the previous lesson. 

Here is our first and second edit of the film.

Analysis of film 1:

When filming this we all chatted about what angles we thought best before filming each scene and it was very much a case of trail and error. We experimented using long shots and over the shoulder shots but found that as the subject of the clip was so simple it would be best to have clear and simple filming too. We didn't use and flips and transition edits that were too fancy to keep the style naturalistic. I would have liked to have spend more time on it because I feel there was more that we could have done but all in all for a first attempt I think it was an alright go. 

Analysis of film 2:
The second edit we went a big wild, and experimented with the serif programming. We used a royalty free website to download MP3 clips of music and added them to the film to play alongside it. We also added some images and dragged them into the screen so they would pop up through the the film. We also managed to make our transitions smoother. For me to improve i would have liked to have spent more time using serif instead of giving my friend ideas. Because although I was watching and taking notes on what we had to do for each step I would have liked to have actually done more As it think I would have learnt better this way.. 

Media lesson 3rd of September:

thursday period 5 - lesson notes

yesterdays lesson was a simple introduction to media studies and the course as a whole.we looked at the content of the exam and what our coursework would be,and what it would consist of. we looked at some of the basic key terms such as semiology;

semiology- the study of signs 

A sign is anything that can represent something other than itself, they can also have or suggest more then one meaning. there are three types of sign focused on media. We looked at many of the basic signs we see everyday like the symbol of hazard, and how we learn to recognise them even if they look nothing like they are trying to inform us about...

the tree types of sign: 

symbolic-these are arbitrarily linked to what they signify. 

Iconic- these signs resemble what they signify 

Indexical- these signs are evidence of something else.