Advice for AS presentations on institutions and audiences ( Film )

The AS Media Presentations on your case study institutions and audiences.  

General Advice
Mostly use your blogs for the information that you need. If you are producing a Keynote/Power Point use images with key words as much as you can to explain your issues, as lots of bullet points and presentations that are text heavy are boring. You can also include hyperlinks to trailers and post images of the cast, director, producer, film posters, screenshots of the official website, screenshots or hyperlinks to You Tube videos for exchange, etc. Then talk over your images/videos/ links to explain their significance as "issues" for your film institution and how they are intended to connect with audiences. Never lose sight of the importance of how audiences are targeted.


This is important for effective revision for the exam.

How
In pairs or small groups in either mind-map or keynote (Power Point) form

Use images and key terms to help you make your points. Include key terms like synergies and technological convergence where necessary. Some areas like "distribution and marketing" may be covered in more depth than others.


What
Give the key issues your main case study institution and films for:


• production issues
• distribution/marketing issues ( how the institutions targeted specific audiences)
• exhibition issues (Audience)
• exchange issues

See this blog for details more these on issues

From The Truman Show to Survivor: Narrative versus Reality in Fake and Real Reality TV

This is not always an easy read for sixth form level - but it will be rewarding. BTW "a panoptic society" is the idea that our society is under surveillance by thousands of police cameras all the time and that we are little more than prisoners in such a society. The essay focuses on two major theorists, Jean Baudrillard and his ideas about the hyperreality of the image and Michel Foucault's concept of power, surveillance and ideology in the panoptic society.

Click here for an essay by Marie-Laure Ryan

For another article which explains several key ideas about the film you should read this.
The Meaning of The Truman Show

Jean Baudrillard's simulacra is applied intelligently in this article from another blog.
zoominanalysis on The Truman Show Part 1
zoominanalysis The Truman Show Part Two

Exchange - a great example inspired by "Slumdog Millionaire"

Technological Convergence - question and concept map

Click this concept map to enlarge.

Editing - the invisible art

In film-world editing is known as "the invisible art" - and it's probably the hardest to teach. After the director, the editor is the next most important person on the production side of making films. Once the film has been shot the editor gets to work and the process of shaping and creating a story out of a film's thousands of miles of footage can take months - and sometimes years!

Most of the terms you need to understand for editing in TV drama can be found in the link below.
This link has most of the BASIC information on editing you need to know.

For practice in seeing how editing works in TV drama we can view a few sequences to identify the main types of edits and how they create meaning and narrative in a sequence from a TV drama.

Meanwhile, have a look at these abridged Youtube sections from "The Cutting Edge: the magic of movie editing". This is a "must see" for understanding the "invisible art". In Hollywood "the more invisible the cuts the better the editor".

Part 1


Part 2 (Really useful for knowing about close-ups, flash-backs, parallel action, continuity editing, and editing for creating the illusion of reality, etc.)


Part 3


For more from this film on editing you will need to buy the DVD with the same title.

Essays and resources on "The Truman Show", "The Matrix" and Jean Baudrillard

Worth reading, or at least dipping into.
David J Glover's essay on "The Matrix", "The Truman Show" and Jean Baudrillard

Short but definitely enlightinging on hyperreality in "The Matrix".
Prof. Lopez's thoughts on "The Matrix"

Another short, but worthwhile piece by Prof. Lopez on "The Truman Show" and simulacrum.
"The Truman Show and Simulacrum"

Digital technology and cinemas

This is an important Youtube video for understanding how digital technology (technological convergence or simply 'convergence') is changing the ways in which films are being produced, distributed and consumed. The old 35mm films will end up in museums with cheaper digital downloads offering an immersive experience far greater than before on new digital screens in multiplexes. This short film features translated interviews with French and German film-makers and cinema owners but what is true of them is also relevant for us as our experience is going to be the same. Watch this as you will know how to discuss 'convergence' in the consumption/exhibition part of your essays and be able to discuss the changes that digital technology will bring about in cinemas and the benefits cinema-goers.