How is Media Convergence important for audiences and Institutions?

 

Without media convergence in some cases it is impossible for a film to succeed within the box office and towards the audience. The most important thing about media convergence is to engage the audience, and keep them up to date with the films; marketing, distribution and the exhibitions of the film. A good example of this is the production of the film Kick-Ass.

Kick Ass was extremely publicised before the film even began; there were numerous posters, which were splat around various cities which were ‘certainly an incentive for collectors excited about the movie’.

 ‘Teaser Trailers’, were released with different batches, the first batch was of the main characters such as ‘Kick Ass’, ‘Hit Girl’ and ‘Big Daddy’. By creating media convergence immediately it created a steady stream of publicity on movie blogs, that kept the movie being talked about by the audience in the time of filming and the release dates.

There was an official website of Kick-Ass which contained all of the trailers, allowing be embedding and sharing onto many social networking sites. It also suggested that you could ‘BUY TICKETS NOW’, along with many other options, such as, the list of theatres shown at, sneak peeks of filming, and to finish off a link to all reviews that have been made about the film. This makes the audience feel like they have ‘backstage’ seats, and can track and follow the films every move.

All of the characters had their own FaceBook page summing up the characters personality and some background information, which also had links to competitions and marketing websites. On some of the websites it has a ‘store’ section so you could buy some of the merchandise sold, such a t-shirts and other gimmicks.

Kick Ass only cost £30 million to make and Matthew Vaughn contributed £10 million towards the making of the film. If the budget were to be bigger, for example £150 million, bigger Hollywood actors like Leonardo Di Caprio, (instead of Aaron-Taylor Johnson) could star in the film. Possible problems that may take away the originality of the film is that the certificate rating will have to be lowered and the amount of violence and use of language will have to be cut or completely stripped out of the script, leaving the film with a plot and celebrities, not a good storyline and the main features of a film within Kick Ass being taken away. Brad Pitt also helped co produce the film, which also brings up the rating for the film making people wanting to desperately see the film as such well known celebrities and directors have been influenced with this film.

Kick-Ass the comic book and the film were written at exactly the same time 'so it was very sort of collaborative, organic process'. With the comic being a huge success, the producers chose to make and release a video game of the film kick ass. 'Unlike the comic book and movie, the video game story line introduces all three characters from the start. When Kick-Ass first tries to be a superhero, the thugs beat him. Hit Girl and Big Daddy appear and attack the thugs. The game begins after Kick-Ass is freed from the thugs. The circumstances of the storyline differ depending on which character the player selects. For instance in the film Frank D'Amico's men kidnap Kick-Ass and Big Daddy. In the game's storyline, this would not be possible if the player selects Big Daddy as his or her character, so in that event the game would instead have Hit Girl be kidnapped'

The game was released on iphone/ipod/ipad at a cost of $2.99. Although this could be be classed as expensive for a low quality game. The game was believed to be not very successful, but it still raised the Kick-Ass success level up, as most people had seen this film being advertised. On posters, trailers, comic book, and then the game.

By having all of this marketing, it gets the audience talking about the film, causing more and more people to be curious about the film, and how it will turn out once its released. The media production company have cleverly done this by already have a fan base before the release of the film.

On the other hand Attack the Block wasn’t a well known film and wasn’t a huge success with the box office, as it was extremely high in people’s expectations after the last success of ‘Hot Fuzz’ and ‘Shaun of the dead’. The film was created on a low budget, with the low key props and special effects, it almost made the film seem realistic. The production company had hardly done any marketing leaving the film to be unknown, it didn’t really help that the characters involved weren’t celebrities. By having celebrities in a film can be more successful due to the audience’s affection for a certain actor.

Class and Status of the TV drama 'The Street' (650 words)

I am representing and researching techniques that have occurred and presented in the TV drama, ‘The Street’, produced by Granada Television for the BBC, and created by Jimmy McGovern.
In this essay I will discuss certain elements of mis-en-scene, camera angles, sound and editing, taking into consideration the ‘Class’ and ‘Status’ of the main characters of the husband, wife and the lover.

Mis-en-scene is represented to create visual effects, such as the costumes that the characters are wearing, the location, in order to set the ‘Class’ and ‘Status’, and so the audience can create a stereotypical view of the family in this TV drama.
The costumes are very simple, as for example the characters are dressed very casual and look like the clothes have been worn quite a lot. For example the mother/wife is wearing scruffy jeans and a ‘mumsy’ top, creating an image of practicality, the same with the father/husband; he is wearing a white, stained vest top, which portrays laziness as he is watching football, with his feet up, suggesting that he doesn’t do much with his life. To contrast with this slightly, the mothers ‘lover’ wears a suit and tie, which represents a certain wealth, and has a well paid job.

The types of camera angles are varied; we start off with the program showing an establishing shot of the road, so the audience knows the setting of the drama, and the size of the houses, so they can immediately class the characters as middle class. When the argument takes place in the house, there are close up shots of the expressions on the mother and fathers faces, the aggressiveness reveals the emotions that the characters are feeling.  There are close up shots of the mother indulging into a chocolate dessert, which shows her way of dealing with the argument, the camera shots, suggest that she is alone, and the dessert is a comfort food, which deals with the emotions. The working class is almost being represented as indulgers, and can spend time off of work, whilst in this case the husband works.  The close up of the chocolate is repeated, with a numerous amount of medium shots with her eating the chocolate dessert. In the background of the medium shot, we see the house, and how small it is, portraying the fact that the family can’t afford anything bigger.
In the workplace a long shot is shown, so we see the workplace. I have noticed that the father is out working whilst the mother is indulging with the chocolate dessert, and the lover. The father is a typical builder, and portrays that he is an aggressive person and is banging and hammering things, which could explain his aggressive sides and this is the way he expresses his feelings and how he relives his anger. Finally there is a point of view shot from the young girl, who is overlooking the argument, with her facial expressions of sadness, vulnerability and scared.

The sounds in this episode are varied; between non-diegetic and diegetic sounds.
Diegetic sounds are;
-Shouting/talking
-Background noise of the television
-The hammering and banging at the builders workplace
-Car noises

Non-Diegetic sounds are;
-Introduction music
-Girl being run over
-Music when the affair is taken place

We also hear the accents of the characters, in this case the accents is from East London, as the father says ‘stupid cow’, and ‘bleeding’, this accent is usually associated with the lower class, and have no authority or importance.  

The editing is extremely fast paced throughout, in order to keep the audience’s attention, which has a flow of continuity and the transitions of the edits are smooth and fast paced. To conclude the class and status of the characters in The Street are middle class and are represented in this episode as aggressive, we know this by the characters expressions and the tensions between each of the characters.

 

Prezi- P.S I love you

http://prezi.com/1cbhvqzjkr9c/ps-i-love-you/

With added notes

Representation of teenage dramas

Representation of 3 television dramas which include teenagers.

Skins
Skins is a British teen drama that follows the lives of a group of teenagers in Bristol, South West England, through the two years of sixth form. Its controversial storylines have explored issues such as dysfunctional families, mental illness (such as eating disorders), adolescent sexuality, substance abuse and death.
The typical clothing for the males on the show is:
Nick: Nick wears reds, greens, purples and blue simple basic tshirts, very plain and simple.
Luke: Smart clothing, polos, shirts, chinos and brogues/loafers.
Alo: Mix matched, doesn't care how he looks, mainly outrageous shirts. To represent his personality.

For the girls:
Mini: Very stylish, designer, chunky jewellry, etc..
Liv: Tacky, cheap clothing
Grace: Very girly and pretty

All of the characters have their own indivdual style, to represent their personalitys and to represent their care free lifestyle. The behaviour of the characters is very rebellious, drugs are usually involved in some way. We never get to see the parents as much, but we know that most of the teenage characters have a bad relationship with their parents and usually rebel against their will.

Gossip Girl
'Gossip Girl is an American teen drama television series based on the book series of the same name written by Cecily von Ziegesar. The series was created by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, and premiered on The CW on September 19, 2007. Narrated by the omniscient blogger "Gossip Girl", voiced by Kristen Bell, the series revolves around the lives of privileged young adults on Manhattan's Upper East Side in New York City.'

The typical clothing that is worn in this teen drama is very stylish, and glamourous, as most of the characters are very rich, as part of the higher class. The behaviour of some of the girls is very 'bitchy', and can't seem to keep problems and issues to themselves, and can't sort issues out.

Claude Levi-Strausse-Miranda

'Claude suggested that narratives are provided with motivation to move from one point to another by the repeated establishing of actual or potential conflict, he saw that narratives as having binary oppositions'.

I am going to give an example of this theory, the television programme I am going to present this is Miranda.
Miranda is extremely opposite to her mother played by Patricia Hodge.

 

 

As we see in this clip of Miranda, is very immature compared to her mother, as she is jobless and childish, as we see her playing with objects with eyes, and we can tell that she has a lot of time on her hands. Miranda is also childish when it comes to her mother showing her holiday photos, Miranda is giggly and acting like a small child. Whereas her mother is completly they opposiste, as her mother is calm, colective, mature, and seems like she is always busy and in control with her life.

 

These oppositions act upon each other and characters try to control them, causing conflict and resoulution.



Kick Ass

                                     The Idea

The idea of the film, was based on the comic book, which was written by Mark Millar. The artist of the comic books is John Romits, Jr. The film was directed by Matthew Vaughn and actually co-produced the film with well known actor Brad Pitt. The production companies of Kick Ass were; Plan B Entertainment, Lions Gate Entertainment, Marv Films.

The Finances
The estimated budget within the box office was $30,000,000, with the total income of $96,188,903. The film was rated number one in the United States, after its third week of release. Within weeks numerous amounts of reviews were released and especially 'Rotten Tomatoes', the website rated the film to be 7/10.

Film	Rotten Tomatoes			Metacritic
	All Critics	Top Critics	Audience
Kick-Ass	76% (235 reviews)	67% (39 reviews)[	83% (211,361 reviews)	66/100 (38 reviews)

Development of the script
Kick Ass the comic book and the film were actually written at exactly the same time 'so it was a very sort of collabarative, organic process'.
Mark Miller made a comment that Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn created a girly, and 'chick-flick', 'having placed more emotions', but Miller thought that the 'film audience would have difficulty accepting Dave and Katie not being together, whilst a comic audience would more easily accept that idea.' So instead they mad Dave homosexual in order to break the stereotypical 'chick flick' film.
Many different things occured between the comic book and the film. For example 'Big Daddy' was a former accountant in the comic book, but in the film we saw him to be an ex cop.
Here is a quote from Wikipedia basically explaining how Matthew Vaughn's script was rejected and advice given to him to make it suitable for certain audiences.

'Vaughn initially went to Sony, which distributed Layer Cake, but he rejected calls to tone down the violence. Other studios expressed interest but wanted to make the characters older.In particular studios wanted to change Hit-Girl's character into an adult.Goldman said that while studio executives said that it would be less offensive to portray Hit-Girl as a teenager, Goldman argued that it would have been more offensive since, as a teenager, Hit-Girl would have been sexualized. Goldman said that Hit-Girl was not supposed to be sexualized'.

The Cast

Aaron Johnson as David "Dave" Lizewski / Kick-Ass
Nicolas Cage as Damon Macready / Big Daddy
Chloë Grace Moretz as Mindy Macready / Hit-Girl
Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Chris D'Amico / Red Mist
Mark Strong as Frank D'Amico:
Lyndsy Fonseca as Katie Deauxma
Full Cast and Crew at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1250777/fullcredits#cast

Production
The actual filming of Kick Ass, include, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Toronto, and some of the locations were filmed in the UK, in Elstree Studios, and some other shots, for exampe the sewage plant featuring Nicolas Cage was filmed in East London.
The rating is a 15, as it had strong, brutal violence throughout, pervasive langauge, sexual content, nudity and some drug use involving children. It had a running time of 118 minutes.

Controversy
Chloe Moretz played by Hit Girl, uses the line 'Okay you cunts, lets see what you can do now'. Baring in mind tthat she was eleven at the stages of filming. It has also been said that the use of inapporiate language and the violence, was not suitable for the age rating. But BBFC agreed that is suitable for the ages 15 years and above.

Marketing
Trailers and posters were released of the comic book and the film.

 Also there was a premiere held, and Brad Pitt even made an appearance.

 

  A sequel of Kick Ass is currently being made, and will be released on the 19th July 2013.
'The costumed high-school hero Kick-Ass joins with a group of normal citizens who have been inspired to fight crime in costume. Meanwhile, the Red Mist plots an act of revenge that will affect everyone Kick-Ass knows'.

A hilarious, very violent black comedy puts a new twist on superheroics, says Peter Bradshaw

 

Sound Clips

Sound Motif
A sound motif is a combination of sounds and sound effects, that are associated with a particular theme or character. A good example of this is the Jaws theme tune, as when we hear the sound, we know that the shark is about to come into the scene. By using the same sound effect the clip becomes recognisable, and if we might not be watching the film, by hearing the sound we can still recognise it.



Parallel Sound
Parallel sound is the sounds we hear according to the mood of the film, for example when we see a happy scene, we expect to hear happy music, the music/background noise usually has to be the same in order to create the effect of happiness. An example of this is again in Jaws. The background noise on the beach creates the atmosphere and mood of the film, and without the sound, it wouldn't create the same effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_2Ecwm7Alrc

Contrapuntal Sound
Contrapuntal sound is the opposite to parallel sound, its when music and visual elements play against each other. This can create a disturbing effect for the audience, as they don't know what emotion they are feeling. For example if the music is happy and slow rhythm, and the scene is violent and gory.
In this scene of 'Watchmen', happy music is used, and creates a different and unique effect. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfC5AwjshPA

Direct Address
Direct address, is where a certain character directly looks into the camera, and speaks some dialogue. It isn't as poplular in the film industry so I struggled to find some examples. I found an example of Miranda Hart, as she introduces her new season, and engages the audience, so then they feel part of the show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AtVgNcygZY