Roland Barthes

Today's lesson Becky, Meg and I worked on a prezi presentation on Roland Barthes who was born on the 12th of November in 1915 and unfortunately his life was ending in the year 1980 at the age of 64 on the 25th of March. He is known for being involved in being a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Roland wanted and got a license in grammar and philology, and in 1953 he created his first full length work called Writing Degree Zero. He also created Writer Sollers, The Eiffel Tower and other Mythologies, The Rustle of Language and Incidents.

"a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read, they are indeterminable...the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language..."

The quote above is from him on his theory, another quote about his theory was...

The narrative codes Barthes described are:
·         Action/proiarectic code & enigma code (ie Answers & questions)
·         Symbols & Signs
·         Points of Cultural Reference
·         Simple description/reproduction

Meaning he can unravel a text and give it many different meanings, like we can with a scene from a film.  

Becky researched information on his theory and Meg researched about his basic life, they both e-mailed me the work and i cut it down to add it into our prezi..... 

ENJOY :)

Roland Barthe on Prezi

This theory relates to Life on Mars because from each shot we are able to take many meanings just like when Roland can take many meanings from a peice of text.

Hot Fuzz Creators...

Universal is one of the oldest American film studios which was first founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, it is a major movie studio which we all recognise as it is on of the top six. They are still to this day producing films and have many lined up for the year 2012, they have producing since 1914 when their first ever film was produced. The very first film they made was called By The Suns Rays a silent western film and the most recently release been created by Universal is Devil.

Working Title was funded in 1983 by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe which is a british film production based in london.  is a British film production company that is based in London. Some of their most famous films created are: Wimbledon, Love Actually, Jonny English and About A Boy. They have also produced not only films but television series. 

Studio Canal is a French based film production and distribution company. Founded by Pierre Lescure in the year 1988 and owns the third largest film libary in the world. Some of these films in the library include Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Basic Instinct, and they have international rights to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Graduate to name a few.

Big Talk is another English film and television production company that is also based in London, found in 1995 by Nira Park, and produced the film that we have been studying Hot Fuzz, it's also famous for producing are Shaun of the Dead. Big Talk Productions is also famous for producing sitcoms like Free Agents and Spaced. A few actors have gained a bigger famous status for appearing in Big Talk productions, these are: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Bill Bailey and Dylan Moran.

Merlin

What representation of gender are constructed by the extract through the use of: Mise en scene, editing, used of camera and sound?







The main character of the Merlin is a male we see this at the very beginning on the opening scene, showing thats throughout the series the focus will be on him and his life or adventure. There is then a mid shot of Merlin and the kings son where he is wearing amour representing power and authority, this sis followed by the audience then seeing the king where we identify him by the setting as he is sitting on a throne wearing a crown, the viewers then by the mise en scene notice his importance. By the throne being placed on a step making it higher shows this importance again as he then is looking down in everyone, also his voice is very strong and empowering. Finally with Merlin his eyes are glowing showing editing to show the viewer magic enforcing the idea of power as he has the ability to do whatever he wants with his powers.


The trailer shows a women at the beginning very briefly however isn't shown as a  very feminine character with long black hair wearing a long purple dress being stereotypical as purple is classed as a female colour, also her dress isn't at all revealing due to the length could raise the question weather it is expected of them by men or more specifically their husbands. Commonly you see magic and witches appear in period dramas from the 1100's as the idea was that women were witches, a witch is what we the viewers next see. This then presents an old view and stereotype of women and shows that they were thought of very little back then mostly represented as evil. 

Britishness

We associate Britishness on:

• Posh (Snobby) - queen
• Council Estates - run down
• Iconic things we associate with Britain
• Countryside
• British music - punk
• Private schools
• Self depreating (take mick out of ourselves)
• Bad teeth
• Irony

WHAT IS UNIQUALLY BRITISH ABOUT HOT FUZZ?


Before even the opening scene the front cover is a former copy of a American film beginning with self depriciating, we first here the British police sirens, whistle and bell which are old fashioned relating to the film as inspector Angel goes from a modern police station to a police station in the countryside to work, the countryside being another factor of 'Britishness'. On his police badge we see the crown on it to show that he is from the police force but also the relation between Britain and being posh as we have a queen. They mention him attenting Cantabry Uniersity raised the stereotype of Britishness and our private schools, include in the sequence are filmings of him driving a vauxhall, cycling, fencing (posh sport) and chess all of which represent the sports and car makes associated with Britain. Famous places were mention in London which were Soho and China Town to give the non British viewers an insight. 













WHAT US UNIQUALLY BRITISH ABOUT HOT FUZZ- SCENE IN COUNTRYSIDE?


The first insight we see and notice is the weather being rain with a scene of an old church and a water fountain where there are 'chavs' sitting, he then goes to an old fashioned hotel being a Best Western known as a British chain of hotels. where the receptionist is doing a cross word talking in a polite English accent calling her husband Bernard, a typical old fashioned English name, so as we can see from the first two minute of the countryside scene there are many iconic British themes.The character then stays in a room called the 'Castle Suit' referring to England's heritage of castles. The streets roads are made of cobbles a quant and traditional town. Where we then come across a pub which are present in America so they then can tell it is set in England another theme, uniqually British, and in there there is pint measurements and pint pumps of ale, also underage drinkers, binge drinking. A man is also reading the newspaper in the pub. This scene is set in a town called Sandford set in Britain.  

TV Study-

Over the weekend i was engrosed into the x-factor which is a reality tv program, there is some humour in the shows however i don't think enough to be classed as a comedy. It has a wide range of audience based for family viewing as it is on a the time the family sit watching entertainment eating dinner. Overall I think it is a brilliant show and will continue to watch it and find out the results, i also think its a good idea as it finds talent amoungst those who never get a chance.

I also watches Emmerdale which is a TV drama also for the family which raises awareness on everyday problems and issues, for example this week the tory line has focus on a teenage girl taking heroin which it therefore provides a help line, also a young man showing that he is gay not just within his family but his community. I strongly recommend as some viewers can relate to experiences or issues. 

Hot Fuzz Intro

In the opening scene of Hot Fuzz, the first camera angle used is a long shot which enables you see Nicholas Angel walking into the building striding forward where he is surrounded by a light therefore could be interpereted as a halo of 'gold' relating to his name "ANGEL". The continuity is undisguinisable until the last shot where you see him being stabbed in the hand by a man as Father Christmas in his left hand, but however you see the scar on his right hand. The cutting isn't smooth but this was done on purpose to show the fast pace also representing that he is fast himself many of the shots dissolve or fade, by changing shot when a flash or load sound happens this also makes the filming seem more dramatic and faster. At the beginning there is a close-up of Angels face shown on his police ID where his facial expression is very stern and angry presenting a stereotype of police men, then a close-up of this face again exactly the same implying he is very focused when at work.

Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry on Prezi

For our lesson we all researched in random groups a different inspirational design our group reseached michel gondry and produced a prezi presentation on examples of his work, target audience, style and background information on him. I was in charge in producing the prezi adding all the information in, this is our prezi...

Some background information.

Michel was a french director who was specifically known for his imaginative work and uses of bold and colourful techniques, he was born in May 1963. He is an acadamy award winner for screen writing and produced Music Videos most recently for

• Paul McCartney
• Kanye West
• Mia Doi Todd

The examples of his work we used were White Stripes, The Smirnoff Comercial, Daft Punk where each feature or character in the video represents a tune in the song, also The Science of Sleep which never got shown as it was classed too weird.
We all took notes on each inspirational director and here are my notes on the others...

Wes Anderson:

was born in texas and writes with Owen Wilson he tries to cast him in allot of his films. He focuses on broken families in his films and specialises in adverts, he wrote and also stared in was the American Express card advertisment. His films use similar soundtrack usually containing a rolling stones song, his films title are always shown in yellow.
Some films he has directed-
  - Fantastic Mr Fox
  - The Royal Tenenbaums

Shynola:

it consists of 4 people that met in 1994 who mostly focus on animations by creating unique and non real films which attracts a wide range audience. They have created videos for Coldplay - strawberry swings and Radioheads - Pyramid song. 

Hammer and Tongs:

Two people being, Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith who focus on films

-for example.... 

  - Son of Rambo

  - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 

American Beauty Essay

The film begins with a mid angle shot of Hayne implying that the two characters in the scene know each other, we can back this up also by analysising the mis-en-scene as it is set in her bedroom laying on her bed- a more intermate setting in comparison to the kitchen. During the first scene we, the audience can hear the sound of the camera working showing it is  amateur recording as we later find out it is one of the characters, Ricky Fitts. 

The audience then see's a high angled shot which provides information on the setting giving them an overview insight of where the film is taking place. The view has a consistent amount of vegetation and the houses are spaced out widely. This gives the viewer a clue to the fact it is a wealthy suburban area which then proves that the characters must be well off.

In the space of the two scenes i have analysed the colouring goes from a grey scheme with dull colours for clothing on the girl which shows her body shape however not in a glamorous way - not an 'American Beauty'. However then goes onto the title of a piercing red on a pitch black background making git stand out more. This is also a connotation of passion, danger and also links into the roses later. The non-diegnetic convasation of the teenage characters when the mid-angle shot takes place on Jayne gives an insight into the relationship of theirs which must be close from the personal convasation is taking place and also the insight of her relationship with her father which is the opposite. 

Group Filming

working with Becky, Sam and Meg.

Pre-production 


For our filming, we had a specification for a scene of a character walking down a corridor, opening a door and then sitting down and having a conversation with another character. We worked in groups of 4 to create a story boardn including different camera angles uch as over the shoulder shot close up and mid shot, we then swapped story boards with other groups to test how detailed they were and if we could create the filming in which was required.


Producing production 


Meg was character 1 and Becky was character 2. Sam did the filming using the different camera angles whilst we all helped organize the props ect. The difficulties we over came were finding the appriate scene in which to  use and reading the hand writing off of the storyboard. Also we had troubles using the other groups storyboard as it was confusing to read and we got mixed up with how to do the scenes as the anotation wasnt clearly stated.


During the Lesson


We learnt the basics on editing videos by uploading our filming and importing it. Then dragged and dropped the different sections and cut anything we didn't want or need, the name of our filming was ' Doors are boring to film' as we wanted to be more creative but it was a starting point. Adding text was easy however the cutting of the clips was more difficult for me but we all soon got used to it. 


Post production


Overall i feel happy with the co-opperation and communication our group managed to undertake we completed our filming in time to the best of our ability and all put our own thoughts and ideas into it when needs, our opinions also were added to achieve the best possible outcome.

My Magazine

Pre-production During my pre-production of the magazine I created a draft copy on an A3 sheet of paper for the main front covers showing the layout and the advertising I would place on it. I looked at the vogue magazine to give me inspiration.Firstly for the front cover I had to choose what I was going to call my magazine by looking on Google at relative words to which my magazine was focusing on being textiles and fashion. In the end i chose to give it the name 'Mantelet' because it relates to the textiles department in the school and their production of fashion by the pupils, which interests me. I then had to design my layout for the front cover for example; I chose to put the main photo on the left hand side of the cover this gains space for the information and advertising to be placed. The writing/headings then were dotted around it. I made sure that I kept the master head at the top of the page as this is essential for the magazine to gain attention. I annotate it saying what fonts, sizes, colour etc. that I would want for the writing and background.

Production Firstly we took some pictures in pairs, i worked with becky, of what image we was going to use on the front cover, we uploaded them onto the computer allowing us to use them on Photoshop. Secondly i uploading the image i wished to use, then by using the 'Magnetic lasso tool' i cut around the image and could remove the background to then place it in a new layer. I then had to adjust the image to the correct place and size on my front cover, the background was set as a baby pink and added the text which i was advertising. I stuck to using only three fonts on my front cover so it didn't end up looking messy,  I had the name of the magazine (MANTELET) in white the headlines and subheadings in a mustard yellow a bright pink and a tourquois blue relating to the colour from the umbrella and then added my barcode. 
Post Production I enjoyed making the magazine however until i did got used to it i felt it fustrating, i would say advertising is one on my strong points and would love to go into the magazine writing industry when i'm older perticually on fashion. My colours compliment each other and the picture as they were samples taken from the umbrella. The colour were feminine as the fashion magazine is not only based on women but would mostly be read my women also there was a male in the image therefore including both sides of the sexs. The ages range is around the school years as i would be selling it within the school as the advertising is strongly based on the Lutterworth Textiles products and subject.As i am not very experienced and haven't used photoshop before it took some getting used to but i learnt quickly and became more confident.