Component One - media products, industries and audiences

Film Industry Week One

 The purpose of and media product is to make profit/money.

Interesting facts about the birth of film:

  • The first camera movements were the result of mounting a camera on a moving vehicle
  • New film techniques that were introduced in this period include the use of artificial lighting, fire effects and Low-key lighting (i.e. lighting in which most of the frame is dark) for enhanced atmosphere during sinister scenes.
  •  A film could be under a minute long and would usually present a single scene, authentic or staged, of everyday life, a public event, a sporting event or slapstick.

Films are usually standardised meaning that they are made in the same way over and over again with the same storyline/narrative. This is done because they know that the film will definitely sell. 
Hollywood films are made in warehouses and offices and made using industrialised labour of different production techniques. This happens on a narrative level as well as industrial.
When describing the 'classic' era of Hollywood film production, we use the term 'classical Hollywood narrative' referring to several characteristics that typified film making ideology.

Spatial continuity: The audience knows where they are at any time.
Temporal continuity: The audience always know in what oder the events have transpired, and any flashbacks and so forth will be clearly signposted.
The film must be realistic. It must not make reference to other filmic or popular texts.

The studio system: A type of film production and distribution that is dominated by a small number of major studios in Hollywood.
Conglomeration: A media institution that owns many companies involved in mass media enterprises. For example, radio, television etc.
Exhibition: How the media product is visually shown.
Convergence: Communication between different types of media and sometimes the merging of them.
Distribution: The way the audience receives the media product.
Regulation: the control or guidance of mass media by the government and other bodies such as OFCOM.
Production: The stages/process needed to complete a media product from the beginning to the final copy. It can apply to any media product.
Vertical integration: Owns multiple companies across different stages of the film industry.
Horizontal integration: Where a company buys other companies in the same sector to reduce the competition for audiences.
Digital technologies: 

Film distribution and exhibition has been affected in the last two decades because the way that we consume films has changed.

Universal Pictures:


  • American film studio owned by Comcast
  • Founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle
  • Part of the studio system
  • Owns and operates direct theatrical marketing and distribution if feature films all around the world.
  • The worlds fourth oldest major film studio
  • Six of their films: Jaws, E.T, Jurassic Park, Despicable Me 2, Furious 7 and Jurassic World achieved box office records
  • Member of Hollywoods 'big six'
  • Their distribution operation includes residual video and DVD
  • Steven Spielberg started his directing career with the movie "Night Gallery"
  • Universal Owns smaller companies


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part One Music Videos: Riptide- Montage editing, hard jump cuts, contrasting shots with juxtopositioning Mise-en-scene Horror iconography, lighting - references horror genre - subversive Binary oppositions - Levi Strauss.
Read more
Image
The contents page of the "Womans" magazine creates many assumptions about the target audience for the magazine. This is because  Betty Friedan (American feminist) said that advertisements portrayed women in a particular way: "Women are shown solely as: men's wife, mother, love object, dishwasher, cleaner and never as a person". How does the magazine's contents page reflect: Codes and conventions of the sub-genre of magazine? Social and cultural context of the magazine? The target audience? The contents page of the "Woman's" magazine creates many assumptions about the target audience for the magazine. This is because the contents page displays all of the articles that will be featured throughout the magazine. Most of the headings are very stereotypical of women at this time because they are things such as: beauty, cookery, fashion, home and knitting. This means that the magazine assumes that women would naturally enjoy and w
Read more

How does the front cover of the set edition of Woman reflect the socio-historical context in which it was made?

Image
How does the front cover of the set edition of Woman reflect the socio-historical context in which it was made? On the one hand I would say that the front cover of Woman magazine reflects the socio-historical context in which it was made because of the fact that the main image of the woman that is used on the front cover is a woman that would appeal to the target audience at the time the magazine was published. This is because most women at the time this magazine was issued would, stereotypically, have been housewives and very domesticated. They would have often taken care of activities such as: washing, cleaning, cooking and they were also seen as very maternal and, therefore, loving and caring for their children. The main image of Woman magazine appeals to this demographic because of the fact that she represents the ideal woman at this time. This is because of the fact that she is wearing practical clothes so that she can clean and cook easily and she is also wearing make
Read more