Representation of National Identity in Pride (2014)

In the first few shots, a lot of establishing shots are used to set the scene. One of the shots is of one of the bridges over the River Severn, which leads from England to Wales. This is a well known landmark and helps people to recognise where the film is set. Along with this, there is choir singing in the first few scenes, which is stereotypically associated with Welsh people. There is text at the start which says "deep in the valleys", which also adds to this representation. Wales is a hilly country and most people associate the country with hills and valleys.
In one of the next scenes, an old woman says "your gays have arrived". This has two important associations with it. Firstly, Wales has a high amount of elderly people, more so than other countries. This scene adds to that idea. Also, she has a strong Welsh accent, and pronounces her words distinctly. This is a stereotype of Welsh people, that they over pronounce their words. Also a point that you could make is that old people are close minded. Add this to the fact that Welsh people are stereotypically close minded and it creates the idea that this woman may be very against the fact that the characters are homosexual. At the point when the gay characters are introduced to the trailer, the music makes a harsh changed from the serious, moody choir music (which gives a more urgent feel) to a more upbeat, positive song. This carries the idea that gay people are generally more flamboyant than straight people. This plays into the stereotype that gay people are more positive and laid-back than others.
A bit later in the trailer, there are some establishing shots of the Welsh countryside, including green fields and brick walls separating fields. This is done because of the fact that the large majority of Wales is countryside. It's a largely green country, based around farming, and with that it has scenic views.
Then, once again, the music changes.

Audience- Key Words

Target- Every media text has a target audience, which is the group that it is primarily aimed at. For example, 'GQ' magazine is primarily aimed at wealthy men, who are concerned with fashion. Other groups can view the media, but this group are the ones who would mainly be interested in it.

Appeal- Different media texts have different appeals to audiences. One example is sex appeal, and companies select colours, props and connotations to attract that particular element.

Attract- Adverts have recognisable elements like popular actors that server to attract (pull) audiences in because they are familiar to us.

Position- This is when the camera angle, lighting and other technical elements serve to position the audience in a certain way.

Respond- How the audience responds to a media text is often determined through a combination of the type of audience and the messages encoded within the text. 

Encode- Messages being placed into media texts

Decode- Those messages being received by the audience

Pick and Mix Theory

David Gauntlett proposed that audiences are highly sophisticated. They pick the relevant areas of a media text that they want to read and ignore others. This challenges the notion that all girls will be adversely affected by unrealistic images on front magazine covers. They will ignore the sections on sex and body image and read up on things like lifestyle and fashion.

Values, Attitude, and Lifestyle

A way of classing or describing an audience by looking at their behaviour or personality traits. They are classified into Mainstreamers, aspirers, explorers, succeeders and reformers.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E

The target audience is mostly males aged 15-40. The appeal is the various spy elements such as the upbeat music, the incognito feel, and the attractive woman. It is very similar to the Bond films and has that classic feel to it. It attracts the audience by using similar elements to the bond films that most people have watched. It positions the audience to favour the man and woman in the car by showing them outsmart the guy in the other car at the start of the trailer. Females could be attracted to the men in the film, and older people may be able to relate to the era that the film was set in (as in it may bring back memories) and remember the T.V. program that it was based on.

This Girl Can

The women in the 'This Girl Can' video are being represented in a positive, healthy, determined and motivated. They are being shown in a different way to what we are used to (sexualised, dependant), and the video challenges the gender stereotypes that the media creates.

There is a scene that shows a woman running up a hill. They have used an extreme long shot to establish her surroundings. This is done to show that she is on herself, with nobody to run with. This adds to the self motivated, independent and determined message that the video is trying to portray. In another shot of this scene, there is a close up shot of her face. In the shot, she is smiling and breathing heavily. This implies that she is happy with exercising and working hard, which also adds to the message of the video.

Another scene that portrays these messages is when the group of women are doing Zumba dancing. There are multiple shots of this scene, with varying camera shots and angles. The medium shots show them all in unison, which creates the feeling of 'togetherness', and it feels like they are 'empowered'. This breaks away from the usual representation of women being shown as dependent on men. Also, there are closer shots of their individual faces. Often in these shots, they are shown with sweat on their faces, which has connotations of determination, and shows them as hard working. Even though they all look exhausted, they carry on, which portrays the same message.

Mock Exam Age Examples

Men, Women & Children International Trailer

Age is one of the most prominent areas that is represented in contemporary media, and how it is portrayed depends on the group being represented and the audience of the text in question. One example of age representation is the Men, Women & Children trailer. In the trailer, it shows young adults struggling with their emotions. The character played by Ansel Elgort seems sad, and angry with his life but he seems to like a girl of the same age. This creates a stereotype of young people and shows them as dependant on other people, and vulnerable to falling in love. Also, you get a sense of the boy's anger in the end of the trailer when he attacks another person. This plays into the angry side of young people's personalities, and shows that they can be emotionally unstable. I think the way that young people are represented in the trailer is true to real life, as a large portion of people that age could probably relate to the characters in at least one way.

In the first scene that you see the girl that Elgort has an interest in, the lighting is high key and natural. It is a reflection of his feelings, and shows her in a positive light. In the scenes where Elgort is talking to his counselor, or just talking about his feelings, the lighting is low-key which portrays a deep and thoughtful mood. This adds to the perception that young people have a more complex personality than maybe expected. It shows them in a more serious light than other films, and could be taken as a statement that they are different than we may have thought.

Breaking Bad- Half Measures Scene

This scene is an intense talk between Walter and Mike. It shows people of a similar age (40-60) in a menacing and superior manner. The lighting is low key and on both Walt and Mike it uses split lighting. This portrays them in a serious light. Mike talks in a slow and thoughtful way about the story he is telling, and he uses profanity in his language. This creates a certain aroma to his dialogue which keeps the viewer on edge. Combine this with Walter's worried look, and what is created is a scared, serious, dangerous feeling. The two main camera shots used both use a close up angle, with no variety between them. This helps to focus the attention on the dialogue, which is what creates the representations. 

The scene along with other featuring Mike creates a negative representation of people of his age. Although it portrays Mike in a authoritative manner, it also shows Mike as a killer, as he says the he 'should have gone all the way', referring to shooting somebody. Throughout the whole scene, Walter doesn't say much and Mike controls the conversation. After saying his final line "No more half measures Walter", he leaves the room, creating a lasting impression of his brutal yet thoughtful character.

The Sun- David Mellor Article (15th December 2014)
This article follows on from another article that 'exposed' a conversation between David Mellor and a taxi driver. Mellor used violent language and tried to belittle the driver. In this article, David is shown carrying a pink and white swirl handbag. The main text of the page says 'I've been in Cabinet, I'm an award winning broadcaster, a Queen's Counsel and.. do you like my handbag?' which portrays him as pompous and arrogant but also makes fun of him. This reflects badly on older people (of his age) because it is a stereotype that old people are arrogant and stuck up.

On the page, it also features the front page of the article I mentioned before. This shows the headline, further adding to the stereotype, as it shows that it isn't just one article. The article is over-exaggerated with the line 'MELLOR CAB SHOCK No2'. In reality, nothing bad happened in this article, but because of the wording, the audience are led to believe that he has done something bad again. 

Movie Poster Survey Analysis

In my gender question, I established that the majority of the results were female. This may be due to a larger majority of the class being females (the people I sent my survey out to were my class). However, there were male responses (25%) which means that I will be able to reach both male and female with my coursework pieces.

My next question asked what age range the participants were. The majority of the participants (75%) responded that they were between the ages of 12 and 16, but I can presume that they were all 16 due to them being in the same class as me. This means that I can project my posters at that age range, which is helpful because I can target a small age range.

The next question asked the participants about what features catch their eye the most when looking at film posters. A popular answer among the results was the names of the actors. Due to this, I think that it would be a good idea to include the actors names on my film posters. Another common answer was the image, which means that I will have to create a striking visual image as the main attraction of the poster.

Another question that I asked was for the participants to rank some common elements of film posters based on how important that they are to the overall poster. The highest ranked element was the main image, followed by the title of the movie. From this, I have gathered that I will need to make these two elements of my image the most striking parts, as they will draw the most attention to them.

My next question was on how much they would pay for movie poster. I left this as an open question, because I knew that people would have a wide variety of different prices. Generally the sensible prices were between £5 and £10. For this reason, I will price my poster at a price like £7.99.

My final question asked whether the participants preferred landscape or portrait orientation for movie posters. The majority (67%) answered portrait, which indicates that I should take my photo in portrait orientation.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JRZ55PS

Please answer my survey.

The Great Gatsby film cover, emphasis on representation of class.

Our group chose to do The Great Gatsby, because we felt like it had a good amount of class representation in it. We chose to break the glass, because *spoiler alert* the whole plot ends in a lot of decay, and a lot of relationships being broken. We felt like a broken glass was a good visual representation of broken relationships. We also used the champagne glass because it represented the class of people in the film, which is mostly upper class. We used the bow tie for the same reason, and to represent the parties in the film. 

We decided to use the tagline 'the party's over' as it doesn't give too much away, but in addition to the image, it gives the reader a sense of what will happen, and helps to draw them in, and makes them want to watch the film.

The colour selection of the title 'The Great Gatsby' is a sign of wealth, and classiness. It helps to signify the genre and content of the film, without actually saying it. This is an effective way to let the viewers know what the film will be generally based around, without giving too much away to them.