Cole Madondo A2 Media Blog

Research & Planning essay response I have developed in my research and planning since the start of the course. Over the two years, I’ve learnt and understood how to create a music magazine. To do this though, we had to understand the conventions of magazines and of the genre also. We also had to establish who our target audience is. For the preliminary task, we had to create a college magazine. We had to create a plan for the college magazine. This required us to do some research. We used the internet to find some examples of magazines like what we were creating. This helped form a basic understanding of using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop, which allows for image manipulation and editing. With this basic skill set, it limited my creativity a little bit as I was not able to use certain features which I had in mind, but couldn’t translate it into the programs. Also, it was like we were just copying instead of creating. Which by just copying, it did help us understand where t...

Media Language refers to the language and codes of the medium. Media language covers, Sound, Mise-En-Scene, Semiotics and ideologies. In terms of horror films, they use codes and conventions, and that is how we identify them. I will be using my summer trailer to discuss the theories of Media Language. Semiotics is the study of signs, and is used to describe the meaning of codes. We included zombies in our trailer, and zombies are a sign of death in a way. Because they are dead humans. Also this could mean various things, like something wrong with society. As theorist Ferdinand de Saussure said, there's the signifier and there's signified. As these signs may signify something, like I said the zombies signifies a dead society. Within semiotics, there are three main types of codes which are symbolic, written and audio & technical. A technical code that we used was the use of the camera. At the beginning of our trailer, we included footage of three people. It had a handheld...

Audience theory There are two views on the audience theory: Mass Audience, which is passive. This is considered dangerous as it has the power to influence the masses. Then the other view is the Active audience theory, which is interpreted differently compared to the Mass Audience. Active audiences are open to interpretation. I will be applying the audience theory to my summer trailer. Looking at the effects model and comparing it to my trailer. Reception theory, Cultivation Theory, Uses & Gratification Theory, Copycat Theory, Desensitization  Theory, Catharsis & Suspension of Disbelief. These are the theories that are apart of the Audience Theory. First theory I will be talking about is the Copycat theory. This theory refers to how the audience can be influenced and be affected by the media I think that this theory is more suited to other genres than horror because the protagonist is normally the victim in horror movies, such as the sub-genre Slasher, which includ...

30 Min Representation Theory Essay In the representation theory. There are ten views of representation. I will be looking at my summer trailer and I’ll be discussing the representation theory. Laura Mulvey: The Gaze. Also known as the male gaze, this includes visual pleasure for viewing a female on screen. The camera will put you into perspective as a male, hence why it’s called the male gaze. The theory suggests that the male gaze relegates women to a position where only they are admired for their appearance only. She says the female has two functions, which are: act as an erotic object for the characters to view. Or as an erotic object for the spectators in the cinema to view. This theory occurs in horror movies a lot. Especially with the character “the slut”. Usually there for the other characters. Clover: The Final Girl. This theory suggest that the final girl is the one who tells the story, usually in the genre of slasher. The final girl is in films such as Nightmare on...

30 Min timed essay (Narrative Theory) For this essay, I will be looking at my summer trailer. Narrative is defined as a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in time. I will be looking at 5 narrative theorists in this essay. I’ll be discussing about the following: Tzetvan Todorov, Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Vladimir Propp & Pam Cook. Todorov’s theory, talks about a three-act structure in narrative. This includes Equilibrium, Disequilibrium and Resolution. As our summer trailer was only a trailer, we did not include the resolution, as it will just spoil the film. Many other trailers do not show the resolution too. The equilibrium was displayed at the beginning of our trailer, for a few seconds, then disequilibrium. Also known as the disruption. The part where things begin to go downhill, for our trailer it was when the people started going missing and flying into the air. Then as the disequilibrium continues, we had a montage. The next theoris...

In this essay, I will be discussing how the following genre theorists: Christian Metz, Rick Altman, Nicholas Abercrombie, Steve Neale & Daniel Chandler, are used in last year’s horror trailers. The trailer I will be talking about is The Collector, by the production group Jumpscare. Christian Metz, theorist for genre characteristics. He claims there are four stages to the genre of film: Experimental stage, classic stage, parody stage & deconstruction. The experimental stage is where the genre is being identified. Then it’s the classic stage, once the all the conventions have been set in the ground and have been identified as the genre.  After the classical stage, it’s the parody stage, this is where they start taking the genre and making it comedic, and, they tend to re-enact scenes from the classical stage. The deconstruction stage is the stage where they start implanting completely new conventions into the genre, they usually team with other sub-genres. Based on the...

Narrative Theorists: Tzetvan Todorov Claude Levi-Strauss Roland Barthes Vladimir Propp Pam Cook Todorov Theory – 5 Stages of narrative ·          Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, recognition, action, restoration Propps Theory – Stock Characters ·          The Villian, The Hero, The Donor, The helper, The princess, Her Father, The Dispatcher, The false hero. Claude Levi-Strauss Theory – Binary Opposites ·          Boy vs. Girl, Peace vs. War, Man vs. Woman, Young vs. Old. Roland Barthes – Structuralist approach ·          Action, Enigma, Semic, Symbolic, Cultural Pam Cook – The Structure of The Classic Narrative ·          Enigma Resolution ·          Narrative Closure ·       ...