UNIT 01 – AO2: DESCRIBE THE STRUCTURE OF MEDIA PRODUCTS USING THE CORRECT TERMINOLOGY

Red Dead Redemption

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The preperation needed to complete the mission is you have to be equipt with all the weapons and ammunition. At the beggining of the mission, your character has to meet Luisa where she will take you to the mission. In order for you to progress, you must meet Luisa at a certain time in the day, if you do not manage to meet her within the time, you must must wait for the following day to meet her to attempt the mission. When you are riding with Luisa to the mission, the player has the option skip the journey which will take the character staright to the destination. Once at the destination the player is given a linear structured mission which has to be followed to progress but the way the player can acheive it is completely non linear. The player must kill the mexican army and recover Luisa’s friend who the Mexicans captured. You have an arsenal of weapons to choose from and various shelters and hideouts in which to progress in the level. The player knows they are progressing after they have killed an antagonist they will get given money and xperience points. The player must retrieve Luisa’s friend who was captured and take him to a safe place. On the map, the player is given a target location and a highlighted route to follow. Once the player has followed the highlighted route to its final destination, a save icon appears in the the top left hand corner of the screen and you are rewarded by XP which shows on the screen. After the mission is completed, The player is then free to do whatever they want in the open world either free roaming or travelling to another mission which is located with the characters initials.

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Red Dead Redemption is structured in a non linear open world. You must complete certain missions to progress but most missions can be completed at the players will. Red Dead Redemption has one main story which follows John Marston’s life as well as his family and friends. Some missions in the game require John Marston to kill a charcater, It is up to the player to decide which character to kill which will alter the storys narrative. The end mission is a pivotol moment in the game as the player can decide the fate of what happens to John Marston. Once the player has completed the story campaign, They can now free roam the open world exploring new towns and people. The player can also help people in distrees for money or fame.

Image Study

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I found this image i like the look of which i made a study of. what i like about the image is that it looks very much like a cartoon and i like the simplistic aspect of it which i think looks very effective. The original image is a logo for an american baseball team, I like the American baseball teams logos as they are brightly colored and feature very bold and simplistic images which I like. I made a study of this image in Photoshop where I used the grid to sketch out the image in rough and then i went over it neatly on a new layer where I then on different layers colored the image in. I used the eyedropper tool to get the same colours from the original image. Over all I am very happy with the study I made, I think it looks the same as the original. what I like most about it is the font which works very well with the theme of the image being a Lumberjack, I also like the bright colours used as it very vibrant and makes the image look more textured and three dimensional. 

Unit 01 – AO4: Explore and describe how meaning is created in media products through the interaction of different elements

Colour

The colours shown in this peice of gamplay are very bleak and washed out. The colours give a good representation of the enviroment that the clip is in as it looks dull and isolated. The colour in the enviroment look very discrete not taking the impact away from the foreground content but gives a strong sense of realism. The colours of the chacters also help the player identify who the good and bad characters are as the good characters have lighter shades of clothing on which include a brightly coloured Mexian poncho worn by John Marston the main protagonist. I think the dull colours from the envrioment and sky to the characters, animals and vehicles.

Imagery

The imagery shows an action packed battle featuring the protagonists and antagonists as they gun fight on horse back protecting a train from blowing up. The content you can see on screen immediatly give the player an understanding of the scenario of the mission. The clip is filled with rich vibrant landscapes and very detailed featured such as snakes, armadillo’s and birds. The Characters and animals have their own unique looks which gives them all a different personality which makes it more interesting to play as them.

Music

There is a strong interaction between diegetic and non diegetic sound during the gameplay. During scens of high intesity action or dramatic gameplay, The soundtrack is usually very high tempo and flows very well with the action portrayed. There are lots of sound effects during the gameplay which make the experience of playing more realistic. There are various sounds you can hear which you might not see such as bird noises, dogs barking and the sounds from nature such as the trees and bushes. There are also sound effects which help give more understaing and meaning when you play such as gun shots, other characters talking, shouting or screaming, the sound of horses galloping.

HUD

There is not a lot of information on the screen to help the player as the gameplay takes up most of the screen. There is a Small heads up display shown in the bottom left of the screen which shows a map, you can use this to see your position and navigate around the enviroment. There is a helath bar positioned to the right of the map, this shows the player  how much life they have. To the left of the map there a blue bar which indicates how much stamina your horse has. on top of the map you can see how much ammunition you have got left. The map, health bar and stamina bar have been intergrated into one small HUD which allows the player to easily view whilst playing.

Effects

In gameplay, the player is awarded with XP (Experience Points) when killing the opposition, after every kill made, a little XP symbol bar shows at the bottom of the screen which shows the player how much more XP needed to level up. When taking damage, the screen turns a shade of red and blood splatter appears in the corners of the screen. When the character is killed, the gameplay turns to slowmotion and there is heavy blood splatter around the egdes of the screen, it also blurs out the corners of the screen.

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Little White Lies Final Cover

A04 – Behaviour

Videogames are often seen as more ‘powerful’ or persuasive in terms of messages and representation and the effect they have on the audiences. This is because the experience is more interactive and immersive than other types of media – the audience has to take an active role in the experience and assume an identity.
This is why they are many Behaviourist theories used to understand games – the idea that the audience learn behaviours through imitation.

If we look at Bandura’s 1961 Bobo Doll behaviourist theory we can see why representations of violence, happiness or behaviour could have effect on the audience. Bandura believed there was four steps to learning from others behaviour.

Bandura – observing and imitating others

attention – to absorb the knowledge

retention – being able to remember

reproduction – duplicating the action

motivation – Positive (being rewarded)

Negative (fear of punishment)

If we take this theory and apply is to the representation violence in GTA we can see how it could potential effect the audience. For example, In the game the player is taught how to pick up prostitutes in a car and then take bake their money either by shooting them or running them over.

The effect the aggression may have in real life could be to solve situations

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Liitle White Lies Gandalf Final Cover

Unit 18 Firestarter Music Video Evaluation

For this task my class and I were to produce a minute and a half music video for the song Firestarter by Prodigy. We filmed the video in the studio at college which was equipt with professional lighting and instruments. My class and I was to decide on the various roles to choose in the music video which included directing, lighting, camera operator, instrument players and vocals. My role was to be camera operator. My role consisted of filming the music video, I was accompanied my partner who helped me set up the camera and help me move around the set whilst filming. As I was filming I had to make sure to get all the various shots that were asked for. Some of the shots included close ups of the vocalist and band members, longshots and hand held shots. 

After filming the video and getting alll the various clips needed. I then with a partner had to edit the sequence. Our task was to use lip syncing to put the original soundtrack over the audio that was captured whilst filming. I started off by opening Final Cut and dragging the soundtrack onto the timeline. I then had to sync every clip with the soundtrack, I did this by placing a marker on the soundtrack when the music started and the vocals began. I then simply constructed how I wanted the music video to look. I wanted the cuts to be very fast paced to make it work more ffective eith the music. What I found to be a struggle was arranging the clips to be very fast but to make sense the the audience. Whilst editing, I also adding transistions such as blurs to dae in and out of shot which I thought looked very visually interesting. 

Unit 01 – AO4

Audience Theories

Hypodemic Needle theory – Information from texts passes into the masses conciousness of the audience unmediated the experience and intelligance of the audience is irrelevent/not relevant.

Uses and gratifications

Audience are active and approach/use media for different reasons.

e.g

• Youtube – escapism, entertainment
• Facebook, Twitter – Socialise

– Entertainment

– Personal Identity – comparing yourself with identities in the media

– Personal relationships/interaction – Identification with character consume meaida to discuss with others.

– Information/education

Lara Croft 

 

Positive

• Hyper sexualised
• Objectified
• ideal
• role model – Strong – very capable
• aspire to – Male roles
• goodie – Independant to men

Negative

• Aspiration – Might not be appropriate.
• Negative body image
• Ideal idea of women
• Still sexualised despite capability

UNIT 01 – AO4: Discuss the effect of representation in media products on target audiences/consumers

Semiotics

Study of signs:

• Signifier – The form that you can see
• Signified – The idea or mental constructs created by the thing or form

e.g. A male toilet door. The male toilet door generates ideas to what could be behind the door being sterotypical things you would expect to see behind the toilet door.

• Denotaion – What you can litteraly see
• Connataion – The cultiral or emotional association

Representation

Cage of identity:

• Gender
• sexuality
• Age
• Class
• Disability/Ability
• Region
• Ethnicity

Representaion is a process:

Stuart Hall, an academic said, “Texts are encoded with meaning by the creators. The audience and then decodes the menaing “

• Preffered or dominant reading which is closest to producers inteded meaningly.
• Negotiated reading – The audience agree with some meaning but regrets some parts.
• Oppositional reading – The audience is in conflict with the text itself and its meaning.

Stereotypes

An example of a stereotype could be a negative stereotype “A widly held but fixed and over simplified image or idea of type of person, froup or thing”

Objectification

• Seeing a person as a thing disregarding their personallity, self capability.

Sexual Objectification:

• An instrument of sexual pleasure.
• Negative  body image

Sandbox games Male and Female characters

Elizabeta Torres (Grand Theft Auto IV)

 

Elizabeta “Liz” is a charcater in Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) and The Lost And Damned (2009). Elizabeta’s role within the game is a high end drug dealer in Bohan in Liberty City. Elizabeta is very successfull and well connected, She has employed both Niko Belik and and Johnny Klebitz. She has a very strong and threatning appearence. She likes to wear clothes that could be considered to be indecent and lower class as she likes to wear animal printed tops and fur coats. The way she moves and speaks in the game makes her out to be threatening and dominating, She uses a lot of hand gestures and movements when she talks. Elizabeta was born in 1977 in Puerto Rico though the LCPD thinks she was born in Bohan Liberty City. She claimed that she killed a man who tried to rape her when she was less than 14 years old. When Elizabeta was 14 years of age, she moved to Bohan, Liberty City, during this time, she started her drug dealing business, shortly becoming very wealthy and successfull. Elizabeta’s has good gun skills as she often involved in gang wars and makes a strong leader. Elizabeta appears to be one of the strongest and threating females compared to others in GTA IV who are usually the damsels in distress or prostetutes which are just seen as an instrument of sexual pleasure.

Bonnie MacFarlane (Red Dead Redemption)

Bonnie MacFarlane is a major charcter In Red Dead Redemption. Her role within the game is a primary ally of John Marston. She is forst seen on the train from Blackwater where she is visiting her one surviving brother. Bonnie rescues John by the road after he is seriously wounded. Bonnie pays for him to seek medical attention and then provides a lodging for him whilt he recovers. Bonnie is the owner of MacFarlans ranch. She had six brothers but five of them died from illness or foolish choices. Bonnie is a very independant women as she manages the ranch herself, She is equipt with two weapons, a reveolver and the Repeater Carbine which she uses to defend her territory. Bonnie has a very working class life, she wears working clothes which include a very plain dress with a blouse and a waistcoat. She has her hair tied back and looks as though it is not looked after, She also does not wear makeup. Bonnie is very skilled at her working life as well as defending her territory. Compared to other women in the game who are mainly showgirls for the mens sexual plesure, Bonnie is very strong and proactive and will hold out well if she were being attacked.

Niko Bellic (Grand Theft Auto)

Niko Bellic is the main protagonist in GTA IV. Niko spent seven months on a cargo ship from eastern Europe which eventually smuggled Niko into Liberty City. Niko grew up in Yigoslavia, present day Serbia, where he fought in the Yugoslav wars. He later worked for organized crime sydicates in Liberty City. Niko moved to Liberty City beacuse he wanted a new life by living the american dream with his cousin Roman Bellic. Niko assisted Roman with his gritty taxi depot where he then went into organised crime for various mafia bosses. Niko is very protective over his faily and friends. He is withdrawn among strangers but has good manners and shows a softer side with with various love interests. Niko’s overall appearence is a scruffy with his shaved head and unshaven stubble, He has a very basic dress sense consisting of tracksuit bottoms with a turtle neck sweater and plain brown or greay coat. His animtion gives off a threatening appearence bu the way he walks and talks. He is a very strong character who can easily fend for himself in any situation. Compared to other charcters such as Bruce Kibbutz who likes to live in luxury, Niko doesnt mind ‘Slumming’ it in various safehouses across the city and living rough.

Yusuf Amir (Grand Theft Auto – The Ballad Of Gay Tony)

Yusif Amir is a billionaire real estate developer in Grand Theft Auto The Ballad Of Gay Tony (2009) Yusif was born in 1977 in Dubai to Abdul Amir, an extemely wealthy real estate developer. Throughout his life, Yusuf seeks to impress his father, a highly conservative businessman who frowns upon Yusuf’s life a reckless orgy of sex, drugs and spending. Yusuf was born wealthy as he claims to have a golden train which was given to him as a child. Yusuf is very relaxed and carefree man. He almost never worries about the problems in his life. Yusuf is also very cheerful and hyperactive. Yusuf Is a very skilled businessman and always gets his own way even if it means buying it. His only weakness would be his father who he always tries to impress and seeks gratification from. Compared to other male characters in the game, he is very strong because of his wealth.

Grand Theft Auto represents crime and violence as a positive thing. It is what the game thrives on and if there were no crime or violence it would not demonstrate what makes Grand Theft Auto what it is. Even the title of the game is about stealing cars. The crime in GTA is glamorised to give the character happines as they are rewarded. In the game, you are asked by gang leaders to kill another gang in which the character will be awarded with luxury items including cars, boats and houses as well as money and the character kills many gang members without any hessitants or worry about the law.

Audience Theories

Hypodemic Needle theory – Information from texts passes into the masses conciousness of the audience unmediated the experience and intelligance of the audience is irrelevent/not relevant.

Uses and gratifications

Audience are active and approach/use media for different reasons.

e.g

• Youtube – escapism, entertainment
• Facebook, Twitter – Socialise

– Entertainment

– Personal Identity – comparing yourself with identities in the media

– Personal relationships/interaction – Identification with character consume meaida to discuss with others.

– Information/education

Lara Croft

 

Positive

• Hyper sexualised
• Objectified
• ideal
• role model – Strong – very capable
• aspire to – Male roles
• goodie – Independant to men

Negative

• Aspiration – Might not be appropriate.
• Negative body image
• Ideal idea of women
• Still sexualised despite capability

Behaviour

Videogames are often seen as more ‘powerful’ or persuasive in terms of messages and representation and the effect they have on the audiences. This is because the experience is more interactive and immersive than other types of media – the audience has to take an active role in the experience and assume an identity.
This is why they are many Behaviourist theories used to understand games – the idea that the audience learn behaviours through imitation.

If we look at Bandura’s 1961 Bobo Doll behaviourist theory we can see why representations of violence, happiness or behaviour could have effect on the audience. Bandura believed there was four steps to learning from others behaviour.

Bandura – observing and imitating others

attention – to absorb the knowledge

retention – being able to remember

reproduction – duplicating the action

motivation – Positive (being rewarded)

Negative (fear of punishment)

If we take this theory and apply is to the representation violence in GTA we can see how it could potential effect the audience. For example, In the game the player is taught how to pick up prostitutes in a car and then take bake their money either by shooting them or running them over.

The effect the aggression may have in real life could be to solve situations

This gallery contains 1 photo.

The Hobbit Little white cover Draft This is my first Little White Lies draft cover, I like the the shading for Gandalf’s skin tone but I think it needs more blending to make it look more realistic and to tidy … Continue reading →