Preliminary Task.

This is my finished preliminary task.

Media Propp and Todorov

Narrative Structure

      Propp                                     

    Preparation
    Complication
    Transference
    Struggle
    Return
    Recognition.

 Tororov

    Equilibrium
    Disruption
    Recognition of disruption
    Attempt to repair disruption
    A return or restoration or NEW equilibrium.

Propp's Theory Says            Meaning                                             Back To The Future.

Preparation          -      A community or family is in an ordered state of being.   Marty is at school. His mum doesn't like his girlfriend much. Everything else is fine.   

Complication  - The Villain harms a member of the Hero's family.   Biff bullies Marty's dad.       

                          The Hero plans action against the Villain.     Marty goes back to 1955 and gets his dad to stick up to Biff.

Transference        The Hero is given a magical gift 

                   The hero arrives at the place he can fulfill his quest.       Marty arrives at the Enchantment under the sea dance. 

Struggle.     There is a struggle between the hero and the villain.    Marty's dad punches Biff.

Return          The hero escapes.                                  Marty plays a song at the Enchantment under the sea dance.
                              A task is set for the hero.                      Marty has to get back to the present day. 
                        
                           The hero accomplishes the task                Marty returns to present day. 
Recognition.   The hero is rewarded.                Marty has a new 4x4 and his dad is rich and successful and his mum likes his girlfriend.                               




Propp's Character Types.

Character                                                           Example

Hero                                                                   Marty         

Villain                                                                  Biff 

Prize                                                                    Jennifer  
Mentor                                                                 Doc
Helper                                                                  Doc
Blocker                                                                Biff + Stepdad
Dispatcher                                                            Doc

Main Task storyboard.

 This is the first shot, a close up of someone waking up .

 Brushing their teeth, another close up.

 A medium long shot of the door closing behind our character.

  A close up of the key going into the lock in the door and turning.

 The door swings open. Shot filmed from inside the house.


This shot i could have filmed because i can be seen filming in the reflection in the mirror.

 The character's feet walking in the door. I added a scene of him taking his shoes off.
This scene i think is slightly too dark to see whats going on clearly.

  Our character looks in drawers and under various items to see if anything is missing because the door was unlocked.

 A close up of texting

 A close up of him watching TV, to signify that he carried on with a normal day after seeing things were the same.

 Medium long shot of the stages of making a cup of tea.

 He hears noises and looks out of the window to see our protagonist walk past.

He then proceeds to go outside with a torch and look around. This is a long shot filmed from outside the house.

 He comes back indoors.

 A medium long shot of our male running hot water into the sink, preparing to wash his face.

 a close up of the running water. This shot is a few seconds longer than the rest, this signifies that the hot water is important.

 A medium long shot of the steam rising onto the mirror.

 Our male splashed water onto his face twice and washes his face.

 He looks up at the mirror and sees words .
SLEEP WELL, that have appeared on the mirror.

 An overhead shot of our male twisting and turning unable to sleep.

 Our male wakes up and roughly repeats his day, except he has toast this time round. To get a sense of pace and routine i quickened this second sequence.

 His daily routine gets round to washing his face before bed.

 Once again the steam is on the mirror.

As the words start to appear, our character rubs his eyes and the screen fades to black.









On the whole i think my filming was quite successful. With my backing track, it was a fairly dramatic opening title sequence. I slipped up because i didn't manage to edit out the end text, 'in cinemas soon'. If i could improve my opening title sequence, i would use some more transitions. Not too funky, just subtle ones to enhance the tension. Also i would edit the title so it fades away gradually before the sequence starts fully. That way half of it won't be missed.

Main Task Evaluation

In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Some usual forms and conventions are the music preceding the images, i stuck to this convention because think this successfully creates the mood and tone of the piece.


The position and timing of the credits in my piece aren't the usual. The title of the film stays on screen for the first few frames of my sequence. I challenged convention with the credits in my piece, from BD productions, i used a zoom and fade out whereas credits usually just pop up and fade from a black screen.
I used a lot of close ups, inspired by the film 127 hours. Another convention is to use an establishing shot then go through introducing all the characters and creating a sense of enigma. I challenged this by going right into the problem. As im unknown to the public, i need it to be interesting, i have to to capture the interest of the audience and keep them from 'clicking off.' The first few seconds of the piece are crucial, interest needs to be captured quickly. I focused on the character over the location because again, keeping the interest of the audience is key, it would have been boring if a minute was spent going over the location. The use of music throughout my sequence wasn't the most mellow music, it was quite dramatic, but it worked really well, with transitions and scene changes working in time with the music.
I used a mirror in my piece, i liked it because i got to play with reflections, i had to make sure it wasn't cliched, for example the protagonist appearing in the mirror behind the victim. I didn't want to follow the cliche of Candyman, with the protagonist appearing and killing the victim, it would have been too mainstream and i wanted to do something different.  


How does you media product represent particular social groups?
I used young adults in my piece.
The victim in my piece is a Black British young male.
Black characters are victimized.
Nathan Anthony, the main role in my sequence said "The black one always dies first"

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why ?
Illegal downloads.
Upload it onto YouTube or blogger to get views.
An art-house cinema or amateur companies.

Who would be the audience for your media product ?
Thriller or horror lovers .
Young adults, this is because they can access it on smart phones or tablets through the internet.
Young adults aged 18-25

How did you attract/address you audience ?
With the genre, its typically older people that enjoy the suspense of Horror/ Thriller movies.
Casting a young person as the main role helped too, if it was some old guy, the chances of it looking more interesting aren't very high.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I learnt how to use Sony Vegas, an editing programme.
How to use the camera equipment successfully.
Also the different shot types and the length of the scenes
Also how to storyboard successfully, in an organized way.
Time organization, getting my piece filmed took two days once i had organized timing and got the cast sorted.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product ?
Ive learnt more shot types and how to film them successfully.
Patience definitely, not to rush the filming.
To get too much footage so there is extra to play with.
A lot about editing, transitions and effects.

Women In The Media.

Bella Beats Bond as tough Teenager.

The latest Twilight has knocked Sky-fall of it's Us chart perch, and now a host of other films starring action heroines is in the pipeline as Hollywood takes it's cue from the huge sales success of young adult fiction.

Twilight's Bella is far from alone when it comes to active young heroines invading cinematic territory usually occupied by male characters. Paving the way for a wave of new aggressive tougher feminine stars.

Melissa Silverstein says that it's gigantic, that is has shown women can fuel box office.
One thing however that Hollywood is trying with it is to replicate the Twilight films success, telling stories of  young powerful female characters in setting not usually associated with them.

The most obvious example of that being the Hunger Games, set in a brutal futuristic dystopia where the bow wielding heroine is a ferocious young girl called Katniss Everdeen.

In 2013 another supernatural series, Beautiful Creatures will get its turn in cinemas. The main character of Lena, a 'caster' whose magical powers can be claimed for good or evil on her 16th birthday, is to be played by young actress Alice Englebert.

This year will also see the first Mortal Instruments movie, featuring Lily Collins as Clary Fray, a young girl battling demons who have kidnapped her mother.

Angel-fall, the first movie from another adaptation from a young adult book with a female protagonist, and which takes place in a post apocalyptic Earth.

The trend has even reached the world of animation. Pixar released Brave, its first ever film with a female lead, a scottish princess called Merida, who is far more skilled with a bow and arrow than any of the male characters in the film.

One thing that has struck the many observers of the trend is that the young female characters , emerginf in post Tmilight Hollywood are not overly sexualised. Instead they wield weapons, lead other characters and exist in film genres, such as horror, dystopian science fiction and post apocalyptic settings, where strong male characters have usually dominated.

The character of Everdeen is dominant and strong including over her purative love interests. These girls are not wearing bikinis, its not just about showing skin.

Many experts wold argue that the trend is still unlikely to reverse deep rooted sexism in the world of movie making. Silverstein pointed out that while Hollywood now seems content to make action movies with strong, young female leads it is still risk averse when it comes to strong adult womens roles.

It seems Hollywood are still not comfortable in taking the progress made with teen movies and turning that into the more grown up spectrum of entertainment. "Girls can be powerful and strong. Women can't, we are  comfortable with girls kicking arse, but not a woman who is in their twenties or thirties unless that happens to be Angelina Jolie. but she is an anomaly. Silverstein said.

It is unlikely then, many observers believe that the success of Twilight and the movies that it has paved the way for will do much to change the balance of power in favour women elsewhere in the industry . Women will struggle to find good roles and high wages compared to their male co stars, they will still find sitting in the directors chair a rare experience and they will still be troubled by the industry's persuasive ageism. a recent study of family oriented films are likely to be friendlier to female roles than else where. It showed that only 11% feature girls and women in roughly half of the speaking parts. It also showed that while women make up 47% of the labour force in the US, they occupy only one of five jobs featured in family films.

Just 11% of directors are women and just 13% of editors. Overall 26% of people working in the movies are women. A figure that had moved up a mere five percentage points over the last 15 years.

Why are Black British Actors Heading for the US ?

Black British Actors

Acclaimed actor David Harewood hit out last week at the lack of strong parts for black actors.


When Resident Evil is released in cinemas in the autumn the arrival on screen of the man they call The One, the mysterious leader of a commando unit, may surprise British audiences, and its not because he was chopped up into pieces by a laser in the first of this franchise of American action films. No, the reappearance of The One is unexpected because he is played by British actor Colin Salmon.

Salmon, 49 is part of a growing group of distinguished black British stars making big budget US film and television projects to supplement a British acting career. but weather black talent is drawn to Hollywood by he money or more by the substantial roles on offer is not clear.

David criticized the British TV industry for failing to take risks with black casting. " Unfortunately there aren't really that many roles for authoritative, strong black characters in this country. We just don't write those characters, its a fact., i don't want to trash this place but i do think there is a certain lack of ambition in terms of telling a global story."

Fellow black actors Idris Elba and Adrian Lester have both executed similar a manoeuver.

"its not possible to sustain a film career by just working in Britain, black or white, whoever you are." Lester said last year.

David Oyelowo, the first black actor to play an English king in the royal Shakespeare company's 2001 histories series starred in last years release The Help and now has a part in Steven Spielberg's Abraham Lincoln.

The strong evidence that worthy parts only come to those black actors who travel is disputed by the iconoclastic US director Spike Lee.  " They know nothing about black people"
Lee's words echo that of Viola Davis " I find that when you;re a black character, you only have maybe seven puzzle pieces to work with all the time... really all you have is funny, strong, dignified, sassy, and that's pretty much it."

Pam Grier made the same point,  speaking in Torronto she said " I know a lot of African American women that they had lived it as little girls. It brought back horrible memories and they couldn't see it, nor will they read the book."

Star Wars director George Lucas complained about how hard it was to make the money make Red Tails, his film about black US airforce pilots because there were no white stars. The film was eventually completed and made 19 million at the box office on its opening weekend in the US last month.

British actor Giles Terera who played Sammy Davis Jr in the West End says " A friend of mine who just came back from LA said what black actors always say. Go out there and get parts rather than just playing another drug dealer or mugger over here."

Terera has noticed that while actors of mixed race are cast in black roles they are not cast in white roles. He said "It's more difficult to be black anyway, not just in the theatre. When i went to hail a taxi in London, i know it;s going to take three or four before one will stop for me."

Terera played Horatio in Hamlet at the National last year and remembers a friendly older white audience member explaining to him that Horatio would never have been black in real life.
The actor felt like pointing out that the actors were all speaking English not Danish.

Cush Jumbo, star of the National's new production Stoops To Conquer is more optimistic " The majority of roles i have played so far have been classical and that is not what i expected, having grown up in Lewisham and having a bit of a South London accent, and i hope that it was not because the director wanted to make a statement."

Jumbo believes there is good television work for black talent in Britain too. " I understand what David Harewood is saying though, because there is so much good quality television made in America. Here it's about having an agent who will push you towards the roles that are non-colour specific... When i go back to the Brit School to talk to kids, i especially the black kids, i will tell them to make themselves the most versatile actor they can. That way you can give them "The kid from the council estate" if they want, but you can also give them Shakespeare's Rosalind." 

Kathryn Bigelow.

Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an oscar for directing. But her new thriller about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden stands accused of endorsing torture.


When Osama Bin Laden was killed by special forces two years ago, Kathryn was in deep preparations for a new movie, about the failure to capture him during the early stages of the war in Afghanistan.
They has scouted locations in Kazakhstan and were preparing to helicopter in to Bagram and Jalalabad to see the terrain they'd be trying to replicate.


When the news of his death came in, it blew apart the project. When news of the death came in Bigelow said that " I think our first thought was, well at least we have a third act."


Bigelow and Boal, who has successfully collaborated on The Hurt Locker three years earlier realised that it was not a third act, but in fact the entire story. Not even its harshest critics dispute that Zero Dark Thirty is a beautifully made film. There is almost no back story for the characters, just the grinding sense of mission that propels people working in extraordinary circumstances.

Bigelows approach to the film has been clearly influenced by her experiences on the Hurt Locker. Bilgelow justifiably won the 2010 oscar for best director , the first woman to win that category. She is firmly of the belief that commenting excessively on womens restrictions in hollywood only compounds their ghettoisation. " If there's a specific resistance to women making movies, i choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons , i cant change my gender and i wont stop making movies."




She says Zero Dark Thirty is " A real tribute to the men and women in the intelligence community who obviously have to, by the nature of their job, work in complete secrecy. it's a nod of respect and great gratitude." The difficulty here is that expressing respect and gratitude to those involved in controversial interrogation techniques is not quite the same as expressing gratitude to those in the relatively neutral field of bomb disposal. 


Bigelow's first big hit, Point Break, starring Keanu Reaves and Patrick Swayze established a certain musclarity of style, which bigelow consolidated with Blue Steel, Strange Days and in 2002, K-19: The Widowmaker.

Occasionally there's no avoiding it,. The morning of  the interview, the novelist Brett Easton Ellis tweets that Bigelow 'would be considered a mildly interesting film maker if she was a man, but since shes a very hot woman, shes really overrated."


She says " Women i think are sort of the unsung heroes, i was first of all surprised to learn that women are at the centre of the hunt. And i was sort of surprised that i was surprised, you don't think of a young woman being a terrorist hunter."

Does she think women should be able to serve on the frontline? " You know, i don't know, i can't imagine why not."


Making Zero Dark Thirty took Bigelow a year. Making the film was like an epic puzzle. and she sheepishly confesses that that's one of the things she likes best " Logistics - i know it sounds crazy but i do enjoy it because ifs like finding order out of chaos."


When she gives any thought to the vastness of the story and to the racdioactive sensitivity of so many of it's elements, she reassures herself that "As a film maker, its a responsibility to engage with the time i live i. You're kind of creating as imagistic version of living history."