Below is a selection of past exam clips from Section A. Have a go at writing your own analysis at home.
Clip 1: Age
Clip 2: Gender
Clip 3: Sexuality
Clip 4: Gender
Clip 5: Gender
Clip 6: Disability
Clip 7: Ethnicity
Showing posts with label AS Exam Topics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AS Exam Topics. Show all posts
Thursday, 24 April 2014
Monday, 10 February 2014
The Film Industry - Scheme Of Work
Areas of Focus.
• the issues raised by media ownership in contemporary
media practice;
• The
importance/influence of the ‘big six’: Disney, Paramount, Warner, Universal,
Columbia and 20th C.Fox
• The
problems smaller film companies have.
• the importance of cross media convergence and synergy
in production, distribution and marketing;
• Internet, newspapers, radio, television,
billboard posters, Social Media (Facebook/Twitter) etc.
• the technologies that have been introduced in recent
years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange;
• Such
things as Netflix, Love Film, 3D, home cinema, Digital camera/projector.
• the significance of proliferation in hardware and
content for institutions and audiences;
• Eg. 3D,
Digital Camera/projector, home cinema, Smart TVs, Laptops, Tablets , the effect
of Piracy etc
• the importance of technological convergence for
institutions and audiences;
• Internet, Netflix, Love Film, home cinema, Smart TVs,
Laptops, Tablets etc. , Social Media like Facebook and Twitter.
• the issues raised in the targeting of national and
local audiences (specifically, British) by international or global institutions
• How are we targeted? How much choice do we
have?
• the ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of
media consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour.
• Where,
When and How do you watch films? What do you watch? How typical are you?
Piracy?
The Film Industry Scheme
of Work.
1.
The Exam -
Make notes on the key points from the Main PowerPoint Slides 3-6.
2.
The Basics –
the chain of events -- Make notes on the key points from the Main PowerPoint
Slides 7-10.
An
introduction to the problems faced by small, British independent film companies
and the way they overcome these problems.
3.
‘Films of a Life’. - Make notes on the key points
from the Main PowerPoint Slides 132-160
4.
‘Shifty’ a
successful ‘micro budget’ film - Make notes on the key points from the Main
PowerPoint Slides 109-131
5.
Film 4- Make
notes on the key points from the Main PowerPoint Slides 44-58.
In
contrast an introduction to the big six film companies and the importance of
the Blockbuster (some Case Studies)
6.
The ‘Big Six’ Production Companies - the importance of Blockbusters - Make notes on the
key points from the Main PowerPoint Slides 15-24
7.
“Iron Man 3- including the importance of the Chinese market.
Make notes on the key points from the Main PowerPoint Slides 210-240
8.
“The Hunger Games” (look out for how the next film in the series is being promoted) – Make notes on the key points from the Main
PowerPoint Slides 161-200
9.
“Prometheus” - Make notes on the key points from
the Main PowerPoint Slides 201-209
The Chain – Production, Exhibition and
Distribution.
10.
Film Production - make notes on the key points from the Main PowerPoint Slides 11-44.
11.
Film Distribution (including marketing / publicising a film)
12.
make
notes on the key points from the Main PowerPoint Slides 58-98
13.
Film Exhibition make notes on the key points from the Main PowerPoint Slides 99-108
…………………………………………
14.
Past Questions from slides 242 onwards.
You must make sure you can answer all of these questions before the
examination.
Monday, 27 January 2014
Is Hollywood's Blockbuster Model Broken (From BBC)
|
It may have lacked a generation-defining event
movie like 1977's Star Wars, or even a technological ground breaker like 2009's
Avatar, but 2013 was still the year of the Hollywood blockbuster.
This year, 26 films costing more than $100m (£61m)
each were released by the major Hollywood studios - more than ever before. They
are likely to have raked in tens of billions of dollars in worldwide box office
revenues as a result - close to the record $35bn (£21.5bn) delivered in 2012.
Some of the films did badly. The Lone Ranger,
starring Johnny Depp, barely made back the $250m it cost to make. But the hits
outweighed the flops: Iron Man 3 took $1.2bn in box office receipts around the
world, topping the charts and making it the fifth highest-grossing film of all
time.
But despite the runaway successes, there are
concerns within Tinseltown that blockbuster budgets are getting dangerously
high.
Bankrupted
"There's eventually going to be an implosion,
or a big meltdown," said Hollywood elder statesman Steven Spielberg in a
speech earlier this year. "Three or four or maybe even a half dozen
mega-budget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that's going
to change the paradigm."
It has happened before. In 1980, Heaven's Gate effectively bankrupted
United Artists. The budget for the sprawling Western got out of control, the
film bombed, and the studio was forced into a takeover by MGM.
Hollywood watchers say it's a statistical certainty
that another bomb to rival Heaven's Gate, or even 1995's Waterworld, is around
the corner. But the difference, they say, is that modern Hollywood studios are
equipped to cope.
After a wave of acquisitions in the 80s and 90s,
the six "majors" that dominate global box office are now parts of
massive media conglomerates. They have found ways to both boost profitability
of their films and mitigate the risks associated with making such huge investments.
HIGHEST-GROSSING FILMS OF 2013 WORLDWIDE
1.
Iron Man 3 (Walt Disney) - $1.2bn
2.
Despicable Me 2 (Universal) - $919m
3.
Fast & Furious 6 (Universal) -
$789m
4.
Monsters University (Walt Disney) -
$744m
5.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
(Lionsgate) - $730m
6.
Man of Steel (Warner Brothers) -
$663m
7.
Gravity (Warner Brothers) - $642m
8.
Thor: The Dark World (Walt Disney) -
$620m
9.
The Croods (20th Century Fox) - $587m
10.
World War Z (Paramount) - $540m
Source: Box Office Mojo
The first thing the studios have done is spread the
risk by getting dozens of smaller production companies to invest alongside
them, reducing their exposure to a potential flop.
Revenue streams
The second thing is that they have made the success
of their films almost a sure thing.
Recent research by British film academics John
Sedgwick and Mike Pokorny has found that not only have blockbuster films become
more profitable over the past 20 years, they have become more reliably
profitable: in the late 80s just 50% of major studio films turned a profit. In
2009 it was 90%. Flops have become rare.
"[Studios] are ruthlessly good at getting
returns from their investments," Prof Sedgwick says. "Hollywood has
got better and better at it. The more you spend, the more you get back. It
seems to me to be an extraordinarily successful model."
How have the studios achieved this?
The first step has been to generate new revenue
streams. In the early days of Hollywood, 100% of revenues came from ticket
sales. Now it's just 20%. The rest of the money comes from television
licensing, DVD sales, merchandising and other commercial deals.
"Blockbuster films are not really films,"
says Charles Acland, a professor of communication studies at Concordia
University in Montreal, and author of the book Screen Traffic. "They are
in fact very elaborate 'tent-pole' business models that connect all sorts of
different commodities in all sorts of different industries."
The second step has been to look beyond the domestic US market, where
cinema audiences aren't really growing, and look overseas to developing markets
such as China.
Iron Man 3 earned two-thirds of its revenues
outside of the US. The Chinese version of the film even had four extra minutes
of footage, featuring Chinese actors and half a dozen Chinese product
placements.
Finally, the studios have become incredibly
risk-averse in terms of the types of films they produce. Instead of taking a
chance on new directors and original ideas, they produce tried-and-tested
franchises, remakes and book adaptations.
Communal experience
A look at this year's top 10 highest-grossing films
reveals just two original screenplays - animation The Croods and 3D epic
Gravity. In both 2012 and 2011 there were none in the top 10.
As a mark of the power of the franchise, The
Amazing Spider-Man was released last year, and Sony has already pencilled in
dates for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, 3 and 4 stretching until May 2018.
That's on top of Spider-Man 1, 2 and 3 released
between 2002 and 2007.
Hollywood faces challenges. Executives are sweating
over a virtual collapse in DVD sales in recent years amid the growth of online
streaming services such as Netflix. The major conglomerates that control the
studios are seeing profits faster at their television arms than in the film
industry, and are cutting costs.
But perhaps the more worrying long-term problem is
what Charles Acland calls "aesthetic bankruptcy". The blockbuster
business model necessarily leads to making bad movies.
The perception that Hollywood peddles lowest common
denominator crowd-pleasers at the expense of "serious" cinema means
screenwriting talent is increasingly moving over to television. This year
director Steven Soderbergh threatened to quit altogether.
But while blockbuster franchises continue to bring
in billions worldwide, there is little sign that Hollywood will change its
ways.
"If you want a shared communal experience of
the film that everybody's talking about right now, then you go to the movie theatre,"
Prof Acland says. "The blockbuster is very stable in Hollywood. It's not
going to go away any time soon."
Monday, 20 January 2014
Monday, 3 December 2012
Thursday, 7 April 2011
EXAM TOPIC: SHIFTY
This powerpoint is all about the film "Shifty". You will definitely write about this film in the exam!
a
AS MEDIA: EXAM TOPIC: ISSUES RAISED BY MEDIA OWNERSHIP
Here is the powerpoint covering the key exam area "issues raised by media ownership".
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
AS MEDIA: EXAM TOPIC: The Dark Knight - A Case Study
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Shifty Website
Here is the link to the Shifty Website
http://www.filmeducation.org/shifty/introducing.html
http://www.filmeducation.org/shifty/introducing.html
Friday, 18 March 2011
"4,3,2,1" - Distributing a British film
The film "4,3,2,1" is a British film by Noel Clarke (director of Kidulthood/Adulthood. It was distributed by Universal Pictures. This powerpoint covers the marketing and promotion of the film as well as information about the release strategy.
This case study can be used in Section B of the AS Media Studies exam.
This case study can be used in Section B of the AS Media Studies exam.
View more presentations from robertclackmedia
Thursday, 3 February 2011
AS MEDIA - British Cinema
A helpful introduction to British Cinema and some of the key issues it faces.
AS MEDIA (G322 - TV DRAMA) Practice Question
To get ready for the AS Media Studies exam in May you should practice making notes on a 5 minute TV drama clip. You shoud watch the clip 4 times, you are not allowed to take note on the first viewing in the exam.
Organise your notes into the four micro elements (Mise-en-scene, Cinematography, Editing, Sound) to ensure you cover each of the key areas in detail.
Remember the question will ask you to discus a representational area. You could get a clip from any TV drama. It does not matter if you have never watched that show - although watching lots of TV drama will help your studies. Topics likely to come up in the exam are; Gender, Age, Sexuality, Class and Status, Physical Ability, Race and Ethnicity, Regional Identity.
Below is a clip from a past exam and the question that came with it. Practice analysing the clip and answering the question. In the exam you will get 45 minutes to write the essay so make sure you give yourself the right amount of time.
Discus the ways in which the representation of age is constructed in the clip from "Monarch of the Glen.
Organise your notes into the four micro elements (Mise-en-scene, Cinematography, Editing, Sound) to ensure you cover each of the key areas in detail.
Remember the question will ask you to discus a representational area. You could get a clip from any TV drama. It does not matter if you have never watched that show - although watching lots of TV drama will help your studies. Topics likely to come up in the exam are; Gender, Age, Sexuality, Class and Status, Physical Ability, Race and Ethnicity, Regional Identity.
Below is a clip from a past exam and the question that came with it. Practice analysing the clip and answering the question. In the exam you will get 45 minutes to write the essay so make sure you give yourself the right amount of time.
Discus the ways in which the representation of age is constructed in the clip from "Monarch of the Glen.
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