Lighting Types

Lighting types

Key:

The key light is the first and usually most important light that a photographer, cinematographer, lighting cameraman, or other scene composer will use in a lighting setup. The purpose of the key light is to highlight the form and dimension of the subject. The key light is not a rigid requirement; omitting the key light can result in a silhouette effect. Many key lights may be placed in a scene to illuminate a moving subject at opportune moments.

Fill:
In television, film, stage, or photographic lighting, a fill light (often simply fill) may be used to reduce the contrast of a scene and provide some illumination for the areas of the image that are in shadow. A common lighting setup places the fill light on the lens axis, roughly perpendicular to the key light.
Back:
Backlighting refers to the process of illuminating the subject from the back. In other words, the lighting instrument and the viewer are facing towards each other, with the subject in between. This causes the edges of the subject to glow, while the other areas remain darker. The backlight can be a natural or artificial source of light. When artificial, the back light is usually placed directly behind the subject in a 4-point lighting setup.

High Key:
High-key lighting is a style of lighting for film, television, or photography that aims to reduce the lighting ratio present in the scene. This was originally done partly for technological reasons, since early film and television did not deal well with high contrast ratios, but now is used to suggest an upbeat mood. It is often used in sitcoms and comedies. High-key lighting is usually quite homogeneous and free from dark shadows.
Rim:

The back light (a.k.a. the rim, hair, or shoulder      light) shines on the subject from behind, often (but not necessarily) to one side or the other. It gives the subject a rim of light, serving to separate the subject from the background and highlighting contours.

Chiaroscuro:

Chiaroscuro is also used in cinematography to indicate extreme low-key lighting to create distinct areas of light and darkness in films, especially in black and white films. Classic examples are The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) and the black and white scenes in Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979).

Oustanding films 2011

	The King’s Speech	127 Hours	Another Year	4 Lions	Made in Dagenham
Story and plot	Tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stammer and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country through war.	127 Hours is the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah. Over the next five days Ralston examines his life and survives the elements to finally discover he has the courage and the wherewithal to extricate himself by any means necessary, scale a 65 foot wall and hike over eight miles before he can be rescued. Throughout his journey, Ralston recalls friends, lovers, family, and the two hikers he met before his accident. Will they be the last two people he ever had the chance to meet?	A married couple who have managed to remain blissfully happy into their autumn years, are surrounded over the course of the four seasons of one average year by friends, colleagues, and family who all seem to suffer some degree of unhappiness.	Four Lions tells the story of a group of British jihadists who push their abstract dreams of glory to the breaking point. As the wheels fly off, and their competing ideologies clash, what emerges is an emotionally engaging (and entirely plausible) farce. In a storm of razor-sharp verbal jousting and large-scale set pieces, Four Lions is a comic tour de force; it shows that-while terrorism is about ideology-it can also be about idiots.	In 1968, the Ford auto factory in Dagenham was one of the largest single private employers in the United Kingdom. In addition to the thousands of male employees, there are also 187 underpaid women machinists who primarily assemble the car seat upholstery in poor working conditions. Dissatisfied, the women, represented by the shop steward and Rita O'Grady, work with union rep Albert Passingham for a better deal. However, Rita learns that there is a larger issue in this dispute considering that women are paid an appalling fraction of the men's wages for the same work across the board on the sole basis of their sex. Refusing to tolerate this inequality any longer, O'Grady leads a strike by her fellow machinists for equal pay for equal work. What follows would test the patience of all involved in a grinding labour and political struggle that ultimately would advance the cause of women's rights around the world.
Actors	Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helen Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Jennifer Ehle, Michael Gambon. (Mostly English), A few stars.	James Franco, Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara	Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville (English)	Will Adamsdale, Riz Ahmed and Adeel Akhtar (English)	Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins and Andrea Riseborough
Director	Hooper (English), also did ‘The damned united’.	Danny Boyle (English) also did Slumdog Millionare and 28 Days Later	Mike Leigh (English)	Christoper Morris (English)	Nigel Cole (English)
Style	Moving sort of film	Same as the kings speech really	Quirky film of family life with humour	Terrorism comedy	Discrimination
Genre	Biography/ Drama	Adventure/ Biography/ Drama	Comedy/ Drama	Comedy/ Drama	Comedy/ Drama/ History
Production company	See- saw films and Bedlam productions	Pathe, everest entertainment	Film4, thin man films and FFI	Film4, Wild Bunch	BBC films, audley films
Distribution	Promoted on Tv regularly, on the radio, posters.	Tv regularly, radio, posters, website etc	Occasional promotions, not too much.	Tv, posters, fair bit	TV quite a lot, posters, internet
Exhibition	7th January 2011	7th January 2011	5th November 2010	7th May 2010	1st October 2010

Representation of 'Englishness in Midsomer Murders'

Midsomer Murders has recently been in the media spotlight because of the producer Brian True-May saying comments such as "We're the last bastion of Englishness and I want to keep it that way”. This was taken quite badly, especially by ethnic minorities who feel like they are under represented in TV dramas, particularly Midsomer Murders where there is no racial diversity and everyone is of White English origin. ITV suspended him, and subsequently he stood down from his position as producer, as the allegations were likely to damage Midsomer Murders as a program so he decided to stand down.

He said also that part of the appeal of the show was the ‘very English’ element of it, and to an extent, the way in which the components of the show, including characters and mise-en-scene are shown, is very surreal. Brian True-May said that having ethnic minorities would undermine the authenticity of the program but the program as it is, is arguably unauthentic as it is. It seems as if the program is stuck in a warp between the 50’s and the 90’s. There are some new features, such as new phones or new cars, but these are a rare commodity and the characters are very suspicious of modern day technology.

To get some examples of the representation of ‘Englishness’ I shall be using the first episode, of the first series. In this first episode we have the traditional representation of the old woman. In it, we have a picture of her with a cup of tea, some old looking books and a dial telephone. This is so stereotypical of how English people are, as apparently we all drink tea. And the other two are typical things enjoyed by old women. The picture is built up to show the typical English old woman. All elements of the scene lead the viewer to believe that the program could be set 40 years ago; however there are several indicators to show that this is not the case. Although the majority of the scenes are quintessentially English in their appearance, there are a couple of little things that show you that the village is indeed set in the present day, with characters or items of mise-en-scene that are current.

What is interesting is that Midsomer Murders is broadcast over many different countries, and when these people watch the program, then they surely must build up a sub-conscious stereotype, and Midsomer Murders is not an accurate representation of the current cosmopolitan society. I do believe that they are somewhat correct to not represent ethnic minorities due to the fact that in many rural areas, including my own, there are very few ethnic minorities. This however does not mean that the representation of the White English people should be what is shown in Midsomer Murders. The stereotype represented is true and does occur, however this stereotype does not account for a large proportion of the population, as shown in Midsomer murders.

Another inaccuracy in the representation of Englishness in Midsomer Murders is that English people, on the whole, are not highly cultured mass murderers. This plentitude of murders and the surreal nature of the village and the people leads to a bizarre program which does not represent the rural population of England very well. However, as a program this inaccurate representation is the very component that enables it to be such a successful program, and however much the ethnic minorities may not enjoy their lack of involvement, I’m sure that they don’t mind watching a bit of Midsomer Murders.

Skins

How does the Skins promo trailer create representation of young people?

 

The Skins trailer, to represent young people in the way it targets, has to use editing, camera angles and movement, sound and mise-en-scene effectively so that the viewer can get a clear idea of what the skins trailer is trying to represent to them through the trailer.

Some representations can be drawn about young people from just the very little editing of this trailer. There are short, intense cuts between each clip, and these clips are very brief lasting just a couple of seconds. However short the clips are, it does give us quite an idea about exactly what’s involved in this party. The short intense cuts from scene to scene represent how fast moving young people’s lives are. The cuts could also represent how fast childhood really goes.

Most of the camera angles appear to be POV and this creates the feeling of you, the viewer, almost being involved and it can show even better from close up exactly what’s going on at the party. The party starts out all fun and light-hearted but then throwing up and other events occur and it becomes clear that what started as harmless fun has degenerated into something totally out of control. A similar effect can also been seen with there being a selection of low camera angles in the first half show that the characters are superior to the rest of the world at this point but is contrasted with high angle shots in the second half showing that they don’t have control and maybe representing young people as not being sensible or even in control of their lives at an extreme. Also the youths aren’t particularly fully clothed and also we can see their faces and most of what’s going on, leading to a deliberate representation of a lack of discretion and privacy. Once again, this makes the audience feel involved and gives them an insight.

The sound track “Standing in the way of control” along with the drugs and copious amounts of drink being taken in this trailer shows that the characters don’t have much control over any events that might happen next.  The song is key in showing the audience how the party transforms - The song is upbeat and fast paced emphasising the speed of which childhood passes to becoming an adult. The music slows down in the middle of the trailer when the party takes a turn for the worst. At the end of the trailer the music slows right down and pretty much dies out indicating that the party has come to an end and all the people involved are incapable of much anymore.  This may represent how young people may well be out of control but to the point where they can’t take it anymore and need to sleep.

Much of what is represented in the Mise-en-Scene is either child-like (water guns) or lipstick (more grown up), this shows that although the young people are growing up they are still young people with elements of children in them. The drug use is completely radical to the party, and because of the excessive usage in the trailer, people viewing this may well be given the representation that young people all take illegal substances such as drugs. The reason they think this is because drugs shown are highly illegal and this shocks the audience into remembering this for quite some time.  Maybe the children objects such as bear suits represent them developing into adults but still part of them being a child.

To conclude, the representation of young people in this trailer is highly negative and it shows young people only doing these crazy things at a party, and so from the only evidence given, people are inclined to believe that this is exactly what every single young person does. Parts of the demographic indeed do all of this crazy and wild stuff but then there are several sub-groups which don’t and are quite different.

Narrative Theories

• PROPP’S THEORY –Vladimir Propp’s theory was formed in the early twentieth Century. He studies Russian fairytales and discovered that in stories there were always 8 types of characters evident. These are: the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princess and her father. He did not state these characters were all separate people e.g. the provider could also be the helper. There are only 8 different character types and only 31 things they ever do. Once you have identified the character type (e.g., the hero) it’s easy to guess what they will do (save the maiden, defeat the villain, marry the maiden or whatever) because each character has a sphere of action. This is easily relatable to films and programmes today.

• BARTHES’ ENIGMA CODE – The narrative will establish enigmas or mysteries as it goes along. Essentially, the narrative functions to establish and then solve these mysteries.

• LEVI-STRAUSS’ BINARY OPPOSITION – Narrative tension is based on opposition or conflict. This can be as simple as two characters fighting, but more often functions at an ideological level.

•  TODOROV’S THEORY – Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with an equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative).

http://www.esfmedia.com/page/Narrative+theory

The Male Gaze

In the essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey introduced the concept of the male gaze and in film, the male gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a straight man. A scene may linger on the curves of a woman's body, for instance. Laura Mulvey argues that the male gaze takes precedence over the female gaze. So basically, it follows with the idea of sexualisation of women and it appears that the male gaze is much more popular than the female gaze.


Some bits taken from www.wikipedia.org ...

Thriller Evaluation

Evaluation of our thriller

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

We thought very carefully about the many conventions of thrillers and we took these into consideration and decided that to get a good idea of what a thriller should really be like, we should try, for the main part, to adhere to the conventional style of thrillers.

For costumes this was especially present because we decided to adopt the conventions of colours indicating characters. So we had our ‘victim’ all in white, and our killer in mostly black.  This is important because it indicates, without dialogue, to our viewers just what role the characters are to play. We needed this because we had decided that dialogue wouldn’t suit our production at all and would distract from the intensity of the chase. 

The location was also very important to our production because we wanted to convey a sense of isolation (which incidentally is what our film is called) and we felt that a forest would be ideal for this, and the location was probably one of the first things decided on in our group discussions. We decided that a conventional chase in a conventional location would work well. Usually chases are conducted in forests and spooky atmospheres so we all discussed possible locations that we knew, and could use for our production. The location was vital to many aspects, particularly the shots and storyboard; we had to decide on the shots with close reference to the location.

The soundtrack was actually rather difficult to implement because we wanted it to be just right, the tone of it, the intensity, the beat. We decided that to make one would be take far too long so we decided that we would search for a pre-made, un-copyrighted soundtrack. This took us a fair amount of time because we found several which were alright, but eventually found one that fitted perfectly. 

The lighting was also used to develop conventions of thrillers because we, as a group, have watched many different thrillers and we noticed that generally thrillers were set in dark lighting scenarios so we decided to adopt this aspect, particularly as dark scenes are especially prevalent in scenes such as chases, like in our opening. 

The plot was the very first decision that we made, and all our other aspects of production were based on the plot. We decided on a plot in a group discussion and we basically brainstormed for a couple of hours and eventually decided on some sort of chase, because we felt this developed and used the usual thriller convention of having a tense chase, usually with much suspense. We were tempted to dip into the sub-genre of horror but we decided that the special effects needed for such a project were beyond our resources if they were to work effectively.

Our title was the last thing to be decided on because we had extreme difficulty in deciding on the title as we all had conflicting ideas on what our production meant to us, and thus we wanted the title to reflect what our production was really about. We looked at concepts of thrillers such as running water and bars and tried to explore these and we collated some ideas but eventually decided that we would, in our feedback session, ask what the film should be called, and pluck some ideas from this. We got the name 'Isolation' from this session and we all decided that this reflected our production better than any other names we had thought of so we decided on that one.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We only have two characters in our production and they both conform to thriller conventions pretty solidly. Our first character, the victim, is a typical thriller victim. Having watched several thrillers we decided that it would be easier for our audience to stereotype and identify the victim. The first part of this was the fact that the victim was female. It is classic in thrillers for the victim to appear as an innocent female and we played on this concept. Another concept with the victim that we used is that she is wearing white. This is very important to he audience, because they usually associate people in white as being innocent and good. Race wasn't really taken into consideration that much because we didn't want to cause things such as subliminal racism. Social class isn't really shown too much in the victim, as there is little indication given of this. These conventions help the audience to quickly profile the victim as just that. 

We also decided that it would be a good idea to follow up this victim stereotyping with the chasing 'killer'. Our killer was all suited up in black, except for his mask, and we decided that the mask should be whit so it contrasted with his costume. The killer is wearing all black to show the audience immediately that he's a bad guy, although from the first shot of him holding a bloody knife this is quite clear. Gender isn't particularly clear from the shots of the killer, but the general manner hopefully leads the audience to believe it's a male character. Race and social class are also hidden, and it is left to the audience to stereotype the killer and to decide what the killer is like. These usual conventions in thrillers that the audience have previously viewed make their minds up for them with gentle help from our representations.

3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

We actually distributed our production on YouTube, and we decided to do this because of the huge potential audience that we could attract from placing it on there. YouTube has the largest potential audience possible and as such it would be widely distributed. Another key feature of YouTube is that it is absolutely free to upload our production to it and as such will not require any kind of budgeting. 

We also decided to upload our production to facebook because we thought that on facebook, our target audience was very similar to the people that would be viewing it so we thought that it would be a good idea to distribute it on there and once again the audience would be relatively large. And another thing was that it would be free once again to upload it to facebook, reducing our costs of distributing our production. However, this will not generate any profit and so distributing it via the medium of mp3 players because if we could get it onto iTunes or a similar website then we could generate plenty of revenue, again it would have a large target audience. Getting the film into cinema as a feature film would be difficult due to the expenses of such distribution and also are film doesn't particularly challenge conventions of thrillers so it isn't particularly unique but we feel that it is effective in what it does so releasing it on DVD would be a better alternative, also we would generate higher revenue from releasing it on DVD format. 

4) Who would be the audience for your media product?

We aimed to target people of a similar age and demographics because we felt that we would be able to target them more effectively because we have expert knowledge in that certain area. Our audience research showed that 90% would be 15-17, showing that we needed to aim for that age group to attract the largest audience. We researched their favourite genre of films and found thriller to attract only 15% but also that 20% enjoyed action and 20% enjoyed horror films so if we could create a thriller with sub-genres of horror and action involved we could attract a much larger audience. The audience that we aimed for would enjoy thrillers such as I Am Legend because this involves all three of our genres (thriller, action and horror). Unfortunately 80% of our audience researched preferred to watch films in cinema as opposed to 20% preferred DVD's. However, people generally watch more DVD's as opposed to cinema trips due to convenience and price. 

So we decided to aim for an audience of around our age, with interests in thrillers, action films and horror films because this fitted our criteria and catered for a large proportion of the audience. 

5) How did you attract/ address your audience?

We encouraged audiences to make the assumptions about our film, but we carefully directed them so that they would be shown the particular assumptions that would be correct. We made our opening with the intention that the audience would be enthralled and willing to watch the rest of the film. We gave them subtle clues, such as the flashes of the guy in the bedroom, so that they would be left wondering what was going on, but giving them indications that would tease them and make them wish to watch the rest of the film, because if we failed to capture the audience with the opening scene, we may lose them as audience, because first impressions are the ones that last, as well as the last ones.