Throughout the past 2 years I have been on multiple trips and have been on placement which has enabled me to meet already established individuals in the media industry and gain experience working in a media environment.
I've been on numerous trips to the University of Sunderland. In each of these trips we've used the media studio and taken part in recording our very own production (ranging from a quiz where we battled in teams, a fictional sports report and an interview with a former professional footballer called Danny Collins). Not only have we gained experience using industry style equipment we've also been able to talk to students and lecturers at the uni gaining some great insight onto how university is and what working in a professional production is like. I thoroughly enjoyed each of these trips as university has been something I am going to do in the future and having these experiences has made me a lot more confident and excited for September, in these visits I used the camera, and the teleprompter in multiple recordings and the more I did it the more I felt I could hold myself in a production. This experience also made me realise that I want to attend this university, and I don't think I would've been so certain had I not been on these trips, I was always eager to visit. I also went on a trip to Teeside University in Middlesbrough which we had a talk from two journalists, one was from LadBible and the other was freelance, despite journalism not being a subject that intrigues me as much as film it was still an informative talk, showing just how the industry works and just how much hard work is needed to make it into the industry. The trip to Teeside gave me an insight into what student life is like, it was great walking around campus realising that university is not just an educational institution but a social experience which is another factor that motivated me to pursue further education. Finally, I did a placement at the Sunderland AFC fanzine A Love Supreme (ALS) which is the biggest unofficial magazine for the football club, I met the owner who told me about his career in the music industry as well as publishing, he told me about his connection to musical acts. They showed me around their offices where they make merchandise for the company (such as shirts and badges) which showed just how much work goes into a media related business and it was an experience for me, speaking of merchandise I made badges for the fanzine and another business located in the same area, most specifically I made badges for a well known band in Newcastle. Not only did I help on the merchandising side of things I had access to their social medias, I would make posts about the club giving the fans a platform to be able to freely talk about matters relating to the team. I would also mail products to people who'd bought them. it ultimately showed me just how much work goes into a business and made me realise that if I was to own my own media company it'd take a lot of work to make it successful
Saturday 13 June 2020
Sunday 24 May 2020
Unit 11 - Radio Production
The pre-production for our Radio Drama was a new venture for myself and my classmate. Radio is very different from what we were originally used to in our past media projects over the years. The radio itself is a lot different from film and television, with radio being just audio it presents different challenges.
Before we did any recording myself and Ryan Lock were given our extract of the script (who I worked with) and we went through the script and labelled the parts of the script where we thought the non-diegetic sound was necessary. We sourced these effects from the BBC and sites such as Freesound, we read through the script and we labelled where we thought the sound would be more effective, we looked over the script multiple times making sure that we didn't miss any opportunity to add an effect. We didn't use much foley sound as we believed that already existing sound effects could convey meaning better than foley could, that being said we did spend a few minutes creating our own and seeing how well it sounded, we created our own sounds for footsteps which we ended up not using, looking back we probably should've used more just in case we couldn't find the sounds we needed. We also spent time thinking of how we would act out parts of the script. For example: did certain lines in the script need to be said with more emotion to create the intended effect for the scene? There were some parts of the script that we felt needed some small changes, so we made some small alterations to the script, although they were minor. During the 'argument' we decided that we needed to say the lines louder and with more emphasis, as this argument was about a character needing to go back to their wife and as it is a delicate subject matter, any argument on the matter would be tense with a lot of emotion, specifically with the line 'you need to be with your wife Frankie' was a line that we chose to make louder as such a powerful statement needs to stand out from the rest of the script.
On our first day in the studio, we needed to get used to how everything worked and how we would set up for production, this involved needing to plug wires in, plug microphone and plugging the two speaker wires in also (we would do this by plugging in the microphone into the back of the computer) in and then log onto the computer to set up the recording software that we were using (This was Adobe Audition), before we would record we would always have a test recording, this is strictly to test that the microphones are working and that the audio is up to the standard that is required. If it wasn't we would usually just restart and set up all the equipment again and if that didn't fix it, we'd get help. We recorded using only one microphone which didn't set us back as much as I thought it would, as we only had one script we often had to sit over the shoulder of one another which would cause a few issues here and there but ultimately we learned to get used to it, and the recording sessions were successful and we got what we needed recorded without issue. We ran into a few issues throughout the production but the main issue was that in the studio we would record in had an air vent above where the recording equipment was, this meant that we had to say lines a lot louder than we would've wanted, however it was a positive as referenced before there were certain lines we would say louder, so when it came to these lines it wasn't an issue as we had to be louder because of the air vent, also we could counter this issue by editing the audio in post production by raising the decibels. A problem I believe we all didn't think we'd run into was just how much harder voice acting was. As someone looking in you would assume that voice acting is the easiest acting job you get, because unlike other acting jobs, all you need to do is talk, no stunts and no need to do anything extra. We all shared this sentiment when we first walked into the studio, we assumed that it would be easy, it wasn't as there'd be times where we'd be doing lines and one of us would stutter ruining the audio, I remember that we'd be more relaxed as we'd have conversations almost every minute of everyday so we simply thought: we're doing what we do every day, so it was a shock to us when we'd have frequent mistakes. To combat this issue we would have a read through the script before we'd start recording, we'd repeat the lines to each other so we would be more comfortable, as while recording we would sometimes get nervous as we wouldn't want to ruin the record, the irony being that the more we worried the more often we would make mistakes. Like I've referenced many times throughout this was my first time making a radio drama, and as the weeks progressed I was slowly noticing the same mistakes over and over again, and with any mistake, you need to find a solution and I believe that the main solution is that we simply needed more 'experience' working in radio-dramas, our lack of experience with the equipment and editing software did bring us down somewhat, occasionally when we'd set up equipment we'd accidentally not turn on one speaker switch and then when we'd go and record it would a ringing sound, small mistakes like this is a key example of our lack of experience, and I do believe that if we had a few months worth of studio time we'd have a much more successful time.
After finishing the pre-production aspect we then moved onto post-production and this is where we'd be able to get the best quality out of our audio. As referenced before there was an air vent that was above where we'd record, so in Adobe Audition we would certainly need to edit the audio so it was usable. How we'd do this is on Audition we would click on the audio that needs to be edited, go onto the effects menu and click noise removal, there we can choose how we want to edit the audio, we play around with the different settings that are available, we then settled on lowering the decibels which in turn improved the audio. The reason we did this is that we knew that we needed to as the air vent was in every part of our recording, so before we even got into editing we knew that we'd have to deal with it. Also, we spent a long time recording audio and we couldn't have it ruined by an air vent, despite the audio not being perfect we edited it to the best quality that it can be. We also added in the aforementioned sound effects that we downloaded from the sites cited earlier, as we'd managed to edit the air vent noise out of the audio it made it a lot easier to insert the audio as we weren't distracted by any sounds that shouldn't be there. Finally, after a long editing process we finally were finished our radio drama, before being able to say that we were certainly finished. We listened to our whole production from start to finish more than once just so we wouldn't miss any potential edits that we might've needed to do, we wanted to make sure and despite it being a tedious thing for some, I'd rather be safe than sorry. As a precaution we had all the audio and effects that we recorded backed up just in case our file corrupted and we needed to do the entire edit again, the reason we did this as in our past media projects we've all suffered this at least once, losing an entire project through something that wasn't your fault and needing to do an entire edit again (it's happened to me before and the frustration at needing to do it again is something that I wouldn't want to experience again).
Before we did any recording myself and Ryan Lock were given our extract of the script (who I worked with) and we went through the script and labelled the parts of the script where we thought the non-diegetic sound was necessary. We sourced these effects from the BBC and sites such as Freesound, we read through the script and we labelled where we thought the sound would be more effective, we looked over the script multiple times making sure that we didn't miss any opportunity to add an effect. We didn't use much foley sound as we believed that already existing sound effects could convey meaning better than foley could, that being said we did spend a few minutes creating our own and seeing how well it sounded, we created our own sounds for footsteps which we ended up not using, looking back we probably should've used more just in case we couldn't find the sounds we needed. We also spent time thinking of how we would act out parts of the script. For example: did certain lines in the script need to be said with more emotion to create the intended effect for the scene? There were some parts of the script that we felt needed some small changes, so we made some small alterations to the script, although they were minor. During the 'argument' we decided that we needed to say the lines louder and with more emphasis, as this argument was about a character needing to go back to their wife and as it is a delicate subject matter, any argument on the matter would be tense with a lot of emotion, specifically with the line 'you need to be with your wife Frankie' was a line that we chose to make louder as such a powerful statement needs to stand out from the rest of the script.
On our first day in the studio, we needed to get used to how everything worked and how we would set up for production, this involved needing to plug wires in, plug microphone and plugging the two speaker wires in also (we would do this by plugging in the microphone into the back of the computer) in and then log onto the computer to set up the recording software that we were using (This was Adobe Audition), before we would record we would always have a test recording, this is strictly to test that the microphones are working and that the audio is up to the standard that is required. If it wasn't we would usually just restart and set up all the equipment again and if that didn't fix it, we'd get help. We recorded using only one microphone which didn't set us back as much as I thought it would, as we only had one script we often had to sit over the shoulder of one another which would cause a few issues here and there but ultimately we learned to get used to it, and the recording sessions were successful and we got what we needed recorded without issue. We ran into a few issues throughout the production but the main issue was that in the studio we would record in had an air vent above where the recording equipment was, this meant that we had to say lines a lot louder than we would've wanted, however it was a positive as referenced before there were certain lines we would say louder, so when it came to these lines it wasn't an issue as we had to be louder because of the air vent, also we could counter this issue by editing the audio in post production by raising the decibels. A problem I believe we all didn't think we'd run into was just how much harder voice acting was. As someone looking in you would assume that voice acting is the easiest acting job you get, because unlike other acting jobs, all you need to do is talk, no stunts and no need to do anything extra. We all shared this sentiment when we first walked into the studio, we assumed that it would be easy, it wasn't as there'd be times where we'd be doing lines and one of us would stutter ruining the audio, I remember that we'd be more relaxed as we'd have conversations almost every minute of everyday so we simply thought: we're doing what we do every day, so it was a shock to us when we'd have frequent mistakes. To combat this issue we would have a read through the script before we'd start recording, we'd repeat the lines to each other so we would be more comfortable, as while recording we would sometimes get nervous as we wouldn't want to ruin the record, the irony being that the more we worried the more often we would make mistakes. Like I've referenced many times throughout this was my first time making a radio drama, and as the weeks progressed I was slowly noticing the same mistakes over and over again, and with any mistake, you need to find a solution and I believe that the main solution is that we simply needed more 'experience' working in radio-dramas, our lack of experience with the equipment and editing software did bring us down somewhat, occasionally when we'd set up equipment we'd accidentally not turn on one speaker switch and then when we'd go and record it would a ringing sound, small mistakes like this is a key example of our lack of experience, and I do believe that if we had a few months worth of studio time we'd have a much more successful time.
After finishing the pre-production aspect we then moved onto post-production and this is where we'd be able to get the best quality out of our audio. As referenced before there was an air vent that was above where we'd record, so in Adobe Audition we would certainly need to edit the audio so it was usable. How we'd do this is on Audition we would click on the audio that needs to be edited, go onto the effects menu and click noise removal, there we can choose how we want to edit the audio, we play around with the different settings that are available, we then settled on lowering the decibels which in turn improved the audio. The reason we did this is that we knew that we needed to as the air vent was in every part of our recording, so before we even got into editing we knew that we'd have to deal with it. Also, we spent a long time recording audio and we couldn't have it ruined by an air vent, despite the audio not being perfect we edited it to the best quality that it can be. We also added in the aforementioned sound effects that we downloaded from the sites cited earlier, as we'd managed to edit the air vent noise out of the audio it made it a lot easier to insert the audio as we weren't distracted by any sounds that shouldn't be there. Finally, after a long editing process we finally were finished our radio drama, before being able to say that we were certainly finished. We listened to our whole production from start to finish more than once just so we wouldn't miss any potential edits that we might've needed to do, we wanted to make sure and despite it being a tedious thing for some, I'd rather be safe than sorry. As a precaution we had all the audio and effects that we recorded backed up just in case our file corrupted and we needed to do the entire edit again, the reason we did this as in our past media projects we've all suffered this at least once, losing an entire project through something that wasn't your fault and needing to do an entire edit again (it's happened to me before and the frustration at needing to do it again is something that I wouldn't want to experience again).
Thursday 23 April 2020
Unit 5 - Specialist Subject Investigation
Activity 1
In the media industry has evolved over the past decades in regards to the LGBTQ community yet in my personal opinion there's still a way to go until I could say that they're represented in a positive way. When I first set out writing this response, I asked people what they thought, what did they think of how the LGBTQ community has been represented in the media. The first response I had believed that the community has been hindered by the belief that they're 'shoved' down peoples throats (exact quote: they're painted very negatively with phrases like "shoving" their ideas down their throats when sexuality is infact how you feel) what this means is that people believe that the community is being 'forced' into peoples lives, criticisms of modern media believe that shows and films only include characters to 'pander' to the LGBTQ community. I believe this to be an unfair and unfavourable response, as people who make these points often don't realise that even today, LGBTQ characters only made up for 10% of the characters in the current season which proves that despite strides being made there's still a lot more that media companies can do to accurately and fairly represent the community at hand. It's unfair that the LGBTQ community isn't represented the same as the heterosexual community as regardless of sexuality, we're all still people and it's disheartening that there's still a lot of progress to be made.
A prominent example is the treatment of George Michael, the former singer from Wham!, during the time Michael was in the public eye he was arrested for 'engaging in a lewd act' following a sting operation by police, this occurred in 1998 and at the time it was big news that the news organisations milked for everything that they could. The Sun, a newspaper widely disliked in the UK had a front-page mocking the incident, with the headline being 'Zip Me up Before you go-go' a reference to the song 'Wake Up Before you go-go' by Wham which perceived the act in an almost comedic tone, the Sun was treating George Michael's sexuality, something that took a vast toll on his mental health as nothing more than a headline which showed just how little they cared for the effect that it would have on Michael. Michael had suffered with depression following the loss of his mother and his partner to aids which is something that the Sun didn't take into account, which shows just how unfairly the community had been represented, you wouldn't see this sort of headline if it were a heterosexual person that had been arrested for the act Michael had, there was still inequality and media coverage proved it. It proves just how much the LGBTQ community suffered, this headline was only around 20 years ago which is still relatively modern, it shows that the community back then were exploited and made a mockery out of and were seen as nothing but money makers. Another example that was even before the Michael incident made aware to me via the stimulus material caused much controversy and was even spoken about in Parliament.
The show Eastenders made history as in 1987 it aired the first on-screen kiss between the characters Barry Clark and Collin Russell. Immediately the show was drowned in complaints from disgruntled viewers with many voicing their disgust at the kiss (with homosexuality only being decriminalised 20 years prior), again, the media jumped onto this and further fueled the outrage that was being felt throughout the country, The Sun had been the paper that voiced their anger the most with them writing articles that jokingly referred to the show as 'Eastbenders' and before this, the gutter paper had argued against the inclusion of gay characters (Bender is a derogatory term used by homophobes). Parliament had questioned whether the show was right in airing this kiss as at the time AIDs was sweeping through the UK, with the horrid implication that the LGBTQ community are the main 'carriers' of the disease, which wasn't the case, in contrast to the previous reference it shows the hostility that the community faced, there was so much rampant homophobia that even a simple scene of 2 men kissing (with the kiss itself being a simple forehead kiss) was met with hysteria, people couldn't believe that the LGBTQ community were allowed to be represented on such a well-known television show and the disgust that they felt was not criticism, it was rampant abuse, which only shows the hardships that this community has had to endure for decades. As imagine if you're a member of the LGBTQ community during the 80's in the UK and seeing your sexuality so despised and hated that your own government seeing it as 'inappropriate', calling this unfair would be the understatement of the century. Luckily the attitude to the community has vastly improved and vile homophobic news outlets have gradually died out (Unfortunately, the Sun are still in business) showing that the public won't stand for this intolerance anymore. These two examples are a key point as to why there needs to be more representation in the modern media as even today there are still people (who're a minority now) who still spout hateful abuse towards the LGBTQ community.
The sad thing is that the LGBTQ are people just like us, and realising how they were treated not too long shows that we need to do more, as referenced earlier many 'critics' believe that the LGBTQ community are being forced onto us, I respectfully disagree. The reason why it may seem 'forced' is the simple fact that there was rarely any representation for them to begin with, and giving them more representation isn't just pandering, it's showing the equality that they've deserved all long and the representation nowadays is making up for the past, which even still isn't nearly enough. Luckily the public attitude has changed, we're a more accepting society and there's now a degree of equality.
Activity 2
Whilst writing you come across an abundance of sources, some accurate and some not-so-accurate and in any academic work you need to verify the authenticity of them and verify if these sources support the argument that you're making.
In Activity 1 I made reference to multiple sources. And I needed credible sources in order to make the point I was making more reliable. My first main source was The Independent, a UK news organization which provided the sources about George Michael which I cited. With prior knowledge about the UK newspaper industry, I've known and trusted most of what the Independent has said for quite a long time, however, just because I think they're reliable doesn't always mean that they are accurate. Realising this, I conducted some research into the apparent 'bias' of the Independent, to do this I used various independent 'fact-checking' sites which verify whether a media group has a bias or not. The reason that this is important is that a media organization need to be neutral, they cannot be perceived to favour one group over another as the entire reason we have news organizations is that the public can be informed on all the goings-on in the world and if an organization is seen to be lying then you could question everything they say. After research on multiple websites, they all concluded that the Independent was verified to have 'high' factual reporting, meaning that we can trust what they have to say meaning the source I quoted is reliable and can be quoted in my answer. Also, The Independent is a paper that isn't afraid to point out the rampant homophobia in the media today, showing that they're an ally of the LGBTQ community, meaning that not only are they seen to be factually correct, but not discriminatory meaning again that there's no underlying political agenda at stake. Despite it being a secondary source it's clear that there's positive intent in their reporting, they're not trying to dehumanize the LGBTQ community, they're writing the truth with a neutral stance.
Furthermore, I cited a blog entitled 'Gay in the 80s' which is a blog that I took particular interest in when I stumbled upon it. With it being a blog it's at a disadvantage, blogs are independent meaning it's usually run by a single person or volunteers. Blogs have an advantage as they're not tied down like newspapers are, papers have to abide by certain guidelines whereas blogs have free-reign to post whatever they'd like to, blogs can be used as an informational tool, meaning that they can inform the public whilst also being educational. The papers have a duty to inform but not educate, making blogs just as beneficial as papers if not better. And a blog allows readers to have discussions, allowing people to express their opinions and have discussions showing that for the reader blogs are a better source because as referenced above, there's no need to follow certain guidelines and being able to print whatever they see fit. Compared to the mainstream organizations, they haven't got anywhere near the resources a professional news organization has which makes it a lot more difficult to write, as reporters have the advantage of multiple sources, multiple reporters and a lot more influence than a blog, a lack of resources can be an issue but a well-written blog can rival even the highest quality of paper. Regardless, a blog can also run into the same problems a paper can have, however, I find it important that this blog, in particular, is run by a person who has had experience with the exact topic that their blog is about, as a blog on LGBTQ issues it's almost a given that the author has experience of the issues that the community faces. The reason that this source is credible is that most of their posts come from experience when they write about the issues they do it comes from years of oppression and a goal to make the LGBTQ community better represented in the media, their blog is doing this each and every day and that's why I feel that this source is one that can be relied on.
Activity 3
The conclusion that I've come to during my research is that the statement that 'The lack of LGBTQ characters in mainstream media, and reliance on outdated stereotypes, does not represent the LGBTQ community in a fair and balanced way' is very accurate and I support it completely. My conclusions are: that the community is actively discriminated against for their sexuality despite it being irrelevant, people should only be judged on their personality and attitude, not their sexuality.
The LGBTQ community I believe are discriminated against in media coverage as the majority of stories about the community is usually bias against them, I've used real-life examples showing just how rigorous the media are in writing hatred against the community with the media referring to the LGBTQ community as 'benders' and multiple other derogatory comments. Although it can be argued that the attitude to the community has improved, there's still elements of discrimination in the media as in honest opinion there are still reporters that cannot accept that the community is being allowed the same rights as heterosexuals. Even in the 21st century there are still many examples of rampant homophobia and discrimination in society today. In researching, I unintentionally came across another example of blatant discrimination from a recent tweet of some man getting a match on Tinder only to see that his match is a trans woman, he decided to post a tweet of him being happy he had a match, but then looked upset that his match was a trans woman. This tweet was a prime example of the rampant discrimination that trans people face, the poster of the tweet instead of ignoring someone he wasn't interested in decided to mock and vilify someone to thousands of people online simply because of their gender, and thousands of people retweeted and liked so it shows that there are still people out there who find discrimination funny, these people think that it's a big joke but they don't realise the hardships the LGBTQ community go through on a daily basis, there are countries that consider trans people outcasts, there are countries where you could get executed if you are LGBTQ, so for people to make jokes when there are still countries that despite the LGBTQ community is extremely disheartening and it furthers the need for more representation. As long as the LGBTQ still suffers in certain nations, the more the fight needs to go on, and representation is ultimately a small step but it's necessary to gain the respect that the LGBTQ community deserves.
My main point is simple but it's still an issue, the problem with modern media's representation of the LGBTQ community is that the media somehow how trouble with treating them the same as heterosexuals, despite us all being human the media still look down on anyone not straight and it's incredibly confusing and it makes the LGBTQ community feel ignored. An example is how the media try and claim that straight people are 'oppressed' which simply isn't true, like referenced earlier, members of the LGBTQ community can be killed/jailed for their sexuality which is something that isn't a problem for straight people. The point is that anytime the LGBTQ community tries to bring attention to their issues the media ultimately assume that they're saying only their community matters, that's why the media always bring in straight people when talking about LGBTQ issues because they wrongfully assume that the LGBTQ community say that being straight doesn't matter, which proves the media's covert anti-LGBTQ stance, because they can't even talk about their own issues without something irrelevant being brought into it.
Activity 4
Like referenced above there's still a lot of work to be done before we as a society can truly say people are treated equal because of their sexuality, despite progress being made in terms of rights, there's still a long way to go. One of the changes I would make is to take online activism to real life. Social media and the internet in general is the most powerful tool in the 21st century, people can be informed about issues regarding the community and have the ability to be educated on certain topics, like the Tinder incident referenced earlier, you can educate people who are ignorant to the struggles the LGBTQ community face, as in the face of discrimination the best way to counteract hate is to educate. But, online there's nothing else you can do apart from sharing posts about LGBTQ, what people can do is show their support to LGBTQ+ support groups in different ways, such as donating to specific groups that fight every second for the rights of the LGBTQ community. Groups such as GLAAD fight for the community by providing anti-bullying resources, blogs, events and they actively push for more LGBTQ representation in media, with a yearly report entitled 'Where We Are on TV Report' which notes the changes in LGBTQ representation. In these reports GLAAD's main goal is to have 20% of characters in media be LGBTQ and right now that percentage is around 11%, which is showing that there's progress being made.
Something else that can be done is that more LGBTQ figures need to be involved with media, not just in film and television but with the news sector. In the majority of news articles, the authors aren't usually apart of the community and I believe that to be completely against the point, it's hypocritical for news organizations to say that the LGBTQ community needs more representation and not have LGBTQ writers/input into their articles. I also believe that current news organizations should not only include more representation, but they should go through their archives (past articles) and condemn past discriminatory articles, as referenced above the Sun have said some horrid and despicable things about the community in the past and those things should be condemned. That'll help the community because these papers should acknowledge that they've been the reason that the LGBTQ community has suffered for years, if these papers had morals, they would've stood up to all the discriminatory comments made by the public and past people of power, the media has immense power in society yet they allowed discrimination to run rampant for years. Society has moved on and these papers should realise their past and use it to improve themselves in the future, despite there still being some individuals who don't want society to improve and make itself better.
Activity 5
I believe that the research that needs to be done is within the modern media sector itself, I believe that we need to ask the question: why is the modern media industry so reluctant to give people of the LGBTQ community representation? It may be a simple question but in my opinion, it's a lot more than that, this question isn't one that revolves around the entertainment industry, it's a social question. There needs to be research into why people are so hostile towards LGBT, because there have been countless examples of people being hateful towards the LGBT community for no apparent reason and it'd be interesting to see why they have such a negative attitude towards the community. And if you get to the bottom of why people are hateful, maybe you can change someone's attitudes towards a community of people. The reason it's so important to get to the bottom of this is that it can be used for future media productions which in turn will get people to see them in a positive light, because film and television has been key in changing consumers view on topics and they've been effective in making people feel represented, and the LGBT community is no different. For example, the film Brokeback Mountain was a key film in LGBT media, with praise being given for its representations of LGBT characters and how it was empowering. However, it also garnered criticism from 'conservative' media and the majority of said criticism was borderline homphobic with many making derogatory comments about the movie, one cinema owner pulled the film from his cinema because of the same-sex romance, showing that even in the 21st century there are still people who don't believe in equality, which further proves the need for more LGBT media, representation and research. Incidents like this are the exact reason that research is needed into why people who are anti-LGBT are the way they are, it'd be incredibly beneficial as learning why people think what they do is key, and can be used in the future to promote equality between others.
Also, more research should be conducted into past 'events' in LGBTQ history, both positive and negative. This is needed for most of the same reasons as the prior point, research into past events can be educational and can shape peoples minds. For example, people should analyze the fight for LGBT rights, people today should learn about how homosexuality was only decriminalized (In the UK) in 1967, this is key as events like these should show just how much representation is needed, as a heterosexual male I look back on these events with shock and anger, realizing that there were people who would be penalised for their sexuality made me realise that I should use my voice for good and it's impacted the way I see media, I now see media as not only entertainment but pieces of art that can truly resonate with people. It would also have an effect on members of the LGBTQ community as it shows that many people are 'on their side', people who won't stop fighting for equality in the 21st century and won't stand for any homophobic/transphobic moments in modern-day media and will actively campaign for better representation for LGBT people. The impact of learning about past events will not only educate people on the horrors of the past, but will show that the future is key in LGBT rights as people want to create a society that is inclusive towards everyone.
Sources: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-08/representation-of-lgbt-characters-on-tv-why-stop-at-10
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/george-michael-gay-rights-wham-beverly-hills-lgbt-sexuality-hiv-aids-a7495986.html
https://www.gayinthe80s.com/2014/04/1987-television-britains-first-on-screen-gay-kiss/
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-independent/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/gay-rights-50-legalisation-homosexuality-british-
media-homophobia-day-marriage-daily-express-lgbt-a7860446.html
https://www.klusster.com/portfolios/conscious-media-publishing/contents/2254
In the media industry has evolved over the past decades in regards to the LGBTQ community yet in my personal opinion there's still a way to go until I could say that they're represented in a positive way. When I first set out writing this response, I asked people what they thought, what did they think of how the LGBTQ community has been represented in the media. The first response I had believed that the community has been hindered by the belief that they're 'shoved' down peoples throats (exact quote: they're painted very negatively with phrases like "shoving" their ideas down their throats when sexuality is infact how you feel) what this means is that people believe that the community is being 'forced' into peoples lives, criticisms of modern media believe that shows and films only include characters to 'pander' to the LGBTQ community. I believe this to be an unfair and unfavourable response, as people who make these points often don't realise that even today, LGBTQ characters only made up for 10% of the characters in the current season which proves that despite strides being made there's still a lot more that media companies can do to accurately and fairly represent the community at hand. It's unfair that the LGBTQ community isn't represented the same as the heterosexual community as regardless of sexuality, we're all still people and it's disheartening that there's still a lot of progress to be made.
A prominent example is the treatment of George Michael, the former singer from Wham!, during the time Michael was in the public eye he was arrested for 'engaging in a lewd act' following a sting operation by police, this occurred in 1998 and at the time it was big news that the news organisations milked for everything that they could. The Sun, a newspaper widely disliked in the UK had a front-page mocking the incident, with the headline being 'Zip Me up Before you go-go' a reference to the song 'Wake Up Before you go-go' by Wham which perceived the act in an almost comedic tone, the Sun was treating George Michael's sexuality, something that took a vast toll on his mental health as nothing more than a headline which showed just how little they cared for the effect that it would have on Michael. Michael had suffered with depression following the loss of his mother and his partner to aids which is something that the Sun didn't take into account, which shows just how unfairly the community had been represented, you wouldn't see this sort of headline if it were a heterosexual person that had been arrested for the act Michael had, there was still inequality and media coverage proved it. It proves just how much the LGBTQ community suffered, this headline was only around 20 years ago which is still relatively modern, it shows that the community back then were exploited and made a mockery out of and were seen as nothing but money makers. Another example that was even before the Michael incident made aware to me via the stimulus material caused much controversy and was even spoken about in Parliament.
The show Eastenders made history as in 1987 it aired the first on-screen kiss between the characters Barry Clark and Collin Russell. Immediately the show was drowned in complaints from disgruntled viewers with many voicing their disgust at the kiss (with homosexuality only being decriminalised 20 years prior), again, the media jumped onto this and further fueled the outrage that was being felt throughout the country, The Sun had been the paper that voiced their anger the most with them writing articles that jokingly referred to the show as 'Eastbenders' and before this, the gutter paper had argued against the inclusion of gay characters (Bender is a derogatory term used by homophobes). Parliament had questioned whether the show was right in airing this kiss as at the time AIDs was sweeping through the UK, with the horrid implication that the LGBTQ community are the main 'carriers' of the disease, which wasn't the case, in contrast to the previous reference it shows the hostility that the community faced, there was so much rampant homophobia that even a simple scene of 2 men kissing (with the kiss itself being a simple forehead kiss) was met with hysteria, people couldn't believe that the LGBTQ community were allowed to be represented on such a well-known television show and the disgust that they felt was not criticism, it was rampant abuse, which only shows the hardships that this community has had to endure for decades. As imagine if you're a member of the LGBTQ community during the 80's in the UK and seeing your sexuality so despised and hated that your own government seeing it as 'inappropriate', calling this unfair would be the understatement of the century. Luckily the attitude to the community has vastly improved and vile homophobic news outlets have gradually died out (Unfortunately, the Sun are still in business) showing that the public won't stand for this intolerance anymore. These two examples are a key point as to why there needs to be more representation in the modern media as even today there are still people (who're a minority now) who still spout hateful abuse towards the LGBTQ community.
The sad thing is that the LGBTQ are people just like us, and realising how they were treated not too long shows that we need to do more, as referenced earlier many 'critics' believe that the LGBTQ community are being forced onto us, I respectfully disagree. The reason why it may seem 'forced' is the simple fact that there was rarely any representation for them to begin with, and giving them more representation isn't just pandering, it's showing the equality that they've deserved all long and the representation nowadays is making up for the past, which even still isn't nearly enough. Luckily the public attitude has changed, we're a more accepting society and there's now a degree of equality.
Activity 2
Whilst writing you come across an abundance of sources, some accurate and some not-so-accurate and in any academic work you need to verify the authenticity of them and verify if these sources support the argument that you're making.
In Activity 1 I made reference to multiple sources. And I needed credible sources in order to make the point I was making more reliable. My first main source was The Independent, a UK news organization which provided the sources about George Michael which I cited. With prior knowledge about the UK newspaper industry, I've known and trusted most of what the Independent has said for quite a long time, however, just because I think they're reliable doesn't always mean that they are accurate. Realising this, I conducted some research into the apparent 'bias' of the Independent, to do this I used various independent 'fact-checking' sites which verify whether a media group has a bias or not. The reason that this is important is that a media organization need to be neutral, they cannot be perceived to favour one group over another as the entire reason we have news organizations is that the public can be informed on all the goings-on in the world and if an organization is seen to be lying then you could question everything they say. After research on multiple websites, they all concluded that the Independent was verified to have 'high' factual reporting, meaning that we can trust what they have to say meaning the source I quoted is reliable and can be quoted in my answer. Also, The Independent is a paper that isn't afraid to point out the rampant homophobia in the media today, showing that they're an ally of the LGBTQ community, meaning that not only are they seen to be factually correct, but not discriminatory meaning again that there's no underlying political agenda at stake. Despite it being a secondary source it's clear that there's positive intent in their reporting, they're not trying to dehumanize the LGBTQ community, they're writing the truth with a neutral stance.
Furthermore, I cited a blog entitled 'Gay in the 80s' which is a blog that I took particular interest in when I stumbled upon it. With it being a blog it's at a disadvantage, blogs are independent meaning it's usually run by a single person or volunteers. Blogs have an advantage as they're not tied down like newspapers are, papers have to abide by certain guidelines whereas blogs have free-reign to post whatever they'd like to, blogs can be used as an informational tool, meaning that they can inform the public whilst also being educational. The papers have a duty to inform but not educate, making blogs just as beneficial as papers if not better. And a blog allows readers to have discussions, allowing people to express their opinions and have discussions showing that for the reader blogs are a better source because as referenced above, there's no need to follow certain guidelines and being able to print whatever they see fit. Compared to the mainstream organizations, they haven't got anywhere near the resources a professional news organization has which makes it a lot more difficult to write, as reporters have the advantage of multiple sources, multiple reporters and a lot more influence than a blog, a lack of resources can be an issue but a well-written blog can rival even the highest quality of paper. Regardless, a blog can also run into the same problems a paper can have, however, I find it important that this blog, in particular, is run by a person who has had experience with the exact topic that their blog is about, as a blog on LGBTQ issues it's almost a given that the author has experience of the issues that the community faces. The reason that this source is credible is that most of their posts come from experience when they write about the issues they do it comes from years of oppression and a goal to make the LGBTQ community better represented in the media, their blog is doing this each and every day and that's why I feel that this source is one that can be relied on.
Activity 3
The conclusion that I've come to during my research is that the statement that 'The lack of LGBTQ characters in mainstream media, and reliance on outdated stereotypes, does not represent the LGBTQ community in a fair and balanced way' is very accurate and I support it completely. My conclusions are: that the community is actively discriminated against for their sexuality despite it being irrelevant, people should only be judged on their personality and attitude, not their sexuality.
The LGBTQ community I believe are discriminated against in media coverage as the majority of stories about the community is usually bias against them, I've used real-life examples showing just how rigorous the media are in writing hatred against the community with the media referring to the LGBTQ community as 'benders' and multiple other derogatory comments. Although it can be argued that the attitude to the community has improved, there's still elements of discrimination in the media as in honest opinion there are still reporters that cannot accept that the community is being allowed the same rights as heterosexuals. Even in the 21st century there are still many examples of rampant homophobia and discrimination in society today. In researching, I unintentionally came across another example of blatant discrimination from a recent tweet of some man getting a match on Tinder only to see that his match is a trans woman, he decided to post a tweet of him being happy he had a match, but then looked upset that his match was a trans woman. This tweet was a prime example of the rampant discrimination that trans people face, the poster of the tweet instead of ignoring someone he wasn't interested in decided to mock and vilify someone to thousands of people online simply because of their gender, and thousands of people retweeted and liked so it shows that there are still people out there who find discrimination funny, these people think that it's a big joke but they don't realise the hardships the LGBTQ community go through on a daily basis, there are countries that consider trans people outcasts, there are countries where you could get executed if you are LGBTQ, so for people to make jokes when there are still countries that despite the LGBTQ community is extremely disheartening and it furthers the need for more representation. As long as the LGBTQ still suffers in certain nations, the more the fight needs to go on, and representation is ultimately a small step but it's necessary to gain the respect that the LGBTQ community deserves.
My main point is simple but it's still an issue, the problem with modern media's representation of the LGBTQ community is that the media somehow how trouble with treating them the same as heterosexuals, despite us all being human the media still look down on anyone not straight and it's incredibly confusing and it makes the LGBTQ community feel ignored. An example is how the media try and claim that straight people are 'oppressed' which simply isn't true, like referenced earlier, members of the LGBTQ community can be killed/jailed for their sexuality which is something that isn't a problem for straight people. The point is that anytime the LGBTQ community tries to bring attention to their issues the media ultimately assume that they're saying only their community matters, that's why the media always bring in straight people when talking about LGBTQ issues because they wrongfully assume that the LGBTQ community say that being straight doesn't matter, which proves the media's covert anti-LGBTQ stance, because they can't even talk about their own issues without something irrelevant being brought into it.
Activity 4
Like referenced above there's still a lot of work to be done before we as a society can truly say people are treated equal because of their sexuality, despite progress being made in terms of rights, there's still a long way to go. One of the changes I would make is to take online activism to real life. Social media and the internet in general is the most powerful tool in the 21st century, people can be informed about issues regarding the community and have the ability to be educated on certain topics, like the Tinder incident referenced earlier, you can educate people who are ignorant to the struggles the LGBTQ community face, as in the face of discrimination the best way to counteract hate is to educate. But, online there's nothing else you can do apart from sharing posts about LGBTQ, what people can do is show their support to LGBTQ+ support groups in different ways, such as donating to specific groups that fight every second for the rights of the LGBTQ community. Groups such as GLAAD fight for the community by providing anti-bullying resources, blogs, events and they actively push for more LGBTQ representation in media, with a yearly report entitled 'Where We Are on TV Report' which notes the changes in LGBTQ representation. In these reports GLAAD's main goal is to have 20% of characters in media be LGBTQ and right now that percentage is around 11%, which is showing that there's progress being made.
Something else that can be done is that more LGBTQ figures need to be involved with media, not just in film and television but with the news sector. In the majority of news articles, the authors aren't usually apart of the community and I believe that to be completely against the point, it's hypocritical for news organizations to say that the LGBTQ community needs more representation and not have LGBTQ writers/input into their articles. I also believe that current news organizations should not only include more representation, but they should go through their archives (past articles) and condemn past discriminatory articles, as referenced above the Sun have said some horrid and despicable things about the community in the past and those things should be condemned. That'll help the community because these papers should acknowledge that they've been the reason that the LGBTQ community has suffered for years, if these papers had morals, they would've stood up to all the discriminatory comments made by the public and past people of power, the media has immense power in society yet they allowed discrimination to run rampant for years. Society has moved on and these papers should realise their past and use it to improve themselves in the future, despite there still being some individuals who don't want society to improve and make itself better.
Activity 5
I believe that the research that needs to be done is within the modern media sector itself, I believe that we need to ask the question: why is the modern media industry so reluctant to give people of the LGBTQ community representation? It may be a simple question but in my opinion, it's a lot more than that, this question isn't one that revolves around the entertainment industry, it's a social question. There needs to be research into why people are so hostile towards LGBT, because there have been countless examples of people being hateful towards the LGBT community for no apparent reason and it'd be interesting to see why they have such a negative attitude towards the community. And if you get to the bottom of why people are hateful, maybe you can change someone's attitudes towards a community of people. The reason it's so important to get to the bottom of this is that it can be used for future media productions which in turn will get people to see them in a positive light, because film and television has been key in changing consumers view on topics and they've been effective in making people feel represented, and the LGBT community is no different. For example, the film Brokeback Mountain was a key film in LGBT media, with praise being given for its representations of LGBT characters and how it was empowering. However, it also garnered criticism from 'conservative' media and the majority of said criticism was borderline homphobic with many making derogatory comments about the movie, one cinema owner pulled the film from his cinema because of the same-sex romance, showing that even in the 21st century there are still people who don't believe in equality, which further proves the need for more LGBT media, representation and research. Incidents like this are the exact reason that research is needed into why people who are anti-LGBT are the way they are, it'd be incredibly beneficial as learning why people think what they do is key, and can be used in the future to promote equality between others.
Also, more research should be conducted into past 'events' in LGBTQ history, both positive and negative. This is needed for most of the same reasons as the prior point, research into past events can be educational and can shape peoples minds. For example, people should analyze the fight for LGBT rights, people today should learn about how homosexuality was only decriminalized (In the UK) in 1967, this is key as events like these should show just how much representation is needed, as a heterosexual male I look back on these events with shock and anger, realizing that there were people who would be penalised for their sexuality made me realise that I should use my voice for good and it's impacted the way I see media, I now see media as not only entertainment but pieces of art that can truly resonate with people. It would also have an effect on members of the LGBTQ community as it shows that many people are 'on their side', people who won't stop fighting for equality in the 21st century and won't stand for any homophobic/transphobic moments in modern-day media and will actively campaign for better representation for LGBT people. The impact of learning about past events will not only educate people on the horrors of the past, but will show that the future is key in LGBT rights as people want to create a society that is inclusive towards everyone.
Sources: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-08/representation-of-lgbt-characters-on-tv-why-stop-at-10
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/george-michael-gay-rights-wham-beverly-hills-lgbt-sexuality-hiv-aids-a7495986.html
https://www.gayinthe80s.com/2014/04/1987-television-britains-first-on-screen-gay-kiss/
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-independent/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/gay-rights-50-legalisation-homosexuality-british-
media-homophobia-day-marriage-daily-express-lgbt-a7860446.html
https://www.klusster.com/portfolios/conscious-media-publishing/contents/2254
Tuesday 31 March 2020
Working in the Creative Media industry
The Media Industries
The UK media industry is an industry that many nations look at with admiration and envy, it has produced high-quality media for decades and will continue to do so for generations to come. There are many sectors that make up the industry, these include the film and television industry which produce short, feature-length content on either an amateur, independent and professional level to consume, film and television can also be animated, which is a style of media where pictures are manipulated to appear as moving images. They often fall into two categories, one being educational aiming to educate the audience on a specific historic figure, ideology and important events in history. Whereas the other is entertainment, content specifically produced to entertain the audience and keep them busy for an hour, these shows are popular because the audience enjoys following a well thought out story with fleshed-out characters that they feel a connection to. Publishing is another form of media that is important to modern society, publishing is most commonly associated with producing newspapers and books. Print is important as it was the first form of media to be implemented into society, many decades ago the idea of technology was still miles away and therefore it meant print was the only method of informing the public of the goings-on in the world. Print media is often associated with a so-called 'higher class' with allegedly more sophisticated people reading the newspaper. However, with the rise of the internet newspapers have been on the decline and the print companies realise this as they have made the transition to digital because in a digital age it's the only way that print companies can survive in an era of digital consumption. Books are similar to newspapers but are still different, whereas newspapers main purpose is to inform the public on the everyday occurrences of the world, books are used by the public to read about a subject in a detailed manner, books can stay with a consumer for a long time whereas the newspapers will always be different. Books also often serve a similar purpose to film and television, to tell a well-developed story that the audience has an emotional connection to, books are different as you can complete a book in segments, you can read a certain amount of pages a night and come back to it at another time, whereas compared to film and television you often need to consume it all in one sitting. Advertising is an industry that is vital to all aspects of media, advertising is used to promote a product to an audience and get them to invest in seeing said products. Often advertising was uniquely print-based, as the technology we use today wasn't around in the past, with many films/plays being advertised in the local paper which went out to thousands of members of the public per day, a study by Newsworks deducted that print advertising was more effective than digital.
The Film Industry
A1
The film industry creates a lot of jobs, with often hundreds of people needed for a professional film project, with 800 people working on the film Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse alone, which shows just how much work is needed in all aspects of filmmaking. There are many types of jobs regarding the film industry.
A director by definition is 'a person who controls the making of a film and supervises the actors and the technical crew', the director is one of the most important jobs in film production. Often the entire projects rests on the directors shoulders, they're in charge of every little detail in a film, they storyboard the shot that they would like, they're hands-on directing the actors/cameramen to get the shot that they desire, their job is turn the screenplay on paper into a film for the big screen. Many directors get their jobs by starting as other roles within the industry, some directors attend film school to achieve degrees in film (Martin Scorsese achieved a MFA in film from New York University) and move on to jobs within the industry such as screenwriters, producers and actors and then decide that they themselves want to try their hand at directing (Jason Bateman is an actor and has recently taken on more directing work with Ozark, a show which he also portrays the main role in). Directors often receive the highest praise when their film succeeds and often the brunt of the criticism when the project falls below expectations meaning the role of director brings a lot of stress, as referenced before having the entire project resting on one person can be tough for some directors, with some even turning to 'habits' to combat the stress that the ever-moving industry entails (Scorsese was known to have a cocaine habit and was close to giving up on film).
Director might be the 'biggest' and well-known role in film production but there are roles you often don't hear about which are often just as important as the director. The people who work hands-on set are key to production, with roles such as:
Camera operators - these are people whose job is to capture footage on set to fit the directors needs, this is one of the more 'active' roles as camera operators can spend hours on end on their feet, meaning this role is one of the most important and it is vital that a high-quality camera operator is used for production. The greatest camera operators are required to be good at following instruction, working in a highly stressful environment as to use a film set costs a lot of money which means that the shots they need to have to be achieved in a certain time as to save the film studio money. Often camera operators are in charge of more than getting the perfect shot, often they're in charge of picking the appropriate equipment such as the lens, the camera itself and many more small requirements.
Entertainment Lawyers - entertainment lawyers is a role that doesn't receive the attention that other roles do, but often the lawyers are just as important as the crew. They are called upon to discuss labour negations with actors and the crew and to gain the rights to use locations and music. The job of the entertainment lawyer is to get the best deal for the studio, ie; be able to purchase the rights to use a location for the best price, to handle contracts for actors to get them the best possible working contract, such as the best medical care, money and so on.
A2
Recruitment is important in every industry, and the film industry is no different. There are many methods that filmmakers connect with fellow professionals, these methods have changed over time to adapt to new technology that has made recruitment easier than ever. One method that is popular is networking, which is where up and coming members of the media industry can interact with established professionals and make contacts that will be useful in an industry where every connection counts, often networking occurs at business events which brings every industry professional together, making it ideal. There are always events going on up and down the country, which means that there's always going to be a new professional that you can meet, thus widening your options which will be useful in your career one way or another. An article by UrbanNetwork points out the same positives that I have, with them believing networking events are key as they allow you to break out of your comfort zone, linking in with the point that not only do events like these not only allow you to meet fellow professionals but they also allow you to improve your social skills which will benefit you in the long-term.
The emergence of the internet has allowed society to make massive strides. The internet and technology have allowed the film industry to create products that would've been revolutionary decades ago, the internet has also changed how people are recruited into the film industry, this is thanks to social media. One positive of social media recruiting is cost, with social media platforms being free to use it means that whoever is needing to recruit doesn't need to spend any money, which will be of convenience to them because there'll be other sectors of a media production that they will want to keep their money for, and they wouldn't want to spend money on recruitment because why would someone invest in a campaign advertising a job when social media is free and arguably a better recruitment tool? Several job advertising sites charge hundreds to advertise on their site, which makes social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin a no-brainer in company eyes. Not only is social media better value for money it allows you to deduct a person's personality without needing to talk to them, but social media can also show whether a person is quiet, loud, ambitious etcetera. It also makes the interview process easier, as users of social media often talk about their interests often, so as an interviewer social media could tell you more about a person than a face-to-face interview could. This point also can filter out the candidates that you wouldn't want to hire, if someone gets into trouble on social media often then it's a red flag, it begs the question to the employer: if this person is hired at our company, will any bad social media posts reflect badly on us? This is a valid concern as in many cases (despite this being about the film industry, I feel this point is the same for any industry) there've been people who have made out of taste posts, and people who see those posts immediately attempt to find the individuals employers and they ask the employer if the persons comment reflects on their values leading in most cases for the employer to terminate the employee who made the disparaging comments. As an employer you do not want your company name tarnished because someone can't keep out of trouble.
A3
Every job has the same contracts of employment, each industry follows the same process as everyone else. Some 'types' of employment are better than others. The most well-known source of employment is full-time employment which is when a worker works a number of hours determined by their employers. In my opinion full-time work is the best option as the benefits of working full-time vastly outweigh every other employment sector. Full-time workers are granted benefits such as: sick days, paid leave, health insurance and a lot more. Not only do employees who work full-time benefit with insurance, they have the luxury of having stable employment. They know that when they finish their work-week on Friday there'll be work the next week and they have a retirement plan which will benefit them mentally, as many workers in this new century often worry about their future, they often worry whether they'll even be able to retire, and working full-time is the sector that many people feel is best for their future. In the industry,a director will work full-time, as they're integral to
The next step in the employment ladder is part-time work. There are many reasons why a worker may choose to work part-time, students often take part-time employment so that they can earn some extra cash to support themselves through their studies and be able to study because part-time work is often 'flexible' meaning hours are usually agreed upon depending on the employees schedule, the benefit is that part-time work allows an individual to pursue other interests without being overwhelmed by full-time work, mentally it's better as there's less work to worry about meaning you would feel less stressed. However a negative to part-time work is that there are less benefits that a worker receives, less work means less income and ultimately isn't a stable career choice.
The final 'step' in the employment ladder are zero hour contracts, this means that a worker doesn't have a set amount of hours, they're only working when they need to be. It's an agreement that the worker would work when asked to, despite there being no obligation for the employee. Now, in my personal opinion, zero-hour contracts are the most exploitative contract of employment, there's no guarantee for an employee that they'll even work which employers use in order to get people in, they may not work in a week but they cannot do anything else as they already signed an agreement with the employer, employees have their hands tied behind their back. Most likely staff who work in catering on a film set may work zero-hour as there's no need for them on set permanently.
A4
Social media is a tool that many modern-day employers use to find and hire new talent like referenced earlier social media is an ideal tool as it allows you to find out a lot about a potential new employee without even meeting them, but the potential new recruit can show off their past works on social media also. A show reel is a reel of someone's past works, whether it be something they directed/starred in or even edited, usually the most exciting/well-produced parts are showed in the reel to make the potential new recruit seem the ideal person for the job, as employers are looking out for talented but unique individuals. The most commonly used method is a CV, a CV can be best described as a long description of yourself, you talk about who you are as a person/what you've done in the past/what your goals are. The CV has been used for years and most employers often take great interest in CVs, it tells them a lot about you which can help them realise what sort of person you are, often the CV is often referenced during the recruitment process, a good CV can do a lot of good for yourself and your career.
A5
An interview is the final hurdle for a job, most potential employees usually have an interview before the real one and they're chosen for the final interview. The best way to a custom yourself with your potential employer is to be formal, both in terms of the clothes you wear and your timekeeping, being dressed professionally and being on time is a necessity for an interview, as it shows that you genuinely care about the role on offer, if you don't do those employers will look down on that and will hinder your chances, show them that you care and they'll pay it back. In the interview it's best to show yourself as a sociable as social skills are what every employer looks out for, you'll have to interact with customers so being good with people is almost a given, you need to be presentable as you'll be representing the company and any bad behaviour on your part will look bad on them.
A6 + A7
Making yourself employable is something everyone should aim to achieve, and there are many ways that you can make yourself look exactly that. Bettering your skills in your chosen field is a given, wanting to learn new things shows your current employer that you're ambitious and always wanting to know more, wanting new skills shows initiative as to advance in the industry you need to have the highest quality skills possible to prove that you belong at the top of your chosen industry, it not only shows your employer that you are technically better, but it also proves to them that you're a person that they'd want to keep around. Work experience is also another great way of making yourself more employable, as work experience can vary, you may end up somewhere that is the complete opposite of what you aim to get into, but it proves that you'll be willing to do anything to get into your desired industry, like the previous point it shows that are willing to put the work in so you can achieve what you want. Also work experience allows you to get real experience into the world of work, you'll be dealing with the same customers that you may be serving for real in the future, it allows you to grow as an employee but also as a person, you'll most likely deal with customers of every personality, customers that are agitating, that are intentionally difficult and many more. It prepares you for the life that you'll be living, it'll force you to improve your customer service, as despite in the majority of cases the customers are in the wrong, as an employee you have to sometimes accept it and realise you need them. Professionalism is the final thing that can make someone more appealing to employers, being professional isn't just about being good at your job, it's about being able to deal with aspects in the workplace. For example someone who is good at diffusing tense situations is more employable as in the workplace there's inevitably going to be some sort of conflict, and being able to resolve conflict is a trait that not everyone has, an on-edge workforce isn't good for business, if people are in conflict then morale will drop and people who aren't as motivated to work well will produce low quality results.
B1
The media industry has a variety of different structures within them, the industry can not survive without every member no matter how big a person’s role is within the chosen industry. An example of this is radio, radio itself is an industry that some argue is in decline with the emergence of social media, online news sites with some not seeing the point of the radio as there are more sufficient and more convenient alternatives to receive the news. The head of a radio station is the station manager, the station manager manages every aspect of a radio production, these responsibilities include: the business aspects of radio (eg: negotiating sponsorship deals and negotiating deals for the on air personalities) as radio like any other platform needs money to survive and continue broadcasts. On smaller radio stations station managers may help with ‘hands on’ roles, a manager may need to host if needs be. A role that deals with the hands on aspect of the radio station is the training and programme manager, individuals in this role often look over the hands on production and see whether further training is required and evaluate the effectiveness of it, they also make sure that the morale of their staff is high as high morale equals a higher standard of production which benefits everyone involved in the radio production
Public service media is a form of media funded and run by the public to inform its viewers of all the goings on in the world, many believe that PSM is more reliable as with it being publicly funded there’s no incentive for there to be any bias in terms of politics, social issues ecetera. Independent media is relatively similar as independent productions are funded by themselves which is what PSM is like, and independent media are often run by people who have a distaste for modern media corporations as especially in the 2010s, many believe that the news corporations have lost their vision, modern day news networks have a clear bias which people have noticed and don’t stand for anymore. Example of independent media stations are: Corporate Watch, Independent Media Centre and GM Watch.
B2 The media industry is incredibly large, with the media industry alone in the US employing millions of workers. The industry is a massive money maker with many companies posting billions in revenue, Disney posted revenue of 70 billion dollars which should indicate just how big the industry is, and that’s just one company. Big media companies have a lot of influence, careers can be made overnight and turn filmmakers and across into stars. The media industry create pop culture references that millions of people still refer to today, it shows just how influential the industry is, films made years ago are still regarded with praise from critics and the public alike. In modern days many companies are ‘conglomerates’ which by definition is a multi industry company that operate in their own industry but under one company. Disney are by far the biggest and most well known example of this. They own ESPN (news company), Marvel (arguably the biggest film making company, with their films receiving critical acclaim and billions at the box office) and many other franchises. Many people see conglomerates as a negative as the more a single company owns, the less incentive that company has to make high-quality and original content, a statement I personally agree with. Disney own franchise such as Marvel and Star Wars which are the biggest franchises in modern media. Criticism has been made against the ‘newer’ films in these franchises as many people think that these films are made to make money from the ‘name’ and nostalgia, with fans believing these films are made not to create works of art, but to please the masses.
B3 + B4 With any media product there needs to be consideration as to the many different ‘groups’ of the world, these groups include people of different religions, race, nationality and many others. However, you need to be careful as to how you represent them, for example you need to refrain from any bias in your reporting, many modern consumers believe that there’s a bias in the majority of media. For example during the UK general election 2019 criticism was labelled against many news organisations as the public believed that certain papers had a bias for a certain political party, for example Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was smeared by multiple papers for the smallest things and they made some debatably slanderous comments, the biggest offenders are papers such as The Sun and the Daily Mail (both being Conservative papers). These are the standards that the public want our media to adhere too, but deep down there’ll always be some bias. Another standard is that the story you put forward is accurate, you can guarantee this by fact checking your sources, in modern times this seems to occur more often than it should, occasionally the same lies are pushed by supposedly credible sources yet that isn’t the case, the problem is so bad that independent fact checking sites such as Hoax Eye have never been busier exposing lies. The media also have to represent the aforementioned different groups in an unbiased way also, but it’s different in this case, media organisations have to make sure there’s no racial/social bias also. An example of the social bias that organisations have to avoid is with the difference in reporting is regarding two missing children cases, the McCann and Matthews case. To summarise: Madeline McCann went missing on holiday in Portugal and hasn’t been seen since, her family were of middle class, both parents were doctors and received sympathy from the nation. Whereas Shannon Matthews, a young girl from a council estate In West Yorkshire went missing and her family had the complete opposite treatment: her family happened to claim benefits, and this, according to our nations media organisations meant that her family were supposedly lazy and free-loading. This is an example of just how social class can affect the way that you’re portrayed in the media, people claim that there’s no correlation between social class and representation in the media but everyone knows otherwise, it happens too often to be considered a coincidence.
The UK media industry is an industry that many nations look at with admiration and envy, it has produced high-quality media for decades and will continue to do so for generations to come. There are many sectors that make up the industry, these include the film and television industry which produce short, feature-length content on either an amateur, independent and professional level to consume, film and television can also be animated, which is a style of media where pictures are manipulated to appear as moving images. They often fall into two categories, one being educational aiming to educate the audience on a specific historic figure, ideology and important events in history. Whereas the other is entertainment, content specifically produced to entertain the audience and keep them busy for an hour, these shows are popular because the audience enjoys following a well thought out story with fleshed-out characters that they feel a connection to. Publishing is another form of media that is important to modern society, publishing is most commonly associated with producing newspapers and books. Print is important as it was the first form of media to be implemented into society, many decades ago the idea of technology was still miles away and therefore it meant print was the only method of informing the public of the goings-on in the world. Print media is often associated with a so-called 'higher class' with allegedly more sophisticated people reading the newspaper. However, with the rise of the internet newspapers have been on the decline and the print companies realise this as they have made the transition to digital because in a digital age it's the only way that print companies can survive in an era of digital consumption. Books are similar to newspapers but are still different, whereas newspapers main purpose is to inform the public on the everyday occurrences of the world, books are used by the public to read about a subject in a detailed manner, books can stay with a consumer for a long time whereas the newspapers will always be different. Books also often serve a similar purpose to film and television, to tell a well-developed story that the audience has an emotional connection to, books are different as you can complete a book in segments, you can read a certain amount of pages a night and come back to it at another time, whereas compared to film and television you often need to consume it all in one sitting. Advertising is an industry that is vital to all aspects of media, advertising is used to promote a product to an audience and get them to invest in seeing said products. Often advertising was uniquely print-based, as the technology we use today wasn't around in the past, with many films/plays being advertised in the local paper which went out to thousands of members of the public per day, a study by Newsworks deducted that print advertising was more effective than digital.
The Film Industry
A1
The film industry creates a lot of jobs, with often hundreds of people needed for a professional film project, with 800 people working on the film Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse alone, which shows just how much work is needed in all aspects of filmmaking. There are many types of jobs regarding the film industry.
A director by definition is 'a person who controls the making of a film and supervises the actors and the technical crew', the director is one of the most important jobs in film production. Often the entire projects rests on the directors shoulders, they're in charge of every little detail in a film, they storyboard the shot that they would like, they're hands-on directing the actors/cameramen to get the shot that they desire, their job is turn the screenplay on paper into a film for the big screen. Many directors get their jobs by starting as other roles within the industry, some directors attend film school to achieve degrees in film (Martin Scorsese achieved a MFA in film from New York University) and move on to jobs within the industry such as screenwriters, producers and actors and then decide that they themselves want to try their hand at directing (Jason Bateman is an actor and has recently taken on more directing work with Ozark, a show which he also portrays the main role in). Directors often receive the highest praise when their film succeeds and often the brunt of the criticism when the project falls below expectations meaning the role of director brings a lot of stress, as referenced before having the entire project resting on one person can be tough for some directors, with some even turning to 'habits' to combat the stress that the ever-moving industry entails (Scorsese was known to have a cocaine habit and was close to giving up on film).
Director might be the 'biggest' and well-known role in film production but there are roles you often don't hear about which are often just as important as the director. The people who work hands-on set are key to production, with roles such as:
Camera operators - these are people whose job is to capture footage on set to fit the directors needs, this is one of the more 'active' roles as camera operators can spend hours on end on their feet, meaning this role is one of the most important and it is vital that a high-quality camera operator is used for production. The greatest camera operators are required to be good at following instruction, working in a highly stressful environment as to use a film set costs a lot of money which means that the shots they need to have to be achieved in a certain time as to save the film studio money. Often camera operators are in charge of more than getting the perfect shot, often they're in charge of picking the appropriate equipment such as the lens, the camera itself and many more small requirements.
Entertainment Lawyers - entertainment lawyers is a role that doesn't receive the attention that other roles do, but often the lawyers are just as important as the crew. They are called upon to discuss labour negations with actors and the crew and to gain the rights to use locations and music. The job of the entertainment lawyer is to get the best deal for the studio, ie; be able to purchase the rights to use a location for the best price, to handle contracts for actors to get them the best possible working contract, such as the best medical care, money and so on.
A2
Recruitment is important in every industry, and the film industry is no different. There are many methods that filmmakers connect with fellow professionals, these methods have changed over time to adapt to new technology that has made recruitment easier than ever. One method that is popular is networking, which is where up and coming members of the media industry can interact with established professionals and make contacts that will be useful in an industry where every connection counts, often networking occurs at business events which brings every industry professional together, making it ideal. There are always events going on up and down the country, which means that there's always going to be a new professional that you can meet, thus widening your options which will be useful in your career one way or another. An article by UrbanNetwork points out the same positives that I have, with them believing networking events are key as they allow you to break out of your comfort zone, linking in with the point that not only do events like these not only allow you to meet fellow professionals but they also allow you to improve your social skills which will benefit you in the long-term.
The emergence of the internet has allowed society to make massive strides. The internet and technology have allowed the film industry to create products that would've been revolutionary decades ago, the internet has also changed how people are recruited into the film industry, this is thanks to social media. One positive of social media recruiting is cost, with social media platforms being free to use it means that whoever is needing to recruit doesn't need to spend any money, which will be of convenience to them because there'll be other sectors of a media production that they will want to keep their money for, and they wouldn't want to spend money on recruitment because why would someone invest in a campaign advertising a job when social media is free and arguably a better recruitment tool? Several job advertising sites charge hundreds to advertise on their site, which makes social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin a no-brainer in company eyes. Not only is social media better value for money it allows you to deduct a person's personality without needing to talk to them, but social media can also show whether a person is quiet, loud, ambitious etcetera. It also makes the interview process easier, as users of social media often talk about their interests often, so as an interviewer social media could tell you more about a person than a face-to-face interview could. This point also can filter out the candidates that you wouldn't want to hire, if someone gets into trouble on social media often then it's a red flag, it begs the question to the employer: if this person is hired at our company, will any bad social media posts reflect badly on us? This is a valid concern as in many cases (despite this being about the film industry, I feel this point is the same for any industry) there've been people who have made out of taste posts, and people who see those posts immediately attempt to find the individuals employers and they ask the employer if the persons comment reflects on their values leading in most cases for the employer to terminate the employee who made the disparaging comments. As an employer you do not want your company name tarnished because someone can't keep out of trouble.
A3
Every job has the same contracts of employment, each industry follows the same process as everyone else. Some 'types' of employment are better than others. The most well-known source of employment is full-time employment which is when a worker works a number of hours determined by their employers. In my opinion full-time work is the best option as the benefits of working full-time vastly outweigh every other employment sector. Full-time workers are granted benefits such as: sick days, paid leave, health insurance and a lot more. Not only do employees who work full-time benefit with insurance, they have the luxury of having stable employment. They know that when they finish their work-week on Friday there'll be work the next week and they have a retirement plan which will benefit them mentally, as many workers in this new century often worry about their future, they often worry whether they'll even be able to retire, and working full-time is the sector that many people feel is best for their future. In the industry,a director will work full-time, as they're integral to
The next step in the employment ladder is part-time work. There are many reasons why a worker may choose to work part-time, students often take part-time employment so that they can earn some extra cash to support themselves through their studies and be able to study because part-time work is often 'flexible' meaning hours are usually agreed upon depending on the employees schedule, the benefit is that part-time work allows an individual to pursue other interests without being overwhelmed by full-time work, mentally it's better as there's less work to worry about meaning you would feel less stressed. However a negative to part-time work is that there are less benefits that a worker receives, less work means less income and ultimately isn't a stable career choice.
The final 'step' in the employment ladder are zero hour contracts, this means that a worker doesn't have a set amount of hours, they're only working when they need to be. It's an agreement that the worker would work when asked to, despite there being no obligation for the employee. Now, in my personal opinion, zero-hour contracts are the most exploitative contract of employment, there's no guarantee for an employee that they'll even work which employers use in order to get people in, they may not work in a week but they cannot do anything else as they already signed an agreement with the employer, employees have their hands tied behind their back. Most likely staff who work in catering on a film set may work zero-hour as there's no need for them on set permanently.
A4
Social media is a tool that many modern-day employers use to find and hire new talent like referenced earlier social media is an ideal tool as it allows you to find out a lot about a potential new employee without even meeting them, but the potential new recruit can show off their past works on social media also. A show reel is a reel of someone's past works, whether it be something they directed/starred in or even edited, usually the most exciting/well-produced parts are showed in the reel to make the potential new recruit seem the ideal person for the job, as employers are looking out for talented but unique individuals. The most commonly used method is a CV, a CV can be best described as a long description of yourself, you talk about who you are as a person/what you've done in the past/what your goals are. The CV has been used for years and most employers often take great interest in CVs, it tells them a lot about you which can help them realise what sort of person you are, often the CV is often referenced during the recruitment process, a good CV can do a lot of good for yourself and your career.
A5
An interview is the final hurdle for a job, most potential employees usually have an interview before the real one and they're chosen for the final interview. The best way to a custom yourself with your potential employer is to be formal, both in terms of the clothes you wear and your timekeeping, being dressed professionally and being on time is a necessity for an interview, as it shows that you genuinely care about the role on offer, if you don't do those employers will look down on that and will hinder your chances, show them that you care and they'll pay it back. In the interview it's best to show yourself as a sociable as social skills are what every employer looks out for, you'll have to interact with customers so being good with people is almost a given, you need to be presentable as you'll be representing the company and any bad behaviour on your part will look bad on them.
A6 + A7
Making yourself employable is something everyone should aim to achieve, and there are many ways that you can make yourself look exactly that. Bettering your skills in your chosen field is a given, wanting to learn new things shows your current employer that you're ambitious and always wanting to know more, wanting new skills shows initiative as to advance in the industry you need to have the highest quality skills possible to prove that you belong at the top of your chosen industry, it not only shows your employer that you are technically better, but it also proves to them that you're a person that they'd want to keep around. Work experience is also another great way of making yourself more employable, as work experience can vary, you may end up somewhere that is the complete opposite of what you aim to get into, but it proves that you'll be willing to do anything to get into your desired industry, like the previous point it shows that are willing to put the work in so you can achieve what you want. Also work experience allows you to get real experience into the world of work, you'll be dealing with the same customers that you may be serving for real in the future, it allows you to grow as an employee but also as a person, you'll most likely deal with customers of every personality, customers that are agitating, that are intentionally difficult and many more. It prepares you for the life that you'll be living, it'll force you to improve your customer service, as despite in the majority of cases the customers are in the wrong, as an employee you have to sometimes accept it and realise you need them. Professionalism is the final thing that can make someone more appealing to employers, being professional isn't just about being good at your job, it's about being able to deal with aspects in the workplace. For example someone who is good at diffusing tense situations is more employable as in the workplace there's inevitably going to be some sort of conflict, and being able to resolve conflict is a trait that not everyone has, an on-edge workforce isn't good for business, if people are in conflict then morale will drop and people who aren't as motivated to work well will produce low quality results.
B1
The media industry has a variety of different structures within them, the industry can not survive without every member no matter how big a person’s role is within the chosen industry. An example of this is radio, radio itself is an industry that some argue is in decline with the emergence of social media, online news sites with some not seeing the point of the radio as there are more sufficient and more convenient alternatives to receive the news. The head of a radio station is the station manager, the station manager manages every aspect of a radio production, these responsibilities include: the business aspects of radio (eg: negotiating sponsorship deals and negotiating deals for the on air personalities) as radio like any other platform needs money to survive and continue broadcasts. On smaller radio stations station managers may help with ‘hands on’ roles, a manager may need to host if needs be. A role that deals with the hands on aspect of the radio station is the training and programme manager, individuals in this role often look over the hands on production and see whether further training is required and evaluate the effectiveness of it, they also make sure that the morale of their staff is high as high morale equals a higher standard of production which benefits everyone involved in the radio production
Public service media is a form of media funded and run by the public to inform its viewers of all the goings on in the world, many believe that PSM is more reliable as with it being publicly funded there’s no incentive for there to be any bias in terms of politics, social issues ecetera. Independent media is relatively similar as independent productions are funded by themselves which is what PSM is like, and independent media are often run by people who have a distaste for modern media corporations as especially in the 2010s, many believe that the news corporations have lost their vision, modern day news networks have a clear bias which people have noticed and don’t stand for anymore. Example of independent media stations are: Corporate Watch, Independent Media Centre and GM Watch.
B2 The media industry is incredibly large, with the media industry alone in the US employing millions of workers. The industry is a massive money maker with many companies posting billions in revenue, Disney posted revenue of 70 billion dollars which should indicate just how big the industry is, and that’s just one company. Big media companies have a lot of influence, careers can be made overnight and turn filmmakers and across into stars. The media industry create pop culture references that millions of people still refer to today, it shows just how influential the industry is, films made years ago are still regarded with praise from critics and the public alike. In modern days many companies are ‘conglomerates’ which by definition is a multi industry company that operate in their own industry but under one company. Disney are by far the biggest and most well known example of this. They own ESPN (news company), Marvel (arguably the biggest film making company, with their films receiving critical acclaim and billions at the box office) and many other franchises. Many people see conglomerates as a negative as the more a single company owns, the less incentive that company has to make high-quality and original content, a statement I personally agree with. Disney own franchise such as Marvel and Star Wars which are the biggest franchises in modern media. Criticism has been made against the ‘newer’ films in these franchises as many people think that these films are made to make money from the ‘name’ and nostalgia, with fans believing these films are made not to create works of art, but to please the masses.
B3 + B4 With any media product there needs to be consideration as to the many different ‘groups’ of the world, these groups include people of different religions, race, nationality and many others. However, you need to be careful as to how you represent them, for example you need to refrain from any bias in your reporting, many modern consumers believe that there’s a bias in the majority of media. For example during the UK general election 2019 criticism was labelled against many news organisations as the public believed that certain papers had a bias for a certain political party, for example Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was smeared by multiple papers for the smallest things and they made some debatably slanderous comments, the biggest offenders are papers such as The Sun and the Daily Mail (both being Conservative papers). These are the standards that the public want our media to adhere too, but deep down there’ll always be some bias. Another standard is that the story you put forward is accurate, you can guarantee this by fact checking your sources, in modern times this seems to occur more often than it should, occasionally the same lies are pushed by supposedly credible sources yet that isn’t the case, the problem is so bad that independent fact checking sites such as Hoax Eye have never been busier exposing lies. The media also have to represent the aforementioned different groups in an unbiased way also, but it’s different in this case, media organisations have to make sure there’s no racial/social bias also. An example of the social bias that organisations have to avoid is with the difference in reporting is regarding two missing children cases, the McCann and Matthews case. To summarise: Madeline McCann went missing on holiday in Portugal and hasn’t been seen since, her family were of middle class, both parents were doctors and received sympathy from the nation. Whereas Shannon Matthews, a young girl from a council estate In West Yorkshire went missing and her family had the complete opposite treatment: her family happened to claim benefits, and this, according to our nations media organisations meant that her family were supposedly lazy and free-loading. This is an example of just how social class can affect the way that you’re portrayed in the media, people claim that there’s no correlation between social class and representation in the media but everyone knows otherwise, it happens too often to be considered a coincidence.
Tuesday 11 February 2020
The Importance of Sound Editing - Unit 24
Task 1
Ultimately, sound is extremely important whether it’s in film, television and music. Sound can dictate how we see a scene, without sound a scene could look and feel bland with no meaning which effects how you perceive a piece of work, sound can make scenes memorable which in effect means you’ll be more likely to visit that piece of work in the future and recommend it to others, when sound is edited well it sets one piece of work above another. For example in Star Wars, they weren’t sure what ‘noises’ that R2D2 should be doing/how they weren’t sure how he should sound, so sound editor Ben Burtt‘ created’ his own voice for R2D2, giving the robot the iconic sounds that he’s known for. He remarked that getting the sounds for R2D2 was the toughest task. This was achieved by Burtt mimicking the sound a young child/baby who is attempting to talk which fits the character perfectly as R2 is a robot who can’t communicate. It makes sense that R2 was modelled on someone who would also be struggling/learning to talk, giving the character itself more realism. It uses foley to create a sound that conveys R2D2 perfectly as this character who is essential but doesn't have much to say (literally) and this is a great example of just how foley works, the result is one of the most iconic character sounds in cinema history, with Ewan McGregor saying 'there is something that makes you feel a great affection for him' showing just how influential well-crafted sound can be, sound doesn't have to be extremely complicated as Ben Burtt has shown, you can achieve high-quality sound with anything.
Furthermore, sound is edited to create a narrative, narrative means a story or to connect events. An example is of raw footage of an interview conducted with Thom Yorke, as you get further in the footage you realise that the raw footage is boring, when giving answers he stutters a little bit, which doesn't make for an interesting interview, an interview is meant for the audience to get to know the subject a little better. We want to know their thoughts on the same issues/subjects that we go through on a daily basis, as in this case the interview is about Neil Young, an artist who has had a big influence on culture, and who better to talk about an influential artist than a modern artist. And, a superstar like Yorke will bring in an audience to the interview itself, more people will tune into an interview with him rather than a normal every day person, he's a lot different to us as his life experiences differ to ours. We aren't lead singers of a band so to get into a glimpse of that life will be fascinating, and the interview won't want to waste the opportunity that is has to present a different world. Back to sound, earlier I referred to how Yorke often stuttered and slurred, which interrupted the flow of the interview thus making it seem uninteresting to the audience and if there's a lack of relevant information, then many audience members will click off, editing is required to be rid of the irrelevant details, an example of this is at 4:23 there's an example of the stuttering I was referring to, for around seven seconds the conversation remains stale and is an example of how the raw footage is a bore, it's completely unnecessary, trimming down the footage keeps the conversation fresh and keeps the audience hooked, we hang onto every word Yorke says because the interview doesn't stretch longer than it needs to, it keeps it fresh and non-repetitive keeping the attention of the audience throughout.
Editing fictional content is similar to factual, both need to fit a narrative but they still have different causes. Firstly, television stations trim down sound because they need to adhere to regulations, stations are allowed 7 minutes for advertising (which is what Ofcom allows) which is valuable to advertisers. With this, the television stations need to cut their content around this to be able to fit in with their schedule, therefore content has to be edited down to ultimately fit the regulations, but also the content still needs to make ‘sense’, there still needs to be a clear narrative because the programme still needs to make sense to the audience, the programmes are broken up into two slots of around 12/13 minutes each, meaning they need to skim through the footage and still be able to create a ‘watchable’ show which still adheres to the tight schedule they need to keep. An example of how sound is edited is in the show The Sopranos. For context: the daughter (Meadow) has been told by a therapist that she could go to Europe, and her parents (Tony and Carmela) won’t allow it. Around two minutes fifty-eight seconds in, Tony’s daughter remarks ‘Wow, listen to Mr Mob Boss’, then he stands up with a grim expression on his face, and the only sound is him getting up showing that this is the main focus of the scene, it builds tension for us the audience because we wonder what his reaction will be, the lack of non-diagetic sound only enforces this, there’s nothing else for us to focus on. This is ‘achieved’ by the diagetic sounds of Tony’s heavy breathing, it’s a way of showing the anger inside him without any physical action, then near the end of the scene once Tomy has stopped talking, there’s a few seconds of silence, again this reinforces the tension throughout the scene, everyone involved doesn’t know what to say and the lack of dialogue proves it, it also proves that their daughter doesn’t have any good points as to why she should move countries, despite being a show about violence they do portray normal mundane situations with precision. This scene is an example of how you create tension without saying much at all, everything that happened in the show at this point is brewing over and words fly out, it shows the importance of sound, you couldn’t achieve the tension achieved in this scene with anything else, but sound achieves it with purpose.
Task 2
There are many things required to actually edit sound, whether it’s a mixing console or editing software, audio engineers can mix either: television, film and music. To begin, software is incredibly important as that is what you use to finish your final product, one of the ‘better’/more known softwares is Audacity (which is what I’ve used personally), you can do a lot of things on it, firstly you can edit the tempo (speed) of the audio to potentially match with a video that you’re also editing, this is useful because some audio files may need to be sped up and the software prevents the need to rerecord audio, you can also ‘cut’ audio, you can cut audio that is irrelevant and not needed, like referenced earlier you will not want any audio that you don’t need. Regarding physical equipment, many audio engineers use the same equipment. These include:
Microphone – every engineer uses a microphone and the ones they use vary on what piece of media that they’re editing sound on. Microphones are used to pick up sound and the better the microphone then the better the audio will be, it’s best to use a high-quality microphone as it’ll require less editing in Audacity/Logic pro saving yourself some time and allowing you to focus on other projects/parts of the production.
Digital mixing console – this is an electronic device which is used for the audio engineer to combine many different audio ‘signals’, an advantage of this is that there are many ‘on-board’ effects which defeats the need for other pieces of software therefore saving you money because you already have the features that you need.
Editing technique
Volume riding – whilst editing sound, you need to pay attention to every snippet of audio to make sure there’s enough volume in each clip. An audio mixer would listen to a clip and then adjust the volume to the appropriate setting as no sound should be too loud or too quiet, you would use the volume fader to do this. A good edit can make a scene well known/iconic, an example of this is the scene in Jaws, where the audio’s volume and tempo have been edited to give the scene a tense feel, the tempo has increased so the audio is faster, giving the audience an anxious feel because as the speed of the clip gets faster, the more we as the audience expect something bad to happen. The sound of the scene creates the entire suspense, because we know that there’s a vicious shark on the loose but the audience don’t, so them being unaware of the danger plus the suspense of the scene creates dread and it makes us fear for the people in the water, with this scene it’s not a matter of if the shark gets them, it’s a matter of when.
Thursday 16 January 2020
Shaun of the Dead: 3rdFebruary
Messy table (can, magazine) - equipment
Long shot of zombie in garden
Stone = equipment
SHIT TON OF GANJA - equipment
Tracking of the character getting the camera
Medium close-up of zombie turning
Close up of Shaun reacting
Long shot of zombie getting back up with Shaun in background
Over the shoulder of zombie getting up
Spike ‘thing’ – equipment.
Thursday 9 January 2020
Emma: Digital Media Skills portfolio: sources
'Bicycles are 20x cheaper to maintain than a car' - https://billbonebikelaw.com/news-from-the-road/12-fun-facts-cycling/
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