HRussellMedia Blog: February 2016

How does your media product represent particular social groups.

Different media texts can represent social groups in many different ways. In our thriller ‘Sync Corp : redemption’ we found that our thriller conveyed some very contrasting representations towards how we view gender in society.

When looking at our thriller one of the main technical areas that shoed this was ‘Mise-en-scene’. When examining ‘Mise-en-scene’ we have to look at six key ares the first being. Props in the film we decided upon giving the henchmen in the scene full size black pistols ( hand guns ) as this prop gave the connotations of the men being dangerous and deadly they are out to cause harm.

Also this provided nice contrast towards the stereotypical props that a janitor would have, along side with the guns the henchmen/janitors has a mop and bucket this was to convey the stereotypical props associated with janitors and give the connotations of a nine till five job done by the man in society involving, cleaning and labour. But we subverted this stereotype with the black pistols which provided a deadly edge to the characters of the janitors not usually associated with men in the workplace but at the same time adhering to the stereotype of men being abusive and in the pursuit of harming women.

Another area of ‘Mise-en-scene’ that was used in the thriller was how we used costume and hair to convey certain stereotypes throughout the thriller, we dressed our main protagonist in a light blue striped shirt and a black pair of tight trousers,

this was to convey the feminine aspects of the character and at the same time subvert the stereotype of women being stay at home family orientated members of society, our costume subverted this by dressing the woman in professional attire commonly associated with highly ranking members of business. Which placed the woman in a higher level of profession than the antagonists who wore low level janitors clothes.

This would seem to connote that the woman is more powerful than men in the thriller. When it came to makeup we decided upon using very little conventional make up associated with the stereotype of a glamor oriented female, but instead subverted this by choosing a more plane and practical look for the protagonist.

Making the woman seem more interested in her work than the expectations for a woman to be covered in makeup and dedicated to vanity that has been decided upon by society.

Another aspect of ‘Mise-en-scene’ that we had to consider was the facial expressions that our actors would add to their performance. We used this especially with our antagonists as we wanted to adhere to the stenotype of the ‘bad guys’ being angry and serious, this would support the stereotype of men being the so called ‘bad guys’ in the scene and their facial expressions would instantly show to the audience that these men mean trouble.

We also used lighting and colour as this is another technical area of ‘Mise-en-scene’ and we lit the thriller using warm tones for the beginning scenes to convey a sense of warmth and colour, these are commonly associated with the stereotypes of women being home orientated and warm emotional members of society and we wanted our lighting to adhere to this,

Until our character enters the kitchen scene when the tone becomes more cool and de-saturated. As this would subvert this established stereotype and place the woman in a cold and emotionless environment, this would help create contrast between the two aspects of the protagonist, one being a stereotypical woman and the other being a highly trained killing machine.

The next area of ‘Mise-en-scene’ that we used in our thriller was the use of character positioning and the placement of object in the frame. We started off by placing the woman behind the men in the frame, and pushed her further back in the scene to create a sense of hopelessness and to make the woman seem small.

This would adhere to the stereotype that woman are scared, maternal and hopeless. The men on the other hand were placed closer to the camera and this gave emphasis on the size of these men compared to the woman, adhering to the stereotype of men being strong, overpowering and masculine. This would help represent to the audience that the physical gender imbalance is apparent.

The setting and location gave its own representation of gender to the product. In the thriller especially in the opening scene the location is a industrial canteen, but behind this is a large scale kitchen, I feel that by placing the woman in this kitchen environment we are representing the stereotype of the woman being the stay at home, kitchen dweller and home cook. But we wanted to subvert this so we altered the representation present towards the woman in the second half of the thriller, by letting her have control of her environment by hiding behind objects and counters. The specially helped convey to the audience that this woman does not adhere to the kitchen wife stereotype but instead counters this by being in a position of power and representing the connotations that women can stand up against men and don't need to be refined to house work and kitchen life.

When looking at how camera was used to represent different aspects of gender throughout the thriller, we can see that the positioning of the camera can provide several connotations and representations alone. When the woman was the only person in the frame, the camera showed her from a low angle,

this cave the connotations of the woman being in a position of power in the scene and in control of herself, she is confident she can control herself and is calm and collective. But once we seen the men in the scene the angle transitions from a low to a high angle on the woman. This pushes the space around her and makes the woman seem much smaller than the men in the scene, this is a way to adhere to the stereotype that woman are less powerful than men and deserve to be placed bellow men in society.

This represents a severe gender in balance. But later on in the thriller, the woman takes control of the situation and she is placed in a position that is at a bipolar opposite than before. She his shown at a low angle and seems bigger than the men in the scene, this is subverting the established stereotype that the woman is weaker than men and instead showing the woman much more powerful the masculine characters in the scene. This way of subverting the set gender stereotypes could only be achieved through the use of camera in the scene.

Moving on to how editing was used to represent the different genders in the scene. When the woman was on screen the shot duration was shorter and edited together with more energy. This was to subvert the stereotype than women are quieter than men and not meant to speak out and that women are supposed to be submissive and do as they are told. Because of the shorter shot duration it created this energy and pacing.

Which effectively subverted these stereotypes and instead created the countertype of this woman being energetic, bold and excited. Also editing was used to show the thriller from the point of view from the men. This gave the connotations that the men have true control in the scene and hove power over the one woman in the scene. This was a clear sign that the editing was used to adhere to stereotype of the man being represented as the powerful and controlling member of society than dominates and controls women to do as he pleases. By the editing showing the point of view of the two men in the scene, I feel this was connotated effectively. But this representation of the genders changed when the fight scenes occur, when the editing showed the view of the woman rather than keeping the cuts following the men, the cuts followed her actions not the mens and this effectively subverted the established stereotype that the Woman is not as strong as the men. And that women are meant to be the damsel in distress; never the hero. By showing the fight scenes this way this directly subverts this stereotype and shows the woman as the true protagonist / hero in the scene. I feel that although the representation of gender in the thriller transitions without warning it was very effective at showing the bipolar opposite of the stereotype presented towards women.

Finally when looking at sound in this media product, I found that the non-diegetic underscore was used as a tool to directly subvert established stereotypes towards women, for example women are quieter than men and not meant to speak out, women are supposed to be submissive and do as they are told, women are supposed to cook and do housework and women are responsible for raising children. The non-diegetic underscore on the other hand, gave the connotations of a dark and pulsing atmosphere that the women was surrounded by. The score provided great contrast between movement and positioning of the women in the beginning and made the audience feel that something was building up, that this woman would go against expectations and subvert the stereotypes represented with her gender. Also the diegetic sound effects did the bipolar opposite to the non-diegetic underscore. The sound effects emphasised the aspects of the thriller that wanted to cause harm towards the women, we hear the guns lock and the bag in which the guns are pulled out rustle. This is to emphasise that the men control the aspects of the thriller that cause harm towards to the woman this adheres to the stereotype of men being violence orientated and that men are in charge; they are always at the top. By these specific sound effects being associated towards the male characters in the scene I feel this effectively represented the men being powerful and in control of the woman.

To conclude as we have seen gender can be represented in a variety of different ways. We can especially see this gender difference when we look at the four key areas of film, that being ‘Mise-en-scene’, camera, editing and sound. Theses technical areas can be used to emphasises the transition of power throughout the scene. And truly separate the sexes.

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When we plan to make a film a key aspect of this production process is editing. Editing is arguably the most important part of the film making process as it allows us a filmmakers to craft and create a piece of film. Add style and meaning to the footage that we have captured before hand. We now use digital media to create film which involves state of the art editing software to edit footage. Before this digital age, scissors and tape was used to edit film. And arguable some of the greatest films in the world were edited using scissors and tape. The editing process technically involves the selecting process where we choose the clips from the library of the footage that best suite the interest of the film maker. Then the composition phase which in involves taping the footage to gather to create a piece of art.

There are many important decision to be made when creating a film, for example the order and designing wether to keep with chronological editing or switch to a non liner storytelling approach. Also another decision I had to make in the editing process was the mood and feeling that we wanted to convey during the film, with long and tedious shots to connote dread and show suspense. Or quick action cuts to convey action and energy. Finally another key decision we had to make was the length and pace of our film, do we make it longer to increase impact but could lose attention, Or quick and snappy but lose emphasis. These were key decisions throughout the editing process that we decided upon to create the best piece of film possible.

Before coming into this process I had an advanced understanding of the process of editing, and so the exceptions were nothing that I had not seen before, as always nothing runs as planned one of the expectations was having all the correct shots and angles that we should have captured on the day, being in the editing library. But unfortunately this is never the case and we could that we were missing several shots that we were hoping to have when it came down to editing, be this lack of organisation on the day or just forgetting. This is one expectation that I wish had followed through.
When you are editing a film the key idea is to be left with something ‘awesome’ at the end of it. If a craftsman spends hours whittling a chair out of a plank of wood, but after all this time is left with a plank of wood he has not done his job. It is the same with editing, if we can not create a movie from this footage we are not editing. The process of editing is creating the film. Not just playing the raw footage.

We edited the footage we had collected in the media teams editing suite, but certain things were expected of us when using this space. For example we had to book in times that we would be editing in the suite using the timetable planner, as we were sharing the computer with three other media groups we would need good organisational skills in order to use the space properly.

Also we had to be responsible for our footage, and keep a record of our editing process. We did this by creating a notebook in which to write down a small record of everything that we did during the editing process. This would be invaluable later on in the course.

When editing film there were several different digital editing softwares that we used to create our film, Our primary editing software was a bend between, ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’ this is shot composition software that allows us to take our libraries of footage and select certain clips from the footage and place them within a set project time line that would contain the project.

We can also adjust time, speed and shot duration using this software. We also used ‘Final Cut Pro’ along side with ‘Premiere’ to select key areas of our film and to select shots.

For VFX and edit the project with sound design in mind as I believe ‘Final Cut’ is a more useful software for composing sound alongside with visual media. Also our thriller contained VFX ( visual effects ) Which means we had to use several visual compositing softwares. We used ‘Boujou’ motion tracking software.

To 3D motion track our footage and create a 3D visualisation of our scene, this allowed us to apply floor plans and a match move to 3D CGI ( computer generated images ) within 2D footage, once the 3D space was applied in ‘Boujou’. But ‘Boujou’ only applies a track move to the footage, In order to composite the 3D elements into our scene, we used ‘Adobe After effects’.

Another piece of software from the adobe family, that we used to apply the 3D track to several 3D CGI graphics in order to create realistic but stylistic VFX to our scene.

But this is not all, we also needed to apply a colour grade to our footage using ‘Black Magics’ ‘DaVinchi Resolve’ this software allowed us to create a colour pallet to our film and really explore adding tint and tone to the footage,

this would allow us to create connotations between the tone and feeling of the movie. Making the film cooler in colour to represent starkness and dark feeling. Or a more warm tone to represent brightness and warmth.

We select and review shots to short list the best footage that we have captured and select the so called ‘best bits’ of the footage. This is important as it cuts the fat of the footage making it easier to edit the final piece.
The timeline is used as a playback function, where the piece comes together and can be seen and reviewed, also this is where all the selected clips from the library can be all in one place.
It was important to name shots with the specific angle that the shot was conveying. Wether that be a extreme wide, mid shot or closeup. As this allows us to have a structure to the film process.
The bade tool allows us to cut up footage and create a shorter shot duration to clips, this is an essential tool. as it is quicker to use than retiming, and saves going back into footage bins over and over again.
When deciding upon shot composition, the tools allowed me to really trim up the footage and sort the frames we wanted and the frames we don’t, it was important for me when editing to literally go frame by frame through a piece and decided which should be in the piece.
We had to use a set structure when editing the clips, placing the clips in such a way so they do not overlap with each other and and never cancel out the audio or visual files that we were editing.
Our pice was designed to be chronologically edited to create a clear sense of story within our opening. We used the time line to create this chronological story, placing the clips in order from left to right.
This provided continuity by creating a seamless story from our footage, this meant that the story was sound and would make logical chronological sense.
We used up to five layers when editing our piece this was so we could overlap footage and play footage over each other but keep the audio playing underneath.
WE HAVE NOT DECIDED UPON TITLES YET!
I decided to delete all of the original sound that came with the clips, as this was useless and noisy. Instead I decided that I would create the whole underscore using folly and sound effects. I had access to these atmospheric sou effects and folly from my personal, audio library.