Classwork

In this blogpost, I will be including most of the media knowledges we as a class have learnt since we're Grade 11. In my opinion, these are the pioneer to our media product that we have created for the past year because these elements help us create broader variety of meaning in our product. By understanding it, we can implicit a meaning through colours and the setting of props, or explicitly express that meaning through the sound of dialogue and edits. Here are the elements we have learned.

CAMERA

a camera visualises clips, scenes, and footages by recording them. With precision technique of shooting and adjusting angle, we can apply some implicit meaning and effect to certain objects and scenes.

CAMERA SHOTS AND ANGLES

Long Shot: Shows the subject full body and the background.

Extreme Long Shot: Subject are shown from a very far distance.

Medium Shot: Shows half the body of the subject and a partial of the background.

Cowboy Shot: A shot below the waist.

Close up: A shot that focused on the subject faces, often shows their expression.

Extreme Close up: Showing extreme details of the subject.

POV: Showing the direct perspective of the subject to audiences.

Over the shoulders: Showing a character over other's shoulder, usually use in a conversation.

High Angle: Taking the subject from high viewpoint, making them appear shorter, smaller, and weaker .

Low Angle: Taking the subject from low viewpoint, making them appear taller, bigger, and stronger.

Dutch Angle: Camera is tilted, usually the purpose is to create a meaning of uneasiness or something is wrong.

Establishing Shot: Giving context of what is happening by showing the whole setting.

HERE IS A VIDEO THAT HELPS ME UNDERSTAND BETTER SOME OF THE CAMERA ANGLES AND SHOTS 

CAMERA MOVEMENTS

Fixed	Camera remains static	Calm, peace, normal
Push in	Camera moves slowly toward subject	Brings the audience closer, more involved, getting more serious.
Pull out	Camera moves slowly away from subject	Takes audience away from the action, leaving a character. Detaching from subject
Pan	Side to side, camera fixed	Reveal information, mirrors natural head movement of the audience.
Tilt	Up and down, camera fixed	Same as pan, just a different direction
Dolly	Camera moves around freely	More immersive, we are moving inside the subjects world, we feel part of the action
Tracking	Camera moves around on tracks	Similar to dolly, but smoother.
Crane	Taken by a camera mounted on a jib/crane that moves up and down.	Reveals the epic size of the setting, landscape.
Handheld	Camera is shakey	Very natural, immersive. High energy
Zoom	Zoom	Brings audience closer to budget. Draws our attention to something.

HERE IS A VIDEO THAT HELPS ME UNDERSTAND CAMERA MOVEMENT

MISS-EN-SCENE

It refers to the visual element and the arrangement of props that helps to shape a frame or a scene of phenomenon, actions, and events of the show, creating a meaning that it is up to the audience to decode or perceive it. 

IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE MeS BETTER, HERE IS A VIDEO I'VE WATCH TO FURTHER DEEPEN MY UNDERSTANDING FOR THIS TOPIC

SOUNDS

Contains audio that can be heard by characters and audiences in order to enhance scenes as well as giving contexts, gives, and explain meaning without uttering texts or showing a scene.

	Description	Effect
Diegetic sound	Sound that can be heard by the characters within the media text.	Add a sense of realism. Reveal information to characters (and then audience)
Non diegetic sound	Sound that can only be heard by the audience.	Enhance meaning, create an emotional response in the audience
Trans diegetic sound	Sound that transitions from one to the other.	Creates a link between the audience and the world. More immersive

OUR TEACHER RECOMMEND US TO WATCH THIS VIDEO TO EXPLAIN US THE DIFFERENCE OF NON AND DIEGETIC SOUNDS, AS WELL AS THE EXAMPLE.

Our teacher also introduces us to the 3 types of Non-diegetic sounds, those are:

	Description	Effect
Melodie	Positive and pleasing connotations	Enhances a positive scene. Create positive emotions in the audience
DIscordant	Harsh and unpleasant connotations	Enhance negative scenes. Create suspense, tension, and anxiety
Contrapuntal	Has an opposite tone to the on-screen visuals	Adds deeper meaning to scenes. Insight into the character’s thoughts. Maybe they seek pleasure in doing bad things.

here are some examples:

Melodic

Discordant

Contrapuntal

EDITS

Editing is the process of selecting, arranging, and manipulating footage to create a cohesive and engaging story.

In editing they are 2 types of pacing of scenes in a video, Long Take and Short Take. The difference between them can be identified by how fast the scene switches to another shots or angles. If the scene stays in the same angles/shots for a long time, most likely it is a long take editing, and vice versa. Here is the effect for it.

A long take is used to : 

• Makes scene feels slower

• Building suspense.

• Create realism as if the audiences is in the scene .

• Makes more immersion.

Here is an example of a long take scene.

for a short take it is used to:

• Speed up the pacing

• Creates excitement and energetic scene

• Engaging the attention of audience

• Showing rapid information with more details

Here is an example of a short take scene

When transitioning into different scenes, there will always be a cut/transition follows. Cuts can be divided into two types, Continuity Editing and Non-Continuity Editing. 

The purpose of continuity editing is to make the transition between scenes more seamless and unnoticeable so that audience can focus on the storyline. While the purpose of Non-Continuity editing is the opposite of Continuity. 

Continuity:

• Straight cuts

• Eyeline match

• Shot/reverse shot

• Cutaway/insert

• Match cut

Non-continuity:

• Cross cut

• Flash back

• Flash forward

• Jump cut 

• Match cut. 

THEORY OF STARDOM

Dyer states that celebrities are created by media companies/institution to target a specific audience. These celebrits, or 'real people', is expected to generate revenues from the demographics they're intended to attract through musics and films. 

Many actors and actress is a good example of this theory, as they're intended to have another personality to entertain certain demographics to generate profit for the media company. You can say that voice actor is the exact example for this theory.

Reel Persona: A staged/"faked" version of themselves that they created themself to meet the expectations of audiences (e.g. Eg. Performances, Music videos, social media).

Real Persona: The real personality of the celebrities without gimmicks; how they behave normally in real-life (appear mostly in interviews, documentaries, behind-the-scenes footage)

Audiences appealed to celebrities through 5 reasons:

1. Love: Curious about the progression of the celebrities love story and act of romance.
2. Ordinariness: Fascinated by how they act humbly like average people/audiences even after becoming celebrities.
3. Success: The sense of overnight success and all the failures before reaching the once called "overnight success" truly appealed us.
4. Consumption: We dreamed of having the expensive stuffs they have brought by media success.
5. Downfall: With some people holding jealousy and grudges towards the star, witnessing their downfall brings them joy and happiness. Some only feel curious and turn this topic into gossips.

Here is my celebrity research with one of my friend Nathan.

Celebrity:	d4vd (David Anthony Burke)
REEL persona:	Instagram: He portrays himself as a down to earth average American teenager who occasionally has celebrity type posts (professional photographer’s works of him and self promotion) Music: Often in his music, it is about a struggle in romance and almost always losing in his music videos.
REAL persona:	From what is publicly available, d4vd is a humble and private person, keeping his online personality separate from his private one, he often plays video games, expressing interest in Fortnite. He also enjoys watching movies.
Love:	Currently, he doesn't publicly have his partner shown, rather keeping it more private in the short run.
Ordinariness:	In his instagram, he openly shares and updates his day-to-day activities. Such as when he is in the middle of the concert performing his songs, a photo of behind the scene for his upcoming music video, and his frequent selfies.
Success:	He was an almost overnight sensation success, the vocal track for his chart topping “Romantic Homicide” song was recorded on an iphone as he didn't have anything else to record it on, he has commented that he could’ve done the recording on his computer but his terrible wireless headset quality was just not a usable choice.
Consumption:	He spends his money on video games and on his computer. There are also lots of posts of him going out, not necessarily to high class or expensive places. Lastly, from what I can tell, he drives a Tesla as the Tesla-ish car interior was shown on one of his photos on his instagram.
Dream turned sour:	No reports or news has spoken out or have rumored d4vd’s involvement in any kind of scandal

Self Reflections: This "re-research" help me recall some of the old knowledges that I've learned

previously in my second year in AS Media studies. More importantly, digging all these information by

myself helps me understand the topic better, as I am genuinely searching for the explanation for

every key term or explanation that I don't understand yet. This blogpost can act as a note for me or

for anyone else that are searching the explanation for Cameras, Mise-en-scenes, Sounds, and Edits.

My explanation and answers may've been short or lacking in detail as I am doing it very recently and

recalling forgotten knowledges is another challenges too.