Indie case Study

Terminology terms I have learned

Sound motif - introduces a new character and sound is used to identify the character.
Eyeline match - 2 shots which are juxtaposed to show that the characters are looking at eachother.
Motivated cut- a character that makes the audience have to follow the edit, can be done with speech or sounds.
Prominance - how the long the character is on screen for/shows us the main character (dominance and power)
used to make the audience see things from a certains persons point of view if the audience doesnt want to/ who the audience side with.
(screen time meets who audience is invited to see point of view from)

Ethnicity Portrayls

We looked at different clips to see how ethnicities were portrayed. Each clip was handed out to different groups around the classroom, we then came together to talk about al the different clips we had seen and then came together as a group to share our findings.

Eastenders = positive and exotic
The clip that we looked at was Eastenders. We saw that the clip was a positive portrayl as the scene was a traditional indian wedding. The scene was quite exotic, and there was lot of sari's and gems, traditional decorations. Some of the men wore suits to show they were businessmen and were rich. There was also a lot of dance within the clip. The lighting was quite bright and artificial looking, and the music was a mix of traditional and modern. There was quite a few close up, high and wide shots used throughout.

Top boy = Dangerous and Pitied
The clip consisted of black ethnicity, the character from the clip had an absent father. They were quite family orientated, in the clips there was some references to drugs possible they were associated with drugs. The clip was set in a high street and their costume were hoodies, they showed signs of unity with line "We will look after you". in the clip there was black cultral slang and dialects.

Four Lines = Humerous
This clip consisted of Asians trying to act like Indians. The clip was shot on 'location', it was set in Afganistan/Pakistan. They wore traditional Arab/Indian dress but all had northern,birmingham accents.

Top boy x2 = Dangerous
The black characters are dangerous and violent and they are in conflict with white culture.

This is England = positive/negative and pitied
Again this clip was black ethnicity. This clip showed family and respect. The father was absent in the clip as he was working. They were all eating exotic foods. Character dressed in a 'skin head' costume and has a jamaican accent. He is also quite racist towards white people and is on drugs which makes his flip out and beat people up.

Compulsion = positive and negative
This clip had a mixture of white and asian ethnicity. The clip contained some asian doctors and traditional asian music. There was also a mixture costumes from traditional asian dress and western clothing worn by the characters. The clip contained a family or a community and women in the clip were seen as objects to look at. There was also some mentions of drugs.

Eastender Clip = unity
A black family at a family meal, all sat around one big table. They were planning to 'show all people' something that was not made clear in the clip, all sat around a round table close together. The characters were set out together and were shot in 2's or 3's nevel alone and some uses of wide shots that showed everyone. There was reggae music playing the background. Also there was many different age groups around the table from young adults to elders. There was only black people around the table showing the idea of unity.


We then looked at the idea of opposites and the idea of UNITY and CONFLICT.
I also learnt about binary opposites.

Representation of ethnicity

Emphasis/complement/enhance

The stereotypes of ethnic groups:
- Exotic
- Dangerous
- Pitied
- Humerous
- United

 We watched a clip that showed a white man and a black being portrayed two different ways. They were in a deserted warehouse that the white man was dressed smartly and appeared to be running away from aa black man dressed in what could only be seen as a black coat. Most of the screen time was placed onto the white man and his fear of the man chasing him, there was only quick shots of the black man, never any  shots on his face. Then when the two characters came together we all expected the white man to be the victim, but then we learned that he was the bad guy and that the black guy was just trying to get some revenge on him. This was when his face finally became revealed so we could sympathise with him instead of the other guy.


We then looked at how asians are portayed within the media. We looked into what jobs we signify with them such as doctors, restaurant owners, pharamacists and shop owners.We then looked at to what was considered to be important to them and we though that their religion, family, traditions, respect for elders, arranged marriage, male dominated and how patriarchal they were. We looked at how we percieved them to behave, we thought gangs, technelogical, respectful to family and they're quite sporty. We thought about how they lived and came op with two completely opposite ideas, one was slums in India and then big houses and England. We then saw that they especially liked to celebrate their weddings. they also have the abilities of being smart, sporty and handy.

We then looked at how we thought of black people through the portrayl of the media. We looked at what we percieved them to do as jobs, we thought of, door men, drug dealers, builders, bus drivers, heads of church, sports and dancers. We then looked into their values and we thought of church and their religions and beliefs, how they dont snitch on one another,and how they stand up for what they believe is right.  We also thought of them living in bif familys or in gangs and they enjoy their music (pop, motown.) and their abilities at sport especially within football and basketball as they are generally quite big and powerful.

We then looked at travellers and how percieved them from the media. We percieved there jobs as to be illegal door to door salesman, fairground workers, boxer/fighters and scrap metal collecters. They value their familys and traditions, and know how to stand up for themselves and they always sort out family disputes through nuckel fights and dog fights. They live in caravans and big communities. They have big celebrations for weddings and funerals and they are always unified.

These are the portrays that we have percieved through the media.

Representation of Age (reminder from comparison of characters from harry brown clip)

Today we looked at how shots can portray age, how sounds can portray age and a comparison of characters from the Harry Brown clip using M.E.S, sound, lighting and camera.

I also learnt was proxemic codes means, the closeness of people in a shot and how this can be used to make certain characters seem bigger or more people.
I also learnt juxtaposistion which is how shots are put together, to show the difference between the two.

my missing posts

I recently noticed that posts had been missing. As i edited through old posts I noticed they had saved as drafts instead of blogging, so thought I had best upload them.......

mock exam monarch of the glen

In the clip the youth are portrayed as to be gossips and lazy in the clip compared to the hard working adults around them.  This is reinforced through the slow edits which show their stereotype of youth being lazy and the camera angles were also very high angled making them look smaller and less powerful. The stereotype that is being reinforced is that teenagers don’t care and are just lazy. Also the adults in the clip are all wearing thick layers of clothing and the youth are only wearing thin hardy any layers, the girl in the clip is only wearing a thin top, reinforcing the idea the idea that youth dress inappropriately. The idea of the clip being youth dominated is being challenged by the soundtrack which is slow paced and classical which is generally representing adults and upper class people not working class youth. A quick edit comes into action when the youth girl crashes the car after clearly be seen not having any idea how to drive the car. The edit  then becomes quick paced jumping straight to the scene of the accident. Here the idea being reinforced is that youth are careless, reckless and cannot be trusted. One of the next scenes after that jumps to the headmaster character shouting at the young girl re-enforcing the idea that elderly are more superior to youth and that they disapprove of youths actions. Also the shots on the elderly man are more low angled making him look much more superior and the juxtaposition of how much time is spent on him gives him the status and power in the scene, also the youth character is surrounded by adults in the scene. Also she’s shot from a high angle making her look smaller and vulnerable in the scene. Also the edits are quite quick in the shot reverse shot conversation. This helps to build up tension within the scene as your seeing each characters expression quickly and throughout the dialogue.  Also this is challenging the idea that the elderly are slow, by having quick edits instead of slow edits. In the next scene we see a fairly large well decorated room, which is full of antique furniture. Also in the edge of the shot you can see whiskey sitting on one side this quite an adult, elderly drink which is re-enforced when the two men begin to drink a glass of whiskey.  The men then talk and the elderly character inform the other character that the youthful girl has not sat a single exam. This then leads into the adult character striding angrily across the room before forcefully pulling the door open. He then strides over toward the girl and shout at her “you haven’t sat a single exam?”  in a quite forceful tone and with a fierce expression in his facial expression and body language. The next shot of the girl is another high shot of the girl and she then screams “I hate you!” before running off. This could re-enforce the idea that youth run away from difficult or tense situations or that they also react in a childlike way when they don’t get their own way.

The next shot then changes back to a scene where a load of adults are working hard which is reinforced by the classical fast paced music playing in the background.  The music could be seen to signify the adults as classical music could be seen as elderly music and fast paced music youthful so by mixing the two showing adults. The shots of them are also quick paced to show how hard and fast they are working as by their dialogue they’re up against a deadline to get finished. The next scene cuts quickly onto the girl leaving letters on the bed for some people and the music seems to have slowed reinforcing her emotions and feelings and the hurt she feels to leave.  Behind the letters are some typically girly magazines which gives you an insight into the girl age and time of life.

Also the lighting throughout the piece was quite bright and mostly natural lighting. In this shot the lighting is quite bright drawing your attention to the magazines. We then see a glimpse of some photos of the girls friends who happy ad celebrating something.  The next scene an elderly woman comes walking into the room looking for the youth girl. When she sees she is not there she runs showing the idea that elderly panic easily and do have a concern for the youth and worry about them when they don’t know where they are or what they’re doing. The scene next cuts to a forest area where adults are working, another adult man arrives and starts shouting at the others to “stop this is my land”. This reinforces the idea that adults like to challenge peoples authority and like to have power and feel intimidated when they cannot regain the power and status. All the characters costume in this scene are all farmer and countryside like, they are all pale, green blue and black coloured. Also the elderly woman is wearing a flat cap which is associated with elderly people, whilst the younger generations wear jackets and jeans.