Audiences

Audiences are highly important to all media texts as without an audience the media text will not have success and not make a profit. Considering the audience aids producers in setting parameters to aid targeting the audience through casting, plot or even the opening of the tv show/film.

An audience is either a singular consumer or a group of consumers of a media text. Media organisations produce media texts in order to make a profit and without an audience they won't make a profit at all. 

Due to an increase in technology mass-media is more competitive than it was thirty years ago with the introduction of more TV channels, radio stations, newspapers, magazines and in more recent years the internet with digital media like on demand services such as BBC iPlayer and Netflix. 

Old media such as TV, radio and print (newspapers, magazines and books) used to have a higher audience but with the introduction of digital media audience has become fragmented, meaning that the audience for something has been separated, for example one part of an audience for a TV show would watch it when it airs whilst another part would wait until it is on demand (iPlayer, ITV player, All 4). 

There are two types of audience, mass and niche. 

Mass audiences are those who consume mainstream or popular media texts such as soaps, sitcoms, reality tv or popular film franchises. 

Those targeting these mass audiences have to think about a large group of people with multiple factors (women, men, children, adults.) Examples of texts targeting a mass audience would be:

• BBC News
• The Guardian 
• Antiques Roadshow 
• The One Show

Niche audiences are much smaller and restrictive audiences but very influential. A niche audience is more select and a collective of those with a unique interest.

Examples of texts targeting a niche audience would be:

• Bird watching magazine
• Walking with Dinosaurs
• Trekkies (documentary)

There are also primary audiences and secondary audiences. The primary audience would be the ones who watch, read or listen to the text with intent and the secondary audience would consume the text as a result of being present.

Demographics are characteristics that are targeted by the media industry. Demographics are characteristics there are fixed. Some examples would be: Ager, gender, nationality/regionality and socio-economic status.
The national readership surgery displays socio-economic status in A to D with A being the richest and D being people with the lowest income (unemployed, students, pensioners)

White Balance

White balance is the act of giving the camera a reference of "true white" meaning the camera can give a fully colour balanced shot. Giving the camera a reference of white means that it will record white correctly, thus will record all colour correctly as white is all colours.
It is important to white balance whenever the lighting conditions change, especially for going from shooting indoors to shooting outdoors. This is also important for early morning and late evening as the light colour changes quickly, despite our eyes not noticing, the cameras do.

To perform a manual white balance you must first make sure that your camera is set to the correct filter for lighting technicians. Then you should point the camera at a pure white subject, ideally a plain white sheet of paper as it is matte, thus non-reflective.
Then you should set your focus, followed by activating the white balance button. This should take a few seconds and your camera will inform you when it has completed the process.

In our lesson we also experimented with changing the colour of the shot by exploiting the white balance setting.
The process is almost the same but rather than using a piece of white paper you use a coloured gel (normally intended for lighting) or a coloured piece of paper. However the colour of the paper will not create the same colour for the shot but rather the opposite, so a blue sheet of paper or gel would result in the shot being warm (red or orange) whilst a red gel or paper would result in the shot being cold (blue).
The results of using green is a purple or pink shot and vice-versa.

Final Evaluation of Foley Project. (Updated)

In the recent weeks, Stuart has set us a group task to provide sound effects to the iconic "shower scene" from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho using Foley methods.

Foley is a sound effect technique named after sound effects artist Jack Foley. It is where you take everyday objects and attempt to create sounds that match what is shown on screen.
Two weeks ago we had a Foley workshop set up by Stuart where we had a range of items to use, for instance there were several cabbages and a knife to aim to recreate the stabbing sound as well as rice which my group used to try and recreate the sound of shower water. There were also balloons which we used to try and make sound like Marion Crane, (the woman who was murdered) sliding against the bathtub by rubbing the balloons. However this didn't go so well and did not have the desired result. On the contrary the rice being poured went successfully and sounded close enough to shower water to be deemed a success.

My group in particular did not have to resort to found content, however if we did need to we would have to use it sparingly and give credit as it is plagiarism.

The editing software used to apply the sound effects was Adobe Premier Pro, as I and two others in my group (Megan, Jess and Alice) have had previous experience with Premier Pro we found it easy to use. We managed to apply sound effects for walking, a door closing, the shower and humming/singing.
Sadly the software crashed and it is currently unknown if any of the work survived, therefore in the next session we need to check the damage and re-do anything that was lost, most likely on a different computer.

I feel the final product is a good first attempt. The syncing of the majority of sounds such as the door, footsteps, the shower, the shower curtains and the water rushing down the plug all sync successfully however the sounds of the screams didn't sync properly and were choppy and cut-up, I don't know why this is but if I had more time I'd correct it.
Overall I enjoyed the audio production, despite finding some parts of the editing tedious. I enjoyed the recording of all the sounds and found that the majority were useful. The sound that worked best was the pouring of the rice and I used this to replicate the sound of the shower, the sound of the rice worked well as it sounded similar to water and was constant and flowing like that of water from a shower.

The feedback I received were generally along the same lines, many said that the sound effects were good however it would have been even better if the sound of the screams were properly synced. I whole heartedly agree with this criticism.

Week 5 Photography Lighting Workshop Summary.

On Thursday the 12th of October during week 5 of the UAL Media Studies course we were given a lighting worship where we experimented with lighting for film and photography.
We were taken into the studio where there were four different lighting set-ups, three were 3 points each using different types of lights, Arri 300s, dedo lights and redheads and the fourth set-up was a horror set-up using Arri 300s.
The three different lights have different brightness levels. The Dedos are the smallest and least bright, they also feature a slider to adjust the brightness. The middle brightness were the Arri 300s and the brightest ones are the redheads.
The redheads use 2400 watts, the Arri 300s use 900 watts and the dedos only use 450 watts.
All of the lights were nice and easy to use safely, once being briefed on the health and safety aspects.
As the lights get very hot it would be dangerous to handle them without gloves as you'd risk being burned by the sheer heat of all the lights, in fact even with the gloves you could feel the heat of all of the lamps and couldn't handle them for long. Another health and safety risk with the lights, especially the redheads is that the extension leads need to be pulled out fully or else they could catch fire due to the immense amount of electricity going through the wires.

We were separated into four groups and in our groups given different roles such as operating the camera, being the model, operating the lighting and taking photos of the whole process. We all changed roles and tried everything and overall the experience was good and taught us a lot about the importance of lighting and how to set up lighting.

Summary of Carousel Week 5 Photography

On Tuesday the 10th of October for week 5 of the carousel we were in a photography workshop.
We covered two processes of photography, taking photos with different shutter speeds and taking photos with different apertures.

We gathered evidence in two different ways
Our Primary evidence was us going out in small groups and taking photos using different shutter speeds and aperture settings. In the first session we were to take pictures capturing movement for example capturing falling leaves or people jumping, even Alice in her wheelchair moving. The effect caused was a blur when using a low shutter-speed and with a high shutter-speed the image was crisp.
In the second session we were tasked with changing our aperture size and taking photos in the garden by the college. The larger the aperture, the more light goes through and the less in-focus everything is in whilst with a smaller aperture more of the subject is in focus.

The method of changing the aperture and shutter-speed is by first turning the mode dial to the S (for shutter speed) and then turning the main command dial on the camera to change the speed of the shutter and to then press the shutter release to take the photo.
The method of changing the aperture is similar but rather than having the mode dial on S it is rather set to A.

The camera used was a Nikon D3200.

Nikon D3200

Soundtrack analysis of Han Solo's death from Star Wars The Force Awakens

In the now iconic scene from Star Wars The Force Awakens where Han Solo, fan favourite character is killed by his son, Ben AKA Kylo Ren.

The soundtrack from the scene is complex, using not only music and dialogue but also ambient sound and sound effects.
The score of the scene the music is low pitch and atmospheric, this helps to build tension for the inevitable confrontation between Han and Kylo. What also aids this is the slowly paced rhythm of the score at this point.
When Han shouts the name of his son the score halts for a brief moment. This helps to take the audience out of the moment for a bit to allow the information of Kylo's real name to sink in. This too also aids in building tension. As Han walks to his son the score slowly begins to crescendo, the music itself is orchestral, mainly string instruments. The tempo is still slow, the timbre is sad, preparing the audience for what is to come.
Finally following Kylo killing Han there is a sting of shock accompanied by the cries of Rey and Fiin and the roar of Chewbacca. This sting reflects the feelings of the audience and characters alike, following the sting the score becomes empathetically mournful and continues as we cut to Leia feeling the death of her husband through the force.

In this scene's soundtrack there isn't much ambient sound however there is still some to note.
For instance the low mechanical hum of a generator can be heard, this informs the audience that the scene is set in a room with generator rooms and thus must produce power for the base.
When Han and Ben are atop the walkway you can faintly hear the sound of wind, this adds to the illusion that the two are high up. The sound of wind also adds to the emptiness of the entire room and almost makes it seem like the father and son are alone despite not actually being alone.

The dialogue given in this scene is empathetic. The timbre of Han's voice is loving and caring, something that is typically contrapuntal to Han's character as he is usually portrayed as a man who only cares for himself and his own gain. The fact that Han's tone is caring shows that he loves his son and wishes for him to return home, he even states this himself. It is in contrast to how Kylo views his father, he sees him as a man who wasn't there for him as a child. At first his voice carries tones of anger when he exclaims, "Your son is dead" however as the dialogue continues the tone becomes sadder as he realises what he has to do. This shows us that he doesn't truly want to kill his father, however his master told him that it would indeed make him become more powerful.

The soundtrack of this scene contains many sound effects, the majority of which were likely added in post, some for example the sound of Han's footsteps were likely done using foley techniques rather than being recorded on-set.
Once such sound effect used in this scene is a the sound motif of Kylo Ren's lightsaber, unlike most lightsaber noises, Kylo's is more warped and raw, this is due to the fact that it is broken. The use of this different sound effect for Kylo's lightsaber helps us identify that it is specifically his, it could also be a parallel to Kylo's character and the fact that he is a warped form of his former self whilst Rey's (Or Anakin's, or Luke's) lightsaber's sound is more basic and simple, showing how she has not been corrupted by the dark side.

Final Evaluation of The Carousel

Review of 4 Hippies in space and a Bic Pen

Today on the 3rd of October for our creative studies carousel we were set the task of producing a mock advert for a Bic 4 colour pen. We were separated into four groups to brainstorm ideas and then there is a vote to find which idea will be produced.
The idea that was selected to be produced was about four hippy astronauts who were in a space ship flying to the moon, one of the hippies has a treasured 4 colour Bic pen. Upon arrival to the moon they are confronted by an alien who threatens the hippies with death if they don't hand the pen over to them.

Personally I felt the production of the advert was mis-managed, we struggled with teamwork and despite Kian the director having a vision of what he wanted to create he wasn't that great at showing the rest of us what to do.
Another problem with the production was how limited we were with resources and having to do it as a live edit meant that we couldn't use a green screen, thus would struggle with creating the illusion of being in space, however to my surprise it was a success and ended up feeling almost like an old episode of Doctor Who or Star Trek. Another positive was the non-diegetic sound effects, the actors did not know when the effects would play and were essentially blind but in the final edit the sound effects synced almost perfectly and gave a satisfying feeling. I myself set up half of the lighting and I am pleased with my results, the lighting in the video is low-key however colourful, using red, blue, green, orange and pink, the first three of those colours are featured on the Bic pen, whether this was the intention of the director or not I do not know but it feels satisfying and is aesthetically pleasing.

Megan on camera 4

I have a few complaints about the finished video, for instance the transitioning of cameras isn't well timed and could be improved, it feels off and wrong, I can't fully articulate my grievance with the transitioning. Another issue I have with the final edit is how it doesn't fully feel like a proper tv advert. It doesn't have many conventions of a standard advert, the only thing we learn about the product is that it is a pen with four different colours and it can apparently kill aliens. I wish it could elaborate more on why the product is worth buying, possibly how many people use it as a fidget toy or how the 4 colour biro is the most stolen pen.

The Beta set

Psycho Shower Scene Foley Activity.

In the recent weeks, Stuart has set us a group task to provide sound effects to the iconic "shower scene" from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho using Foley methods.

Foley is a sound effect technique named after sound effects artist Jack Foley. It is where you take everyday objects and attempt to create sounds that match what is shown on screen.
Two weeks ago we had a Foley workshop set up by Stuart where we had a range of items to use, for instance there were several cabbages and a knife to aim to recreate the stabbing sound as well as rice which my group used to try and recreate the sound of shower water. There were also balloons which we used to try and make sound like Marion Crane, (the woman who was murdered) sliding against the bathtub by rubbing the balloons. However this didn't go so well and did not have the desired result. On the contrary the rice being poured went successfully and sounded close enough to shower water to be deemed a success.

My group in particular did not have to resort to found content, however if we did need to we would have to use it sparingly and give credit as it is plagiarism.

The editing software used to apply the sound effects was Adobe Premier Pro, as I and two others in my group (Megan and Alice) have had previous experience with Premier Pro we found it easy to use. We managed to apply sound effects for walking, a door closing, the shower and humming/singing.
Sadly the software crashed and it is currently unknown if any of the work survived, therefore in the next session we need to check the damage and re-do anything that was lost, most likely on a different computer.

Week 4 Audio Evaluation

The Audio Evaluation