Is Max a Stereotypical Teenager?

I disagree with this statement as I don’t think Max partakes in the activities a stereotypical teenager does. The stereotypical teenager is portrayed as hanging around in hoodies at night causing trouble and anti-social behaviour. This kind of teenager usually is part of a big group of friends or ‘gang’ which he/she will most of the time is with. Pretty much all of their time will be ‘up to no good’ or generally doing nothing at all. This image thrust upon teenagers usually also incorporates skiving school, drinking, smoking and the usage of drugs which ultimately end in the youths becoming a hazard to society.

Max obviously comes from a wealthy upper-class background as his parents can afford nicer clothes than the rest of the students. This to start off with might have built a bit on his ego as he is also very good at maths, he might think that he is better than the rest of the students and look down upon them. Max dislikes his school but craves to be liked by his fellow classmates as you see at the start of the YouTube clip as he is dreaming of winning their praise. In fact it might be his ego that has left him friendless, although other factors might have affected his unpopularity such as jealousy from other students.  Camera angles show that he is always in the middle of everyone; this infers that he is the leader without even reading any information; he is also dressed differently making him stand out.

Max partakes in activities which many people would label ‘Geeky’. He runs a lot of clubs and societies out of school. Clubs and societies such as stand and coin collecting, Lacrosse management, piloting, bee keeping club, karate club and the school paper publisher. All of these clubs he is founder or president, this power might have built on his ego again. He is very heavily involved in activities such as these; it is obvious that max likes to keep himself busy, maybe to keep his mind off something? Max also loves other cultures especially the French culture and the Russian, I believe this is because he feels unwelcomed and out of place in his own American culture. Props throughout this montage show that he is the leader, from sashes to hats; you can just see he is the leader without hearing any dialogue. Props help again as in most pictures he is holding something to assert his dominance of the rest of the students e.g. a conductors stick a gun or a ball. If he is not holding anything there is usually someone else doing the work, by the look of him he dreams of being a controlling figure as he is never doing to dirty work for example Lacrosse manager.  Lighting represents how powerful he is as when the lighting is bright then he is dressed dark, and when the lighting is dark he is dressed light. This makes him stand out and catches our attention.

Media Studies Lesson 28/09/10

Re-presentation-

The way the media present ‘something’ as though it were real, merely a copy of something.

Signs and Signifiers-

Something which communicates a piece of information = Sign. Multiple ‘ideas’ or ‘feelings’ behind a sign= Signifies.

All Signs belong to cultures for instance is someone said draw a tree, in this country most people would draw the same cloudy tree. In other cultures though when you ask someone to draw a tree they might draw a palm tree or a tree without any leaves.

Gate Keepers-

The people in charge of what you see e.g. editors, producers etc.

Ideology-

 A belief system.

Mise-En-Scene
Camera Angles, Props, Setting, Lighting, Acting

 

Q- Where is the film set?

A- The film is set in a classroom and then in a church, all boys school, America, private and christian

Q- Describe the main character’s personality.

A- He dreams of being liked, not many friends, smug, upper-class and hangs around with younger students.

Q- What is he excellent at?

A- Maths, solving equations

Q- How do others view him?

A- In his dream they view him as a hero but the opposite in real life.

Q- How was he dressed?

A- In school uniform, blazer, shirt, tie, glasses. Wears blazer when every other student doesn’t.

Preliminary Magazine Task - Production

For the first part in the production stage of the magazine cover and contents page was taking the pictures that would be included in our task. I had to pair up with another student and we set around the school taking pictures of what we drew inspiration from and would work on our magazines. We had to take quite fair amount of photographs as it would have wasted our time going around the school taking pictures when we didn’t like the few that had been taken, by taking a lot we had plenty to choose from. The picture that would go onto the front of my magazine is a photo of me with a plain white background so it was easy to cut out in Photoshop.

The next part of the production process was the editing of the pictures by using Photoshop. When I uploaded my pictures on Photoshop I began to cut around the picture of me by using the Magnetic Lasso. After the picture of me was fully cut out I inverted the cut and deleted the background leaving just the image of me. With just the image I began to edit the picture itself, I decided to play around with the contrast and brightness and ended up with a faded picture that I thought looked very professional. I then started to create layer and built on these to add detail and information to my cover.

The next task I did was to fill in my background, of which I chose a light dark green, I chose this colour because it stood out and worded really well with my edited photo. I now had to add the details on the front cover e.g. the stories, these were a simple black. I then added a darker green box around the writing and sent it behind the writing. The reason why I did this is, is because it made each piece of text stand out individually and drew in your attention. We were only allowed to use a three colour scheme; the colours I chose were a light dark green, a darker green and black. This colour scheme went very as no colours clashed and they also emphasised the picture on the cover. Another way to grasp attention is the font I had to pick, in the end I picked a very simple font; I also decided not to have any capital letters on the front cover as it made it more informal. Finally I had to add the date, price, barcode and website details to make it look as professional as possible.

 When using Photoshop something I struggled with was the cutting out of the photo, it took me a while to get used to the cutting tool as I have had no experience with the programme before. Overall the main skill I learnt was using Photoshop in general, after watching other classmates and getting help when needed I quickly picked up the essentials on how to use the programme. I am certain that these new skills will be put to use again later on in the course and am happy that I have picked them up as quickly as I could.  

Preliminary Magazine Task - Pre Production

For our task we had to design and create a front cover and a contents page of a magazine using Photoshop and our creative skill. I had to create a magazine cover and contents that was both eye catching and provided the reader with information about our school. I had to include a mid-shot of ourselves or a model that I had taken; any other picture included in the magazine front cover or contents had to be taken by us personally as well.

First of all I had to design our magazine cover which consisted of drawing up a rough sketch including a masthead, a photo and any other details on the front cover. I annotated my sketch, this included the expression the person was using on the front, the background, any font and colours used. When I sketched the front cover I had to take into account whom would be my target audience and what colours and fonts would attract their attention.

 After a long deliberation on what I should call my magazine I finally thought of Sticky. The main reason I decided upon this name is that it has many meanings including hot, informal and awkwardly difficult. All of these meanings represent the stories inside the magazine as they address the issues no one else asks. Also the concept of when you pick up the magazine you won’t be able to put it down, as if it was covered in glue.

The skills that I had learnt in the pre-production part of this process is that to make a successful magazine front cover and contents page is that you need to pay deep attention to the audience its produced for. For example if you include too much information on the front of the magazine then no student is going to be bothered to pick it up and read through it. Instead you need to include short stories that are going to interest the students, a good colour scheme and fonts. The most important has to be an eye catching picture that the reader can relate to and genuinely be interested in.  

Magazine Cover Ideas

Preliminary Task - Post Production

Overall our group worked exceptionally well together and after our production process was complete we only had one more phase to go through. This consisted of editing the newly filmed footage. I was really out of my depth in this area as I have had no experience at all. Surprisingly though I seemed to pick it up quite quickly, with help from my other group members I was at home and with my new basic editing skills felt less confused.. Soon members of the group started to notice little mistakes that had been made during the filming process such as dead space. We had also zoomed in too much on certain shots producing poor quality shots where characters were suddenly missing parts.  

Most stages in our group were equally shared such as the creation of the story boards, filming and editing as well as any planning that went of behind the scenes.Now that I know my strengths and weaknesses I can work on improving my faults and using my best areas to my advantage. I think that each member of our group has learned from the mistakes made during the processes. Indeed we let a few mistakes slip through our fingers but now we know how best to avoid that from happening again. Now we have seen the effects of little errors, in our next piece we will do our best to prevent them. With our new found knowledge, skills and confidence I think that when presented with our next task, we will find it a walk in the park.

Our Final Piece . . .

Preliminary Task - Production

During the production process we had to pay heed to 3 key factors. The camera angles, continuity and finally the character placing.

After we had received another groups story board we set about filming, one major problem we picked up on was that no one throughout our group had any experience when it came down to useing the camera. Soon we realised that the only way we become more confident with the camera was to get as much experience with it as we could in the time given. No one was really sure where the camera would give us the best shots and we had to rely on the clear story board and trial and elimination. To start off with we had the camera zoomed in way too far to provide a clear shot that encorporated both characters with parts being cut out. To get around this problem next time we will have to keep the character in the exact spot where we filmed them and avoid any knock or movement towards the camera.

Continuity looked like a hard one to keep tabs on from the very start, I thought that we had done a good job on keeping eveything the same when we filmed. As we found out after watching our clip during editing there were scenes where the lighting had changed and objects in the background had been rearranged. Our lighting issue was that in our first scenes there was an open blind in the corner, next time we see this blind it has been rolled up. We had done this to create a lighter enviroment in the room, little did we realise it would affect our continuity.

In general i think that our group perfomed very good, we voted on who would be the best actor would be to represent our group in the filming. We also took it in turns to film, we all took part in some sort of directing whether it be deciding where the camera would be placed to helping actors perform to their full potential. One major fault was getting the shots correct, we didn't get accustomed to the camera zooming in and out at the start and end of the shots, therefore we ended up with shots growing darker in our film. We will need to take little things like these in consideration for when we do our final piece.

Next time I believe each member of our group will remeber the mistakes made in the production process and this will benefit each of us in the future to create a perfect final piece.

Preliminary Task - Pre Production

For our task we had to work in groups of four. The task consisted of a short film being made, we had to include a character walking down a corridor, opening and walking through a door, and then swapping a few lines of dialogue with another character.

First of all our group had to create a story board which we planned and drew out. Camera angles were always a worry dyring the creation of the story board as we had to take into consideration what angles we would use and what angles were clear. Along side camera angles we had to include continuity, and character postions.

I had learned that next time when we create a story board we must make it a lot more detailed and clearer. We weren't as clear as we needed to be, we missed out on too many details, our drawings were too simple and we didn't explain our process enough which implicated the group who recieved our story board. We must learn from these mistakes so we can produce better pieces of work in the future.

Above are my groups story boards. As I have explained they aren't clear enough and are not at all easily legible, we are not surprised that the other groups short film was quite a way off what we had intended. When it comes for us to draw story boards for our final piece, I will have to use all my newly learnt skills from the Pre Production for example clearer and more detailed story boards. 

The 5 C's

Camera Angles - Different places that cameras are positioned to give the audience a variety of views.

Continuity - Generally refers to visual errors. In very basic terms if a man was wearing a red shirt one second then the next a blue one.

Close-Ups - Something/Someone important to show the audience detail or emphasis something, Zoomed in.

Cutting (Editing) - It allows the director to change locations. Main use is to either add pace to a scene to make it more exciting or slow down pace for dramatic emphasis.

Composition - Taking into account the arrangements of elements while producing a film. E.g. light, shadow and arrangement of equiptment.

Me

Hello my name is Tom Simpson. I currently study Media Studies, English Language, History and Sociology for my A levels at Lutterworth College.

I like playing and watching football, my favourite team is Leicester City who I go to watch reguarly. My favourite all time player would either have to be Emile Heskey or Micheal Owen, Heskey might just get top spot being a Leicester boy.

I chose Media Studies AS because I enjoy listening to music and watching films and T.V. I listen to any music really, just not the heavy metal and classical type, I try and keep my options open as I enjoy electro to indie, one of my favourite bands are Kasabian, I also like artists such as Foals, Daft Punk, Brandon Flowers, The xx, Calvin Harris, Empire of the Sun and The Black Keys. 

Two of my favourite T.V programmes are The Inbetweeners and This is England 86'. One of my favourite films is Anchorman starring Will Ferrell, I think this film is hilarious.  I also like the film City of God, although it is not in English the film is an in depth, action packed rollercoaster ride that leads you through a Portugese speaking favela in Rio De Janeiro. I think if you are a real film fan then you won't mind what language the film is in. Not all good films are in Enlgish. My favourite genre would have to comedy as it entertains you for the full length of the movie.
I thought that Media Studies was for me as I'm interested in writing and if I'm lucky will one day be a sports journalist or along those lines. If not I'll just settle on winning the lottery or something.