Analysing Ex Machina

How do the technical elements create meaning for the target audience?

The technical aspect that I am focusing on are Mise-en-scene, Camera, Editing and Sound that are portrayed in the film Ex Machina. These include the images and props in the scene for mise-en-scene such as the actors, the setting, the lighting and the era that it is set. For camera it displays the different angles of how to show the shots of the actors and different aspects of the film that make it appear interesting. Editing the film for post production allows the editors to add special effects and graphics to make the film more technical and to create excitement and make it more eye-opening. The sound is the most important technical area for Ex Machina as it is mainly used during the sections of the film that include sound effects in the background.

Sound

The sound that is used in Ex Machina is an orchestral sound that appears every time that there scene is dramatic and is reveal actions that create suspense.The sound effects in the background of Ex Machina create chills and tension for the audience which is engaging. The scene where Ava creates the power cuts and tells Caleb not to trust Nathan. The scene begins with silence and and this connotes that suspense is being created due to make the audience think that they are waiting for something to happen any moment. The silence is then followed up to a distant drone sound played in the background as tension is built. By Ava telling Caleb not to trust him, it connotes that his character is quite naive to listen to a robot rather than his own kind. As Caleb sides with Ava, is connotes how much he starts to care for Ava and this reveals an instant trait that he is the protagonist. 

At the beginning of Ex Machina. Caleb arrives at his location on a helicopter where the sound denotes a chopper that is very loud and that the audience can barely hear the dialogue between the pilot and Caleb. The pilot decides after two hours to tell Caleb that 'This is as far as we can get to the building' which connotes the idiocy of the pilot and raises questions as to why did he not tell Caleb in the helicopter and decides to tell him after he lands and over the loud chopper noise. The sound of the chopper is diegetic as it is a natural sound effect that helicopters make. 

Mise-en-scene

The era of the film is set in the present, however there are many technical elements that are denoted,such as scientific terminology which their language is portrayed quite intellectual and formal. The language used denotes when Nathan and Caleb first meet, their dialect with each other are quite complex, yet they understand their discussion. Caleb gets quite excited about the experiment that Nathan is carrying out and that he gets to be a part of it, yet before he is part of it, he must sign a contract. This connotes that what they are about to do is confidential and serious, portraying that Nathan may not be trustworthy and might be dangerous. By Nathan making Caleb sign the contract, this also connotes that Nathan is not liable for him and could not care less about Caleb, but more importantly about his experiment.

The film has created Ava character to appear like a robot, a computer program. This connotes that she is unique and different and that the audience do not know whether to trust her or not as they do not know how she is going to behave throughout the film. Her appearance set the era more futuristic as half of her body is skin and half of it is transparent, revealing what she is made of inside...wires and technology. She is not human. 

Editing

The editor creates special effects to which are first denoted when Caleb arrives at Nathans house and looks into the camera where the image appears to be centralised. The editor has used visual effects to make it look like Caleb is looking into a camera where they have used CGI which stands for Computer Generated Images where they have made the effect on the computer. The visual effect looks like he is surrounded by heat waves. This connotes that he is portrayed quite vulnerable. It also connotes the technical elements that is portrayed in their era which is set in the present day, yet has futuristic aspects. Most people in the present day do not use a computer programmed voice that works as an intelligent personal assistant to identify the guest entering the house. Also, questions are raised as to why a female voice was used and not a males voice for the computer generator. A real life computer program 'Siri' is a male. Does this say something about Nathans character? Might he be obsessed with women?
The visual effect expresses a lot to the audience as it instantly tells them what type of person lives in the house, the type of person with great knowledge and intelligence. It also indicates that women are portrayed more superior than males as she was quite controlling and demanding to Caleb. This is foreshadowed when Ava betrays Caleb and locks him in purposely and she walks away freely.

Camera

When Caleb is taking a ride on the helicopter, an establishing shot/low angle shot was taken denoting that they are high up on a helicopter and taken to an isolated location. By Caleb taking a helicopter, it connotes that the location he is travelling is a long distance away from his home and there is no going back. The low angle connotes that the helicopter was illustrated as looking bigger in the sky and could further connote dominance and status. The status of being wealthy and lucky as he had won the competition. 

A close up is used when Kioko stabs Nathan in the back. It denotes Kioko smoothly putting in the knife connoting her strength and power that he has and had against Nathan the entire time yet does nothing about him until he begins to get violent towards her and Ava. A close up was used as it was very unexpected for Kiokos actions taken towards Nathan as she was portrayed as inferior the whole time. This relates to foreshadowing the dominance of women and connotes the power they always had, yet no one saw coming as they were locked away like prisoners. The close up shot connotes themes of death, freedom, revenge and war. 

Researching The Sun Audience

Task 1: Content Analysis of The Sun

Entertainment:  29.8%
Advertisement:  40.4%
Sports:  35.1%
News:  23%


Task 2: Layout Analysis of The Sun

Advertisements:  40.4%
Picture:  26%
Print:  40.4%


Task 3: Secondary Research on The Sun Audience

News UK Advertising Facts
The Sun newspaper is mostly read by 16-34 year olds and has 5,178,000 readers everyday. It has 32% of ABC1 demographic and 404,000 Sun readers have a family income over £50k. 

News Commercial: 
The popular newspaper has a social media footprint scale of 2.8 million and also has a scale of 18,999,442 monthly unique browsers. The newspaper delivers 5.42 million readers and on weekends it reaches more 16-34 year olds compared to weekdays. £1 in every £7 spent on groceries is spent by a sun reader.

Press Gazette:
National Readership Survey suggests that 35.5 million UK adults, read a national newspaper in print and online every week. The statistics of readers everyday is 40%, however every week its 70%. 



Task 4: 



Task 5: Uses and Gratification of The Sun Reader

There are FOUR McQuails Uses and Gratifications:

1. Personal Identity - Allows you to be yourself
2. Information - Form of education or Information
3. Integration & Social Integration - Social Media/Life
4. Entertainment - Enjoyable Escapism from routine and problems

The stories that The Sun newspaper put in for Entertainment is the X Factor story about the contestants Emily and Ryan being a couple and the show restricting them from sharing a bedroom as the lovebirds have been banned. This story creates Escapism for the audience as they like to enjoy stories about other peoples lives that they are interested in, to keep themselves entertained from their own lives. 

The front page of The Sun gives the audience important information about ISIS as their topic is about Extremism. The front cover informs the reader that a Sainsbury delivery man has been jailed for being an extremist and for raising money for a terrorism training camp. This story engages the audience as stories about ISIS have been a very common topic in todays news and is news that the whole world is aware of. 

The advertisement of on page 36 of daily horoscopes, allows the audience to to be theirselves. Each star sign infers their personal identity as they are reading about themselves if they believe in horoscopes. The horoscopes section makes the reader forget about all the news for a moment and learn about themselves. 

For integration and social integration there is a page in The Sun newspaper with the headline 'Outrage at online Giants' which tells the audience about issues within social media companies. The sun-heading 'Facebook admits paying just £4m tax in the UK' informs the audience that the most popular social media company has been failing to pay the cooperate tax in the UK. This story intrigues the audience as they might use the social media site and be interested in the deeper insights to their company. 

Comparing Star Wars with Star wars

Film Job Roles

Evaluation of Continuity Exercise

 The Interview

I have finally finished my project 'The Encounter' and this is the evaluation of my edit workshop which includes various techniques i have used, my overall strengths and weaknesses throughout the project and challenges i faced during production and post production.

In my continuity editing piece i had to include:
The Rule of Thirds
180 Degree Rule
Match on Action
Shot Reverse Shot

I kept to the 180 dregree rule correctly throughout my piece so that the shots would be consistent. If the rule was broken, the characters would look like they have switched positions or moved and it would just confuse the audience. For one of the main shots where the 180 degree was useful to use was in a shot with Sami where he walks in the door and looks at Selin. In the next shot with Selin where she turns to look at Sami, i still filmed on the right side of the room as i wanted Selins eye contact to look correct as if she really was looking at Sami.

While filming, i consistently made sure that the Rule of Thirds was followed and so observed each shot thoroughly. One of the shots where i have used the rule of thirds was the closeup shot of Kishen's face, where i had accurately filmed his eyes intact with what i envisioned, the first horizontal line on the grid which is lined up down a third of the screen. This also is useful to use at it can connect with the audience.

The 'Encounter' had specified to use at least one match on action shot within the edit, however i managed to include three match on action shots which i had creatively included to make it look more appealing and eye grabbing for the audience. A match on action shot is used to make the piece flow and must be edited accurately if included. This is where one shot connects with another shot and portrays a sense of movement.
The first shot match on action was used was where Selin was shown knocking and opening the door ouside of the office, to Selin walking into the office gradually opening the door. The second was filmed inside of the office and so had to match the movement of the door opening at the most accurate angle.

The second match on action was seen when Kishen and Selin are shaking hands. The shots went from a Mid shot to a Closeup shot of the two hands coming together. It had taken a lot of concentration and use of the blade tool to get the match on action to look perfect and honestly thought I had done a great job as I am proud of how the finishing shot looked.




I had used Shot Reverse Shot in the conversations of my two characters which also consisted of using  over the shoulder shots to show the apect of the characters speaking. The shot reverse shots i used was in the conversations of Selin and Kishen which was located in his office.

During production we did face a few problems, in our storyboards we were supposed to do a two-shot of Kishen and Selin to portray the conversation between two people and maybe even the distance between the two, however this did not go as planned as the location we were filming in was unable to fit both of the characters in the shot. In the positions they were sat in, it did not fit the camera lense unless we placed them close together, but this was not the case. Instead we came to the conclusion of using a over the shoulder shot to solve this problem. Although the problem was not major, myself and Zahra managed to solve it quickly and efficiently.

During post production we did not face many problems, however we later realised that we needed more shots to put in-between where characters face appeared in a shot and the next on after that, and it would end up looking like an unprofessional jump cut. We realised that we had either filmed cutaway shots which would've been very useful in that situation. While editing i wants to correct this mistake to achieve the outcome i wanted, and so i went through every single tho that i could use as a cutaway just to come away from Selins face for a split second. The shot i ended up using was the establishing shot of the school which worked very well. I found it difficult to correct this mistake, it took me a bit of time but got there in the end as i was determined to make my video look, how i thought, was perfect. If i was to edit again, i would definitely consider filming more cutaways in future.

 I think that a strength of my work was my creativity on the idea and music choice. It is a comedic and light hearted comedy because of the stereotypical ditzy girl that Selin brilliantly played. I think that my creative skills were shown very well considering we were given a vague brief to work with and had to come up with an idea from scratch. I also think that my work is successful because of the various use of match of action and over the shoulder shots, these helped to make my story more interesting and like how I used the range of shots to keep the audience hooked and interested.

Overall, if I was to make any improvements I would change the costume of the main character Selin to look more stereotypical and given her a blonde wing to wear throughout the video. My original idea was to have Selin wearing the wing and as she comes in, she trips over and the wing falls off. I did not go through with this idea in the end as we did not have enough time to get props and was stuck straight into the project, but would have definitely went through with this idea and it would have created great humour.

Continuity Editing Exercise

Continuity Editing Exercise

The scenario of this exercise was to create a scene where the character opens a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. For the scenario we could choose the characters ourselves depending on the personality the character play. A benefit from the scenario was that we could choose any topic for it to be based on with the use of dialogue and acting. 


Rule of Thirds - The picture inside the camera screen is split into six small boxes - the rule is that the persons eyes should be perfectly aligning with the first horizontal line on the grid.
Throughout filming, the characters eyeline match should be aligned consistently as it would make the continuity more clearer. 

Match on Action - is a cut that occurs midway through a shot and goes from one shot to the next but has to end with a smooth finish. This allows the audience to have an immersive experience while watching.

180 Degree Rule - when filming the shot, the camera mustn't go further than 180 degrees and must stay on the same side of the room. If this rule is not followed, the shot will be interpreted differently and it will look like the characters have changed position or not making the correct eye contact. In our scenario the 180 degree was easy to achieve in an interview environment - just had to stay on one side of the two actors.

Shot Reverse Shot - Shot shows character looking at another character in a conversation format. This is mostly used as an Over the Shoulder Shot and goes from one shot, to another shot and then back to the previous shot.

In school I had learnt the above shots as they were mentioned in the Encounter and were a 'must do' to be included, and we were to produce them in our video.

The key media skills that has to be used in this piece of media work is to at least use one Shot Reverse Shot in the scene. We will use two Shot Reverse Shots to illustrate the conversations and also to capture the movement of their emotions and reactions. The 180 Degree Rule will be correctly used throughout on the right side of the room so the angles of characters positions and eye contact would not look deranged. I will successfully use the Rule of Thirds continuously during each shot, so that the characters head does not cut of in the shot. I will have to be certain that all of these shots are included in my scenario to achieve the best possible outcome and the best grades.

I had planned my piece of media with my class member Zahra who had helped me come up with a plan that suited the storyline to match the scenario. In lesson one we were to plan our scenes on Microsoft Excel and was to consider; the camera movements, where we were going to place the camera,  the shot types we were going to be using and the order of the storyline.

Once we had a rough plan of our sceneario, we were then given Storyboards to plan what each shot would include on paper before we started to film. We also focused on what type of shot we would want as different shots can connote different things and so we drew on the Storyboard what we wanted the shot to look like. We focused on the Edit of the shot (Cut,Dissolve and Fade), Angles (High angle & Low angle), Lighting (SFX,Music & Dialogue) and duration of each shot. These are all very important as the choices we made will emphasise the aspect of the genre of our video which is Comedy.

Overall, I think that me and Zahra were successful as we were both determined and driven to finish the work to the best of our ability. My main role was directing the characters on what position to stand and how to act and say their dialogue, whereas Zahra was lovely enough to use the camera to film all the footage. I found this easy to do as i have previously been doing Drama for 5 years and the people that acted in our video have also been doing Drama for several years and so I found it simple to direct them as they listened to my instructions carefully. However, at times it was difficult and stressful as I had to timetable when the actors were available to film, and what parts we could film with just the one actor, as we had scenes where there were two or more actors involved. We were also worried about meeting the filming deadline and thought we would not finish it in time, nevertheless did finish it and all those things aside, we were both very successful in achieving all our cuts and I was successful as being the Director.

Instead of creating a scenario that was just a character walking into a room and sitting down on a chair, we decided to create something more exciting and include a more interesting storyline. I came up with the idea of a stereotypical girly girl who enrols to a school just in order for her to be with a guy she fell in love with at NCS. While being interviewed by the Headmaster, later on the guy she had met at NCS comes in and they then stare affectionately into each other's eyes. I spun this around to be a Comedy as their dialogues and facial expressions I had created developed humour to the piece. The location we had used was a school and it was set perfectly to link to the storyline and also the sound effects of the school bell in the background, that we did not intentionally put in, made the scene look natural. The main character Selin who played the stereotyped girl wore a casual cream top with a denim black skirt and boots which is what any girly teenage girl would wear and for the character who played the Headmaster, I told Kishen to wear a very smart Black suit to portray his character correctly. We tried to use a variety of shots to capture different aspects of the characters and to make it not look boring. The range of shots we used were long shots, mid shots, closeup shots, extreme closeup shots and high and low angle shots.

Types of Audience Research - Rajar

Rajar

What does the company acronym stand for?

Rajar stands for Radio Joint Audience Research Limited.

What do they do?

They operate a single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the UK and is jointly owned by the BBC and Radiocentre of the commercial sector.

How do they do it?

They collect information on behalf of the BBC. They range from very small local services to the national networks.

Who uses the information?

It is used internally for themselves or by other radio stations who are in competition to see who the best radio station is.

Is it free? or Payed for?

Its a non profit making organisation.

What audience measures do they use?

The measures that they use are demographics, socio-economic, age, gender, ethnicity.