[IGS] Warp and Working Title films in the Library

These are all 15-rated or below; for others please discuss viewing with your parents. If you google the film title with the word BBFC you will find guidance from the UK film censor explaining what content is responsible for the age rating received (or search directly in the BBFC site). This is also useful for your exam preparation, and a topic you need to engage with for discussing your coursework target audience too. Its also an important issue for distributors, another issue you have to directly address in relation to your own coursework production!

This post will be updated in January with an extensive list of additions. It might be an idea to consider requesting some Working Title or Warp Films productions on DVD in time for Xmas!

As of December 8th 2015, I have spotted three WT films on DVD:

Pride and Prejudice (not a rom-com, but a romantic drama also seen as a costume or period/heritage drama, with a typically WT focus)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (some clever marketing for this by WT and the distributor, and a sequel is in the works - another example of a WT film that is based on a well-known novel - BJD is another!)

Frost/Nixon (we've focused so far on the narrow English representation of 'Britishness', but WT are also noted for producing essentially American films!)

Film Openings: List of films being covered

...
TOM CROSS - Bridget Jones' Diary (WT rom-com)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 7:00
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: 1:00
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:

LOUIS - The Boat That Rocked (WT rom-com)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 3:15
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: 0:41
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:

MILO - Atonement (WT war drama/romance)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 1:44
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: 0:30 (idents) 1st shot 0:52
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:

ROBBIE - Napoleon Dynamite (Indie teen comedy)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 5:19
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: 0:56
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:

ALEX - Burn After Reading (WT, Coens arthouse)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 6:22
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: 1:22
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:

NIAMH - Ferris Bueller's day Off (80s teen comedy)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 5:30
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: 0:14 (1 ident), 0:35 to shot1
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:

RIAN - Wish You Were Here (WT's 2nd film, drama, some comedy/social realism)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 1:28
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: [none]
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:

NICOLA - Four Lions (Warp, social realist comedy)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 3:20
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: 0:20 (1st title appears later, 3:11 in)
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:

CHARLES - Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee (Warp, £48k mockumentary)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 2:30
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: none;
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:

WILL - About a Boy (WT rom-com)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 5:41
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: 0:40 (0:53 to shot1, a tracking shot)
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:

TOM ATKINSON - Ali G Indahouse (WT2 comedy)
LENGTH OF OPENING: 3:10
IDENTS COMBINED LENGTH/TIME OF SHOT 1: 0:45 (1:20)
SHOT 1 + ANALYSIS:


Nicola has also posted her own list, including hyperlinks...so I've borrowed that!
Tom Atkinson - Ali G, Opening Analysis (P.1) (P.2) (P.3)
Tom Cross - Bridget Jones's Diary, Opening Analysis
Milo Davis - Atonement, Opening Analysis
Alex Hey - Burn After Reading, Opening Analysis
Will Laing - About a Boy, Opening Analysis
Louis Rose-Fall - The Boat That Rocked, Opening Analysis
Rian Scaife - Wish You Were Here, Opening Analysis
Charles Verfuerth - Le Donk & Scor-Zay-Zee, Opening Analysis
Robbie Watson - Napoleon Dynamite, Opening Analysis
Niamh Wormald - Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Opening Analysis

Year 9 Media Studies: course outline

For more information, or if you have any queries, please see Mr Burrowes (K5).
You can find more Media blogs run by Mr Burrowes here, and you can also view students' blogs here ... not to mention the IGS Media Studies YouTube site here!



BREAKDOWN BY KEY TASKS/PROJECTS
The course reflects the structure of the GCSE, and I've taken elements of all three GCSE units to give you a headstart when it comes to the GCSE (and, later, the A-Level).
You will have lots of opportunity to experiment on this course, and try things out, though we will also be looking at some theory and learning a range of media terminology (media language!).

PROJECT ONE: NEW BRAND or VIDEO GAME AD
This is an individual task; tasks 3 + 4 are groupwork.
EITHER (a) Launch a new product aimed at either males or females OR
(b) Create a magazine ad featuring a new video game character

Technology companies have a LONG history of patronising female consumers...

PROJECT TWO: ANALYSIS
This is also an individual task. We will apply some basic theory and terminology to analysing your completed media texts. You will have a wide range of choices on how you present this: written Word or PowerPoint document; blog post; podcast etc.

PROJECT THREE: SPOOF TV AD
The final two tasks are groupwork.
Turn one or more of the Task One texts into a spoof TV ad. We will use this to learn the basics of Final Cut Pro X (contingent on confirmation of rooming).

PROJECT FOUR: TV SHOW
Create an extract from a new TV programme.



THE BROCHURE ENTRY:

Answering Eval Q3: distributor?

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Below is a short step-by-step guide; there is MUCH more in this guide post.

You can use the BritishCinema blog distribution tag to find lots more useful case study material and analysis to apply.

THE BASICS Think of this just like your exam - the points you make (EAA) need to be backed up/illustrated with relevant real-world examples (EX), and there is plentiful scope to add polish and sophistication by using specific media terminology (T), all of which is good practice for your exam too.

BBC opportunity for West Yorkshire vloggers

Time is limited to act on this, but it sounds a great opportunity (thanks to Karen Mitchell, School Careers Co-ordinator for passing on details); there's a video which hasn't embedded below at the source site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/careers/shortform:

Shortform

   

The Brief

We are looking for a new generation of talented people who can make great short-form videos. We want to find the vloggers and digital content creators of the future by giving people from West Yorkshire an opportunity to showcase their work on a BBC digital platform.
This is a fantastic opportunity for the BBC to work with you, creating bite-sized video content that is inventive, provocative, intelligent, attention-grabbing and funny!
You do need to stand out from the crowd, but you don’t need experience to get involved.  Mentoring and masterclasses will be awarded to the freshest personalities with the greatest ideas. We’ll give you industry support to develop and create a final piece of short form digital content to showcase to BBC decision makers on March 28th in Leeds.

How do I get involved?

Practice/Past Exam clips and other revision resources

There are many detailed posts across my blogs!

Here are all the past questions.

OCR (our exam board) provides past papers, exam reports AND examples of student exam essays at varying grades.

here's the 2014 G322 exam paper:

Click to enlarge, or ctrl/CMD-click here.

A film pack and much more from another centre (Brentford School for Girls) who use WT as a case study. They also have several clips and analysis in this post.

A good range of resources from Reigate.

Beauchamp Media's playlist of practice/past clips (some deleted, just skip as need be):

World's End task

NOT part of the franchise, but similar personnel; typical WT?

Today's task will be split over 2 lessons: 1 to research and piece together a blog post (featuring an embedded PowerPoint or Prezi if you wish) and 1 to present/discuss these.

This is primarily intended to aid exam preparation, but has a definite link to coursework; your post title will be: World's End: Why Accurate Audience Research is Vital!

Spend at least 40mins on RESEARCH and discussion of findings, not presentation - if some additional time is needed to put together a post that's fine.
Use any and all resources you've seen/used this year to help with the following - you'll speed the process up if you think carefully about this.
This is a group task so you can share files via dropbox, the Mac's share function, or by copy/pasting each other's draft posts (or USB!).

In doing this task you will be touching on the five core 'key concept' areas that the Media A-Level is focussed on (and one of the A2 exam Qs is specifically focussed on applying theory on these to your own work):

Media Language - you must utilise any relevant terminology, including clear + specific denotation but also narrative, semiotics...
Audience - the British Cinema Q is headed 'Audience and Institutions', and you need to analyse the interplay between the two, as you will here
Narrative - posters and trailers selectively present the narrative; character types can be vital for audience appeal, as can narrative elements (eg the classic feelgood Hollywood closed ending; the American dream - Billy Elliot...)
Genre - even low budget flicks can have a chance if they tap into popular genres; Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead were spectacularly successful given their budgets; Warp has produced several slasher movies alongside its less commercial social realist productions
Representation - the ideology or cultural impact of representations is a key issue, but this also applies to marketing and, for British films especially, the crossover potential for mainstream success and/or foreign sales/distribution
You can remember these as 'MANGeR', or even MIGRAINe if you include institution and ideology!

POINTS TO COVER:

Semiotic test: analysing past coursework

Simple task today...
I will screen a past IGS coursework example (its shorter than using an exam clip!) THREE times (not 4 as in the exam), then you will have 10mins to write at least 5 sentences of semiotic analysis discussing and critiquing the media language of the piece. You will then have a chance to re-view it using this post, and write an improved NEW 5+ sentences - at this stage you can use the video from this post, and have your handouts out to reference, and ask questions if you wish.
I will take both versions in to mark.

You should look to combine EAA with EX and T ...
I particularly want to see how extensively/accurately you can apply media terminology.
As with the exam question, consider the four technical areas:

• cinematography/lighting/framing
• mise-en-scene
• sound
• editing

You can also attempt to analyse representations if you feel able to, linking any of the technical areas to sterotyping and/or countertyping.