Representation task: Skins

Tony
During the first scene we are introduced to Tony as a confident teenage boy who looks after himself, this is immediately illustrated by him working out once he gets up in the morning. In addition he checks himself out in the mirror when he wakes up which shows he is slightly arrogant and self obsessed.  Another example of his confidence is when he stares at the naked women across the street knowing that she will stare back at him, this insinuates he is confident around women which contrastswith his best friend Syd who is introduced later on.                             

Initially from the appearance of his room it is a stereotypical lads room with posters, clothes and a stereo, however upon closer inspection you notice the smaller details. The film posters are vintage 80's Italian classics such as 'Blow up' (Antonioni) and 8 1/2 (Fedrico Fellini), this indicates that Tony has finer interests in life other than the stereotypical 'lad' interests. Another thing which we are drawn towards is his clothes are perfectly ironed and folded in his draws, this again you would not expect from a lad of his age.

As we carry on through the scene we find out that Tony is just a normal rebellious teenager, first shown when he plays the music extremely loud, not only to help his also rebellious sister into the house after a night out but to annoy his dad, who seems to be losing control of the family and tony is very much in control, passive aggressively. And again when he sneaks out the bathroom window simply just to annoy his dad and subtly prove that he is in control.

When we are introduced to Tony's friends we notice that they are all binary opposites, we have maxi, who is gay, Anwar who is a Muslim, Syd who is a nerd, and Chris who is in bed with a girl, his friendship group is very broad and he appears to be the ringleader who is ringing everyone up and trying to organise the party, it is clear that if tony says something the rest will follow from the start. he is also very sexist towards his girlfriend, constantly calling her 'nips' referring to her apparent funny nipples and tries to get her to help out with Syd being a virgin, as if she doesn't have a choice, yet he does this in a charming and witty manner. Tony is very patronising to Syd as well, he tells him that he is embarrassing because he hasn't lost his virginity by the age of 16 and constantly insults him, but yet again he seems to do it in a passive aggressive way that comes of as charming and friendly.

Why did Dredd flop at the box office?

Why did Dredd flop at the box office?

Dredd is set in the dystopian future of America on the East Coast, an area which is inhabited and taken over by criminals. The only order which is upheld is by the urban cops known as the 'Judges' who have the power to carry out instant executions if they decide it necessary, Dredd is the ultimate Judge and is renowned throughout the city. The city's major problem which is spreading throughout the city is a new drug being dispensed known as 'Slo-mo', which makes the brain work at 1% of its normal everyday speed and is being produced and sold by the street drug lord 'Ma Ma'. The whole operation is run from the tower block 'Peach Trees' and Dredd is assigned to train and evaluate Cassandra Anderson, a rookie with powerful psychic abilities whilst performing a drug bust on one of the leaders who runs the operation in the building. Upon performing the raid, they capture one of Ma Ma's thugs named Kay. Once Ma Ma hears of this she fears he may talk, leading to her sealing the building with Dredd and co inside. This leads to Ma Ma placing a bounty on their heads for everyone in the mega block, a fight ensues and Dredd and Anderson must fight to survive the night.


The films type/genre is Crime thriller which suits the films storyline and action scenes. It was produced by DNA films, I M global and Reliance entertainment and released in 2012 with it based on a re-make of the previous version which was released on the 30th June 1995. Dredd starred Karl Urban, Wood Harris, Olivia Thirlby and Lena Headey.

The main reasons for Dredd's lack of success in the Box Office was its unfortunate similarity with the film 'Raid' which was released shortly before its release, this caused a remarkable drop in figures as customer caught on to its similar story line. In addition another mistake the production company made was giving it an 18 certificate, this prevented younger viewers going to see it and caused a drop in figures as apart from avid comic book readers, the film would mainly appeal to younger viewers with an appetite for the superhumans. This may have not appealed to an older audience.Furthermore due to Dredd being owned by Marvel it failed to comply with normal certificated of 12A or PG12 which other superhero films followed.
Although Dredd was made to compete with the U.S films it never really reached the standard of Blockbusters at that time, this was due to films such as Avengers dominating the U.S box office.

Moreover another factor to Dredds apparent lack of success was due to there being other superhero films with more substantial storylines/plots, this again clashed with The Avengers as it contained sub plots which linked in with separate films made by Marvel such as Iron man, Captain America, and the Incredible Hulk. In hindsight Dredds low budget of $45 Million and lack of Star names was always going to struggle with big time Hollywood blockbusters with large budgets of around $220 Million and a star studded cast. This lead to Dredd earning just $41 million in boxoffice and The Avengers earning $1.518 billion, this shows the importance of having a cast with that many big names.

It was shown in 2,506 locations and cinemas and 2,200 of them were 3D, which only leaves 306 locations which were only 2D. So if you didn't like it you would have to travel a long way to go and see it in 2D if you didn't live near one of the locations were its being shown in 2D. So most likely people who wanted to see it but did not want to see it in 3D and didn't live near a 2D screening would just not go and see it. 18% of people cant even go and see 3D films due to physical reasons. That’s a chunk of the there audience gone already unless they live near one of the 306 locations were it was shown in 2D. Furthermore 3D is more expensive than 2D so people may not want to pay the extra money to go and see the film. Another thing is that people may not like 3D in general for example it may be annoying having to wear the glasses for a large amount of time. They then took an unusual step to try and make more people see it by getting rid of being able to see it in 2D which just made it worst as a lot of people don’t like 3D and now they could not see the film at all.



   

Textual Analysis and Representation (The 7 key areas of representation)

Particular areas of representation that may be chosen are:

1. Age
2. Ethnicity
3. Gender
4. Sexuality
5. Class and status
6. Physical ability/disability
7. Regional identity

     

Textual Analysis and Representation (The 4 key areas of textual analysis)

Camera Shots, Angle, Movement, Composition

• Shots: establishing shot, master shot, close-up, mid-shot, long shot, wide shot, two-shot, aerial shot, point of view shot, over the shoulder shot, and variations of these.
• Angle: high angle, low angle, canted angle.
• Movement: pan, tilt, track, dolly, crane, steadicam, hand-held, zoom, reverse zoom.
• Composition: framing, rule of thirds, depth of field – deep and shallow focus, focus pulls.

Editing

Includes transition of image and sound – continuity and non-continuity systems.

• Cutting: shot/reverse shot, eyeline match, graphic match, action match, jump cut, crosscutting, parallel editing, cutaway; insert.
• Other transitions, dissolve, fade-in, fade-out, wipe, superimposition, long take, short take, slow motion, ellipsis and expansion of time, post-production, visual effects.

　Sound

• Soundtrack: score, incidental music, themes and stings, ambient sound.
• Diegetic and non-diegetic sound; synchronous/asynchronous sound; sound effects; sound motif, sound bridge, dialogue, voiceover, mode of address/direct address, sound mixing, sound perspective.

Mise-en-Scène

• Production design: location, studio, set design, costume and make-up, properties.
• Lighting; colour design.

Camera shots

Over the shoulder shot - Used in the first video at 0:05, this shot is usually used for a clip when a conversation is happening, the shot helps establish the position of each person from the other persons point of view.
High angle shot - Used at 0:11 this shot is used to make the person in the clip seem smaller and not as important,  as if someone is overpowering over them.
Low angle shot  - This shot is used to make someone appear a lot bigger than they are, and to make them seem intimidating and important.
Tracking Shot - This is a camera movement where the camera moves in a particular direction e.g. up / down or left / right. seen in the second video at 0:30.
Tilt shot - this shot only goes up or down, used in the video at 0:32.
Zoom - This shot is used in films, its used to get closer or further away from a character, shown in the video at 0:40.
Arc shot - This is used like a tracking shot except the shot almost goes into a semi circle and bends so you can see what's in the scene from both sides. shown in the video at 0:47.
Crane shot - This shot is used to show the camera floating up into the air like its on a crane, this shot is usually achieved when the camera is put onto a remote control copters or something similar and then the camera men can control where they go. seen in the clip at 0:49.
Panning shot - The camera is stationary but is spinning from left to right, seen in the clip at 0:51.
Extreme long shot - This shot is exactly what is on the name, its a shot of something very far away, to give the audience a sense of scenery and it creates atmosphere.
Long shot - This shot is similar to the extreme long shot but its not as long, its like looking at the house across the road or across a small car park etc.
Mid shot - Typically this is a shot of the middle of the subject, in the clip it is the middle of a persons body, head to torso area. 0:35.
Two people shot - This shot is one in which two people can fit into the camera frame, instead of the over the shoulder shot where you cant see both faces.  0:37.
Close up - Not to different to a mid shot but closer in, as oppose to chest to head it would be shoulders to head. 0:40.
Extreme close up - Even closer than a close up, in the video it focuses on small details like the persons glasses 0:45.

Representation of Lester Burnham

The character who I am studying is Lester Burnham, the main character in the film 'American Beauty'.


When writing this piece I had to consider the Sound, Editing, Camerawork and Mise en scene.



From the beginning the first impression I was given of Lester Burnham Is his discontent for his life, this is illustrated by the negative narration/voiceover, his poor posture 'when seated in the back of the car' and his unhappiness with his wife. Another contributor to him disliking his life is the 'role reversal' in his family, his wife appears to have taken the fatherly role in the family (Waiting to drive him to work/More importantly dressed/Earns more money?) and his daughter has taken the passenger seat in the car which is traditionally reserved for the drivers partner. Lester is then cast into the back seat where he slouches like a teenager who doesn't want to be going to school.


Furthermore another example is his dislike fore his wife who he describes in the voiceover in a negative manner, this gives the impression of a loveless/sexless marriage which is supported by him jerking off in the shower (Highlight of his day).


In addition the film supports a semantic field of a Lester's life being a prisoner, this is illustrated in the shower scene, when he looks out from the window at his wife socialising with the neighbours and on the reflection in the computer screen.


When talking about Lester's life, the background is a dull, monotonous tone which fits in with boredom of his everyday life. The mise en scene is dull and boring also as his room in the opening scene is beige and his office is a dull blue. The colour scheme is red, white and blue which runs throughout the film, this illustrates an average Americans life.

Basic camera shots