High and low key lighting homework

High and low key lighting in Harry Potter

Lighting can be used to have a dramatic effect, it can make important objects or characters stand out. It can also affect the mood of a scene, making it look for example, bright and cheerful, or dark and mysterious. There are two types of key lighting, low key and high key.

Low key lighting: created by using only key and back lights, produces sharp contrasts of light and dark areas, and deep distinct shadows or silhouettes are formed.

High key lighting: more filler lights are used, lighting is natural and realistic to our eyes. It produces brightly lit sets or a sunny day.

This is an example of low key lighting from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. It gives the scene an eerie mood, and suggests that the characters can’t see where they are going due to the darkness.

In contrast to this, here is an example of high key lighting from the Deathly Hallows part 2. It is the scene where Harry has entered a spiritual world and encounters Albus Dumbledore. The lighting gives the scene a heavenly like feel, as there are no shadows or areas of darkness, perhaps implying how in this paradise that Harry has entered, there is nothing sinister or evil.

breaking the fourth wall homework

Breaking the Fourth Wall

The fourth wall is an imaginary “wall” dividing the audience from the action of the set. Breaking this wall occurs either when the audience is directly addressed by someone within the set or when someone within the set acknowledges that they are fictional.

This can have the effect of humour, as it brings the characters out of the fictional story into the real world.

Examples of this are in The Emperor’s New Groove as the llama will pause what is happening on the screen and directly address the audience to try to explain what is happening in the film from his perspective. He literally scribbles on the fourth wall. This has the intended effect of humour for older audiences (parents, older siblings etc) who might be watching the film with younger children. They are more likely to understand this concept of humour than younger children.

In Two and a Half Men, there is a scene that has three incidents of where the fourth

wall is broken. Watch this clip bellow ↓

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24juICcNUTQ

Firstly, Walden breaks the fourth wall by hinting that they are in a TV drama by saying “Sort of like a recap on a reality show?” This has the intended effect of humour, because they are in fact on a TV show. He then says, “Shame we can’t let America vote on it”, which again he is hinting at something which would be possible to do and again breaking the fourth wall as he toys with the idea that they are on a television program, rather than accepting the fact that they are fictional characters. To these subtle breaking the fourth wall attempts more obvious, Alan then goes and makes this very obvious by turning to face the camera, looking directly at the audience and saying “or can we?” The fact that he looks straight on at the camera alone is significant to breaking the fourth wall, as in most TV dramas, the characters will address each other by facing each other, not the audience. Also by saying “or can we?” he is questioning his own reality and his place within that TV series. This, again, has the intended effect of humour.

Another effects of breaking the fourth wall could be to scare the audience. I could not find any examples of this for films or TV, however there are many video games that will use the breaking of the fourth wall to scare the player. For example, Eternal Darkness, which has a sanity bar, will produce game like glitches on purpose in order to cause the player to feel scared and uncomfortable, such as turning the volume down to silent automatically during a tense fighting scene.

One final subtle example of breaking the fourth wall is in Scrubs. Season 8 episode 1, at the very beginning JD walks along the corridor towards the camera. He then turns to the side and points down at the bottom right hand corner of the screen and says, “That’s new”. His finger is pointing at the “abc” logo, but within the TV drama it is implied that he is pointing at the janitors watch. The relevance of this is that Scrubs, previously owned by NBC, was now being screened by abc. By JD pointing out the watch being new, he also shows that the abc logo is new.

Magazine Coursework Checklist

Magazine Coursework Checklist

Identify:                                          Genres

                                                            Target audience

 

Feature article photograph selection

 

Feature article:                          Planning (Q and A?)

                                                            Final draft (Q and A?)

 

Other articles:                            Planning interview(s)

                                                            Final draft interview(s)

                                                            Album review plan

                                                            Album review final draft

                                                            Tour dates

                                                            Competitions

                                                            Instrument lessons

 

Write in sections:                      Letters from customers planning

                                                            Letters from customers final draft

 

Pictures:                                         Band in action

                                                            Band photo shot

                                                            Solo artist(s)

                                                            Editing images

 

Name ideas:                                 Magazine

                                                            Bands

                                                            Albums

                                                            Feature article

 

Layout:                                          Front cover plan

                                                            Front cover final draft

                                                            Contents plan

                                                            Contents final draft

                                                            Double page spread plan

                                                            Double page spread final draft

Desperate Housewives Homework

Desperate Housewives Opening

 

The feature of Adam and Eve gives the connotation that women are responsible for the fall of man. However, the scene clearly shows the snake passing Eve the apple. The snake is often perceived as a male, and the connotations of this suggest that men brought on their own destruction; the snake passes the fruit to Eve before disappearing into the tree, then a large apple falls crushing Adam, perhaps the snake pushed it onto him? This mocks the theory that women are to blame for the fall of man, making female audiences feel powerful and in a sense are getting revenge for sexism. This also fits in well with its subgenre of rom-com, linking to its main target audience of women.

 

The Egyptian mummy in the temple, with child figures popping up connotes that women are child bearers and mothers. The short scene mocks this traditional role of women, implying that the ideology should be laughed. It is made comical by over emphasizing the childbirths, the mother appears to drown in amongst all of the children, her arms waving in the air helplessly. It could also be thought of as a play on words, the term mummy describes a mother and the body of a person who has been preserved after death.

 

The characters from the Dutch painting – the Arnolfini couple are shown in a way that mocks the male gender and sympathises with the female gender. The man in the couple takes a bite out of a banana before throwing it over his shoulder for his wife, who is pregnant, to sweep away. It is just viewable his eyes flickering slightly in her direction, almost prompting her to sweep it away. The connotations of the banana could be that it is male genitalia. This could be interpreted as his ungentlemanly behaviour, as he expects his wife to continue domestic chores, despite being far along in her pregnancy, maybe hinting that the careless attitude of men towards their wives could make them have homosexual traits. Another interpretation is that the show is aimed at women, so it emasculates men who have been unfair to women. It gives women power in this sense, taking away the men’s pride. It could also be used to show how men treat women unfairly and it promotes the ideologies that men are lazy. This fits with the rom com genre, where men and women who are together have ‘comical’ issues; men not helping out and expecting their wives to do all the work with keeping on top of the house.

 

In the ‘American Gothic’ painting by Grant Wood the ideology that men go out to work whilst women stay at home is supported. This supports the idea that men are ‘stronger’ and women are represented as only capable of doing house chores. This is shown by the positioning of the characters, as the man is further from the house than the woman. Neither of the characters look very satisfied, suggesting they are unhappy with their relationship (presumably they are married). In this case women are seen as objects, they are either to be kept at home or not allowed to work or they are only for the purpose of looking attractive and sexual relations. This is implied by the wife being stood nearer to the background house, suggesting she doesn’t go out to work. Also it is implied by the younger woman who is wearing provocative clothing; she hooks her finger on his collar and winks. This scene also supports the stereotype that men are only satisfied when they are getting ‘good sex’. This is suggested by the appearance of the younger woman makes the man smile and seem very content. Another stereotype is shown, as women are seen as emotional, presented by the facial expression of the lady, she appears hurt when she sees her husband adopting a ‘mistress’ (again, another stereotype, men having mistresses).

Film Title Sequence Homework

http://www.slideshare.net/lilyvalentine/analysis-of-rome-title-sequence

Analysing Film Opening Homework

http://www.slideshare.net/lilyvalentine/scooby-doo-monsters-unleashed

Name Ideas for my Magazine

Name Ideas

Band Names

·    The uncommoners – Idea from the song common people by Pulp.

·    Zombomb – Idea from my recent obsession with zombie apocalypses.

·    The beaten and the damned – Idea from the well-known song, Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance.

·    The Arms Race – Idea from the song, This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race by Fall Out Boy.

·    Mona Lisa Smiles – Idea from the song, Mona Lisa by Panic at the Disco.

·    Pulled Apart by Wolves – Idea from the band, Pulled Apart by Horses.

·    A Change of Base – Idea from the band, A Change of Pace.

·    Silver Rules – Idea from the song, Golden Rule, by Biffy Clyro.

·    Cyanide Nights – Idea from the fact that some rock bands have rather dark and vulgar names (perhaps for the purpose of shocking people and making them stand out as being “against the system”) such as the Sex Pistols.

Magazine Name and Idea roots

·     Anarkey – Anarchy can be defined as a state of society without government or law, political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control, a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society or confusion; chaos; disorder.

·     Anarchy Drones – A drone is a dull, monotonous tone such as a humming or buzzing sound. Also a bass note held under a melody.

·     Anarchy Beats – Couldn’t use this as Anarchy Beatz is a trade mark company, but I really liked the name.

·     Mobocracy beats – mobocracy means a political system in which a mob is the source of control; government by the masses. Beats refers to musical beats, however it could be interpreted as violence in a political situation. I like this name because it links to people who have taste in alternate music and them having power through that music.

Magazine Exemplar - This is not my own work, just what I have researched.

Music Magazine Evaluation - 'Discord'

3/26/2010 • MAIN •

The first stage of my music magazine production was to identify the acronym LIIAR, which stands for Language, Ideology, Institution, Audience and Representation, and define each, this helped to get my head around creating a music magazine as it forced me to think about what I would want my magazine to represent, how I wanted it to convey it’s message and who would be reading it. I then looked at magazine conventions, including those specific to music magazines such as artist interviews, album reviews and music-related classifieds. This, again, helped me to understand the many elements required to produce a magazine.

I then created some initial mind maps and mood boards to help me create some ideas for music magazines of my own. After this I then analysed, in great detail, three magazines’ front covers, double page spreads and their contents pages. The magazines I chose to analyse were Q, NME and Kerrang! magazines. These proved to be extremely helpful when thinking of how to create my own magazine as I could see every convention I had already identified at work in each of the magazines, such as the realisation that most double page spreads (on main features of the magazine) were very rarely only two pages long, most were four pages long and some were even six pages long (although these were usually primarily photographs of the band or artist). This helped me decide that I would definitely create a four page feature for the artist I chose.

I then began to think about the target audiences of these three magazines and what the target audience of my own should be. I decided that I should be aiming my own magazine at 16-25 year olds to combine the majority readership of NME and Q magazine and it should cover indie rock (British and American), pop rock, metal and pop music, therefore attracting readers from Kerrang! too. Although the majority of music magazine readers are male, I would try to attract female readers by including more articles on female bands and artists.

Then I began to plan my magazine in full, beginning with the magazine’s title. After coming up with several different names including Ash, Ember and Burn (to connote fire and the fiery passion my magazine would have for music) and Chaos, Ruin and Oblivion (to connote the destructive force the music has that would be featured in my magazine), I settled on the name Discord, as it is easy to remember, makes an impact on the reader and most importantly, the definition of the word is a loud noise, that is jarring to a person's ears. This is what the older generation, 40-50+, would stereotypically describe music these days as and as I’m aiming my magazine at the 16-25 age range, this audience consistently embraces things that differentiate themselves from older people as they want to stay young forever.

Next, I started to think about my magazine’s selling line. I wanted a selling line that sounded smart and would appeal to a more intellectual demographic. I then began to look at quotes relating to my magazine’s title, Discord and came up with two quotes that I liked. These were, “From discord, find harmony,” by Albert Einstein and, “So musical a discord, such sweet thunder,” by William Shakespeare. Out of the two I thought that Einstein’s quote sounded much punchier and wasn’t as hard to understand as Shakespeare’s. I felt this adequately filled my want of having an intellectual selling, that my target audience would still be able to understand.

I then began to focus on planning out each page I would create for my magazine. These are the cover page, the contents page, two double page spreads (with one feature) and an advertisement. The advertisement wasn’t mandatory but I decided to create one anyway because I enjoy production.

I decided that I wanted one straight on, close up image for my front cover as I felt that magazine covers work best with only one image for the reader to fully focus on. I will also include cover lines down the right third as I want the left third to be free from text apart from the main cover line which will be placed at the bottom left of the cover and half of the model’s face will be visible in a magazine rack as is the purpose of the left third.

For my contents page I decided that I would take inspiration from Q and NME magazines and create a layout that was split into clear blocks (in the style of Q’s contents page) and instead of listing every feature the magazine had I would create a alphabetical band index at the left hand side which I, and other magazine readers have always found very effective, as it allows you to search for your favourite bands and cut straight to their article first. However the rest of the contents would conform to convention and include a regulars section and several photographs of artists.

As I previously stated, I decided to actually make four pages of an article. However the first page of the first double page spread is usually a large image with most articles so I applied that idea to my magazine as well. The article would be based on a fictional artist "Lily & Her Heart," who would also be featured on the cover and prominently in the contents page. I also decided to feature a mini-review of her fictional album, "Fractured," for which I will also create a CD cover using my own original artwork combined with Photoshop.

For my advertisement I decided to advertise a fictional singer, Spectra Diamandis and her fictional album entitled, ‘Incendiary.’ I decided to have the album cover and the advert itself feature fire prominently as to tap into the same ideology I previously stated about the connotations of fire.

The next step was creating a layout for each section of my magazine. I did this by drawing hand drafts and making IT drafts on Photoshop. I felt that the hand drafts were a little redundant as my IT drafts were identical and a lot more helpful to the production process.

Next I will discuss the software and fonts I used to produce my magazine. I used Adobe Photoshop CS2 to create each page. I feel that I am very capable when using Photoshop so it was a natural decision for me to use it instead of other desktop publishing software (DPS) such as Microsoft Publisher. I also downloaded and tested many fonts from the free font download website http://www.dafont.com/ and found some great fonts to use in my production, including ‘Chopin Script’ and ‘Telegrafico.’

For the photographs within my magazine I took several different photos from several different shoots, shoots that I had already planned out previously. I shot three main photo shoots, the first being for ‘Lily & Her Heart’ which took place in my back garden, as it was a feature based on her returning to her family home after touring America. The second being for a solo male called ‘Polygraph’ for use in the contents page and a shoot with two people acting as the front women for the band ‘Rose with Shards,’ also for use in the contents page. For the ‘Polygraph’ shoot I wanted my model to be sat informally on a motorbike to ensure that my magazine would still attract males but that he still looked approachable and a friendly person to interview. For the ‘Rose with Shards’ shoot I wanted my two models to both look serious to show that even though they were female, and may stereotypically not be as interested in rock music as males, that they were still serious about their band. I then edited the photograph in Photoshop and merged the two images together to create the feeling that they are close with each other as the bands front women. Some of the photographs I took from these shoots I deemed unsuitable for the representation of my magazine so I decided not to use them.

When constructing the actual pages of my magazine I felt that I had prepared extremely well for it, with my planning and research helping me along the way. I carried out the production of my magazine almost exactly as I had planned it, with only a few minor changes, for example, I made a big change to the layout of the contents page with regards to where I placed the images as I had misjudged the size each image would need to be in relation to the page, I also slightly changed the layout of my first double page spread and instead of having two columns on the right hand page, I increased it to three as I felt it suited the spread a lot better as I was producing it.

I will now deconstruct each page of my own magazine, like I deconstructed the three music magazines.

The layout of my front cover is similar to many front covers I have seen, with there only being one central image to draw a prospective reader's attention. The model is looking straight into the camera with one eye to directly engage with the audience, yet she is winking with her other eye to demonstrate a sense of informality around the artist, another attractive quality for my key demographic of 16-25 year olds. She is wearing an open checked shirt, which are in fashion at the moment and would be at the time of print, this is to let the audience know that she keeps with the times and is a fashion conscious "twenty-something" as this is one of the groups I am trying to represent in my magazine. The model I chose also has three piercings, two lip studs and a nose stud, which again represents the demographic I am aiming to attract as many young people these days have facial piercings. The text of the masthead and the cover lines frame the model's face, this is to get the most information possible about the magazine's contents to the audience while not detracting from the engaging effect of the close up image of the artist. The fact that the model has bright red hair is coincidental but works extremely well with the colour scheme I had chosen for the entire magazine, as well as connotating that she is a woman with a fiery passion for music. With regards to the cover lines I decided to cover a wide range of possible stories, which include joint tours, homecoming gigs, new albums, an aspirational band story and a competition to win a live music DVD, as well as the main cover line telling the audience of 'Lily & Her Heart''s return home after success in America, something that would be resonant with many young people reading the magazine as lots of my target audience would aspire to become successful (in any way) and live in glamorous L.A. or New York.

With my contents page I tried to create a layout that was presented in clear sections so that readers could easily pick the section that was relevant to them, which is reminiscent of Q magazine's contents page as theirs is very clear and concise unlike Kerrang! magazine's contents page which is visually stimulating but would require most readers to read the entire page to find what they want. My contents page consists of six main sections, excluding a header and footer containing the title 'CONTENTS' and the page number and a link to the magazine's website, respectively. Three of the six sections are photographs of the bands and artists featured within the magazine, I wanted the images to be as large as possible so that they had an impact but also make sure that the main article, on 'Lily & Her Heart' was the largest, as to identify to the reader that it is the main feature. Another section is the band index which contains a clear list of bands and artists that are featured in the magazine, with the page that they are featured on. This is a very useful tool to use when reading magazines, as I have personally discovered from reading the NME magazine's contents page which also uses this feature. I decided that instead of using pre-existing bands for the contents page I would create entirely new names for fictional bands, names that I feel represent my target audience's band interest's typical names, such as; Altered Youth, Ghosts, Julia Rose, The Lacklustres, Oohlala, The Telephones and Zero Pulse to name but a few. I also created a regulars section which informs the audience of features that make up the magazine besides band articles. The page numbers in this section and in the band index all correlate to each other, so you could tell what section the bands within the band index would be featured in. Of course, most readers would not bother to check as they would see the band they like and go straight to that page, but for continuity purposes I wanted to make sure the page numbers had meaning too. The last section I included is a small insert at the bottom left of the page which features a competition in which the reader can win a year's subscription to 'Discord' and win tickets to a fictional festival 'D-Fest.' The fact that I have included a competition where one of the prizes is a ticket to 'D-Fest,' a festival that is being held by 'Discord' itself. It is not expressly stated but with the fact that my magazine is being created as an institution means that if it were real, readers would already know what D-Fest was and that it is being held by the magazine. This section also contains the front cover as it would be sold to demonstrate the subscription prize.

For the first page of my double page spreads I wanted to fill it with a landscape image of the artist as I feel that this is conventionally accurate when considering other music magazines, such as NME magazine's double page spreads. Overlaid on the image of the model is a quote pulled from the article I wrote for the magazine which states, "Everyone needs their time alone to dress like a tramp, eat lots of Doner kebabs and not have to give a shit, you know." I feel that this quote was the best I had written for the article as it sums up her attitude towards life and even though she is famous, her attitude is not that different from the reader's attitudes towards life as many people in my key demographic of 16 to 25 year olds will share her views. I did wonder whether or not to use the words 'tramp' and 'shit,' the former as it is politically incorrect and the latter as it could be deemed offensive, however when reading magazines such as NME, I noticed that they quite frequently swear and use non-PC terms and as I want my magazine to appear that it is rebellious against mainstream values I decided to keep them in anyway. The model's stance against the brick wall is quite rebellious in itself which is designed to engage with the readers as my target audience are naturally attracted to figures who rebel against authority, however in the caption in the top left of the page, it states that she is striking a pose for the magazine, meaning that she is not naturally like that. On the right side of this page I included a flower design that I created in Photoshop and added a layer effect to the brick wall behind the model to darken the wall and make it seem as if it has been graffitied on. The flower effects looks like it is part of the graffiti and speaks about her inner nature, that she wants to make a statement to the world but that she cares about family values too, as it explained in the article.

In the second double page spread there are six main components: a footer containing the page numbers and a link to the magazine's website which is consistent with the contents page; another image of the artist in which she is smiling, a contrast to the initial rebellious pose, now that article is further on and the audience can understand the lesser need for a rebellious front; a short bio section featuring basic details about the artist and a picture of her and her cat in a loving pose which instantly makes her more relatable to a mass audience as many readers will have cats themselves; a short album review section which is a precursor to a longer album review in the review section of the magazine, featuring original song names, a rating for the song and a short sentence summing the song up, as well as a large original CD design I created on Photoshop using text and an image of a piece of artwork I had created; the article itself, which features two more pull quotes within the text, one stating how much she loves her fans and one talking ominously about a fued between her and another, something that would draw the reader's attention purely because of gossip-filled nature of my key demographic; and finally, a large landscape image of the model laid on grass that has been darkened enough to use as a background for the entire spread so that the audience can visualise that the interviewer and the artist are sat on some grass having a picnic, something which the interview states that they are doing.

Even though I did not have to create an advertisement as part of the task I decided to anyway as I felt it would demonstrate that my magazine was part of a corporate institution, and that the purpose of my magazine, like all magazines, was primarily for commercial profit. I also thought that the outcome of my advertisement would help define my magazine's genre, that is, as a magazine mainly focused on female rock and indie music. I made the main motif, of the advertisement, fire, as I think this connotates well the passion that the artist and my magazine feels for music. At the bottom of the page there is a release date and a link to the fictional artist's official website where readers are encourages to go to find news, exclusive content and previews of the artist's music. This further proves that my magazine is designed for commercial purposes as the magazine would've been paid a lot of money to feature this advertisement for which the artist's management will hopefully profit from, through the artist's target audience (and the magazine's) reading the advert and becoming interested.

The feedback I have received for my magazine has all been very positive with people saying with the only real negative comments regarding the price and the selling line, two things that I would definitely change if I were to re-do my magazine, yet the rest of my magazine was commended by my target audience, with all of them saying it looked professional and most of them saying they would buy it, the only exceptions being one person not being interested in music magazines and one person who, again, thought the price was a little too much.

I feel that I have represented my target audience well within my double page spread as I made the article about the artist ‘Lily & Her Heart’ very relatable as it is about her touring the USA, something I imagine most of my readers would envy, but that she has now returned home and is spending time with her close family and friends in her home town of Hull, something that all student readers in my key demographic could relate to, ie. students returning to their own home towns on breaks from university.

I would imagine that my music magazine would be distributed by a publishing company such as Bauer Media Group who also distribute Q and Kerrang! magazines or IPC Media who distribute NME magazine as my magazine is very conventionally similar to these publications. For example, the use of red, white and black as my main colour scheme throughout the magazine.

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel that I learnt the core basics of magazine production, such as taking into account the conventions of other magazines, the time and effort it takes to create a quality publication and I feel that my skills on Photoshop were enhanced by the preliminary task which helped me greatly when creating the main task.

Overall, I think that has been a very successful production and I am extremely happy with the outcome and the positive feedback I have received.