The Orphanage - soundtrack and sound effects

In my media lesson I watched a scene of the orphanage, which is a 2007 spanish horror film made by J.A. Bayona, and focused on the soundtrack and the sound effects and looked at what kind of effects it creates and why they use them.

When watching this scene I realised that they edited the main characters voice to mak it deeper, to give him more presence and make him sound more powerful, and the contrast between this man and the woman who's voice is given the effect of talking through a microphone makes the woman seem more distant and vulnerable than the other character, they also give the scene more realism by adding a non-diagetic sound of the woman's microphone clicking on and off. They also record the woman's footsteps and her breathing and emphasise them by making them louder to add tension and draw the audience in. The sound effects of this make the audience tense and begin to imagine sights in which aren't actually there which makes it a lot more dramatic. The soundtrack is also overlapped over sound effects so the outcome is a heavy layer of sound which creates a rich dramatic effect.     

What is Media?

On my second lesson of Media Studies I learnt the keyword 'media' and it's meaning, which is: 'the media' refers to the different channels we use to communicate information in the every day world. I also leant the different types of media, such as television, film, magazines, radio, the Internet - social networking, advertisement etc. We then got together as a class and discussed the reasons why we wath TV and came up with reasons such as, distraction, entertainment, to follow specific events, socialisation and to be informed on the news. Looking further into this we discussed the differen ways that media feeds us information and how it has improved over the years. It first started with 'the hyperaemic needle' which is the idea the media fed people information and people would believe it because they were a passie audience, everyone was fed the same information no matter how different they were, the information is unmediated. The media then improved to the idea of the 'two-step flow' after realising that the hyperaemic needle didnt work because people filter information according to their social surroundings meaning it happens in two steps (which gives it the name two-step flow). Stuart Hall then came up with the Reception Theory which basically meant they could produce media for certain age, gender, class an ethnicity. Which is known as preferred reading, giving the audience what they want.

First post!

Welcome to my blog, I am currently studying Media Studies at AS level. I chose to study media because I am very interested in the media, and it will be very relevant and helpful in my future career. I also enjoy filming and editing videos, I made a big contribution in helping to produce the end of year video in my previous school and im hoping that media will be able to help me to progress and develop my filming and editing skills. I will be using this blog to upload links, videos, pictures and more to contribute to my coursework. On my first lesson in Media Studies Mr. Buckmaster gave me lots of useful links such as www.marlboroughmediastudies.blogspot.com - which is Mr Buckmaster's blog, www.petesmediablog.blogspot.com - which is the chief examiners blog which he updates with useful information frequently and www.artofthetitle.com which shows the opening scenes of films which will be useful in future projects in media.