Mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene is everything in the shot and scene. It is used to create a feeling of "realism" about the plot to the audience, this therefore makes it believeable for the audience. It makes the characters seem real, helps the audience to understand who is who in the scene and it creates representations of different groups.

Mise-en-scene is made up of six different elements: CLAMPS

C - Costume
L - Lighting
A - Actors
M - Movement
P - Props
S - Setting

Mise-en-scene links to realism, there are several steps to what makes up realism, the first level of realism means selecting the right actors, props, objects, locations, voices of the actors and diagetic sounds (noises on set).

The second level of realism means how the drama is filmed. This will be done by the use of lighting, camera shots, non-diagetic sound and editing.

Finally, the third level of realism is the finished "product" on television this is when the actual TV Drama is viewed by the audience and then the opinions of the Drama, for example is believeable.

Denotation - The first and simple of an image.
Connotation - a meaning attributal to an image beyond the obvious denotational level.

Different genres of TV Dramas:

• Romance
• Soap Opera
• Murder Mystery
• Tragedy
• Science Fiction
• Action
• Comedy
• Period Drama

Media Representation

Media means being in the middle or beneath things people and places you see on television or in film are representations of a real person or event if it is a documentary or imagined in a particular way if it is fictional like a feature film or TV Drama.

Representation

• Age
• Disability
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Regional Identity
• Sexuality
• Social Class

The Orphanage: Regression Scene

Last lesson we watched the regression scene of The Orphanage, where we analysed the soundtrack, sound effects and the dialogue, looking at what kind of effect it creates and why they do it. Here is a link to the regression scene of the orphanage which you can watch, but come back to my blog to read my views on the scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL3nIK2i4oo

When watching the scene I noticed that the scene starts with the sound of electronics, for example the microphone clicking on and off which is a non-diagetic sound to make it sound more realistic. It also has a dialogue which helps set the scene and help the audience to understand what is happening. I noticed that the main characters voice had been edited to make it sound deeper which gave him more presence. The contrast between the main character and woman, whos voice is given the effect of talking through a microphone, makes the woman seem more distant and vulnerable compared to the other characters.

I realised that when the characters began to count down the note and the sound of the light flickering gets louder and louder. Which adds tension and increases the sense of danger. When the countdown finishes there is an exaggerated sound of violins to build up suspense and as soon as the woman opens her eyes the music stops and there is a second of silence, making it more dramatic.

They also record the woman's footsteps and breathing and emphasise it by making them louder, which adds tension and draws the audience in.

The sound effects of this scene are very clear in the sense that they make the audience tense and begin to imagine sights in which they arent actually there, which makes it a lot more scary. The soundtrack is alos overlapped over the sound effects with an outcome of a heavy layer of sounds which creates a dramatic effect.

The Orphanage: Opening Scene

The Orphanage

Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Writer: Sergio G. Sánchez

In today's lesson we watched theThe Orphanage, which is a 2007 spanish horror film. We watched the opening scene of The Orphanage and analysed the characters, their relationships, genre and location, which we used to try and figure out what the film was about. 

My Analysis on the Opening Scene:

Characters: Laura

• A young girl
  
• Alone
  
• Singled out
  
• Innocent
  
• Wearing old clothing (1940's)

Characters: Old Lady

• Hiding emotions
  
• In charge of orphanage
  
• Don't see her face
  
• Mysterious

Relationships between Characters

• All interact with eachother e.g. playing
  
• All socially friendly towards one another
  
• Old Lady seems to care for Laura

Genre

• Psychological horror film

Location/Setting

• Old historical Orphanage
  
• Spanish countryside, middle of no-where
  
• Garden was surrounded by trees, giving the impression it was closed off to the outside world
  
• A scarecrow, didn't look like the average scarecrow
  
• Tell by the costumes and props that the film is set in the past (1940's)  

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.