Start of "Atonement"

In the beginning 20 minutes of the film we see that the genders are shown as typical stereotypes for the time of the film (1935). The women are shown running around and putting on make-up inside their huge house whilst we see the male doing work outside on the garden. We also see a male servant who was given instructions by the woman. This may seem incorrect as at this time males were seen to have the authority.

There seems to be a theme within the film as there are a lot of scenes that envolve water which makes the audience wander whether the plot may be based around this.

Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes was born on 12th November 1915 in Cherbourg, Normandy. Barthes's work extended over many different fields. He infleunced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existialism, social theory, Marxism and post-structuralism.

He was the son of a naval officer Louis Barthes who was killed in a battle in the North Sea, he was only one year old at the time. His mother Henriette Barthes, aunt and grandmother raised him in the village of Urt and the city of Bayonne. When Barthes was eleven he and his family moved to Paris.

Between 1939 and 1948 he largely spent his life obtaining a licence in grammar, philology and also publishing his first papers. He spent the early 60's exploring the fields of semiology and structuralism, chairing various faculty positions around France and continued to produce more studies.

He described text as a "galaxy of signifiers" and claimed there were 5 ways of categorizing narrative codes:

1) Action code and enigma code
2) Symbols and signs
3) Points of a cultural reference
4) Simple description/reproduction
5) Structures

Representation

The Oxford English Dictionary gives two definitions of the word:
1. To represent something is to describe or depict it, to call it up in the mind by description
or portrayal…..; to place a likeness of it before us in our mind.
2. To represent also means to symbolise, stand for, to be a specimen of or to substitute
for; as in the sentence, “In Christianity, the cross represents the suffering and crucifixion
of Christ.”
It is worth thinking about each of these for a moment: the first one is the more straightforward
— the media are in the business of describing things to us — they represent people and types
of people to us so that we end up feeling that we know what they are like.

Meida Diary

Fifa 10 - Playstation 3
Crank - TV Film
Gladiator - DVD Film
Helicopter Heroes - TV
Itunes - Music Programme
Tropic Thunder - DVD Film
Facebook - Community Programme
Youtube - Video Website
BBC News - Website
21 - DVD Film
Breakfast - News
BBC News at 10 - BBC
Spooks - DVD Series
5 Live - Radio
XFactor - TV
Sky Sports 1 and 2 - TV at Pub
ESPN - TV at Pub
The Guardian - Footbal and Finance Section of Newspaper
The Matrix Trlogy - DVD Film
Kung Fu Panda - DVD Film
Killzone 2 - Playstation 3
Amazon - Online music shopping

The Simpsons Intro

The introduction scene in the Simpsons is almost iconic. Everyone has seen it and knows what it sounds like. The whole animation is fast paced and lively. They encourage this by using one long tracking shot throughout the minute. We see all of the characters as we go through Springfield with one of the members of the Simpsons family always at the centre of focus. At the end there is always a new animation to keep the audience watching which will usually make people laugh.

The background tune throughout stays constant apart from the occasional non-diagetic sound which they add in for a touch of realism. For example when they show the school orchestra the sound of Lisa’s saxophone is played to make it seem realistic.

The way the sound track and the animation link together is very important as this is the stereotype we associate with The Simpsons.

Plan - Pursuit of Happyness

Media language – Lots of signs used some more obvious than others that refer to the values:
· Homeless man and instrumental woman
· Graffiti outside nursery
· Portable Bone Density Scanner
· Rubix cube
· Red Car
· How he’s always running
The institutions represented in the film are the hospital, nursery, clothes factory and the stock brokers
The ideologies shown in the film are Ronald Reagan (president at the time) giving a speech about budget out of control and how restrictions are needed also the idea that people live their lives in the pursuit of happiness.
There are lots of values shown in the film which include family, dreams, ambitions, the working class background, money problems, white workers (and how he challenges this), belief and trust.
Audience –
Mis en Scene – How the film is designed to put its point across
· New York, tall buildings show power and success
· Apartment, small, dark,
· Red car, shows the man’s wealth and success
· Bathroom, small, no shower curtain, they share the space
· Office, brightly lit, Chris is ignored as he is black
· Train going into tunnel, represents going into darkness/ being let down
· Past reflection, happy, strong relationship
· Walking up the hill, shows life isn’t easy, a bit of a struggle

Anchoring

Animal Creulty or Human Entertainment

Juxtapositioning

Is this natural?

Framing

The 1st image looks like someone on a walk in the snow stopping to have a photo taken

The 2nd photo looks two friends on a walk together

The final photo reveals all showing the people are hunters and changes our 1st thoughts about them.

We now feel they are cruel people whereas at first

we may have thought they were friendly

5 Media Products

The TV show I have selected is Big Brother and even though I dislike it, it is one of the most well known television shows, sometimes for the wrong reasons. Recently they have lost a lot of views. The audience in this is active as they choose who they like and dislike and then vote them off.

The Radio programme I selected is The Chris Moyles show as this is the programme lots of people tend to wake up to in the mornings. It has mainly a passive audience though they also have the choice of becoming active if they would like to call in and make a comment.

The Website I chose to look at was the BBC. I use their website a lot for checking the news and sometimes to look at the weather. The audience is passive on this website as they put the news across in the way they want it to be perceived without any input from the audience.

The paper I looked at was the Guardian as this is the paper my parents often get on the weekends. Again like the BBC website they show the news how they want it to be seen. So again the audience is passive.

The film I watched was The Italian Job. This is one of my all time favourite films and has one of my favourite actors in as well, Michael Caine. This like all films people like are active as you are actively choosing to stay and watch the film.

Eastenders values

There are lots of values being represented in Eastenders. Communities I feel is the biggest which can be split into three categories family, friends and social groups. In Eastenders they're very obviously split into these categories with the pub (The Queen Victoria) being the centre point where all these communities meet up.

Other more specific values such as secrets, affairs and greed. TV soaps tend to play on these characteristics to build up tension between the different communities as this is what the audience want to see.

About Me (h/w)

I chose Sparklers to represent my personality as they are bright and often seen in groups. I feel this shows my personality as I like to be with my friends and entertain.

My role model is Jamie Oliver, not only for his cooking but as his aims are to see the world and make it a better place. The prime example for this was when he campaigned against the old school dinners to make them healthier, and he succeeded