Audience and Institution Practice Essay

5. In relation to the media area you have studied, discuss the ways audience consumption has changed over time.

The film industry has evolved over the years with new consumption methods. When it comes to movies each new distribution method has only enhanced the total consumption of movies while older methods are still prevalent. These methods further expand the range of people and audiences who will view a film. 

The obvious first start of the movie industry is on the infamous silver screen. From the early 20s into today, films are screened in a theater setting. The culture of a film was created for a movie theater setting back in the beginnings of the film industry. It was a posh event due to that being one of the new and luxurious media platforms of the time. Movies featured intermissions, people dressed up to attend a movie screening, and movie stars were at the top of the social pyramid. According to Guinness World Records, the classic film Gone with the Wind is the highest-grossing film in the box office at an (inflation-adjusted) total of $3.44 billion. This film was a major influencing film of the time at a running time of over 3 hours with full intermission and score. Movies are still classically screened as it is still a major source of revenue. Others just find it nostalgic to sit in a movie theater even though the culture has definitely shifted from a posh affair to a more comfortable and casual scene. 

Movies then were adapted for the square screen on your at-home television (TV). Announcements were made in the newspaper to what movies were going to be screened for that week. IMDB states that Disney aired the “Disney Sunday Movie” from 1986-88. Movies were able to be more easily screened by more people by allowing television stations to purchase the rights to air a movie live on TV. Classic adapted films of this time were Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of OZ. The annual tradition of The Wizard of OZ on tv drew more of an audience towards that film as people would flock to the channel for this special occasion. USA Today states that this tradition just ended with it running for an overall 60 years. Today, we still have many films screened live on TV like Holiday movies, nostalgic films, and back to back marathons of a movie series such as the Harry Potter series. 

  Once movies entered our home we never stopped evolving home consumption of films. People now wanted physical copies of a film so they could watch it whenever they wanted to. Introducing the video home system (VHS) tape. “The South Korean drama, The Young Teacher, was the first film to be released for home VHS consumption. Considering the first VCRs were released in 1976, it makes perfect sense that the first movies would also accompany it in the same year,” states Legendarybox.com. The only problem with VHS tapes was that you had to rewind the tape to the beginning to rewatch the film. This was solved with the invention of the Laserdisc which was circular that allowed the film to play and not be rewinded. The only downside was that they were huge disks that could not store much data. Digital video disk (DVD) was then introduced as a more compact circular model. This allowed people to even double consumption of film where they would watch it when it came out in theaters and then buy the DVD to rewatch later. 

VHS and CD buying then evolved to renting physical copies of a film. Companies such as BlockBuster, Netflix, and Redbox were invented for the people who want to view movies but not commit to a full purchase of the DVD forever. These National companies and some privately owned rental stores would allow people to rent out DVDs for a fee and return them. Blockbuster was a storefront, Netflix was a mailing service, and Redbox was a grocery store kiosk. These rental places dominated the home consumption sector of the movie industry. Business Insider states “At its peak in the late '90s, Blockbuster owned over 9,000 video-rental stores in the United States, employed 84,000 people worldwide, and had 65 million registered customers. Once valued as a $3 billion company, in just one year, Blockbuster earned $800 million in late fees alone.” These types of physical rental places were eventually replaced with the digital era. 

  Lastly, the digital era of film has swept the nation and is till the latest development. It started with the introduction of “On-demand” movies provided by your cable company where you could purchase or rent a movie but all through your TV. On-demand turned into subscription platforms to stream films and TV like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Youtube TV, Apple Tv, and Disney+. A customer will pay a monthly fee to stream unlimited movies. In addition, many of these platforms are making exclusive content for their platform like original Movies that will never see the silver screen. Today movies are consumed within the audience’s home all through the internet. Most recently, the coronavirus has prevented people from going out to theaters to see newly released movies, so some movies had an only digital release directly to On-demand and streaming services due to nationwide stay-at-home orders. Newsweek.com stated, “Movies usually have a seven-month gap between airing in theaters and coming to streaming services, Onward will come to the Disney streaming service just under a month after its original cinema release.”

All things considered, the film industry has evolved over the years to fit our media consumption wants and needs. The unique thing about movies is that the original movie theater screening is still the preferred way to watch a movie by many people as it is still very prevalent today as it was back in the 1920s.

Practice Extract Essay

When viewing this Game of Thrones extract a certain theme comes to mind. With the intense meetings shown I feel the meaning behind this clip was that people come from many different backgrounds to find common ground and compromise on global issues. 

The first scene is when the visiting men are traveling on their boat into the city where the meeting is held. You are greeted with an aerial shot of a boat cutting through the water. This provides the viewer with an omniscient feeling that helps to provide the context of the visitors traveling a long way to this meeting. This can help to emphasize the importance of this discussion with having people travel from far away to talk in person. A score is also playing throughout the entire first scene. It is loud and helps to paint the picture of the setting that these travelers are sailing into. The first scene ends with a pan shot of computer-generated imagery (CGI)  of this fantasy setting as the boat goes between the legs of a large warrior statue. The CGI gives the viewer a sense of this new city and what type of people these travelers are going to be dealing with. The CGI gives the audience a perspective of a larger than life lushness of the city. This may provide context that these people have money when negotiating relations in the future meeting. 

The next scene is the physical meeting between the group of men. It begins with very dramatic lighting with a deep contrast between the bright natural light streaming into the dark corridor. This added drama and seriousness to the overall mood of the scene. It establishes a tone before the meeting even starts. Dialogue is used a lot throughout this scene to provide the context of the plot for the audience to consume while being faced with subliminal messages with other cinematographic effects and mise en scene. It is essentially the bulk of the scene that gives much information in regards to a theme of the extract. In addition, editors liked to use many edited transitions between people in the conversation with a shot-reverse-shot approach. This helps to give the viewer a better understanding of everyone in the meeting’s perspective as someone is talking. They then cut to another person’s reaction or wide shot of the full room to give more information towards a shifting mood within the room as they approach compromise within the discussion. Lastly, the actors cast were mostly all older men with European accents. This helps the audience to connect the character with a powerful diplomatic/regal figure in addition to their fine clothes from the costume designer. This can help to prove that this was a very important meeting where everyone “important” came to the meeting or sent their best men.

Overall, this extract used many techniques to illustrate the importance of this meeting these men had. Camera shots, editing, and thought-out mise en scene helped to convey the message of an important discussion leading to overall compromise. 

Critical Creative Reflection

Final Project: Movie Intro

     We have finally completed our music video, and we were assigned our final project. This film was going to be a title sequence for an original film. Instead of working in groups of two, we combined groups to a group of 4. Our first step was to decide which genre of film we liked and felt would fit the time frame of 2 minutes. After much discussion, we decided on a thriller and go to work on a basic storyboard. The basic plot involves 2 women who seduce and kill men. To hone in on the details we made an elaborate storyboard that showed the progress of the story every 2 seconds. Next, we planned locations and decided on a parking lot and Nyaira's house. Then, we decided on costumes and props to further the story. Filming took place over several days to make sure all the scenes were done. After the filming was complete, the editing began. This time the editing included adding in titles amongst the scenes. Next, we had a peer review and were able to reshoot and re-edit some of the scenes to improve the movie. During this time,  a worldwide pandemic hit which prevented us from getting together. Like in Hollywood, in-person filming and editing had to be suspended. To continue to communicate we were able to use platforms like Facetime and Microsoft teams. Though the pandemic suspended face to face meetings we were able to complete the project. Throughout this project, I learned to preserve with teammates, and through a pandemic.  Overall, I used all my prior experience to help my group make a fantastic movie.

Second Project: Music Video

After completing the commercial, Nyaira and I were assigned to create a music video. The music video was to be of a song and be 1 minute to 1 minute 30 seconds. Since we had the basics of filming and editing down from the commercial, we wanted to expand to some different shots and edits. This time we wanted a more intricate story that involved reminiscing about the past as well as reuniting in the present. Included in the storyboard was a mirrored dance that reflected that though we've moved on we are still in sync. The storyboard called for grown-up costumes and kid costumes which was a new technique of costume change. In addition, we filmed off of school property at Flippos which had a dance room for the older scenes and slides for the younger scenes. From the commercial, we learned a bit about how to act. We wrote down scenes with camera angles and how the story would look at the forefront. Due to this writing, the acting was better and more natural in the video. We also discussed kinds of mannerisms of smaller children and incorporated these in the kid scenes. We decided on dancing as the best form of expression for the mirrored present we both share. Nyaira and I both love to dance and thought a music video was the perfect opportunity to include out passion. The editing was also taken to a new level to cut together sliding from the top to the bottom of slides. We were also able to use filters to make a black and white scenes to differentiate emotions at throughout. One thing in the commercial that we fixed was transitions. The new transitions included matching images from one cell to the next and fade in and fade-outs. Though the music video was longer, the extra time allowed for more nuances and extra footage to help tell the story. The filming and editing had to tell the whole story since there was no dialogue for this cut. This project helped me grow in writing, filming and editing to to be able to film the final project to the best of my abilities.

First Project: Commercial Video

To show progression, I've decided to include my previous two projects. I thought this would show the overall development of our skills improving over the course of the year. Our first project was to make a 30-second commercial. Nyaira and I decided to do our commercial on Dunkin Donuts. We took inspiration from their other commercials so we could capture the same style and mood as the real brand. We wanted to especially advertise their fall products and make it a seasonal twist on their generic commercials. This project was much more basic than the others as we had to film on the school campus, take basic shots, and had to do it within school hours. We decided to tell a simple story of how new Autumn coffee is an exciting part of everyone's morning routine. Our shock element for this project was our "Cinderella transformation" from morning look to enchanting fall beauty just with Dunkin Donuts coffee. We also tried to do the detailed food manipulation shots that are in every modern food commercial now. This proved to be a bit difficult without a crew and only being on school property. We had to keep replenishing coffee, donuts, and beans with every shot we took. We learned this as we took each take because when we looked back at the footage a half-empty cup of coffee did not look as appetizing as a full one. With this project, we learned basic workings of the camera and simple shots. Editing was difficult at first with the initial learning curve but then it became easier as we ensured smooth transitions and added music and transparent graphics. We struggled with the timing and supplies needed for this shoot with an unideal location. We felt it might have gone smoother if we could easily set up shop somewhere instead. We made it work though with our supply bag and easy costume switches. The coffee used may not have been the most appetizing or cold but, in the real film industry we learned that most food used is not even food. Overall, we learned a lot of our introductory skills with this first project.

Final Editing

The coronavirus outbreak has truly put a damper in our film production quality. We are unable to film and edit like we want to due to social distancing and recommended quarantines. Our first step to solve the problem is to do a google search for free editing software. The first one we found was eazyphotoeditor.com. The advantage is that it will do video. The disadvantage was that sound could not be added to the video.  The next software was iskysoft.us. This program was great if we wanted to add a lot of effects. It wasn't so great because it was a free trial with a credit card guarantee. One member of our group suggested using iMovie editor on our apple phones. The technology is super easy to use and to manipulate clips. The problem was that once edited we had to screen record on our phones. We could then export the video as an MP4. Though a workable option we decided to go with an adobe editor that came with a computer. This program had contrast and lighting control. We were able to lighten some of the interior car scenes with this program. After they were lightened we were able to edit those scenes into the film. Our group has had to use email to pass around the file since we can not use airdrop or other technology.  After reviewing the emailed movies our groups thinks we have a solid product. The final cut included the titles we were missing, The movie is ready to turn into Cambridge.