Surging Ashore, An Invader From The Sea

On Monday 16th November 2009 the Daily Mail published an article entitles Surging Ashore, An Invader From The Sea. This article told the story of extremely bad weather down south in Cornwall where weather was reaching up to 100 mph. A great part of the article is actually taken up by the giant wave smashing against the shore, which relates to the main title. This image of the wave creates a sense of realism to the article as it shows that it is not exaggerating when it speaks off the weather. The caption for this image is "Terrifying: A giant wave at Porthleven in Cornwall" which states the fear that the image is creating. There is also a smaller picture just below which could add a comedy element to the article. This image shows a man who seems to be flying who has achieved this due to the 100mph winds. This once again adds realism to the article as it clearly shows that the winds were indeed this strong.

This article also makes use of exciting and powerful words including "awe-inspiring power", "engulfed" and "unscathed". Using such words makes the article much more dramatic than that of what we would expect from a usual weather reporting article. The text makes the audience feel like this weather is powerful and creates a sense of fear of what will come next.

I believe the target audience for this article is mainly people age over 16. I believe this as people younger then this generally are not interested in the weather. The style of the article also adds to this theory with its use of only 2 images and the rest being text based. The Daily Mail is also quite a grown up newspaper that people under this age don't really read. This article on this date was actually available to read on the Daily Mail website where it used the same images and the same text from that off the newspaper.

The Wire Representations

In the pilot episode of the program The Wire we start with finding out that a man who is part of a gang has just been murdered. In the Wire we see a representation of a gangsters way of life and that of a police officer. The way these are represented could shock some people as in parts the gangsters are portrayed as the good guys where as the police shows signs of corruption.

The show seems to be aimed towards a older audience of around the ages of 18 onwards due to its choice of language and the scenes that it shows. The violence that is portrayed is also unsuitable for people underneath this age range which shows that it is aimed for 18+.

The institution that created the Wire is HBO which is an american subscription channel. The fact that this program is on a subscription service generally means it can target its audience better and therefore show exactly what they want not matter how violent.

The show is set in Baltimore, Maryland where it is also filmed. The fact that it is filmed where it is supposed to be set it also important as it gives a more realism to the text and could give the audience more to relate to.

In conclusion the way the two sides in this text are portrayed as it seems almost a juxtaposition of roles of the expected good vs evil roles.

The Repugnance Evaluation

For our project we decided to film a trailer for a horror themed film which we entitled The Repugnance. In the planning stages of this trailer we drew up a simple storyboard which showed us how we were going to shoot the scene as well as what will be included. This storyboard also included ideas on what sort of music we wished to be playing at these points. Some frames also had information on what sort of things we were going to add on in the later stages including effects and titles.

Shooting as a whole worked reasonably well as a whole as we generally had an idea of where we were going to film each individual scene. However in some cases we chose to film numerous locations and decided which we felt was the best at a later date. In this process we also realised that we would need more footage then previously thought and decided a lot of the shots on location. Numerous versions of the same scene were also shot at this point so that we could decide what looked best on camera.

Actors in our group were always going to be a problem in our group as it only consisted of 2 people. However for our trailer we needed much more then this so to overcome this problem we decided to use some people from the college and others from the school. Some of the scenes also involved the same actor but in different clothes so that they appear to be different on camera.

Overall I believe that our short trailer was successful as it did complete everything we set out to achieve. For improvements we were advised that maybe we should have used a different font for the titles as some found this quite difficult to read.

The Last Escape

The Last Escape is the title of an article which was included in Monday 2^nd November’s issue of The Daily Mirror. The article tells the story of a man who hid inside of his car and narrowly escaped capture when he went to cross the Berlin Wall. I believe the article is aimed towards people over the age of 30 or those of whom can remember the Berlin Wall or are interested in it. We know that it is aimed towards this historian audience due to the use of dark old fashion colours in the colour scheme. This is shown with the blacks, the whites and the yellows.

The use of the old pictures of the Berlin Wall, and off the person’s family, also illustrates this. The Berlin Wall image instantly creates a feeling of fear of this powerful image but as we read this article we realise this picture is from the day it was pulled down which gives a sense of freedom.

The Now and Then images gives the audience a way of relating to how the man was back then and how he is now. The image of the car that they hid in also adds to this relation with the story. The fact that The Last Escape Title is surrounded by barbed wire also adds to this feeling a fear which is portrayed throughout the article.

BBC Institution

The BBC, British Broadcasting Company, is a government funded institute which is paid for by the annual television license fee. The BBC produces a range of different media products which are all across different media platforms. These include the many different channels that they broadcast in the UK including BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four. They also have a range of different radio stations which range from national to regional. Interactive TV is also a product of the BBC with the use of the red button and other options. The BBC as a whole is regulated by the Royal Charter which sets out the following points on how they control the BBC:

· Sets out the BBC as a Corporation

· Sets out its definition, mission and standards

· Defines the powers of the BBC

· And Creates 12 governors (five years)

The actual rights and obligations of the BBC are all set out in a licence agreement between them and the Secretary of State for National Heritage. This affects the media that the BBC actually produces as it means that they can not simply broadcast what they wish as they have a strict contract which they have to listen to.

The Inbetweeners Audience Relation

The TV show "The Inbetweeners" is a comedy which is shown on the channels E4 and Channel 4 and it follows the story of four teenagers as told through the eyes of the character Will.

The audience that this show is aimed at is generally young people between the ages of 15-24. I believe this because of the school environment that it is set in aswell as the use of teenage style jokes. I feel that the show is actually aimed towards a wide range of social classes but mainly fits into the Working Classes (D) and the Skilled Working Class (C2).

The Social Value Group, Traditionalists is who i believe most of the audience who watch this will fit into. I assume this as i feel that many people who watch this only started because others were, therefore following the crowd.

The use and gratification theory suggests that we have four needs as to why we consume media. These include Diversion, Personal Relationships, Personal Identity and Survellance.

The Inbetweeners includes Diversion as whilst watching it is definatly a form of escape and release from everday pressures in comedy form. Personal Relationships is also included as we can later on discuss this show with freinds and share jokes about what happened. Personal Identity is present when watching as some could feel a connection with the characters or the situations that they have been put in.

I do not think that The Inbetweeners uses Surveillance however has it generally does not include information about what is happening in the world.

Intertextuality: Family Guy - Blue Harvest

The term intertextuality is used in media to describe the many set of tie ins, influences and other links that we find between different media texts. An example of intertextuality can be seen in many episodes of the popular series Family Guy. One particular episode that i have chosen as a example as this is entitled "Blue Harvest" which sees the main character, Peter, re-telling the story of "Star Wars".

The story is remade using characters from Family Guy and is made as a spoof which not only pokes fun at Star Wars but also follows the general tale. As a viewer of the text this parody brings a comedy element as it points out all the different flaws and stupidity that is shown in the movie. Even those who have never seen the Star Wars movies before in there life's will proberly still find this episode entertaining and enjoyable to watch. The comedy and use of this story will in effect keep those who have not seen the film hooked and wanting to see more. As well as Star Wars this particular episode also includes other forms of intertextuality including a Dirty Dancing spoof which can be seen below.

The episode also has examples of more intertextuality when the Doctor Who introduction is shown through the front of the ship as a parody to the ship going into "hyperspace". Another example is in the bar where for a split second a alien character is shown. This could seem perfectly normal to some but for others they will notice that this alien is a character from another TV show called "American Dad". Overall Family Guy as a whole is a great example of modern day intertextuality as it will very often make references to other texts and parody them in one way or another.