m e d i as t u d i e s

i n t r o d u c t i o nLecturer: Stephen Evans

RANDOM PAIRS• Each of you should have a card• Some of you will have questions (?) and some of you

will have answers (which are in CAPS)• You need to find the card that corresponds with yours• Some questions only have one right answer; others

have various possible answers – but only one of them is out there

• You may need to work as a group in order to get some answers by process of elimination

• By the end of the activity you should be in pairs, facing one another, with “questions” down the left of the room opposite the correct “answers” on the right

?

ICEBREAKER: NAME THREE …

Name three of the following:

• things you are good at• things that you would like to improve upon• things that annoy you• songs you like • films you like

EXPECTATIONS?

In fours, discuss your reasons for choosingMedia Studies.

As a group, try to offer three EXPECTATIONS you

have regarding the course.

AS MEDIA: COURSE UNITS

MS1 Media Representations and Reception(Examination, 50%)

MS2 Media Production Processes(Coursework, 50%)

MS1 Media Representations and

Reception

For the examination unit you will study a range

of ideas, the most important being:

• genre (horror and romantic comedy)• audiences• textual analysis• representation: men, women, teenagers,

ethnicity, social class etc

MS2Media Production Processes

The AS Media coursework is production-based: you will

be using computers equipped with Adobe Photoshop toproduce work of a high standard.

• Pre-Production: A script or shooting script for the opening sequence of your romantic comedy/horror film

• Production: The DVD cover and a poster for your film• Report: 1200-1600 words which discusses your

research into genre and target audience, evaluates your production

MEDIA STUDIES

LIFE ON

MARS

Tuesday, 15th September 2009L.O. To ensure we remember the significance of genre and conventions. To analyse a media text in terms of the key

areas outlined in the AS Media Studies specifications.

You are required to check my blog at

http://www.sevansmedia.blogspot.com/

Discussion points.

Genre: what is genre?

Narrative structure: what is narrative structure?

MEDIA STUDIES1. LIFE ON

MARS

1. How are the main male protagonists represented?2. How are women representeda) In 2006?b)In 1973?In what ways does the episode reveal these attitudes?3. How are ethnic minorities represented?4. What issues does the episode raise?5. How is Manchester of 1973 represented?6. How would an audience of people old enough to

remember 1973 respond differently to the show than people who did not?

MEDIA STUDIES1.LIFE ON

MARS

Discussion:Gene Hunt is transported forward in time to Manchester

2009. What would he perceive (feel) to be strikingly different from 1973 in terms of:

Political correctness

Health and safety in the workplace

Policing?

With reference to your notes and to the script extract answer the following using full sentences.

1. How are the 1970s represented in the series “Life on Mars” in terms of:

gender • ethnicity • age • issues • regional identities?

(12 marks)

2. How would you classify the series in terms of genre?

(8 marks)

3. In terms of narrative, what must the story do in order to maintain the fine balance between the audience believing that Sam Tyler has travelled back in time or that he is imagining it all? (4 marks)

4. Why do you think the show is titled “Life on Mars”? (4 marks)

The Sweeney

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D99O6oTJVHo

• Opening titles to the 1970s cop show. Can you draw any similarities between this and “Life on Mars”?

Monday, 21st September 2009

Genre

L.O. To understand the key elements of genre theory and its implications. To understand the codes and conventions of horror, particularly horror films.

• ACTIVITY: Choose a partner and tell them all about what happened to you last weekend. Then ask your partner to do the same thing for you. On a piece of paper, write down the answers to the following questions in note form.

• • Did you include everything that happened to you?• • What did you include and what did you leave out?• • In what order did you give the events i.e. did you start at

Friday night and then work through chronologically (in time order) or did you choose the most important event first?

• • Did you choose ‘our events to produce a particular picture of your weekend, as in ‘it was the worst weekend of my life!’?

• • When you were talking about a specific occurrence, did you hold some information back until the end of it?

• • Did you embellish the truth?• • Did you surprise them, or make them laugh, as in ‘and he

turned out to be the boy my sister had been out with two years earlier!’

Making the right choices.

• What you have been doing here is presenting your partner with a narrative of the events of your weekend. This process, as you have seen, involves making choices about selection of material, ordering events, and possible withholding, or exaggerating information for dramatic effect.

• When a filmmaker thinks of an idea for a film, they too will go through this process and decide how to tell the story for maximum effect.

• Film makers construct (create) films. The image that you see on the film is the image they have constructed and wish you to see.

“What can there possibly be to interest Arabs, Hindus, Latins, or Anglo-Saxons among whom the Western has had an uninterrupted success, about evocations of (showing) the birth of the United Sates of America?”

1. Find 5 clues that (foreshadow) signal that something terrible is about to happen.

2. Why are the titles and credits delayed until after the opening sequence of the film?