Tv Series Analysis- The Inbetweeners. Season 2 Episode 6

The Inbetweeners is a British sitcom about four friends who struggle with their life as an A levels student.
The episode starts with Simon sleeping in the school lounge,when Chloe approaches him and wakes him up as he gets up in a state of a hurry and wets his pants because of the beer can that he was holding.Both of them are wearing school uniforms,which already tells us that theyre within the school and the lights are set naturally of a mid  day scene. There is a close up shot of Simon with a guilty smile on his face which represents how a boy of his age is trying to impress a girl like Chloe but ends up embarrassing himself in unexpecting ways. Chloe asks whether she could ask for a favour,and Simon without hearing her on about what the favor is, says yes instantly with a close up shot of his face when he seems to be excited. This represents a stereotypical idea of how a boy wouldn't want to miss a single chance to hang out with a girl he likes,no matter what reason it may be for.
The next scene takes us to whats currently going on in Jays life after the narrator tells us about his recent activities.
The scene starts with the couple kissing until the girl tells him she doesnt feel ready yet and Jay insists that she doesnt feel bad about it and he can be patient. The scene is set in a very ordinary looking room of a teenager with a small single bed,posters and DVDs stacked around the room next to his CD player,something which was very common in the mid 90's so the director wants to make the environment look as natural as possible since the series is set in that time period.
It all represents a part of British culture in the younger generation and what goes on in their life. This is the same culture that I talked about analysing the music video of Oasis, a band that rose to fame during nthe same time this series are set to be shown. In fact,all the main protagonists of the story have the same haircut,same style of dressing,accent, lifestyle, and we can even hear Oasis " Live Forever" playing later in this episode at a pub where they all meet.

FILM ANALYSIS - THE CONJURING 2

Film

The Conjuring 2

The films opening scene starts with a wide angle shot of the old abandoned house supported by the narration of the main protagonist of the story.

The camera keeps on moving towards the inside of the house, so whilst the protagonist narrates us about the situation,the audience also gets to look around different shots of the house to grasp in the haunting environment of it. Throughout we can hear non digetic sounds of typical horror themed violin music playing in the background,which is very common in horror movies.

Shortly afterwards theres on old newspaper styled font text that reads Amityville,New York : 1976. The reason they chose this font is to give more of the old cultured 70's experience when digital fonts werent a thing. This gives us a suspension of disbelief since we know it is happening in another time period.

The next scene shows a camera guy walking down the stairs in a room full of 8 people gathered around in a circle around a table with candles lighted whilst the narrator tells us that the house is haunted and the church had called her for help.

With just this much information, the audience now knows what the narrators role in the story is.

There are a couple of fast cut scenes to make sure the camera work isnt dragged by too lengthy close ups and one take shots.

As the camera zooms in on the face of the protagonist, non digetic sound turns to digetic since the protagonist sitting in the scene speaks and tells others to gather around and close their eyes.

The lightning in that room is dim and dull to give a greyed out effect of mid 70's and everyones dressed in an old fashioned way. Most of the areas in the house are dark since there are a lot of dark rooms in horror movies.

She closes her eyes and the narration follows again explaining how a man had murdered his entire family in that very house and they hoped to discover if the killings had anything to do with something supernatural.

As the camera keeps focusing in on her face, it stops right when the camera is close enough to get a clear shot of her eyes as she opens it when she hears a gunshot and the camera starts to zoom out its way back.The room is now much more darker and all the other people present in that room are gone,which shows that the protagonist is now using her mind powers and all of this is going inside her head.

The next scene starts with a tilt shot gradually moving forward as the lady walks from an over the shoulder angle.Tilt shots are very common in horror movies, so is the shot that comes right after the tilt. This is a specific kind of shot taken from the darker area of the room which is used in horror movies to give an impression that someone is out there in the dark and watching the protagonist from there.

The expression on her face and her slow paced walk shows us that she is just as terriffied as she is curious to find out the truth.

In the next scene, as she climbs up the stairs with the camera set of top of them,she is hearing whispering voice that are telling her to stay away. We can see old and rotten frames hanging on the wall of two young brothers, which explains us two things, that this house has been abandoned for a long time and those brother pictured were the ones killed by their father.

She climbs up the stairs to a room that opens its door itself, another effect that is very common in horror movies. The sound effects of the door cracking are very prominent to give an extra thriller with the movie.

As the door opens we see a grown lady in her pale white night suit which looks very old fashioned, in a room with an old 70's TV set and a bed as the voices start whispering again,this time telling her to "Kill her".

Suddenly, theres a quick cut scene when the lady turns her face to give a horror effect to of an unexpected scare and she shouts towards the protagonist. She then instantly falls down on the bed,shot in the head by the air gun that the protagonist pretends to have in her hands.

The next scene shows the protagonist standing in front of the mirror, where her reflection is not of herself, but of the murderer who has the actual shotgun in his arms and moves exactly like a reflection of the protagonist.

She then walks in the other room and shoots both the kids too.

The next scene takes us back to the real world where she is still sitting with those people in the room downstairs with her eyes closed and suddenly realises what she experienced and how tormenting it was so she starts to freak out, however shes still in her mind having the same visions and when her husband seems to ask her what she sees,that turns into a whispering echoing sound in her own mind which gives us a different sound experience that shows us that she is still in contact with the real world.

Frightened and terrified, she sits down on the stair where theres a close up of the face to show the frightened expressions of hers.

FILM ANALYSIS- LAW ABIDING CITIZEN

The film starts by showing the protagonist and his family. They seem to be having dinner together and watching TV, which represents that they are a happy family. Looking at the house we can tell its a 21st Century working class environment. There is mostly natural light throughout the first couple of scenes. We can hear a slight traffic noise from outside but there are no clips of the outside world which might give the impression that this could happen to anyone. There are wearing normal everyday clothes. The wife is wearing an apron which shows that she is cooking and the husband is wearing a suit shirt which shows him as an everyday man with an office job. There is no extra make up to make the family look as normal as they can.

The director creates an upsetting enviroment in the next scene as there is  disruption of the story's state of equilibrium as some terrorists get in their home and vandalize the place and steal whatever they can.

The camera work suddenly changes,with now having a series of fast cut scenes with increase the amount of tension in a scene since there is so much going on and the hero is trying to shout as he is knocked down with a tape sticked onto his face. There is a close up shot that shows the emotional state of the hero as he is watching his family getting murdered in front of him. This makes the audience focus more towards the action and dont miss out on any detail. There are special sound effects added as the screams are echoed around to give a more painful effect on the scene.

The scene then cuts to the title of the film on a faded out black background with a sharp font,similar to the story of this movie.

CASE STUDY; THE IMITATION GAME

About the movie : The Imitation Game is a 2014 historical drama thriller film directed by Morten Tyldum, with a screenplay by Graham Moore loosely based on the biography Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges (previously adapted as the stage play and BBC drama Breaking the Code). It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as real-life British cryptanalyst Alan Turing, who decrypted German intelligence codes for the British government during World War II.

Genre: Drama/ Thriller/ Historical

​Release Date: UK ; August 29, 2014
USA; November 28, 2014

 Production:  Before Cumberbatch joined the project, Warner Bros. bought the screenplay for a reported seven-figure sum because of Leonardo DiCaprio's interest in playing Turing.In the end, DiCaprio did not come on board and the rights of the script reverted to the screenwriter. Black Bear Pictures subsequently committed to finance the film for $14 million.Various directors were attached during development including Ron Howard and David Yates. In December 2012, it was announced that Headhunters director Morten Tyldum would helm the project, making the film his English-language directorial debut.

Bletchley Park, "the home of the codebreakers" where parts of the film were shot
Principal photography began on 15 September 2013 in Britain. Filming locations included Turing's former school, Sherborne, Bletchley Park, where Turing and his colleagues worked during the war, and Central Saint Martins campus on Southampton Row in London.Other locations included towns in England such as Nettlebed and Chesham (Buckinghamshire). Scenes were also filmed at Bicester Airfield and outside the Law Society building in Chancery Lane. Principal photography finished on 11 November 2013

Produced by: Nora Grossman
 Ido Ostrowsky
Teddy Schwarzman

Production Companies:  Black Bear Pictures (Owned by Teddy Schwarzman)
Bristol Automotive

Distribution Company: The Weinstein Company

Budget: $14 Million

Box Office: $233.6 Million

Critical Response:

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 90%, based on 229 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "With an outstanding starring performance from Benedict Cumberbatch illuminating its fact-based story, The Imitation Game serves as an eminently well-made entry in the 'prestige biopic' genre."On Metacritic, the film has a score of 73 out of 100, based on 49 critics, indicating a generally favourable rating of review.The film received a grade of "A+" from market-research firm CinemaScore and was included in both the National Board of Review's and American Film Institute's "Top 10 Films of 2014"
Cumberbatch's performance was met with widespread acclaim from critics. TIME ranked Cumberbatch's portrayal number one in its Top 10 film performances of 2014, with the magazine's chief film critic Richard Corliss calling Cumberbatch's characterisation "the actor's oddest, fullest, most Cumberbatchian character yet... he doesn't play Turing so much as inhabit him, bravely and sympathetically but without mediation".Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times declared Turing "the role of Cumberbatch's career", while A.O. Scott of The New York Times stated that it is "one of the year's finest pieces of screen acting". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone asserted that the actor "gives an explosive, emotionally complex" portrayal. Critic Clayton Davis stated that it's a "performance for the ages ... proving he's one of the best actors working today

Film Review: By the NY Times

“The Imitation Game” is a highly conventional movie about a profoundly unusual man. This is not entirely a bad thing. Alan Turing’s tragically shortened life — he was 41 when he died in 1954 — is a complex and fascinating story, bristling with ideas and present-day implications, and it benefits from the streamlined structure and accessible presentation of modern prestige cinema. The science is not too difficult, the emotions are clear and emphatic, and the truth of history is respected just enough to make room for tidy and engrossing drama.

An Alan Turing biopic is, all in all, a very welcome thing. Chances are that you are reading this, as I am writing it, on a device that came into being partly as a result of papers Turing published in the 1930s exploring the possibility of what he called a “universal machine.” His decisive contribution to the breaking of the Nazi Enigma code gave the Allied forces an intelligence advantage that helped defeat Germany, though the extent of his wartime role was kept secret for many years. The secret of his homosexuality was revealed when he was arrested on indecency charges in 1952, caught up in a Cold War climate of homophobia and political paranoia and subjected to the pseudoscientific cruelty of the British judicial system.
All of this is a lot for a single movie to take in, and “The Imitation Game,” directed by Morten Tyldum from a script by Graham Moore, prunes and compresses a narrative laid out most comprehensively in Andrew Hodges’s scrupulous and enthralling 1983 biography. The film interweaves three decisive periods in Turing’s life, using his interrogation by a Manchester detective (Rory Kinnear) as a framing device. Turing tells the investigator — who thinks he is after a Soviet spy rather than a gay man — about what he did during the war. Later, there are flashbacks to Turing’s school days, where he discovered the joys of cryptography and fell in love with a slightly older boy named Christopher Morcom.

The adult Turing is played by Benedict Cumberbatch (his younger self is Alex Lawther), expanding his repertoire of socially awkward intellectual prodigies, real and fictional. What has made Mr. Cumberbatch so effective as Sherlock Holmes and Julian Assange — and what makes his Alan Turing one of the year’s finest pieces of screen acting — is his curious ability to suggest cold detachment and acute sensitivity at the same time. If he did not exist, 21st-century popular culture would have to invent him: a sentient robot, an empathetic space alien, a warm-blooded salamander with crazy sex appeal.
His Turing, whom the film seems to place somewhere on the autism spectrum, is as socially awkward as he is intellectually agile. He can perceive patterns invisible to others but also finds himself stranded in the desert of the literal. Jokes fly over his head, sarcasm does not register, and when one of his colleagues says, “We’re going to get some lunch,” Turing hears a trivial statement of fact rather than a friendly invitation.

Awards Won:

Satellite Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
Capri, Hollywood International Film Festival Award for Best Picture
Palm Springs International Film Festival Best Ensemble Cast award
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film – Wide Release
Academy Award for Best Writing Adapted Screenplay
Empire Award for Best Thriller
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Other movies by Benedict Cucumberbatch:
 Doctor Strange
The Hobbit
Star Trek
Penguins Of Madagascar

The Weinstein Company:


The Weinstein Company  is an American mini-major film studio founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 2005 after they left Miramax Films, which they had co-founded in 1979. They retained ownership of Dimension Films. TWC is one of the largest mini-major film studios in North America.
Their highest grossing films are:
1    Django Unchained            2012      $162,805,434  
2    The King's Speech           2010       $138,797,449  
3    Silver Linings Playbook   2012   $132,092,958  
4    Inglourious Basterds        2009    $120,540,719  
5    The Butler                        2013     $116,632,095  
6    The Imitation Game         2014      $91,125,683  
7    Scary Movie 4                  2006     $90,710,620  
8    Paddington                      2015      $76,223,578  
9    1408                             2007          $71,985,628  
10    Halloween                    2007        $58,272,029

Media Convergence

Media convergence is the merging of mass communication outlets print, television, radio, the Internet along with portable and interactive technologies through various digital media platforms.
 It is the coming together of digital technology ,telecommunication and computing in a digital enviroment.

Technological convergence is the tendency that as technology changes, different technological systems sometimes evolve toward performing similar tasks.
Some of the technologies that lie under the Media Convergence are

Computer
Online services
Youtube
Mobile devices
Wifi

Synergy in Terms Of Media

Media synergy is like the proverbial will-o-the-wisp. Everyone thinks it’s good, but few can demonstrate it. Media synergy must add value but there’s no accepted method of measuring it. It’s what all advertisers hope to achieve with their media purchases but no one quite knows how to create it.

Media synergy arises when the combined effect or impact of a number of media activities is different from the sum of their individual effects on individual consumers. Thus, synergy is a phenomenon in which the whole is not always exactly equal to the sum of the parts, but could be greater than, or lesser than that sum. 

Most media research has been focused on individual media forms, i.e., the goal was to identify the greatest number of unduplicated audience members for a specific medium such as magazine titles, television shows, etc. Since the advertiser used mostly mass media messages, the media goal was efficiency, i.e., that to reach the largest unduplicated audience provided the optimal solution. Thus, synergy, either within or across media was an irrelevant question. With the growth of new media forms and fragmentation of existing ones, because of technology and the Internet, beginning in the middle 1990s, media planners began to seek optimal media combinations. Media synergy became a media planning priority. Initially, synergy-thinking was driven by two approaches:

a) the added value of simultaneous media exposures

b) the extended impact of sequential media messages delivered by multiple media forms 

Conglomerates like SONY are able to use synergy to boost profits because of their diversity  because they own a lot of different other companies.

Example; The film SKyfall promotes the soundtrack which promotes the DVD which promotes the games, which promotes the TV,which would further promote the website and so on

Media Ownsership

What is Media Ownership?

Concentration of media ownership (also known as media consolidation or media convergence) is a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media.

Globally, large media conglomerates include Viacom, CBS Corporation, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox and News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Sony, Comcast, Vivendi, Televise, The Walt Disney Company, Hearst Corporation,  Globe and Lagardère Group.

As of 2015, Comcast Corporation is the largest media conglomerate in the US, with The Walt Disney Company, Twenty-First Century Fox and Time Warner ranking second, third and fourth respectively.

Global conglomerates can at times have a progressive impact on culture, especially when they enter nations that had been tightly controlled by corrupt crony media systems or nations that had significant state censorship over media The global commercial-media system is radical in that it will respect no tradition or custom, on balance, if it stands in the way of profits. But ultimately it is politically conservative, because the media giants are significant beneficiaries of the current social structure around the world, and any upheaval in property or social relations particularly to the extent that it reduces the power of business is not in their interest.

Production in Relation of Media Ownership

Massive Media ownership companies are also the producers and owners of :

TV Stations

Film Studios 

Record Labels

Magazines

Newspapers

Books
Internet Platform

There are also some Independent companies that work outside the major studies.Often British Productions are done by smaller outfits like Warp Films that take help from BBC for extra funding for production and dostrobution 

 Financing:

Film finance is an aspect of film production that occurs during the development stage prior to pre-production, and is concerned with determining the potential value of a proposed film. In the United States, the value is typically based on a forecast of revenues (generally 10 years for films and 20 years for television shows), beginning with theatrical release, and including DVD sales, and release to cable broadcast television networks both domestic and international and in flight airline licensing

The nearly $550 million the film has brought in in the U.S., and the additional $550 million from overseas theaters, does not translate directly to revenue to Disney; the studio has to split those ticket sales with theaters. But because "The Force Awakens" was so highly anticipated, Disney had massive leverage when it came to negotiating its deals with the theater chains  which are generally negotiated on a per movie basis.

Pre-Sales:

re-sales is, based on the script and cast, selling the right to distribute a film in different territories before the film is completed. When the deal is made, the distributor will insist the producers deliver on certain elements of content and cast; if a material alteration is made, financing may collapse. In order to gain the “marquee names” essential for drawing in an international audience, distributors and sale agents will often make casting suggestions.Pre-sales contracts with big name actors or directors will often (at the insistence of the buyer) have an "essential element" clause that (as per the example above) allows the buyer to get out of the contract if the star or director falls out of the picture and a marquee equivalent cannot be procured.

The reliance on pre-sales explains the film industry's dependence on movie stars, directors and/or certain film genres

CASTING

The casting process involves a series of auditions before a casting panel, composed of individuals such as the producer, director and/or choreographer. In the early stages of the process, performers often may present prepared audition pieces such as monologues or songs. These audition pieces are usually video taped, attached with resumes, and head shots and then shared with producers, directors and studio representatives

Cast Of Star Wars

John Boyega

Harrison Ford

Adam Driver

Oscar Isaac

 Mark Hamill

Marketing:

On November 28, 2014, Lucasfilm released a 90-second teaser trailer to promote The Force Awakens. It was screened in selected cinemas across the United States and Canada and in theaters worldwide in December 2014. It was also released on YouTube and the iTunes Store, generating a record 58.2 million views on YouTube in its first week.[230] Critics compared the brief footage favorably to the production values of the original trilogy. The Hollywood Reporter called the trailer "perfectly potent nostalgia", praising its mix of old and new. Empire was impressed by the continuity with the first films  "the feel of classic Star Wars" but noted the absence of Hamill, Ford, and Fisher and speculated about the significance of the new characters. The Guardian wrote that the use of the Star Wars fanfare by John Williams reinforced brand loyalty among fans 

On December 11, 2014, Abrams and Kennedy released a series of eight mock Tops trading cards revealing the names of several characters. On April 16, 2015, a second teaser trailer, this one lasting two minutes, was shown at the opening panel at the Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said the reaction to the trailer was "staggering... the entire room of almost eight thousand people just leapt to their feet and roared, I mean I can't think of anything I've ever been to – other than a rock concert – that felt quite like that." The trailer was viewed over 88 million times within the first 24 hours of release, breaking the record  According to the Guinness World Records, the second teaser trailer amassed 30.65 million in 24 hours, setting a new world record for the "most viewed movie trailer on YouTube in 24 hours."

 On November 23, a partnership with Google was announced, in which Google users could choose to affiliate themselves with either the Dark or Light Side, which would change the appearance of their Google websites. Additionally, Disney teamed up with Verizon to create a virtual-reality experience for Google Cardboard

Distribution;

Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiered in Los Angeles at the TCL Chinese Theatre, El Capitan Theatre and Dolby Theatre on December 14, 2015.

As of March 24, 2016, Star Wars: The Force Awakens has grossed $932.9 million in North America and $1.127 billion in other territories for a worldwide total of $2.06 billion. The Force Awakens earned 8.6% of the total 2015 releases in North America, which is second only to the 8.8% of 1997 box office earned by Titanic in 1997. The film is the highest-grossing release of 2015, the highest-grossing film in the franchise , the highest-grossing film released by Walt Disney Studios, the highest-ever grossing film in North America, and the third-highest-grossing film of all time. It was the 24th film in cinematic history to surpass $1 billion worldwide, standing as the fastest film to surpass the mark, doing so in 12 days

Piracy:

  What is Piracy?

Film Piracy is the copying and distribtuion of a movie which is done illegally without the producers, directors, or the writers consent

The official Blu-Ray release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is scheduled to be released in two weeks time but an early copy leaked on various pirate sites and hundreds and thousands have already downloaded the movie.

There are currently dozens of copies posted on torrent, hosting and streaming sites, including The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents where it leads the lists of most shared files.