Gender representation in TV drama: Holby City

Throughout the extract of Holby city women are represented as manipulative. An example of this is through sound and dialogue. After the women is dumped by the male doctor and her first attempt at retaining him fails after she says “you don’t want to do this Mikey” she swiftly comes back and says “Does Hanson know about Amelia?” as an attempt to blackmail him. She says this in a condescending, sarcastic tone the fast change in personality and the fact that she goes to the extent to threaten her colleague shows her and women in the programme to be manipulative.   

Women are also shown to be manipulative through the mise en scene of the extract. An example of this is the facial expression and body language of the female nurse as she attempts to blackmail her colleague. She appears to smirk after threatening the male doctor. The fact that she is grinning at his discomfort shows that she is enjoying her power of her colleague and thereby shown to be manipulative. This represents women as manipulative and forceful.

Holby City represents men to be aggressive in the extract. An example of this is through the editing technique shot reverse shot. This occurs when the doctor and the visitor begin to argue. The shot reverse shot allows the audience see that the two men are against/oppose each other. The fact that they are aggressive is later emphasized by the match on action of the visitor throwing a punch at the doctor.

Women are also represented as vulnerable. This is due to the camera techniques throughout the extract. One example of this is through the aerial shot of the nurse crying on the stairs whilst on the phone. Aerial shots generally emit a sense of inferiority whilst focusing on a subject due to the fact that they are seen as small from that perspective. This fits the context of the scene due to the fact that the nurse is crying as she was not able to get her own way which also in a sense depicts and represents women as obstinate.

What are the major differences in the production, distribution and exhibition of films made by the Major Studios and Independent film?

There are a multitude of differences when it comes to differences in Major studios and independent films. These differences can be broken down into three segments of: production, distribution and exhibition.

In terms of production the major studios were given a much higher budget and tend to be able to hire more producers for the production. This leads to better actors being casted due to the fact that they are able to get paid more in comparison to independent films with lower budgets. The great budget also leads to a bigger cast consisting off cameramen, editors, sounds mixers, actors etc. Major studios are able to visit better locations and are able to produce exceptional quality visual affects. On the other hand independent films are more low budget due the fact that they are not funded by the major companies.

The main difference in distribution is that the major films studios tend to own the distribution company. Due to he higher budget the major studios are able to attract a larger audience which leads to a higher assumption. The marketing team is responsible for of the movie.  Due to the greater budget, the major companies have a larger marketing team than independent films. They thereby attract a greater audience through trailers, press meetings and posters etc. Major studios also tend to buy more sponsorships and advertising deals which expands the audience. An example of this is Many Disney films getting advertised in MacDonald's happy meals which are targeted towards children for example the Disney Pixar film - Inside Out . On the other hand independent films don't have as much advertising and is a lot less high profile than major studios.

The last stage is exhibition which involves the finished movie being transported to cinema's all over the world. The major studios have their movie shown in a much larger amount of cinema's compared to independent films. They also tend to be aired more allowing more people time to watch the movie. Ultimately the smaller independent films get a lot less coverage and are shown in smaller screens etc. This is predominantly due to the lower budget.



For my movie poster I took a medium close up shot of John which met the codes and conventions of the horror genre as evidenced by posters such as H2

I designed the mise-en-scene by using low key lighting and dressing my actor in a dark cloak and a candle to signify the genre of the movie.  Similar to the movie poster static which features a cloaked figure and also similar to a variety of other posters which include props of some sort such as: the Child’s Play 2 poster.

 The colours which I selected were mainly green and black.  The connotations of these are darkness, decay and insanity in order that the audience could clearly read the poster as belonging to the horror genre.  Other examples of movies which use these colours are the likes of “the fly” and “alien” (which is a sub genre of horror and sci-fi.

 I made sure that the movie poster met industry conventions by including a billing block which every movie poster needs.  The classification clearly shows that this is a movie for a more mature adult audience and clearly isn’t aimed at young children.

For this task I learnt how to use Photoshop in order to convey representations.  Some of the techniques I used were mise en scene related such as the use of low key lighting in order to convey an eerie look and keep parallel to other horror movie posters by sticking to the common codes and conventions of the genre.

 In my opinion, the most successful aspect of my poster is my use of picture. This is because the actual picture is a pivotal part of showing what type of genre/film this is. Also this is where the target audience mainly focuses on and you can clearly tell that this is a horror movie poster.

Media Sound Terms

 Media Sound Terms

Foley: Recorded sound effects added in after the shooting of a film - usually produced in a studio by a Foley artist.

Diegetic sound: Sound heard by the characters in the scene.

Non diegetic sound: Sound added later in post production for effect not heard by the characters. For example soundtrack.

Pitch: The degree of highness or lowness in tone.

Rhythm: A strong regular repeated pattern of sound.

Sound bridge: Sound which carries on into the next scene.

Sound motif: A sound effect or a combination of effects which are associated with a certain character, setting, situation or idea throughout a film.

Score: A piece of music for a particular thing eg.  a movie.

Crescendo: A gradual increase of sound in a piece of music .

Ambient sound: Background sound from the location.

Asynchronous sound: Sound where the cause is not visible.

Dialogue: Sound spoken by the characters in the scene.

Timbre: A quality of a sound or voice as distinct from its pitch and intensity.

Hyperbolic sound: A sound that is louder than it should be.