Any sound you hear is created by vibration and travels from the source to your ears in the form of waves (which are vibrating particles), these waves bounce off surfaces such as walls to create echoes and tails. If a sound has a low bass frequency it has a long wavelength allowing it to travel through materials easier, this is why if someone is playing music in another room you can hear the bass more than the other parts of the song. Frequency is also relative to to pitch so a high frequency means a high pitch and vice versa.

Sound is measured in decibels (db), when measuring analog sound, 0db is the quietest whereas when you are measuring digital sound then 0db is the loudest, it is important to know the difference between these two when talking about how loud something is. Regular digital audio peaks between -6db and -3db, when recording audio it is important to make sure your audio doesn’t go over 0db as this is the point when it starts to get distorted, maxing out at -3db lowers the chance of your recording going 0db and getting distorted.

acoustics is a branch of physics concerned with the properties of sound and the science that deals with the production, control, transmission, reception and effects of sound. The properties or qualities of a physical space determines how sound is transmitted in that space, for example a big hollow space will have lots of space for the sound waves to bounce off the walls and travel. Diffusion panels are a way of manipulating acoustics in a space, these panels are made with irregular surfaces such as triangles, this splits and disperses the sound, an example is sound proofing foam.

Wether you’re recording music in a studio, playing a live show or creating a short film, each type of microphone has it’s uses and features that make it suitable for different situations. The four main types of microphones that I’ll be discussing are dynamic mics, condenser mics, ribbon mics and shotgun mics.

Dynamic microphones

Dynamic mics, as the name suggests, are a multi purpose microphone that can be used for pretty much anything however they are better for some things than others. Due to their ability to take a beating, both physically and in the terms of sound levels, they are commonly used for live performances. They are best used when close to the sound source meaning they would not be very effective on a film set where the microphone has to be out of shot and therefore far away from the source.

Condensor microphones

Condensor mics are usually used in recording studios, they can pick up small details whilst recording and are much more fragile that dynamic microphones meaning they are not used for live performances as dropping one could cause it to break. The diaphragms inside these microphones can vary in size which changes how the microphone works, small diaphragms are great for acoustic instruments and larger diaphragms are used for recording vocals.

Ribbon microphones

Ribbon mics are some of the oldest microphones and were used for singers in the 30’s. They use the figure of 8 pattern and therefore are mostly used in situations where two people need to use the same microphone such as interviews and live performances.

Shotgun microphones

Looking like the barrel of a shotgun, shotgun mics are aimed at the source and only record sound coming from that direction, commonly used on film sets or on digital cameras. On a film set, these are often placed on a boom arm and aimed at the sound source, most of the unwanted background sound is not detected but obviously some will be as the microphone doesn’t know what you want or don’t want to include.

Our task was to research various filming and editing techniques used to film an interview and implement them whilst filming our own interview, we decided to interview Laurence the criminal mastermind.

We decided to film in a small well lit room and didn’t use any other lighting other than the lights in the room, for the second part of the interview we had to hide the interviewees face so we turned off the lights in the room and placed him in front of a window, the light behind him created a silhouette which hid his face and created an outline of the interviewee.

When it comes to camera angles, we had 4 main ones we used along with an establishing shot; a medium shot of the interviewer, a medium shot of the criminal, a close up of the criminal and a medium shot of the victim which uses a silhouette. We only had one camera so we had to vary between the camera angles to give the illusion that the interview was filmed with multiple cameras. We started the interview with an establishing shot that shows where the interview is taking a place followed by a black screen with the interviewer talking over it, when he says “we are filming on camera A” the medium shot of him is show and when he says “and camera B” the medium shot of the criminal is shown, this is just to make the interview feel more like a real police interview that would be recording and also to make it seem like there are multiple cameras in the room. We cycle through these two shots throughout the interview depending on who is talking, at some parts if the interviewer or criminal says a one word question or answer we didn’t change the camera angle as it would seem over edited, we also sometimes filmed one persons reaction when the other one is talking. We only used the close up shot once in the interview, this was to emphasise what the criminal said during the shot and to make it seem like and important or dramatic part of the interview. In the second part of the interview we filmed the victim and used the same shot for that whole section of the interview as we needed to have the lights off in order to hide the victims face, it wouldn’t really look good if we also had a shot of the interviewee with the lights off as you wouldn’t be able to see him and it wouldn’t make sense if we had a shot of the victim in a dark room and a shot of the interviewee in a well lit room. We placed the victim in front of a window which the light shining into the room, this created a good silhouette using natural lighting however we had the camera set so it was too dark meaning we had to edit this part of the video to make the victim visible.

The editing process was pretty simple, it was mostly just a matter of trimming clips, putting them in order and placing sound from one clip over the video of another one. I soon realised that the video would just be going back and forth between interview and interviewee so I tried to add parts where it shows one person listening or reacting to the other, I feel like this makes the interview seem more natural and less repetitive. I also tried to make the interview flow well, for example I wouldn’t leave long gaps between speech, unless it is there for effect and it makes sense to do so, sometimes the interviewer seems shocked by the answer so I would leave a short gap or a clip of him looking through his notes before he asks the next question.

Django Unchained is set in 19th century America, a time and place where black people had next to no rights and were slaves bought and sold by the upper class white people as if they were objects, due to this people are represented in a much different way than they would be in a film set in the present.

In the opening scene of “Django Unchained” the two ethnicities that are being focused on are white people and black people, in the scene the black people are shown to be slaves and the white people are slave traders and bounty hunters. In the eyes of the slave trader, the black people in the scene are just a way for him to make money, they are wearing rags and have no personal belongings or anything of any meaning, their whole life revolves around being bought and sold by white people and working for them. In the scene black people are represented in a negative way however this is to make the film historically accurate and to fit in with the theme of the film, which is all about slavery at the time of the films setting. This clip really shows black people as being a minority as they are being controlled entirely by the white people, once the person that was transporting them got shot they don’t do anything until they are told what to do, its as if they are waiting for instructions as they have spent their whole life doing what white people tell them to do. Even thought the film is fictional it is about things that actually happened (slavery) therefore I think the hypodermic needle theory can be applied to it especially in the powerful opening scene, two people are shot at the start of the scene grabbing the audience’s attention, after the action the audience is shown what slavery was really like, this means there is a passive audience.

The Brittle brothers scene of “Django Unchained” also focuses on white people and black people however it portrays black people completely differently, Django arrives at a plantation as one of the Brittle brothers is about to whip one of the slaves, he is wearing an upper class outfit and is walking on his own. This shows his independence compared to the black people in the previous scene, his upper class outfit really contrasts from how every other black person in the scene is shown, they are still slaves in rags whereas he looks more upper class than the white people in the scene which makes him seem powerful. When he begins whipping the slave owner he is represented really differently, he is the minority standing up against the majority, I feel like the audience wouldn’t expect him to be represented like this in a film where black people are slaves and in general controlled by white people.

When gathering secondary research online you must evaluate the source to find out wether it is reliable or not, there are many things you can look at whilst doing this. You must always check the date of an article or post to make sure it is relevant, how many times have you seen someone share a article on Facebook talking about “the most snow we’ve had in years” just to find out the article is years old. You must also look at the domain, domains such as .com and .co.uk can be created by anyone and they can say whatever they want on their domain, government websites (.gov or .gov.uk) and educational websites  (.ac.uk or .edu) are much more reliable. You must also check (if you can) the websites author and their purpose for the website, it could be very one sided depending on these two factors.

Primary research if always reliable as you have done it yourself. Original photographs, original documents, questionnaires and target groups are all examples of how primary research can be acquired.

When creating a questionnaire you must ask yourself some questions before making it. What do you want to find out? What is your research question? What kind of data do you need (qualitative or quantitative)? What do you need to ask to get the information you need? What question types will you use? What type of language do you use? How many questions will you ask?

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/VF5L2LR

This is a link to an online questionnaire I made to find out more about the audience of the series Riverdale, most of the questions are closed except for the last one which is an open question. The multiple choice questions give me quantitative data which allow me to then organise the data into a table or graph. There is also an open question which is purely opinion and collects qualitative data.

There are two main types of research, primary and secondary, primary research is research you do yourself and acquire the data yourself, this can be in the form of an interview or questionnaire. Secondary research is research that someone else does first and you use the data they have gathered, you can get this data by looking at data that is publicly available online. The primary or secondary research you do can also be split into two categories, quantitive research and qualitative research. Quantitive research is based on measurable facts, figures and data that can be measured and can be easily placed into a graph, to gather this you can use multiple choice questions so that you can only get a certain number of answers. Quantitative research is based on opinions of others, this way you can get a more broad range of answers however because of this it cannot be organised as well especially if people have very different opinions.

When creating a product or piece of media you must always conduct market research and audience research. Market research includes researching similar products to see how yours can be better than the competitors, you can also research things like what time do most people do things, for example if you are making a TV show you will have to research when most people are likely to watch TV. Audience research is more specific as you are finding out information about your target audience such as their age range, what they like or dislike, how to get their attention and how to taylor your product or media towards them. For example if you are creating something for teenagers you will need to find out what they are into and where to advertise for them, they are more likely to see an advert on social media rather than one broadcasted on live television.

Plagiarism is the act of stealing someone else’s work and using it as your own without crediting the person who’s work it is. There are many ways that you can detect if a piece of work has been plagiarised, Turnitin is a website used to check over work, it checks many sources on the internet to see if the work has been stolen from anywhere or if it is original. If you know the person who’s work you are checking personally you could check over their work and see if the language they used and their writing skill matches to their previous work.

An example of plagiarism being used in music is the Suicideboys song “Antarctica” that uses a large section of a Deadmau5 song, Deadmau5 filed a copyright strike on the song and it was taken down from YouTube and SoundCloud as part of the song was clearly plagiarised.

Another example of plagiarism is when people upload full length films to YouTube or other free video streaming websites for anyone to watch for free, the people uploading the films didn’t create them or don’t have anything to do with the creation of the films nor do they have permission to upload the films online.

In this task I was asked to choose from one of three film clips, remove all the sound and replace it with non copyright sounds I found online, I chose to do a car chase scene from The Matrix Reloaded.

The first sound I chose to add was the background music as this sets the mood for the scene, I decided to use the music that plays when you are being chased by the police in the game Need For Speed Carbon, I had multiple different songs that I could’ve chose from however I felt that this one was the most fitting for the scene. I also found a sound of a car driving at high speed which was recorded from inside the car, I have this constantly playing in the background alongside the music. The non-diegetic music and diegetic car sounds add atmosphere to the scene and make it so that the scene isn’t silent when there is no action happening on screen. I then had to add gunshots, tire screeching and a car crashing into for the first few seconds of the clip, I also added police sirens that start when the police cars are first visible, these police sirens continue to play in the background for most of the video, increasing and decreasing in volume depending on wether the camera is inside or outside a car. Next I added the sounds from the fight scene inside the car between one of the twins and Morpheus, this consisted of thuds for the twin entering and the gun dropping, knife sounds for when a knife is being used, punch sounds the the fight and swerving sounds for the car is shown swerving. The rest of the clip uses similar sounds like gunshots and car crashes when appropriate and continues to have the music, sirens and car sounds in the background.

The music I added in the background is the only non-diegetic sound that I added, this is because a lot is going on in the scene and there are a lot of diegetic sounds, the fast paced action music matches the action packed car chase scene really well and enhances the mood of the scene. All the other sounds in the scene such as gunshots and cars crashing are diegetic sounds as the characters in the film would be able to hear them, as there is so many things happening in the scene there are a lot of chaotic diegetic sounds immerses the viewer into the scene.

I feel like my soundtrack definitely enhances the visuals as it immerses the viewer, if the whole scene was silent the viewer wouldn’t be able to feel how chaotic and action packed the scene is, even though they would be able to see it a lot of things are going on in the background which you can only hear. The background music also plays a very important part in enhancing the scene as without the music the scene would feel quiet and awkward.

I feel like some of my personal strengths on this task was sound syncing and attention to detail, I made sure all the sound effects were played at the exact correct time and at a correct audio level compared to where the camera is in the scene.

Over the years as stereotypes of women have faded away and the two sex’s have gained equal rights, the way women are portrayed in the media has also been changing, women now have roles in media just as big as men do however different types of media have different ways of portraying women.

My first example is the 2017 action fantasy film “Wonder Woman” where the protagonist is a powerful woman that is not only physically out of her natural habitat, but is also out of her natural habitat as she has to fight in a war that only men are fighting in, at the time women fighting in a war was unheard of so she is heavily discriminated throughout the course of the film. Wonder Woman is a prime example of what women were aiming for when campaigning for equal rights, the plot could’ve easily still worked with a man as the protagonist (obviously with a few changes) however a woman was used and still portrayed as a strong, independent character. Although the protagonist is a woman, the film is targeted at both sex’s however I feel like men will be more likely to watch it due to its action, fantasy theme.

My second example is the 2009-2015 comedy TV series “parks and recreation”, the protagonist is also female however is portrayed in a completely different way, part of the reason for this is the series’ comedy theme. Leslie Knope is a bureaucrat in an Indiana parks and recreation department that wants to improve her town by turning an abandoned construction site into a park, it is clearly shown that she is exploited by men working in the department. She is portrayed as stupid and optimistic, she thinks that she can make her dream happen however it is clear that most of the characters in the series doubt her and forget what she says as soon as she leaves the room. Although she is the protagonist she is not seen as the most powerful character, she is portrayed as a “typical blonde” in a world full of men.

The film noir era (early 1940’s to late 1950’s) was popular for using the three point lighting system to create a low key, black and white style popular in crime and drama films. The combination of minimal amount of whites, reduced lighting, lots of shadows and deep blacks came together perfectly to create the film noir style.

Silhouette

A silhouette only uses the back light, the back light is placed behind and above the object, normally out of shot so you can’t see the strong light. A silhouette turns the main object or person of the shot into a solid black shape and you are not able to see the interior features. The background of the silhouette often highly contrasts the object to made it stand out even more.

 

 

 

 

Spotlight

This uses only the key light to create an area of focus, the key light is placed above the object or person that you want the light to be on. This is