Moral Panics

Moral Panics -  When sections of society become disproportionally hysterical about new/deviant events involving another section of society

Examples

Paracetamol challenge 

Young people daring each other to take excessive amounts of drug, resulting in at least one needing hospital treatment

Paracetamol Challenge: Mother of girl killed by overdose pleads with teenagers not to take part

Bath salts 

Did Welsh Cannibal Killer Matthew Williams Take 'Bath Salts' Before Attack?

Woman allegedly attacks family dog while high on bath salts

Cannibalism epidemic: Was Welsh hotel horror latest flesh-eating attack linked to mephedrone?

Benefit Scroungers

Vile product of Welfare UK: Man who bred 17 babies by five women to milk benefits system is guilty of killing six of them

Using conventions from real media texts Question 1

Post-Production Question 1a

Research & Planning Question 1a

Creativity Question 1a

Digital Technology Question 1a

Blogger - Allowed us all to have access to our planning and research and it was safe from getting lost.

Nikon D-7000 Digital Camera - + Focus pull where we drew the audiences attention to the protagonists hands breaking free to show them clearly that he is about to escape, and him rubbing his hands in pain to emphasise how tight his hands were tied and the poor conditions he was in. It also allowed us to successfully shoot HD quality shots in low key lighting (pictured below), which previous camera's could not do as they would be pixelated in the dark.

















GarageBand - We used GarageBand to create the 'drone'/music for our film, which was vital in creating/building the tension in the final product. Creating our own soundtrack allowed us to escape copyright infringement and create exactly what we wanted.

SoundFlower - We had to download and use Soundflower to internally record our 'drone' in real time as we couldn't record the drone while adjusting the settings.  This is how we created the drone.

YouTube - Putting our film on YouTube allowed us to embed it into our blog. It also allowed us to get audience feedback to make last minute final changes and use in our evaluation.

Final Cut Pro - Obviously, FCP was a pivotal part of the creation of our final film. The editing process was entirely carried out on FCP and it was smoother and quicker than the software that we used for the Prelim task (Windows Movie Maker). We also got the sound effects that we used in the torture scene (Punches, American football contact sound effects to sound like punches in the stomach, door opening) and the video effects (the flashes and fade to white, the digital clock in the bottom left corner in the London Waterloo scene).

Applying Barthes Theory to Our Film

Hermeneutic/Enigma Code

'Clues are dropped but no clear answers are given'. This applies to our film when The Russian Spy's are shouting 'where is it?! Where are you hiding it?!'. This is hinting to the audience that they are looking for something that they suspect the protagonist has, but it is not revealed to the audience what it is.

Semantic Code

Anything in the film/text that has an extra connotation. This is applicable to our film as the Houses of Parliament are in the background of some of our shots. This, with the costume of a suit with dark glasses, carries the connotation of politically based skullduggery. 

Symbolic Code

The setting of Westminster and the Houses Of Parliament also fits into symbolic as politically based skullduggery is an overarching theme of our film.

Claude Levi-Strauss' Binary Opposition

East(ern Europe) vs West(ern Europe)

Black (Protagonist) vs White (Antagonist)

Good vs Evil

Peace vs War (protagonist is trying to prevent chemical warfare)

Domestic (British) vs Foreign (Russian)

Vladimir Propp

Props can be applied to our film as we have a clearly defined Hero/Protagonist and a clearly defined Villain/Antagonist.

7 Common Factors of Representation of Youth

1. Youth are often represented in accordance with popular notions of adolescence.

1. The Annoyance

 Young people gravitate towards ‘annoying’ activities - Loud activities like Skateboarding and generally hanging around outside - often late at night - being disruptive and disturbing 

2. The binge drinker 

Young people all have no self control and go out and get paralytically drunk every weekend. E.G. Skins (Right)

3. The drain on society/Laziness

People believe the reason for the huge youth unemployment figures is that they are lazy and do not want to work. If they were to try as hard as everyone else they could get jobs and become contributing members of society and not 'drains of society'. E.G The constant agenda pushed by the likes of The Daily Mail or an example from a TV show would be the juvenile delinquents in the show Misfits 

4. Anti-Social behaviour/gangs 

All young people are anti-social and even violent. This is pushed by the media saying that young people are commonly involved in things like gang violence, when in fact these people are in the minority. E.G The London Riots 

2. Youth are demonised by the mass media

As previously mentioned, media organisations - particularly right wing organisations - like the Daily Mail push an anti-youth agenda.

3. Youth are represented as being let down by adults

Youth are reportedly let down by adults in multiple ways:

• 'Children let down by poor adult awareness of mental illness' - RCNI.com
• 'Young people are being let down by sex education in schools' - The New Statesman 
• 'Prison system still letting down young adults' - Communitycare.co.uk
• 'Britains young people have been let down by adults who show them only suspicion and negativity' - The Express
• 'Young adults would need to save £33 EVERY DAY for the next 30 years to be as wealthy as their parents' - This is Money.co.uk

4. Youth are represented as being part of sub-cultures 

Young people are all split into 'sub-culture' groups e.g. Jump Street films

Nerds

Nerds

Druggies

Jocks

Goths

5. Alienation - Youth are represented as being excluded from mainstream/adult society

Youth (u18's) are represented as being excluded from adult society in these ways:

• Can't vote
• Can't drink/smoke
• Demonisation by adult media creates in group and out group between young and old, because adults have more power/influence in the world, this results in exclusion of young people

6. Youth are a product of the society that they are born into. They often embody the faults & fears of adult society 

The Wire - The teenagers an a poor urban environment who's parents are often drug addicts or involved in selling drugs, so the kids are involved in this as well.

7. Representations of UK youth are often nostalgic/romanticised

Adults look back fondly at their childhoods, often forgetting the unhappy times they had and focussing just on the good times. Many adults also often tell children/young adults that 'these are the best times of your life' and to 'enjoy them now'. An Example is 'This is England' when the adults tell the kid something along the lines of "you've got nothing to worry about, you're young"

Narrative vs Story

Narrative - A sequence of events organised into a story with a particular structure.

Story - The events within the narrative, both those presented directly to the audience and those which might be inferred.


Our AS Narrative -

• Protagonist gets kidnapped by Russian goons 
• Protagonist gets beaten and interrogated 
• The goons stop beating him and say 'the boss is coming'
• The boss starts journey on train to protagonist 
• Cross cutting between Protagonist and Antagonist (THE BOSS)
• Ends with Antagonist arriving at where protagonist was being held captive but he has escaped.

Our AS Story - A government agent is kidnapped by Russian spies. They beat and interrogate him, but he manages to escape while they wait for 'the boss'.