Lesson notes: 26/02/2016

1980s moral panics, scapegoating and video nasties

-media created moral panic for: -reaction -money (selling)
-when a government with right wing values is in charge moral panics occur as it gives an intensive for those in charge to be able to take charge and control more! (a way of society saying we need to do something about this so we rely on the gov to do so for us aka nanny state)
-To protect us we have cctv etc because terrorism isnt just done by outsiders of the country but are committed by those who were born here and have grown up here.

Scapegoating
-media blames a certain group or individual for certain things mainly crime in the media
eg. Riots were blamed on young working class people stealing from shops of which was also blamed upon their deprivation of materialistic items which are advertised everywhere by the capitalist class.
-shifted blame onto others.

Russel Brand:
"the bankers farted and the gov smelt it and then blamed the youth and immigrant"
Both are thefts but Bankers during the recession were not put in prison however those in the riots were made an example of and went to prison for their crimes.

Video Nasties
- Scapegoated as rather than saying its the government, education, parents, teachers etc fault they claimed it was the film's fault.

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Activity:
Group 3

Work in relation to this points:



-Conservative government sought to protect
-Videos being distributed by cornershops, market traders and garages
-The covers on the boxes often more grusome than the content
-Regulated videos to have age restrictions by BBFC
-Moral Panic created by Media the term: 'video nasties'
-Government Censorship & Police Raids on VHS dealers
-Riots and civil unrest, unemployment and recession
- Moral Campaign against video nasties; Mary Whitehouse (NVLA), Margaret Thatcher, the media and the BBFC.
-The above mentioned scapegoated the video nasties for immoral behaviour which led to a moral panic
-Cinema attendance declined massively due to the rise of VHS
-Video Nasties like Evil Dead, I Spit On Your Grave and Driller Killer were realistic because they were low budget
-Video Nasties were niche films and really popular with teenagers due to controversy
-Video Nasties were exploited to explain responsibility for moral decline in society
-Watching video nasties helps put it in context of narrative, the campaigners did not actually watch them
-Video Nasties were made for distribution only via home-video
-Censorship or individual judgement?
- Video Nasties created diversity of films
- Video Recordings Act 1984, banned list

Notes on the above:

Mark Kermode - film critic

- unregulated uncensored horror films accessible to english horror fans in the early 80s

-Martin barker the legislation brought in for video nasties was brought in under false pretenses 

- brought in by Graham bright the video recording act

- this changed society today

- Horror fans were firstly able to access them through video store and watch them at home and this is familiar to us now is us watching them at home online

- Hypodermic needle theory - "could influence anyone children as well as dogs"

- Graham bright "research is taking place and it WILL show..." all these studies are biased and fake and the legislation has already been put through showing that they just wanted to get them out of the home unit if not wanted by government. - brought in through fraudulent cases. 

-you ban something makes someone go and watch them in the 80s and this still happens today eg, people watching human centipede 2 online regardless of it being banned to see why it was banned.

- Prediction will take away the privatization of the home institution and will intrude on homes through spy wear on phones, websites, ISP (internet service provider) etc. Regulation of homes are already put into action as every site thats been looked at by every individual is stored into data bases and if something is being looked at that is unwanted so they block sites.

-In the future this regulator could be OFCOM

Activity work:

The moral panic about the uncensored Video Nasties and concerns unregulated video content and move to regulation of film in the home.
MEDIA EFFECTS THEORIES - scapegoating, copycat, moral panic

-This Is England, 2006Shane Meadows’s brilliant coming-of-age tale follows the rites of passage of a young boy who becomes seduced by the bigotry of a racist skinhead mentor. Rated 18 by the BBFC for both profanity and racial insults, the film made headlines when director Meadows insisted that its target audience was 15 year olds who would be more than familiar with the language and situations presented - potentially could cause moral panic about ethnic minorities and discrimination or exclude and make them vulnerable in society. 



- effectively was no regulation or certificate on films
- huge amount of arrest in society, mass in unemployment, violence from the Falklands war and they needed something to help stand as reasoning
- Video nasties were used to explain everything and were always blamed for negative things occurring in society ( MEDIA SCAPEGOATING THEM)
- Video nasties were an explanation of societal moral decline
-Conditioning the audiences watching adverts by sarcastically stating "keep repeating they were only movies" this goes against the idea to "avoid moral panic" as it causes audiences to think about about how the films could be the reasons for violence, REVERSE TACTICS
- MP's were shown the videos and were "physically sick"but young boy was interviewed and had the following dialogue with the interviewer:
"Dont they scare you?"
"nah i dont have no nightmares or nothing"
- The contrast between the MPs alleged reaction and the boys suggests that the MPs did not actually watch the films or that they lied about their responses to the films to ensure that the legislation would be passed.
- The laws were fraudulent however it was sufficient with everything else said to ensure it got through parliament.
-Expose was the only british nastie film banned

Question 3 evaluation

PRESENTED ON WEEBLY ALSO.




We gathered a group of students in college within the age range of the film we are targeting to as they are all teenagers. We then asked them a series of questions individually after showing them our media products as a group and found out the following results.






I think that the poster and magazine both look conventional because of the layout of each of them and the placement of the image and headlines.




I think the tagline is catchy as its short and gives a little insight into what the film is about.




The font is fitting to the genre as it has an eroded look to it on the poster and on the magazine it has the same fonts as the poster and trailer so it fits well and still has that creepy vibe about it as it is crooked looking.




Theirs an evident link between the poster and magazine as the colours and images are the same nearly so this looks like they are of correlation.




I would go see the film as it looks interesting and both the products do not give too much away but its obvious its about possession, people who are close and murder because of the picture and the tagline.




i think the colour schemes do work well as they are Gothic and very common in the horror genre as i see them a lot on posters.




I first noticed the pictures on each of them as they are big and so my eye was drawn to them automatically.




Pros:

- the colours and images work well together

-both of the products aren't too packed with stuff on them they're easy on the eye.




Cons:

- the poster background should be black to fit the colour palette

- the magazine should have pictures






i think the horror poster is conventional and he poster is too as they look like ones on the market at the moment.




The tagline is effective and really catchy because it is short and easy to remember.




I think the typography flows well from the magazine to the poster as they use the same fonts and this makes the continuity easy to recognise.




The link is there because of the typography and also images. The featured images are similar as they are of the same antagonist which makes them flow and link easily for the audience.




I would go and see the film as the magazine and poster both look scary and also they look really professional, they also look like other horror ones but also look original because of the character being a girl and shes the audiences age.




The colour scheme works really well its the typical horror colours.




The first thing i noticed was the image on both of the products as its the largest item on the page and the mag one makes eye contact with you and the poster image looks like shes possessed and hovering or summoning something.




Pros:

- colour scheme

- photography quality and positions in the images




cons:

- poster could have had more reviews to fill empty space

- the magazine couldve had more images.




Images of the class looking at the products:

































































Above you can see that we put the results of the closed questions in to a pie chart generator to display the results from our audience feedback so it would be another resource to analyse the feedback from.
















Trailer:

Do you think the trailer is conventional?

Do you think the colours work in the trailer?

Do you think the captions are effective?

Do you think the typography on the captions work?

Do you see a link to the poster and magazine?

Do you like the trailer?

What do you think about the length?

Would you go see the film?

Pros and cons?

















































We made a survey on surveymonkey.co.uk so the people in the class could give us feedback online. This was to ensure we got a clear overview of the work and the feedback was made into bar charts. This meant we could read the comments in a quick and easy way to see the overall percentages of each questions answers.







Magazine questionnaire:

what do you notice first?

masthead

film title

image

coverlines




do you think the composition of all the components work?

yes

no




Do you think the font is fitting to the genre?

yes

no




would you buy this?

no

yes

if no why?




if you was to buy it how much would you pay?

£2.50

£3.00

£3.50

£4.00




Do you think it is too busy?

yes

no




Do you think there should be images?

no

yes




do you think the colour scheme is fitting to the genre?

no

yes



















































can you tell the genre of the magazine is horror?

yes

no


From the feedback for the poster we learnt that:
Although it was of good composition and the typography worked well as a whole it still looked sparse and the audience would have enjoyed having more reviews surrounding the main image to persuade them more about the film. We also learnt that out colour scheme was fitting to the horror and worked well and was not to over powering of the image. We learnt that the image was effective in the center and the pose was effective as it made the narrative more evident for the audience.

Magazine feedback showed us that the product worked well in conjunction with the poster as it included the same character as the poster, had the same fonts and also the same colour scheme. The audience liked the magazine as it was full of content and was not to overbearing. However we found out they would like more images on the cover to make it more visually pleasing as they found it was covered in words and was not as appealing as the poster was.

Trailer feedback let our group understand what the audience liked and did not like about it. We found that the majority of our audience found that the trailer was conventional and worked alongside the poster and magazine as they were all synergistic. We found that the audience could understand that there was a colour scheme running through all three products but stated that the filter over the trailer was not pleasing to the eye and although it made it synergistic to the other products it was not up to the quality of the actual video clips. The audience found the captioning clips effective and enjoyed the visuals provided with them including the shakes and also the sound of the boom when each appeared.

Lesson: 25th February 2016

Case studies for media essay.

BBFC

• Looking at the 1980's - video nasties

• We need to look at the past if we measure change. 

• Evil dead and Human centipede 2

-> what has happened in the past 30 years from evil dead to human centipede 2

• They were both banned (1980s and 2011) 

-> not current so a new case study will be used for the real exam a 2015 or 16 film

• 9 songs - had pornographic scenes however that was given artistic merit so they could release it on this behalf in cinemas 

• hunger games - 12A - can watch children killing each other however have a stronger feeling and negativity associated with sex scenes rather than violence

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OFCOM

• big brother - upholding the law by evicting the male boxer who was discriminatory towards those who are homosexual 

• Woolwich terror attack - video before watershed shown on a loop, the loop was sensationalist causing a moral panic the clip was featuring a dead body, blood and a weapon 

-----------------------------------

Video Nasties

The government pressured the BBFC to ban the film's but didn't even watch them 

Liberal

open to unregulated information 

Regulation can be used to control or protect

For reg:

• Bobo doll experiment (Bandura 1960) 

-> concluded that when watching a violent cartoon and then played with the doll that the children would violently attack the doll because of the cartoon

-> hypodermic needle 

-> media effects model has no worth? Wrong because media does effect generation eg bigerxia (body building) and anorexia (thin) 

Against:

• freedom and ir/responsibility 

-> revolves around an individual, self-interested, selfish 

-> individual freedom is the enemy of morality eg. single dad of 2 wants to leave his relationship to begin a new -> freedom but immoral 

so why do we reg?

vulnerable kids

vulnerable adults

legal responsibility -> stereotypes etc

is it about protecting society and morality?

Norms and Values taken into account

• our society is not okay with human cent 2 it's taking it too far 

• but ! who are the regulators to tell me what I want to do?!

-> upper class white men deciding what every type of person watches without actually knowing them

• they have conservative right wing traditional values 

---------------------------

social change:

1980's

reaction of the newspapers in this story and why they did it?

who was Mary whitehouse?

why did teenage boys at school want to watch this and can we trust statistics?

relevance on politics and society:

• Margaret thatcher - conservatives get rid of liberal views and wanted privatisation 

• people could watch films at home through VHS you could hire from video shops and they were horror films majority of the time 

• this was dubbed by Mary whitehouse as the video nasties as 'nasty' films were allowed into private spaces like homes

• terrified that children would watch these so video shops were 'snatched' by police

• resembled a drugs bust

• daily mail right wing newspaper

• caused a moral panic because of the over sensitisation 

• everything blamed on video nasties 

research on OFCOM

What political or social reasons do you think that OFCOM made its decision?

social:

Speaking into the camera with bloodied hands, he went on: "You people will never be safe. Remove your governments – they don't care about you.

political:

"Do you think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? Do you think your politicians are going to die?"

"Killing to make a political point, or to frighten the public to put pressure on the government, or as an expression of anger, is murder and remains murder whether the government in question is a good one, a bad one or a dreadful one.

"Equally there is no defence of moral justification for killing, just as there is no defence of religious justification. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth suggests revenge or retaliation and, in the context of this case, murder."

What are some of the arguments or opinions about REGULATION of this Case Study being broadcast?

Of course TV news and print front pages should have shown the full horror of the killing. There's no point whatsoever in deodorising such coverage in case people of a nervous disposition are watching. There's no point flooding south-east London with police and not saying why. If we want slaughter like this to be seen for what it is, we have to be shown clearly what it leads to.

Sir Max Hastings – under a Mail headline about the "enemy within that hates our tolerance" – claimed that the "avalanche of publicity" was inescapable, but added: "We do not yet know whether they acted alone, or were members of a terror group". 

Simon Jenkins put it starkly in the Guardian. "It is this echo chamber of horror, set up by the media, public figures and government, that does much of terrorism's job for it. It converts mere crimes into significant acts. It turns criminals into heroes in the eyes of their admirers. It takes violence and graces it the terms of political debate." 

magazine finished

i edited the rectangles and made the title bigger to make it look more professional.

HALF TERM ESSAY - REGULATION

"HOW WELL DOES CONTEMPORARY MEDIA REGULATION PROTECT THE PUBLIC?"


I will be analysing and comparing the BBFC, PEGI and OFCOM. I will be analysing whether they fully protect the public by comparing theories and if not how/why through case studies. The BBFC (British Board of Film Censors) came to be made as beforehand local authorities had the power to impose their own censorship standards this meaning each film had a different certificate depending on location. At this point there were only 2 certificates: U and A. In 1982 PG, 15, 18 and R18 were introduced and in 1984 BBFC changed their name meaning to British Board of Classification. They did so as it was more practical in communicating the content f a film to their audiences. BBFC used to give certificates to games but the industry was expanding so PEGI was established in 2003. PEGI (Pan European Game Information) was set up to protect online gamers in 2007. They fully took over from BBFC in 2012 as they were seen as a lot stricter. The main TV and radio regulators are OFCOM (Office of Communications), they were set up in 2003 and they inherited the duties from the previous five regulators of which included OFTEL (Office of Telecommunications).  They were all seem as too ‘light’ when giving certificates however OFCOM were conceived as a ‘super-regulator’. They have a code to ensure broadcasting agents comply with the licence given by OFCOM and if not the licence can be revoked.

The regulatory bodies are put in place to protect the public from the media. The BBFC was made to help regulate and stop violence. They aim to provide the highest standard of customer service by giving age certificates based upon the content of the film being issued. They provide age rating and content advice for theatrical releases under the licensing act 2003 and provide ratings for Blu-Ray's and DVD under the video recordings act 1984. They state that their ‘mission’ is to protect the public, especially children, from possible harmful content in films. They seek to empower the public, mainly parents, to make informed viewing choices for them and others and seek to change social attitudes or happenings that the media content could cause. However, their aim is to stop violence with ratings but this fails as it still takes place. This is shown in the case study of Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 as student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people before committing suicide. This shooting occurred regardless of the regulatory bodies in the US thus showing that they're not 100% effective and is thought to have links to the film Oldboy (2003).

Also, O Davey states that violence is a vital part of our every day lives and violence therefore cannot be disguised from film as we can't distinguish it in life. Although, audiences are also shown to be more concerned about drugs and violence instead of sex however Linda Williams, Anti-censorship campaigner, finds it ridiculous as BBFC ignores their audiences lack of concern regarding sex and they place 18 ratings on films with explicit sex scenes such as Ai No Corrida (1976) and The Pornographer (2001). Sex has also become less of a stigma in society and is hinted at through television of which is shown in the day before the watershed and even is discussed on day time television. This shows that the high ratings on films featuring sexually explicit scenes and no other form of ‘harmful’ content is unnecessary as it does not protect the public from anything as it is accessible on other forms of media (TV and reading materials like newspapers).

OFCOM is a regulatory company for television. They aim to provide adequate protection for the public by securing them against offensive or harmful materials in television or radio, they deal with complaints and then act upon them after the text has been aired. They act as a parent and thus makes the UK a nanny state. This works by overshadowing the media thus making their authoritative power known over the companies as if they breach license they will be fined and if a substantial amount of times it is done the licence is taken away, this acts as a deterrent. In 2009 they banned the Keira Knightley ‘women's ad’ as it featured domestic violence. The ad included her getting punched and violently kicked, it was banned for being ‘brutal’ and was ‘too shocking for the small-screen’. OFCOM received complaints after the X-Factor show of which was pre-watershed which included sexual dance routines of which included semi-naked singers and dancers. However OFCOM stated it was clear as it was ‘at the very margin of acceptability’. As a government body, OFCOM has many powers over communication industries. They can ban media products and work to help audiences and the media distributor meet through being of service to stop something which is of concern. This includes what is shown on television and also ‘rigged’ competitions and shows. For example, there was a fix ‘scandal’ as Ant and Dec were wrongly honoured with the people’s choice award instead of Catherine Tate. It was found that ITV were fined £5.67 million for cheating viewers out of millions of pounds as they charged at a premium rate for each phone call in.

PEGI works as a company that helps decide what is appropriate for the audience to consume and that which is deemed to have the potential to cause harm. We as an audience place trust in the organisations and rely on them to make the correct decisions whether we should be subjected to the content the media product contains. Video games are portrayed frequently in a ‘bad light’ in the media press as they suggest that video games are the result of harm to younger generations. However, Douglas Gentile states that there's a range of scientific proof that antisocial and dangerous behaviour increased due to violent games thus regulations help lower young people from playing and being influenced by violent games of which then stunts their growth into a violent person. In comparison, the Byron review (2008) found no evidence of desensitisation from playing video games and regulation should be in the hands of the institution e.g. in parental control within the institution of the home.

PEGI, OFCOM and BBFC all cannot protect the public, especially children, as in the private institution of a home. Parents can buy games or films for their children and also many children and young teens have their own televisions in their rooms allowing them to watch whatever they want, whenever they want.

In conclusion, I think that overall contemporary media regulation protects the public to an extent. Due to new technological devices and the growth in the use of them people now have more access to media products. This means that children have access to iPads, their own televisions, phones etc which they can play games or download films on, even watch tv by asking an older sibling or parent for their email to prove they are of age. This then shows that the regulatory bodies are trying to protect the public however it is not necessarily working as there are ways that people ‘get around’ it. Not only at home but also young teenagers regularly pretend to be older or buy tickets online to avoid being questioned about their age when going to watch a higher rated certificate than their age at cinemas or ‘theatre houses’. I believe that this will persist and carry on in the future, children are now open to a lot more than in centuries before and thus are desensitised. This means that ratings may be, in the future, lesser in the harshness of application than now or even branded as unnecessary.

finished magazine

I edited the magazine and included all components such as the barcode. I followed my teachers criticisms of the magazine and created a final product.

Detritus: rough cut 3

I have been editing the trailer using Final Cut Pro at college. Today I edited the trailer: I changed the timeline to make sure the equilibrium was slow paced and then during the disruption the trailer became faster and faster until the detritus title appears on screen. I added sound to it, I also added titles, credits and also the production credit in the beginning.

poster development

This is the development of the poster i created for our film. Karo edited the image by changing her eye colour, the blood, adding the vein effect over the skin and also he changed the brightness and contrast of the image, 

I then used Dafont.com to create the typography shown on the poster, I downloaded the fonts to the mac so that i could use them with all of the keyboard and also with variants of size and colour. I ensured to use margins to make all of the components in line and thus look more professional like a real media text. I used reds and whites for the fonts to make sure the poster followed the colour scheme set out for the media text. I used the font 'I still know' by Dafont.com for the title of the film as it is sleek and modern however has cracks and slight erosion on the text thus relating to the meaning behind the title name and the film itself. I used 'an unfortunate event' for the majority of the typography on the poster as it is alike the font that 'Carrie' (2013) uses. I used it as it does not take away from the title and also is not too elaborate as this could then cross the line of scary to then become comedic. I used a textured background as we wanted the image to correlate to the storyline and name of the the film thus the textured background i used was a rusting piece of metal: 

I played around and adjusted the brightness and contrast of the image as well as rotating it to make it portrait and then manipulated it to make it fit the poster. I made it a dark brown and added a gradient to the image also to ensure to make the two images blend and appear to be as if they are in the same photograph. 

question 4

New media technology is an important part in the process of researching, planning and constructing any media product. We found it extremely useful when making our trailer as it allowed us to make a more effective text. The internet allowed us to promote the product on a universal scale through a variety of formats.  New technologies are extremely beneficial as it means that the producers exhibiting and distributing the product and do so in a cheap and quick way and the consumers can access the product from a variety of formats thus it is easier to consume the product. Technology has developed dramatically. this  allows us to access and experience lots of types of media in different places such as devices e.g. smartphones. The use of technological convergence allows consumers to view products on a variety of formats and thus the product is made more universal as more people can access it e.g. if someone doesn't like going to the cinema they can download the product on their device of choice or buy the dvd or even watch it on Netflix/LoveFilm, the list goes on and on so that more and more audiences will view the product. 

Question two evaluation

presentation on weebly.


Paranormal activity 

The Paranormal Activity franchise had been given a total budget of around $28 million  and brought in a gross at box office revenue worldwide of $401 million. They were distributed by Paramount and thus gained an automatic following. The first film had only $15000 to be made so the marketing was done by create a poster that the audience would have to engage with. The audience would click on the "demand' button to ensure the film would come to screenings near them. This meant people shared the posters on social media and told friends and family to demand it so they could go see it. When this was proven to work a twitter page was made called "tweet your scream'. This went onto Facebook to and this meant that they used the viral market effectively.  The marketing campaign was synergistic in colour and image depending on each film and its content. The advertisement consecutively had plain black backgrounds with a blue camera screen which appears to be in night mode for the advertisement. This is also shown on each of the posters and thus there is a direct link to the film when looking at the advertisement even at a glimpse

The Paranormal activity franchise distributed their film to DVD and Blu-ray. Both these products show fluidity through the advertising campaign as they have the same structure as the other components in the franchise as well as colour, tagline and image. 

Scream franchise

The Scream franchise shows consistency with their posters as they all have the same structure to them. Each poster has the colour scheme of red, white and black and the protagonist has blue eyes which are singled out by the otherwise black and white image, The background image is usually of the female in fear however in the final Scream film (Scream 4) the background image is the antagonist thus challenges the synergistic elements to the poster. However this does not effect the synergy as the composed pieces of the poster are the same making the form the same throughout. This makes Scream posters well known as they have a particular look and theme to them thus they are easily identified by the audiences.

The Scream franchise marketed the film through an app rather than a game. The app was created to target the film's teen audiences as they were shown to be the most frequent group to use tablets and smart-phones and thus the biggest consumer of gaming apps. Scream used this to their advantage by creating an app which could be accessed through the app store where the consumer could play as if they were in one of the films. Scream also sold their films at cinemas, through DVD and Blu-ray thus making profit in each area. The films also play on television thus they are played on all platforms for the audience to consume them in HD and also have access to special behind the scenes footage etc of which is featured on Blu-ray disks.

media conglomerate 

game cover:

blu-ray cover:

DVD cover:

App for the smartphone/tablet game:

IMDB page for the film:

Netflix page showing our film:

This shows our film on a website that lists films in local cinema's near you:

The film features on billboards, bus stop advertisement and buses:

the comic for our film: