Media Theory

Part 1: Media Language and Analysis

1: Genre is the style of a movie, tv episode, play or book and Comic Book/Graphic Novel, there are several types of Genre when we talk about film, there is

·         Action

·         Spy

·         Thriller

·         Comedy

·         Horror

·         Animation

·         Crime

·         Experimental

·         Fantasy

·         Biopic

·         Musical

·         Sci-fi

·         Comic book

And many more, Action films have become a staple with pop culture in recent years, with films such as Hobbs and Shaw from the Fast and Furious films, there are fast paced action movies like the Mission Impossible films, with incredibly well written action scenes, some could be dark and gritty action films like Bloodshot which comes out next year and even horror related action films like zombie films including Shaun of the dead. Spy Movies have also been successful in recent years, with the Mission Impossible films being widely popular for the action and espionage side of the spy world, but the most popular spy films aren’t mission impossible or even Jack Reacher, but the most popular spy franchise is the James Bond Franchise, James Bond originally was a character written by Ian Fleming for his 007 Spy Books, James Bond is a Spy Agent working for MI6, Bond or 007 (which is his code-name) has been played by various characters across the years, including the likes of Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton and most recently Daniel Craig, so far there have been 24 Bond films, with the 25^th film, No Time To Die releasing sometime next year. Another widely popular genre in recent years has been Superhero movies, primarily because of Marvel, their movies currently dominate the superhero genre, most of the Marvel Movies take place within the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) which has been going strong since 2008, with the release of the first Iron Man Movie, the last Marvel Movie that was released recently was Spider Man: Far From Home which was released in July of this year, DC also have been releasing their own films, however some of them haven’t been widely received by the public, primarily because DC now having started their own Cinematic universe they were accused of trying to catch up to Marvel.

Animation also has become widely popular in the past few decades, primarily because of Disney, who release arguably some of the most popular Animated movies ever, including films like Frozen and Moana to Coco and Wreck it Ralph 2, Disney ultimately has cornered the market on Animated films, though there are other companies that have released equally successful Animated films, including The Lego Movie Franchise and Sony’s smash hit “Spider Man: Into the Spider verse.”

Sci-Fi Films as well are also big parts of movies today, with films like Star Wars and Star Trek dominating the Sci-Fi Genre, Sci-Fi films primarily use CGI and loads of Special Effects to make their films look good, this is due to the fact that there is a lot of Futuristic Technology in these films, in Star Wars for example, the Lightsabers now are CGI (At Least the Blades were) but back in the day, you may be interested to hear that the Lightsaber blades were made with Practical effects, during the first 3 Star War films, a wooden tube would be coated with a reflective and bright material (made from Movie Screen)and spotlights would be shone on the Lightsabers to make them bright.

2: Representation

Representation is mainly how Films deal with and also present Age, Gender, ethnicity along with national and regional identity, equality in movies has been shown in many films, for example Wonder Woman was the first Comic Book movie to have a female lead and a female director, which was ground breaking for the superhero genre, there are also movies that represent the LGBTQ+ Community, with films like Philadelphia and Bohemian Rhapsody, where certain actors portray openly gay people, in Bohemian Rhapsody, Rami Malek played Freddie Mercury, who had been described as Bisexual, but later was said to be gay and Allan Leech played Paul Prenter, who was also gay and was Freddie’s Assistant and even lover for a time, in Philadelphia, Tom Hanks plays an openly gay lawyer that contracts HIV/AIDS.

 Also, in the recent smash hit Rocketman, Taron Egerton played Gay singer Elton John, who struggled with his sexuality during his career, Richard Madden from Game of Thrones played John Reid, Elton’s Manager and lover for a time. There has also been representation in terms of Ethnicity, The Marvel film Black Panther was the first to feature a nearly all black cast of actors which helped stop diversity issues in America. Another example of LGBT Representation is in the CW Show Supergirl, in the show is Dreamer, played by Nicole Maines, who is a Transgender Actress and the first Transgender actress to Appear in a Superhero TV Show.

the CW Show Batwoman shows Kate Kane, who in the Comics is a lesbian character and has a relationship with Renee Montoya. Originally, Batwoman was brought into the comics as a love interest for Batman, because at the time many people at the time were convinced that Batman and Robin were in a gay relationship, since then Batman has had many female love interests including the likes of Vicki Vale and Catwoman, Batwoman is one of the first LGBT heroes in DC Comics. Representing these categories in films has been historically hard to achieve mainly due to racism issues during the 50s and the same would go for LGBT Heroes due to homophobic hate crime. However, as society developed, representation in films would develop too, for example the AIDS Crisis that dominated the 1980’s and a fair part of the 1990’s was covered in the film Philadelphia, the film was ground-breaking not only for its part in the LGBTQ+ community at the time but it had portrayed the representation of HIV/AIDS in mainstream Film.

Another example is the film “Brokeback Mountain” where homosexuality was outlawed and punishable by death, the main plot of the film centred around the characters of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal and their relationship, the film was praised for including LGBT Issues during that time as well.

Representation is now becoming more important in MCU Films, The MCU Film “The Eternals” is introducing one of the first LGBT heroes and will have a deaf Character, plus “Thor: Love and Thunder” will include an openly gay character, Valkyrie.

3: Narrative

A Narrative is a chain of interconnected events, basically it means a story. Stories are what’s shown to us in books/novels, TV Series and Episodes and also on the Big Screen, Books primarily could be a source of material for a movie, for example, Harry Potter was originally a book series written by J.K Rowling, but it was later brought to life in 2001, the films however differentiate a bit from the films mainly because if the films were a direct adaptation of the books, all the films would be extremely dark. Rowling also has expanded her universe by adding details to the universe, including certain villains like Gellert Grindlewald and Hogwarts history including the 4 founders.

A TV Series relies on a narrative to help tie all the episodes together, for example The Flash has 22 to 23 episodes in 1 series, they rely on a narrative to keep all the episodes tied together, sure there’s a break in the season to introduce a side story, but It should flow naturally with the main plot of the series, The current season of the Flash is slightly different, there are 2 villains in The Flash, the first of these 2 is Dr Ramsey Russo aka Bloodwork but the second has not been revealed primarily due to the crossover with other shows set in the same universe.

Movies however rely on a narrative most of all, they are roughly from 2 to maybe even 3 hours long! So narratives can be extremely important for a movie, when I write a story, I follow a very simple structure, I write the beginning, the buildup, the inciting incident, the climax and then the ending, that’s the main story structure that I normally tend to follow. However, most movies (excluding Documentaries) follow a different structure, this is what is called “The Act Structure,” Act 1 is used to set up the Characters, the story and the situation that the characters are in. the first act creates interest in the audience and makes them feel concerned for what is going on, the film usually revolves around the Protagonist (The Good Guy) and the Antagonist (The Bad Guy) this is set up for the 3^rd act.

Tip: In Movies, it is famously difficult to balance way too many villains, so when writing a film, don’t include too many villains or your audience will find it very difficult to follow your story.

The Second act is known as “Confrontation, The 2^nd act is used to add depth to the plot and also introduce the problems for the good guys, the 2^nd act is also considered the most important as it sets up the rest of the film, in Spy films an action scene could be put in here. The Third act is where you normally would tie up everything and end your story, you can include a plot twist, a final battle or kill the villain, the third act of the movie is the most important because it ties the entire story together.

What is a target audience?

A target audience is described as the primary audience to which a film or tv series is aimed at, a target audience is always important when it comes to movies, for example a superhero movie would be aimed a comic book fans, book adaptations like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are aimed at people who read the books, and spy films like the James bond Films are aimed at casual moviegoers and also people who read the original 007 books by Ian Fleming. TV Shows also rely on a target audience to help their show, for example sitcoms like Friends and Two and a Half Men are aimed at casual people who watch television and also the critics who watch quality TV Shows, shows like Arrow and the Flash are also aimed at Comic Book fans and also TV Enthusiasts who look for good quality programming. Documentaries on the other hand like the David Attenborough documentaries and Music documentaries are primarily watched by elderly people and older people. There are also Game shows that are watched by millions of people like The Chase and Tipping Point or reality Shows like Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

Research Channels

There are many research channels when it comes to Media Theory, here are 10 examples of Media Research Channels. Primary research is when you conduct the research yourself, this could include things such as focus groups, questionnaires and asking people on the streets, perhaps even a survey on a website. Secondary research is when you retrieve research and data from another source, like a news site or someone else's Hard Drive, maybe another person’s questionnaire or survey. Focus groups are a form of Qualitative research that includes a random group of normal people that are asked a few questions about their lifestyle, in the case of Media, they would be asked about certain topics like “what kind of TV do you regularly watch?” or “What Magazines do you read?” that general stuff is what you would normally expect to be asked in focus groups. TV Networks also use focus groups to decide whether they want to reboot the show or just cancel said TV Show altogether. Surveys are described as a data collection tool used to gather a certain type and/or amount of information to conduct research, surveys primarily can be done either online or written, TV Networks use Surveys as a research source to help them when making a new TV show.

How did I use research for my projects?

1)      The BBC Article

The BBC Article was sort of like a bicycle with stabilisers for me, because due to my chosen topic for the news article, I didn’t need to conduct much research, however I also had to conduct research for the side stories in the Column on the right, so I had to do some extensive research to complete them. For example, the DC News was trending at the time and was very easy to find, however I did do some extra research on my chosen topic.

The YouTube Documentary however required more research than initially expected, because I knew very little on the topic, so over the course of the weeks that followed, I immersed myself in hours and hours of research, I looked through dozens of News sites, through the internet and surfed social media, I analysed every single piece of information I needed, and I had everything I needed to complete the Documentary, I wrote up the script, completed the necessary extra work and before I knew it, my YouTube Documentary was finally complete. And there has been quite a bit of positive feedback on the video, with people paying their respects in the comments and even the spike in popularity. Hopefully Reece’s family have seen the Documentary and I get some recognition and hopefully the Documentary has been received well