Section 1 – Critical Approaches
In my opinion, the Coen brothers are auteur, but they are not the only auteurs. The word auteur means normally a film director who influences their films so much that they rank as their author. The Coen brothers have a very distinctive stamp on their films, this also counts for people such as Alfred Hitchcock who is an auteur because he put his own personal stamp on films and made them his own, he makes them like no other and doesn’t follow anyone else’s rules and also invented his own camera technique, this makes him an auteur, which the audience would notice out of the crowd of the other directors. The way that the Coen brothers put their own stamp on their films is in many ways. These ways are very subtle ways of doing something but they are also very effective. The first thing is the music that they use because in violent moments during some of their films they will use very melancholy music, which fits in with the scene that they do. Also, they might play a song where the characters will sing along but it will also show the mood of the characters and kind of intervene with the scene and emotions of the characters. They also use soundscapes, which is where they won’t use music in a place where someone would normally put music say for a stereotypical Hollywood film. This gives the scene a sense of emptiness and loneliness because there is nothing to surround them because it makes the audience feel isolated as well as what the character is feeling. Linking in to loneliness, the Coen brothers chose the locations very precisely because they chose the location, which was supposed to represent American culture and it was supposed to show a certain period of time on American culture. Then the dialogue, which the characters use is all scripted even the “um’s” and “err’s” because it makes the films more realistic. This also happens during the film because for example the lead up to a murder it will be extremely detailed, but then it wont actually show the death of a character as a significant event within the film because for example in the film ‘Fargo’ you get the main character or who the audience presumes is the main character and then it leads up to his unexpected death but then you don’t see him die or see anything else happen after that to either who killed him or to see anyone avenges him. The film has some resemblance to religion in the way that the sheriff talks about Antoine, he calls him a “living prophet of destruction” which links to religion and he also says “I won’t do it again” he is talking about Antoine as if he is some kind of religious icon and has principles. Antoine says “I got here the same way the coin did…for things at a common destination there is a common path. Not always easy to see. But there… every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased”. This is talking about how the world can’t be changed, it is saying that we all have a path and we all came here but cannot change the words ways. Things are the ways they are and the people are just passively participating in the worlds ways. There is a major link between Antoine and the sheriff is the way that they are both after different people and the don’t speak clearly but they both talk about truth and principle. A difference between the two is that sheriff bailed from his partners in WWII whereas Antoine always sticks to his word and lives life by his code. An example of this is that when Antoine went to kill the woman, she says “You’ve got no cause to hurt me, she said/ i know. But I gave my word…my word is not dead. Nothing can change that.” Also later in the book, Antione compares himself to God and when he kills the man on the highway, he places his hand on his head before killing him, like some kind of faith healer.
Section 2 – Genre
Team America: World Police (2004, USA/Germany, Trey Parker) is a film made with puppets about the Broadway actor Gary Johnston as he gets recruited to the anti-terrorism group Team America: World Police.
Team America: World Police is a film that comes under the types of comedy: spoof/parody and satire. This therefore means that while watching the film although some of the humour may be quite gag based, you also need some kind of background knowledge to understand some of the jokes referenced in the film (contextual information). The film itself also breaks taboos because it brings up subjects that are quite touchy for some people for example, near the start, there is a song in one of Gary’s shows where he will sing a song just about AIDS. This could therefore be quite sensitive for some people because it is a genuine problem that we have in society. Other kinds of comedy that Team America has is where they just have little fight scenes because it is really gag based because the way that they make you laugh is by, making them run in a humorous way and just making them fight in a way where they aren’t even hitting each other but they are just fumbling around. The scene is also funny because when the terrorist goes to shoot Chris, his weapon is out of bullets and so Chris puts down his gun and says to him “Lets make this interesting”. This is funny because the run up to each other is just a fumble which makes it funnier because it isn’t normal to see puppets fight which makes this funnier. Other kind of humour that they use needs some kind of knowledge to understand it for example the stereotypical jokes about France, America, England, Korea, Middle East etc. As an example, when the terrorist attack France there are croissant shaped floors which is funny if you understood that the stereotypes of France are that they eat croissants just the same as people think that British people eat crumpets and drink tea and the way Americans eat hot dogs and try to police the world hence the name ‘World Police’. Team America also try to reference other films during the film for example when Team America walk into the bar, the music that is playing is the same music as the music in the bar in Star Wars but you would have needed to have watched Star Wars to be able to understand that reference to that film. Also, comedy was a very popular genre in 2004 making up 27.2% of the total box office[1](UK Film Council Statistical Yearbook| Annual Review 2004/05).
In Bruges (2008, UK/USA, Martin McDonagh) is a film where two main characters Ray and Ken are sent to Bruges to hideout to lay low after Ray murdered someone in London. They are told to be on the quite side, not get into trouble and act like normal everyday tourists.
The kind of humour that In Bruges use is where we don’t necessarily need background contextual information because they use more black comedy which means that the subject that they may be making a joke about is quite controversial and is usually considered taboo. For example when Ray is on a date with Chloe he makes a joke about child abuse and chocolate. “Don’t know any Belgium jokes, and if I did I think I’d have the good sense not to… hang on. Is Belgium with all those child abuse murders lately? I do know a Belgium joke. What’s Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse, and they only invented the chocolates to get to the kids.” This is something that could be classed as ‘going too far’ because some people might know people that may have been abused or parents might have kids that have been abused, in which case they wouldn’t really like that joke and so therefore it would be considered taboo. In Bruges also has the same type of humour as Team America in the way that it will use stereotypes to make a situation funny. For example, when Harry goes to pick out a gun from Yuri, and Yuri suggests that Harry uses an Uzi, Harry replies with “An Uzi? I’m not from South Central Los-fucking-Angeles. I didn’t come here to shoot twenty black ten-yearolds in a fucking drive-by. I want a normal gun for a normal person.” This quote shows that in Bruges do have some kind of a similarity within the type of humour that they have as the same as Team America because it does show the stereotypes for different countries. In my opinion, I think people accept the humour of In Bruges a bit more to Team America because of just the fact that In Bruges has been released in 40 different countries[2] and Team America has only been released in 30 countries[3]. This shows that the kind of humour that In Bruges uses might not be as offensive to as many countries so that they can release it in more countries because it wont offend countries such as Korea.
In Bruges Quotes:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_bruges/quotes/
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0058059/quotes
Acknowledgements
[1] In 2004, comedy was the most popular genre of film for the UK. The number of comedies released in 2004 in the UK was 106 making the percentage of comedies released being 23.5%. Overall, the amount of money made in the box office from comedy films in the UK in 2004 being £223.7million beating the other genre’s by a long stretch in front of ‘action’ and ‘adventure’.
2 In Bruges (2008, UK/USA, Martin McDonagh) has been released in 40 different countries including:
-USA -Russia -Austria -Netherland -Croatia
-Ireland -Germany -Italy -Belgium -Finland
-Poland -Czech Republic -Hungary -Switzerland -Taiwan
-Iceland -UK -India -Spain -Australia
-Greece -Israel -France -Slovakia -Thailand
-Denmark -Estonia -Brazil -Argentina -Portugal
-New Zealand -Sweden -Chile -South Korea
-Mexico -Bulgaria -Chile -Peru -Venezuela
-Colombia -Japan
3 Team America: World Police (2004, USA/Germany, Trey Parker) has been released in 30 countries including:
-USA -Ireland -Sweden -Iceland -Hungary
-Canada -UK -Portugal -Netherlands -Singapore
-Brazil -Denmark -Norway -Russia -Austria
-Australia -Germany -Croatia -Mexico -France
-New Zealand -Czech Republic -Finland -Estonia -Spain
-Belgium -Slovakia -Italy -Argentina -Japan
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372588/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_dt_dt
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780536/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_dt_dt
Team America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIPljGWGNt4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaLj2WnUn7I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mTmeOxEDo4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuynkt7FQBg
In Bruges
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umPgWSfX9Ns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y-AyzBmkXM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vry1corExlw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihVKrj_3vOY
Section 3 – Narrative
(On hard drive)
Section 4 – Representation
Brainstorming ideas for a possible hybrid TV show. The genre I chose was a crossover between a Comedy and a Gameshow. In this case I am doing kind of a mix betwen All-Star Famiy Fortunes and Total Wipeout. My first episode will have a short description and for the thumbnail of that episode it will be a piture of two families with the leader of each family at the front and the rest of their family at the back in a triangle shape. This will make it look like a head-to-head show. The show will be called ‘Survivor’ and will have a total of six episodes in the episode guide for the first season. The aim of the show will be two families who have to go through a selection of tasks which will test their mental and physical ability. The winning family will be the family who does the trial in the quickest time.
Picking out colours from a specific TV guide chosen with the guidance of age groups, gender and social status. We got ‘The only way is Essex’ and found that they have used the colours pink but also used diamonds and other sparkly ‘bling’. This is used because it appeals to children because it is aspirational because the show is associated with money and so children associate money with happiness.
My episode guide will have a variety of colours including: blue, white, red and green. I chose these because it links in with the outdoors. I found that automatically using the colour blue, that might stereotype boys, but i didnt want to use pink because then it might be less appealing to boys. It will be a family show that will broadcast on Saturday’s and be on at around 7-8pm. With the pictures that i will be doing for the episode guide, i will have the same style of images but will have some things different like things such as the people and colours, this is called ‘juxtaposition’.
My TV Guide that i made, i tried to make a kind of survival TV show because the pictures that i took were supposed to make it look like it was a family game show because they are supposed to look like they are going up against each other. I tried a few different layouts with different sizes in everything including the title, the pictures and the text. I ended up going with the smaller version of the photos because it looked too messy when the pictures were too big plus it also looks more proffesional i thought. I also gave the episodes days left to watch, the first broadcast of that episode and the description of that specific episode. The other episode guides that i analysed were Doctor Who and Total Wipeout and from what i got Total Wipeout used the same thumbnail for every episode but Doctor Who used some images which were set up and some were just screen grabs from the actual episode itself.
Overall, i have six episodes in the whole series of my episode guide i also have a small description for each of the episodes. I also have a very big tagline at the bottom of the page which says “Let the games begin”. this is a quote that i made up that i would use for the main tag line for the TV Guide. The pictures that i have taken have mainly been taken outside apart from the last one which i should really change because to be honest i dont think it really fits in with the rest of the outdoor photos. This could be something i might need to improve on in the future. If i ever did it again in the future, then i would have to do quite a lot differently. My idea for thie first episode guide that i did was to make the whole series only feature one family but then add more people to that families group towards the end. Now, if i was doing it again i would make the series different so it featred different people so that all the thumbnails for the episodes don’t look all the same and it features different things in different times, weathers and places. This would make it more visually appealing although the ‘Total Wipout’ episode guide is exactly the same thumbnail and doesnt need changing although mine was different.
If i was to do the thumbnails again, i would want to choose different people to be in my pictures, and all my pictures would be in different places this time with different weather at different times and brightness in the sky. This would make them all extremely different because you can tell the differences straight away just by looking at them and not like the ones i did for this episode guide because although they are mainly different, it is harder to spot the differences for example in the ones that i did for this the diffrences are very subtle like the hands are up in one and not another so the pictures are different but only very slighlty changes.
FIFA 14
The Optical Balance for this photo is just as predictable as the other game covers because the main person, Lionel Messi, is in the top left area of the cover because he is the face of the game. Then we have the Electronic Arts logo and the title of the game ‘FIFA 14’ written in capital letters as well as the FIFA company logo. Then we have the PEGI rating which in this case is RP which is ‘Rating Pending’. Then we have the developer which is ‘EA Sports IGNITE’. The text is all in upper case lettering so that the text will stand out to the person looking at the cover and EA is just as big as the title itself. The orientation of text is that the text is mainly in the middle of the cover and also the bottom of the cover. The cover text is two different colours because the word and the numbers are different because otherwise the viewer would think that the word FIFA is the same the number 14 so the different colour separates the two.
Destiny
The text on this cover for PS4 is placed right in the middle of the cover but is on the upper half of the page. Naturally we read from left to right so the first place that we would look would be exactly where the word ‘Destiny’ is placed (Orientation of Text). This is purposely done so that when somebody looks at the cover, they are automatically looking at the title of the game which catches the persons attention and therefore will be enticed to look at the rest of the cover (Optical Balance). The rest of the cover is mainly the picture which has been done very nicely the way what looks to be the main person isn’t looking towards the viewer with two other soldiers around him which looks really well done. Then in the centre of the cover we have a symbol which represents ‘Destiny’. Then at the bottom of the page we have the rating system (PEGI) and the two companies which helped develop it and then distribute it which in this case is ‘Bungie’ and ‘Activision’. Just by looking at the cover, you can tell that it is a kind of Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Shooter genre. The font that they used was like a tall thin font which doesn’t cover up too much of the cover but does stand out a lot. In this case especially, they don’t use that much lower case text because the title is the main thing on here and it is all written in upper case because it therefore gives of an impression and stands out above other thing such as the distributer and the developer which is a lot smaller at the bottom of the page.
The Last of Us
There is a lot more text on this cover that there is on the Destiny cover. This could be for several reasons for example it is telling someone that this version of the game is a ‘Remastered’ version on the PS4 and it is also a PlayStation exclusive which means it is only available to people who play on either PS3 or PS4. First of the text which would come under Optical Balance is placed exactly where someone would look first which is around the upper left region of the screen. It is in a very wide and tall font so that you cant really miss it and is mostly the same size and colour until you see where it says ‘Remastered’ which is a completely different size and colour because if it was the same as the title, then it would look as if it is part of the title. Then you see the picture which looks like it is quite dark and very colourless which gives of an impression about the game. Although it has been light up at the side of Ellie’s face. At the top there is a bit of text which is smaller and a different font to the title which states how many awards the games has received which shows off how good the game really is. Right at the bottom left, there is a PEGI rating of 18 and also a circle which has Day 1 Edition written on it. This time there is only the developer written on the bottom left of the cover which in this case is ‘Naughty Dog. The orientation of the text is that the text is place on the left hand side of the cover. Every bit of the cover is written in upper case lettering which stands out more than it would do if it was to be in lower case lettering. It just make people want to read it more because it just stands out at you making you want to read it.
My book cover is a picture of two men holding hands with the title as a question so it comes across as not stereotypical for to be for or against same-sex marriage. I have targeted a homosexual male audience. A stereotypical cover would be something that is very obvious with the colours and images that they may use in the cover. This could be images such as men kissing or with their tops of because it would be stereotypically homosexual.
I haven’t used many colours especially for a background because i didnt want to be part of the stereotype for same-sex marriage. For example, i could have made a pink background with really flamboyant text but i tried to go against that by using quite masculine bold text. Then for the picture i made sure i got a picture with two men’s hands on it without much else being revealed. This is because i have got a picture of the mens hands and arms but the part of the wrist that is showing is covered up with a suit so it doesnt go with the stereotype with bare arms.
The way i got my book cover to appeal to an audience is to not be sterotypical saying that it is right or that it is wrong so that the very controversial topic can be debated so that there is no answer whether it is right or wrong. I also didn’t use colours that would appeal for one side of the debate so that it is still a debate. But i did use a picture of two mens hands because it was to indicate what the book was about and not to take sides on the debate.
The sexual orientation of this book wasnt to be made just for one group of people for example it wasnt just made for homosexual people, because i made this book to be for everyone that is interested in the debate between whether same sex marriage is right and should be allowed or not. The book doesnt have an actual answer but it does have the opinions of some people about what they see same sex marriage as being and not whether it is right or wrong. This is because by making the book, we didnt want to make the decision for you and we wanted you to make the decision for yourself so that it would be fair and it wouldnt be a biased book.
Analysis
The way i have shown representation in all of these areas is the way that say for the video game covers that i have analysed, i have acknowledged that for the first cover, FIFA 14, that the front cover is a male character, Lionel Messi, this is very stereotyped for this sport. Football is predominantly a male based sport and so for this kind of a game cover, it is seen as normal. This is an example of stereotype because if you think football, you think male. It is also that the players are very confident and look straight into the camera while playing and show their dominance, this also ties in with absence because football isn’t just played by males because there are female players but the male football is watched by the majority of people around the world. This means that there is an absence of women for the game cover and this shows that women are not represented. For the game ‘Destiny’, the cover shows very strong male characters who have guns in their hands, this is because fighting and war is associated with males with is a negative stereotype that only males kill people but it also represents absence again of females because women can fight and can fire a gun but because video games are aimed at males then absence becomes a problem. For ‘The Last of Us’ the front character is a female which shows presence of the problem that most games have, the lead character is in the light and is shown to have the most significance but then in the background there is a bigger male who is with her who you can tell is there to look after her, this could raise problems that women can’t look after themselves and becomes another negative stereotype that women need a male to keep them safe which is not true at all, this could class as a social issue. For my book cover, I made it about same sex marriage which in itself is a minority group within society. this is showing how a sexuality can be linked with absence and also social issues because homosexuals are a minority group compared to heterosexuals. In summary different groups of people are represented in different ways, typically minority groups are stereotyped the most. For example, in order for a book to appeal to a homosexual audience, it must contain a homosexual. Or that black people are not represented as video game characters and so are less likely to play video games. In the same, there are less females that play video games. Their representation is often negative being the difference is bad. For example James Bond films, the villains are usually foreign so either Russian, German or Japanese. Stereotypes like this are routed in history with wars and grudges have shaped the way they’re represented in media by different countries. In other programs and films such as Thunderbirds, British people are portrayed as evil masterminds. Minorities are less likely to have television programs aimed at them and not about them. For example, people who are on benefits usually get targeted as a group, these types of programs are usually on channels such as Channel 4. The idea of these is to educate or inform people. In mainstream media however, it is more common to find a white person on a video game or book cover than a latino person or maybe even a black person.
George Foy 