Story Boarding...

This is just a Story Board, which is a drawn order in which I'm going to shoot my shots!

Here is the establishing shot, which will pan from high to low or left to right.

Media Ownership

Some nations can influence and control their media greatly. In addition, powerful corporations also have enormous influence on mainstream media.
In some places major multinational corporations own media stations and outlets. Often, many media institutions survive on advertising fees, which can lead to the media outlet being influenced by various corporate interests. Other times, the ownership interests may affect what is and is not covered. Stories can end up being biased or omitted so as not to offend advertisers or owners. The ability for citizens to make informed decisions is crucial for a free and functioning democracy but now becomes threatened by such concentration in ownership.
The idea of corporate media itself may not be a bad thing, for it can foster healthy competition and provide a check against governments. However, the concern is when there is a concentration of ownership due to the risk of increased economic and political influence that can itself be unaccountable.

Media cross-ownership is the ownership of multiple media businesses by a person or corporation. These businesses can include broadcast and cable television, radio, newspaper, book publishing, video games, and various online entities. Much of the debate over concentration of media ownership in the United States has for many years focused specifically on the ownership of broadcast stations, cable stations, newspapers and websites. Meaning, that when one organization owned any two of these media outlets, that organization was involved in "cross-ownership."

The Big 6
1. General Electric

Which has media outlets such as NBC and Telemundo, Universal Pictures, Focus Features, 26 television stations in the USA and cable networks MSNBC, Bravo, CNBC, The Weather Channel and Syfy. GE also owns 80 percent of NBC Universal. As of 2011, GE's share in these companies has been sold to Comcast, who themselves own Versus, style., G4, E!, Comcast SportsNet, the Philadelphia 76ers and Philadelphia Flyers. The company operates through four segments: Energy, Technology Infrastructure, Capital Finance and Consumer & Industrial

2. Walt Disney Company

Is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and travel. Taking on its current name in 1986, The Walt Disney Company expanded its existing operations and also started divisions focused upon theatre, radio, publishing, and online media. In addition, it has created new divisions of the company in order to market more mature content than it typically associates with its flagship family-oriented brands.

The company is best known for the products of its film studio, the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, and today one of the largest and best-known studios in Hollywood. Disney also owns and operates the ABC broadcast television network; cable television networks such as Disney Channel, ESPN, A&E Television Networks, and ABC Family; publishing, merchandising, and theatre divisions; and owns and licenses 14 theme parks around the world. The company has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since May 6, 1991. An early and well-known cartoon creation of the company, Mickey Mouse, is the official mascot of The Walt Disney Company.

3. News Corporation

News Corp is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the worlds second largest media conglomerate in terms of revenue. The companys chairman and chief executive is Rupert Mordoch. Holdings include: the Fox Broadcasting Company; television and cable networks such as Fox, Fox Business Channel, National Geographic and FX; print publications including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and TVGuide; the magazines Barron's and SmartMoney; book publisher HarperCollins; film production companies 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Blue Sky Studios; numerous websites including MarketWatch.com; and non-media holdings including the National Rugby League.

4. Time Warner

holdings including: CNN, the CW (a joint venture with CBS), HBO, Cinemax, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, America Online, MapQuest, Moviefone, Warner Bros. Pictures, Castle Rock and New Line Cinema, and more than 150 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Marie Claire and People.

5.Viacom

Holdings include: MTV, Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite, VH1, BET, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Entertainment, Atom Entertainment, and music game developer Harmonix. Viacom 18 is a joint venture with the Indian media company Global Broadcast News.

6. CBS Corporation

Owns the CBS Television Network, CBS Television Distribution Group, the CW (a joint venture with Time Warner), Showtime, book publisher Simon & Schuster, 30 television stations, and CBS Radio, Inc., which has 130 stations. CBS is now the leading supplier of video to Google’s new Video Marketplace.

Technological Convergence

Impact of Technilogical convergence on film institutions and audiences:
Technological convergence refers to the systems of technology by which media is produced and distributed to the audience.
Technology has converged to enable audiences to communicate, consume and interact with the media, and create their own media trhrough one piece of technology.
This has made communication, consumption, interaction and production a more convienient, more portable and more integregated expirience.

The convergence of technology has enable cross-media convergence to take place - the coming together of traditionally seperate forms of media i.e radio which can be listened to via the TV, TV and Newspaper can be consumed via the web and films or games can be consumed via phones or games consoles.

Examples of Technological convergence with relevance to film instituions/audiences;
Computers
Broardband Cable
Cameras - Digital, HD, 3D etc.
Cinemas
Flat screen, High Def TVs
Blur-Ray dvd
3D technology
Apple and Itunes
Sony and playstation 3
Microsoft and X-box
Nintendo and Wii
Virgin Media etc.

UK versus Hollywood

Hollywood Dominates
Different cultural deals and appeals
Successful partnerships

Film four relies on joint partnerships with other companies to make films:

Slum Dog millionairre: Cellador Films, pathe pictures
Trainspotting: Polygram, Figment Films
Four weddings: Polygram, Working Title

Film Four relies on American studios to distribute films to an international audience

Slumdog Millionairre: Fox Searchlight
Trainspotting: mirrormax Films
Four weddings: Gramercy Pictures

Audience and Institutions: UK Film Notes and Revision.

Recently in media we have been focusing on different parts into making a film, and here are a couple of Key terms i think are important to remember:
Production: the processes and decisions that take place when making a film.
Distributing: Advertising, merchandising and delivering the film to the market.
Ehibition: the different ways in which the audience can consume the film.
Synergy: In media, synergy is the promotion and sale of a product (and all it's versions) throughout various subsideries of a media conglomerate e.g. films, sountracks, video games.
Walt disney Poineered synergistic marketing techniques in the 1930's by granting dozens of films rights to use his mickey Mouse character in products and ads and continued to market disney media through licensing arrangements.

Synergy in film:
20th Century Fox produces, distributes and markets films















Owned by new Corporation
Which is owned by Rupert Murdoch
Who owns: Sky, News International, Haprer Collins, my space.

Proliferation (through Technology)
Downloading: Itunes, Ipod, apple TV
Digital piracy: DVD's Filesharing
Social networking sites: marketing and Buzz
accessibility: everywhere????
Control: audiences and Industries.

''The importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences''
What is Convergence?
when two or more technologies come together to create new technology
Audiences: everything in one product
Institutions: Audiences ties to one product.

Hollywood Versus The British Independent Film

When the first of the rebooted Batman series, opened in 2008, it was shown in 4366 screens in the UK; when the British independent filom, This is England, opened in 2007, it was shown in only 62 screens. What does this tell us? Well, Batman, even though it was the first of the new series, was, nevertheless, part of a franchise. An earlier series of films had been made and exhibited (to varying degrees of critical and commercial success) only a few years previoulsy, but the character is something of an icon in American (and worldwide) popular culture and many people of the key cinema going age range of 15-25 will be familiar with him; furtheromore, he is historically significant in popular culture, having appeared first in the 1940s, which may broaden his appeal and there were ready made promotional partners - the comic books, cartoon DVDs, toys, T shirts etc existed long before the Dark Knight movie. Why else would it appeal? The title, Dark Knight, siginfied a new, darker, mature approach to the story which might attract an older audience. On top of that, director Christopher Nolan was noted for his sophisticated, intelligent approach to movie-making and star Christian Bale was noted for starring in left of field movies that appealed to an adult audience. All these features, plus the publicity and marketing (it had several official websites instead of the usual one) backed by the financially empowered, vertically integrated global media conglomerate, Warner Brothers, with its obvious links to Time-Warner-AOL (though it ended its ties with AOL in 2009) as well as DC Comics, the publisher of Batman (which it owned), made this movie an event release and cinema chains are in the business to make money. As much as possible. This is England (and remember, we're talking four years BEFORE the TV series), cost £1,500,000 (as opposed to The dark Knight's budget of $185,000,000) was a specific type of British movie - one that falls into the working class genre; a film that used the medium to explore working class issues and to highlight the class system and the often violent and dysfunctional effects it can have the working class community. There has been a history of this kind of film in the UK from the early 1960s, although those films often used major stars of stage or screen. It was never going to have a massive box-office appeal and was shown largely in independent cinemas. The writer-director Shane Meadows did have a significant reputation, had been nominated for numerous awards and had won several British Independent Film awards. This is England went on to receive critical acclaim in the UK and the USA and won a BAFTA for the best British film. A number of production companies were involved: Big Arty Productions, EM Media, Film4, Optimum Releasing, Screen Yorkshire, UK Film Council, Warp Films and Optimum was the distributor in the UK. In reality, the two films were not competitors, but this gives an indication of how difficult it is for a British film, particularly one that is liable to have more of a British audience - and perhaps even a specific British audience - to compete with a film made by a powerful American media giant with a global audience (and it was, not incidentally, scheduled to open at the beginning of the British school summer holidays of that year, to maximise its audience), but if you owned a cinema chain, which film do you think would bring in the most money?

Production Logo

Production Logo 1 - scrapped.
Since the break during christmas, i had to analyse what skills were needed to animate my production logo, going by the idea of 'gnawfolk productions' the outcome was not good, and i realised when talking with James that, I would have to use skills that we have not learnt yet, as this was all A2 stuff. Kind of set my self an unrealisticv goal. So i had to tyhink of a new production label...and here it is. Dog Paw productions.

It starts off with paws travelling across the screen,

 they then all fade,

bar one which the focus is then on that one, zooms in to it,

 and fades into the words 'dog paw' which are ironically in the shape of a dog paw.