Emma Wilkinson B block, 000014045

Monday, 28 September 2009

This is the short film Vierden, that i used to do KTA1 (part 1)

This is the video Black Button which i used to do KTA2

KTA2 Media homework.

For this homework i am going to textual analyse another short film. The short film i am going to analyse is Black Button. This short film is about greed, about a man who is givin the opotunity to win a large sum of money, but only if he presses a button which will the kill one person in the world. In the end the man presses the button and then finds out he is in actual fact he is dead and due to the fact that he pressed the button he is now going to hell.

The short film has an equilibrium, this is where the man is being told about his 'task' and reward. The disequilibrium is where the man is being persuaded and pushed to press the button by the 'big man' and the New equilibrium is where he finds out in actual fact that he is dead.

^equilibrium ^disequilibrium ^new equilibrium.

There have been repretsentational codes put into this short film to give what Stuart Hall (1980) calls a dominant or preffered reading, this means that the text producers want the audience to understand the short film the way they intended us too. The costumes used and props used are what give us these preffered meetings. The costumes used are suits, these give us the impression that they are business men, and during the film the older man makes a business proposition. The props used are a table and chair the chair is large and gives the conotation of authority and imporance.

The lighting used is bright and high key this is done because the idea of death is linked in with light, therefore the producers use high key lights to give us the idea of death and heaven. The producers also use close up shots to give the audience an idea of how the charecters are feeling.

The sound in this short film is diegetic this means that the origin of the sound is located in the story, an example of this is the voices of the actors (dialogue)

Music video analysis.

The music video i have decided to analyse is Whitney houston - it's not right but it's ok I enjoy whitney houston's music and video's because most of her work is very 'womanly' and feminist and i enjoy this kind of music as i agree with femininst's (in the fact that all men are nasty). This song is about a woman who stays at home for her man and finds out he's been cheating and shes saying that she can live without him because she has a lot of willpower.

The setting for this video are in a very dark room where the only surroundings you can see is a desk which she sits at sometimes.

The cosumes and location of this video help to create representation. For example Whitney houston is wearing all black and the room is very dark. The conotations of Whitney wearing black is that black is often used at funerals (deaths) this denotes that it is the 'death' of her relationship with this man. Black often symbolises:

power

mystery

evil

emptiness

seriousness

Whitney Houston also user's dancers in her video, typically in a music video if it is a female singing they will usually use men to dance, but due to this video being anti-male she uses all female dancers. This type of musix/video also often uses low cut clothing for the male's gaze (laura mulvey).

The dancing shown in the video is minimul compared to other music videos but when she does dance she uses alot of hand gestures to give of a 'diva' look asif she is not bothered about what has happened to her, because she can live on.

The ligting in the video is low key to give the conotation of dark sinfulness. Also throughout this music video there are many close up shots of Whitney where she doesnt smile or show many facial expressions, this is done to show the audience how she feels

This video is a great representation to the lyrics of the song.

short film analysis.

The short film i have chosen to analyse is Vierden. This is a short film about two neighbours who do not get on and decide to pull tricks on eachother for instance one of the nieghbours puts concrete slabs infront of the other nieghbours door, which means the other neighbour can then not get out.

As Tzvetan Tordorov Suggest in his theory of narrative structure stories basically work with a beggining a middle and an end (not always in that order). The Equilibrium of this short film is the neighbours really dont get on and there is a fuede between the two. The Diseuilibrium is when one of the neighbours kills the other neighbours cat. The New equilibrium is that the two neighbours start to become nicer and go to make up but one of then gets killed.

There have been representational codes put into this video to give us a doniminant or preffered reading (this means that the producer 's put certain things into there video to give the audience a meaning) Stuart Hall (1980). The things that give us these views are things such as costumes and props. Durin this film The men often carry briefcases this Denotes that the men are normal business men who have to have a job to carry out there lives, this shows us that they are middle class men. The walls of the mens house's are very plain and white the denotes the thought that they are boring people and they may not have wifes because stereotypically the decor is picked by women

There are many negative images for males in this short film. We see many stereotypes for example men are thought to have bad tempers a lot of the time and we also think of men as very competative, during this short film we see these representations of men.

At the begining of the film we see a establishing shot of the house's that these two neighbours live in, this is done to show the viewer where the filmining is taking place.

The shot types are mainly medium close up, this is so that the audience can see how the actors feel, this is done in this film because most of the time the actors are either angry or upset. The reason the viewer needs to see this is so that they can relate to the man.

I can no find any evidence on this video of the diegisis being broken (this is the world in which the story takes place and if any editing is off timing or too obvious the diegisis is broken).

The sound in this short film is all non-diagetic this means that the sounds experienced is not explained in the story worls there for the music that we here is not coming from the diegises it is put over the film to enhance the shows action. There is also no dialogue in this film, this means the producer has had to work extra hard to make the story line good.