intermediate two media analysis. media analysis will involve the study of media texts in terms of...

Intermediate Two

Media Analysis

• Media Analysis will involve the study of media texts in terms of Fiction (name text and/or medium) and Non-fiction (name text and/or medium ). Working through the Units will help you to develop skills of deconstructing (breaking down into key aspects) a range of media texts and explaining their relationship to social, institutional and audience contexts. The makers (the institution) often want you (the audience) to think or react to their product in a certain way.

Aim

• By completing the study of “Fallen”, you should develop the ability to think for yourself and question the content and purpose of the media messages.

Key Aspects

The analysis of all media texts will develop the knowledge and understanding of the key aspects of Media Studies:

• categories• language• narrative• representation• audience• institution• technology

6

Key Aspects of Media Studies

INSTITUTION

• company type (commercial, public service; global, independent)

• finance (budget, income from sales, subscription, advertising)

• internal constraints (e.g. editorial policy, house style, hard/software)

• external constraints (legal, regulatory, market, target audience)

• production processes (planning, implementation, review & evaluation)

AUDIENCE

• target audience & audience factors (individual, taste, textual knowledge, gender, age, class, ethnicity, interests, nationality)

TEXTCATEGORIES

• purpose, medium, form, genre, tone, style, etc.

LANGUAGE

• denotation/connotation & motivations of technical & cultural codes; anchorage; conventions; mode of address; signs, discourse, ideology, myth

NARRATIVE

• narrative structure, conventions, codes

REPRESENTATIONS

• stereotypes & non-stereotypes; rep’ns of people, places & events

AUDIENCE

• mode of address (direct/indirect; specific/general); preferred reading

SOCIETY

• social, cultural, economic, politics

• ideologies & myths

encodes

decodes

selectsinfluences

TECHNOLOGY

• technologies of production,

distribution & consumption

MEANING

CAPITAL

Categories - Medium

What is the Medium of the text?

• Print

• Television

• Radio

• Film

• Internet

Categories - Form

What is the Form of the text? • drama, • light entertainment• newspaper• magazine • series • feature film • Should always give examples from the text

describing why you think it is this form.

Categories - Purpose

What is the Purpose of the text?

• to inform

• to entertain

• to persuade

• to educate

• to gain profit

There may be more than one purpose.

Categories - Genre

What is the Genre of the text? • Science Fiction, Action, Romance etc• Soap Opera• Documentary • Game Show • Broadsheet

How do you know it is this genre?

Categories - Tone

• What is the tone of the text? Give examples from the text.

• serious,

• comic,

• formal,

• informal,

• sad,

•happy

•objective

•personal

Other Categories to consider

OTHER CATEGORIES

• nationality

• target audience

• director

• star

• public sector

Categories – Questions to consider

• What is the medium of the text?• What is the purpose of the text? How do

you know? Give examples from the text.• What is the form of the text? Give a

reason for your choice?• What is the genre of the text? Give

examples from the text explaining why you think it is this genre. You might compare the text to another in the same genre.

Categories – Questions to consider

• What is the tone of the text? Give examples from the text.

• Explain why (name of another category eg one of the stars) makes a difference to the text.

• What is the target audience of the text? Explain which of the categories attract this audience to the text?

• Who made the text and why?

You should explain one of the categories in detail.

Institutions

The institutions are all the people involved in making and financing the text.

• Who made the text?• Who paid to make the text? There could have been

more than one group paying for the text, eg advertisers.

• Do the people involved in making the text want to make money?

• How do they want to make it? Eg people buying the text, spin offs.

• Was the text expensive to make? How do you know?

Institution – External Constraints

Legal Constraints

• Eg Statutory (Acts of Parliament), e.g.: Sex Discrimination Act Racial

Discrimination Act

• Copyright laws

• Libel laws


• Self-Regulatory/Codes of Practice

• Eg Press Complaints CommissionBroadcasting Complaints ASA (Advertising Standards Authority)Guidelines


• Market Controls

• Eg Audiences buy media productsAdvertisers buy access to these audiences

Market structures can also restrict media messages

Type and size of marketCompetition


Societal Controls

Eg Public opinion

Gate-keeping and changing perceptions of media texts Censorship


Technology/Materials

• Eg The ability with new DTP packages to copycat publications or produce new magazines cheaply

Pirating

Institution – Internal Constraints

• The role of ownership• Type of ownership, eg entrepreneurial,

conservative• Finance• Internal operation, eg editorial policy, budgets,

the control of senior appointees. Whether it is pro-active, reactive, innovative etc.

• Quality of staff• Reputation/Image• Company – remit, mission statement, logo,

slogan

Institution – questions to consider

• Who produced the text? Are they linked to other companies?

• Who financed the production? Does this have an effect on the text and why? E.g. market controls/sponsors invest to access the audience.

• What effect do ownership, finance and market structures have on the text?

Institution – questions to consider

• How was the text distributed? (Consider technology.) Did this have an effect on the audience?

• Did certification, scheduling, distribution restrict the audience?

• Consider any other effects on the text such as legal constraints, the watershed, taste etc.

Audience

• There is no point in a media text without an audience. The maker of the text chooses or targets an audience and makes a text that they think audiences will want.

Audience – Target Audience

• Who do you think the target audience is? Why do you think this is the target audience?

Think about age, gender, personal interest. The target audience could be a mix of people.

• Do you think different people in the audience would like different things? Give examples.

• What do you think the people who made the text want you to think/do.

Identifying Target Audience

The audience or audiences may be identified by the following features in a text:

• Categories • Access (e.g. Channel/ Scheduling/ Certification) • Intertextual references• Narrative codes• Discourses• Commercialisation of product• Relate to Institution (external controls) e.g. type of

market (niche market – narrows, targets and specialises audiences)

Audience – Mode of Address

How a text speaks to its audience:

• Direct/indirect

• Individual/collective

Audience – Preferred Reading

The meaning of the text that the maker/producer hopes the audience will accept, the idea that texts contain messages which support mainstream thinking, e.g. a news story which presents protesters as disrupting social order. Different newspapers – because of political allegiance – will present the same information with a different bias, ie they will have different preferred readings.

Audience - Differential Decoding How audiences actually read texts. This may be completely different to the preferred reading of the maker, e.g. an anti-smoking ad will not stop all its audience from smoking.

• Different individuals or groups react differently to a text.

• Consider:• Age• Gender• Ethnic background• Education/knowledge• Experience• Affiliation/Identification to different groups

Basically

TextPreferred

Reading

Differential Decoding

A maker produces a text in order to send a message and, generally, make a profit.

The maker wants the audience to interpret the text by use of preferred reading.

Different people in the audience will interpret the text in different ways

Audience – Questions to consider• What type of audience might

read/watch/listen to this text?• What similar texts would attract this

audience and why?• Who would be interested in the front page,

who would be interested in page three? Why?

• Would the audience identify with the main character? Why?

Audience – Questions to consider

• Explain why some people in the audience might disapprove of the language?

• What does the maker want you to do/think once you have read/seen/listened to the text?

• Describe the mode of address and why it has been used or Why is the presenter talking straight to the camera?

• Would the audience (you) react differently seeing the film on video at home or in the cinema?

• Would an older audience enjoy the text?

Narrative

• The narrative of a text is the story that it tells and how it tells it. Every media text has a narrative.

• How fictional and factual stories are organised into a sequence. Every media text has a narrative.

Narrative

Story: The actual order of events as they took place in the text, ie how the audience would explain what the story is about

Plot: How the maker/producer arranges these events, eg the plot could tell the story as a flashback

Narrative - Narrative Structures/Codes/

Conventions • Classic Structure – Equilibrium (normality)/

disruption/ return to equilibrium (normality)

• Order – Chronological/flashback/forward. Hard news/soft news/sport

• Single or multiple story-lines

• Serial and series

• Investigation (interview, observation, presentation of data)

Narrative - Narrative Structures/Codes/ Conventions

• Conflict

• Development

• The resolution of the narrative in relation to what the audience want and expect, e.g. ‘goodies’ beating ‘baddies’

• The meaning of the narrative, e.g. the moral of the story or the result of the investigation


• Conventions or devices used to tell the story, e.g. voice-overs, point-of-view, format, colour, mise-en-scene

• News stories portrayed as battles with winners and losers – happy endings in films – cliff hangers in soaps – adverts solving a problem

• Technical/cultural codes used that affect the narrative, e.g. cropping, soft focus, type of font


• Audience engagement, e.g. cliff hangers, teasers, enigmas, genre, stars.

• Strategies used to ‘hook’ the audience and develop the story, i.e. move the story on

• The effect of the institution on the narrative and its need to make profit, e.g. genre, finance.

• And the effect of external constraints, e.g. market position/share, type of market and competition

Narrative – Questions to consider

• What is the structure of the narrative? Your answer could cover – classic narrative, conflict, development, resolution, order. (Examples from the text could be given in the question.)

• How is the structure similar or different to other texts of this genre?

• Whose point of view is the story told from. How do you know?

• Is the audience treated as an observer or a participant? Give an example.

Narrative – Questions to consider

• Are there single or multiple storylines? Give examples/Explain.

• Why would the audience want to watch the next episode /buy the next edition?

• What effect does the institution have on the quality/bias/genre of the text?

• Specific technology questions when appropriate, e.g. How do the special effects influence the narrative?

• Specific questions could be asked integrating to other key aspects, e.g. What effect does ‘name of star’ have on the film?

Representation

• The way in which places, people and events are represented in media texts.

• Stereotypes are instantly recognisable representations, eg Scotsmen in kilts.

Concepts of Representation

• The process of translating cultural assumptions into words, sounds and images.

• The continual re-presenting of stereotypes.

• The presenting of images in new ways (going against stereotype).

• A question of who represents whom and for what purpose.

Representation - Mediation

• Ways in which the media select, interpret and represent social, economic, political and cultural events.

• Consider the effect of target audience, regulatory controls, sources of funding, ownership and news values on the maker’s (institution) selection of what reaches the audience.

• Consider the role of the media in creating and perpetuating representations.

• Consider the reason and method of selection or de-selection, e.g. to create bias by selective editing.

Representation - Discourses and Cultural Assumptions

Examine:• How some groups of people interpret a text in

the same way, e.g. most young people enjoy pop music.

• How some people will interpret a text in different ways, e.g. Christians would think a film about Christ is true, other religions would see it as fiction.

• The relationship between the real world and the representations in the text.

• Do other texts reinforce these representations? (Intertextualise)

Representation – Questions to consider

• Describe in detail several representations in the text (people, places, events, ideas).

• Give examples of how they are conveyed by use of cultural/technical codes.

• Discuss any stereotypes and non-stereotypes.

• Examine cultural assumptions, e.g. young and beautiful equals slim. Are Cultural/technical codes used to reinforce, e.g. costume, cropping.

Representation – Questions to consider

• Mediation. Why did the institution select the representations? Did the audience influence the selection? (or Why do you think the main character is 16 years old? Why was an unknown actress used? Why was the teacher played by Jack Nicholson?)

• Compare the representations to another similar text.

LanguageDESCRIBE

BREAKDOWN

EXPLAIN MEANING (DECODE)

REASON FOR INCLUSION

DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS

NARROWING DOWN INTERPRETATION

THE USE OF SIGNS AND CODES

Language - Describe

Sign:

• a sign is the smallest unit of communication. A sign can be a word, object, image and sound which communicate meaning.

Language – BreakdownCultural/Technical Codes

Code

• a combination of signs. To understand the meaning you must break the code, in other words analyse their construction


Cultural code

• a system of signs whose meaning is shared by members of a culture, e.g. dress/costume, gesture, mise-en-scene, intertextual reference. (Often associated with cultural assumptions.)


Technical code

• specific to media e.g. A fade-in is an editing code and may suggest (connote) the beginning; in print ‘sans serif’ is a typographic code and may connote modernity.

Language – Explain Meaning (Decode) Denotation/Connotation

• We can describe signs but we also associate signs with different meanings eg a red rose can be described as a ‘certain type of flower’ but it could mean or represent ‘love’, ‘the Labour Party’ or ‘the House of Lancaster during the War of the Roses’


Denotation

• the description/definition of a sign, eg red rose, jeans, fade-in.


Connotation

• the meaning associated with the sign, eg a red rose may be given to show love, jeans connote informality, fade-in may connote a beginning.

Language – Reason for inclusion

Motivation

• There can be several reasons for including codes:

• To aid understanding, to tell the story, for realism, to conform to style, to engage audience, to move the story on, for link to other texts, to make the audience react or think in a certain way.

Language – Different Interpretation

Polysemy

• The idea that a sign can have several different meanings at one time, e.g. by the reader decoding the same sign using different codes. A building on fire could be decoded as arson, accident or natural disaster.

Language – Narrowing down Interpretation

Anchorage• A way of ‘tying down’ meaning. Without

anchorage, meaning could be open to various interpretations, e.g. a picture of a building on fire with the caption ‘Gas Leak Destroys Home’ immediately lets you know what caused the fire. Music can anchor mood in a film, a voice-over can anchor meaning to moving image.

Language – The use of signs and codes

• Conventions – Standard way in which signs and codes are used in different genre, e.g. interviews, voice-overs, talking heads, vox pops are conventions of documentary. In a newspaper, conventions would adhere to house style, e.g. layout, character formatting, text, page size.

Language – Questions to Consider

• Name as many cultural/technical codes as possible and explain why they have been used (denotation/connotation).

• Are any of these codes being used by the maker to make the audience think or react in a certain way (i.e. create preferred reading). Do you agree with their interpretation?

• What is anchorage? Give as many examples of anchorage as possible.

Language – Questions to Consider

• Why are the conventions/ mode of address used? (The question could name conventions and mode of address.)

• Integrate with other key aspects, eg Name a convention used and explain how it conforms to the genre.

• What technology has been used to create the text?

Fallen

Synopsis

• American homicide Detective John Hobbes (Denzel Washington) captures serial killer Edgar Reese. Reese is executed but soon a similar style of killing restarts. The killer turns out to be a mythical, supernatural spirit, a fallen angel called Azazel who having to no form has to take over another human being in order to survive and continue to commit his atrocities. Hobbes is forced to kill a man possessed by Azazel and must clear his name while protecting his family and others from the evil, vengeful Azazel

Categories - Medium

Primary medium - cinema

• Allows for total concentration on the film.

• This enhances enjoyment as the film’s attraction is in its story not its technology or high budget.

• Secondary Medium – DVD or terrestrial/cable/ satellite

• Fairly old film so likely to be viewed at home

• This allows for socialising while watching the film

Categories - Form

• Actors were not major stars

• Director was known and respected within genre but not a big name

• Film relies on other means (no big budget or big names to attract and audience)

• This plays with the expectations of the audience

Film – mainstream commercial feature film

Categories - Purposes

To Entertain• By scaring, thrilling,

and exciting the audience.

• It provides escape from everyday reality.

• The film depends on audience’s pre-conceived ideas of classic narrative, where the good guy always wins, to entertain and surprise its audience.


To Entertain• By scaring,

thrilling, and exciting the audience.

• It provides escape from everyday reality.

• The purpose of “Fallen” is to tell a good story not provide a spectacle or feature major stars as high budget or blockbuster films do, although Denzel Washington went on to be a major star he was not when this film was made.


To Make a Profit• It grossed nearly

$10.5 million in its opening weekend

• It took in $25 million within the first two months for later for Turner Pictures.

• Having no special attractions the film relied on word of mouth to attract a wider audience.

• Enabled the stars, director, distributors to go on to bigger things

Genre – horror, mystery, thriller

• “Fallen” is a generic hybrid, it is a mixture of American Police Detective Thriller/ Mystery/ Horror/ supernatural.

• In an attempt to widen the audience appeal the film includes many genre, there is even an attempt at a love interest.

• Within the first few minutes we are introduced to a man fleeing for his life, a prison execution, a buddy cop scene, a murder and there is an implication of the supernatural through the language (sound and shots) used.

Genre

HORROR

Genre

MYSTERY

Genre

THRILLER

TONE

Serious

Fear for characters

Expectation that the good guy wins

Suspense

Who is committing the murders?

It is well through the film before the audience realises there is an evil spirit transferring to different bodies to commit murders

Some Comic Relieve

The character Jonesy (Hobbes best friend)

Played by John Goodman

Actor – Denzel Washington

John Hobbes

Mostly type cast as a good guy

Denzel Washington - Career

• 2010 Unstoppable 2010 The Book of Eli 2009 The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

• 2007 The Great Debaters 2007 American Gangster 2006 déjà vu 2006 Inside Man 2004 The Manchurian Candidate

• 2004 Man on Fire

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000243/


Actor – John Goodman

Jonesy

Generally known as a funny guy

Actor – Donald Sutherland

Lt StantonDonald Sutherland has made a lasting legacy on Hollywood, whether portraying a chilling and horrifying villain, or playing the older respectable character in his films. A true character actor, Sutherland is one of Canada's most well-known names and will hopefully continue on being so long after his time.

Donald Sutherland

• Sutherland's first roles were bit parts • He was also appearing in episodes of TV shows

such as "The Saint" and "Court Martial". • He had been a last-minute replacement for an

actor that had dropped out of the film. The role he played was that of the dopey but loyal Vernon Pinkley in the war film The Dirty Dozen (1967). The picture was an instant success as an action/war film

Donald Sutherland

• 1970 and 1971 offered Sutherland a number of other films, the best of them would have to be Klute (1971). The film, which made Jane Fonda a star, is about a prostitute whose friend is mysteriously murdered. Sutherland received no critical acclaim but his career did not fade.

• Sutherland took a supporting role that would become one of his most infamous and most critically acclaimed. He played the role of the murderous fascist leader in the Bernardo Bertolucci Italian epic Novecento



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074084/

Donald Sutherland - Career

• 2010 The Con Artist • 2010 Moby Dick (TV series)

2009 Astro Boy 2007-2009 Dirty Sexy Money (TV series) 2009 The Eastmans (TV movie) 2008/I Fool’s Gold

• 2007 Puffball • 2007 Reign Over Me • 2005-2006 Commander in Chief (TV series)

2006 Ask the Dust



Director – Gregory Hoblit

• 2009 Solving Charlie (TV movie) • 2008 Untraceable • 2007/I Fracture• 2004 NYPD 2069 (TV movie) • 2002 Hart’s War• 2000 Frequency • 1998 Fallen • 1996 Primal Fear

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0387706/#Director

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0387706/#Director

Key Scene 1 – Hobbes near death in the woods

Signs/codes/ conventions

deconstruction Motivation/ Anchorage

Music

Titles – black on white, gothic type font. Ts look crosses

Dissolve into smoke

Eerie, scary

Binary oppositions (good/evil)

Cigarette

Horror, supernatural genre

Information, reinforce genre

Clue to ending




Cut to black fade in and voice over

Suspense, recognition of the voice of Denzel Washington, the hero. The beginning

Create suspense, make the audience think they are about to see a story about the character speaking




Music changed to fast

Man trying to escape, fast cutting rate, canted angles

Exciting, chase

The hero nearly died, now we’re going to hear why in a flashback

Thriller genre

Expectation of classic narrative




Mise-en-scene – snow, dark, woods, derelict cottage

Dissolve to a busy scene, police cars, flashing lights, siren, American accents

Film Noir

We’ve gone back in time. Something exciting is going to happen, someone has broken the law

Mystery

Transition in time and place. Establish genre – American Detective Thriller.




Close up of hand turning a coin. (repeated later in the film) Pan up to reveal man’s face

Someone watching and waiting Denzel Washington – star - hero

Coin implicates Hobbes later in one of the murders.

Key Scene 2 - Prison



Reese in prison cell

Bad man brought to justice

The first use of bars through which to film Hobbes, a recurring theme throughout film to suggest his eventual entrapment. Other shots later in the film are of Hobbes behind cobwebs and branches at the cabin, behind park railings, with the shadow of Venetian blinds on his face.




Reese and Hobbes shake hands

Reese speaks in strange language

Reese being led to gas chamber

Hobbes is a good guy

Evil

Justice

Hobbes is too good to allow Azazel to possess him

To identify Azazel later. Cultural assumption that things foreign are no good

Develop smoke theme




Music

Point of View Shot

Rolling Stones – “Bad Boys”

Looking from Reese’s eyes

Reinforce binary opposition

Establish Azazel not Reese as the killer

Key Scene 3 - Bar



Close up of TV Hobbes being interviewed

Three detectives having a drink together chatting

Hobbes is an intelligent good detective

Hobbes has stopped smoking, doesn’t take bribes and is a good friend

Gives authority

Establish Hobbes character

Key Scene 3 - Bar



Mise-en-scene

Drinking Budwiesser

Smoky bar

Hobbes is a good buddy

Reference to ending

Establish character

Key Scene – Final Scene (same as beginning)



Mise-en-scene – snow, derelict cabin

Back to the beginning

Resolution

NarrativeThe Story The story tells of a fallen angel,

Azazel, and his struggle to survive. He has no form of his own, he is only a spirit and has to enter other people’s bodies to live. He is an evil spirit and a serial killer. The story tells of him meeting a homicide detective who is too good to succumb and resists him, this only excites Azazel and makes him determined to overcome the good detective which he does in the end.

NarrativeThe plot The film starts at the end with the

audience being told in a voice-over by Detective John Hobbes “I want to tell you about the time I almost died”. Then there is a flashback to the struggle between Hobbes and Azazel, the audience believing till the end that Hobbes wins

NarrativeNarrative Structure

From the voice over at the beginning the expectation is for a classic narrative. The good detective has done his job and caught the killer (equilibrium), the killer continues to kill (disruption), the good detective wins the day (return to equilibrium)

Our expectation is that the narrative will fulfil our need for a myth, that the hero wins and good overcomes evil.

NarrativeResolution The resolution that the bad guy wins

would not satisfy all in the audience who are used to the classic good triumphing over evil.

NarrativeCultural/ technical codes

Throughout the film clues are given in the form of cultural/ technical codes as to the outcome but because we are expecting a classic narrative we do not read them correctly.

The mise-en-scene in several scenes develops the theme of Hobbes entrapment. At the beginning shots are taken through the bars of the prison cell, during his first visit to the cabin, the eventual scene of his death, the shots are close frame of him through cobwebs, broken beams, branches etc. Only when we finally return to the cabin in the last scene with its snow covered mise-en-scene do we realise that we have come full circle and are back to the beginning.


As the action progresses the audience identifies the semic codes indicating the presence of Azazel e.g. when shots are taken from his point of view red back colour has been keyed in at a low level to give red haze and the person being possessed changes their body language and facial expression to look evil. The sound underpinning the transition from one person to another becomes an index sign that Azazel is on the move.


Just before he is executed Reese sings the Rolling Stones song “Time is on my side” signifying that Azazel knows he will win, each character repeats the song when possessed by Azazel.

Smoke is used throughout the film as a symbol of Azazel’s power – the opening titles dissolve into smoke, there is a smoky haze in the gas chamber, the bar is full of smoke when we hear Hobbes has given up smoking and ironically eventually Hobbes kills himself by smoking a poisoned cigarette in an attempt to kill Azazel who has in the end succeeded in possessing him.

NarrativeDevices From the voice over at the beginning

we think we are seeing events unfold from the point of view of John Hobbes as a restricted narrative but of course it is from Azazel’s which we should have guessed from the point of view shots.

NarrativeAudience engagement

Throughout the film we think the main enigma is how will John Hobbes overcome Azazel? This film is not just a straight forward story it tries to make you think, to work out for yourself the resolution by the repetition of signifies e.g. smoke, bars, sounds whilst at the same time relying on our expectation of the classic narrative to surprise us.

Representation – John Hobbes

Denzel Washington

In his early films Washington was type cast as the hero. Hobbes is a stereotypical good guy detective. Incorruptible, intelligent, clean living, good looking, good uncle, caring brother, great pal. The perfect hero on a quest. In casting a black actor in the role the director seems to be making a statement about race being a non-issue, the hero is black but Azazel does not discriminate in his choice of host.

Representation - Jonesy

John Goodman

• Clever casting has John Goodman, normally the funny good character eventually trying to kill Hobbes when possessed by Azazel in the final scene, the audience expect the killer to be in the character of Donald Sutherland who is normally cast as the hard man.

Representation - women

• The representation of the female/love interest as Gretta is very weak. This could dissatisfy members of the audience (differential decoding).

Representation - Places

• Big City – Bustling, easy to hid, easy to be anonymous, plenty of hosts for Azazel.

• Milano’s Cabin – isolated, bleak, scary. The perfect place to trap Azazel – ironically Hobbes doesn’t know Azazel can enter the form of any living creature although the audience should because he was in the form of a cat at one point in the film.

• Gretta’s house – full of pictures and statues of angels.

Stereotypes

The film relies heavily on binary oppositions. Representations are all very stereotypical.

• Good – Hobbes, angels, Christianity.

• Bad – Azazel, fallen angel, POV shots in red (danger)

• The only two songs are by the Rolling Stones who have a ‘bad boy’ image.

Cultural Assumptions

• Typical American good guy buddy movie. The ending could alienated some of the audience.

• The lack of violence, blood, high speed car chases etc. could alienate some of the audience.

• Everything American and English speaking is good, Azazel (Reese) speaks in strange language (Syrian Aramaeic).

• When Azazel transfers into a character they begin to speak in a course manner and slightly contort their features, semic codes for our assumption of evil.

• Christianity is good – Gretta runs for refuge and sanctuary to the church when she is being chased by Azazel.

• Good should overcome evil.

Mediation

• The film relies on conventional representations to dupe the audience. Because Turner Pictures did not have a big budget they had to find other ways of attracting an audience.

Audience - Target

• The film seems to be aimed at older film-goers who might enjoy a more thought provoking narrative rather than all action, blood and gore but as it has a 15 certificate it was also aimed at a younger audience. The film seems to have little to attract a female audience except perhaps Denzel Washington’s good looks. Since the film was made Denzel Washington has become a very famous Academy Award winning actor and as it will most often be viewed on television now his name would attract a wide audience.

Audience – Mode of Address

• The mode of address is indirect when the audience watches events unfold and direct when the voice over is used and the audience sees the world through Azazel’s eyes in the POV shots.

Audience – Preferred Reading

• The film wants you to expect a classic narrative, good overcomes evil, but ends by telling you life isn’t perfect the human spirit does not always triumph.

• Hobbes quote “Something is always happening but when it happens people don’t always see it or understand it or accept it”

Audience – Differential Readings

Irritation – Why do Gretta and Hobbes not fall in love? Why does she give in so easily when overcoming Azazel had been her life’s work?

Why no car chases, blood, gore, violence?

Anger – The good guy loses.

Pleasures – Clever plot, uncovering all the clues after discovering the resolution, cinematography, refreshing that good guy doesn’t always win.

Audience - Intertextuality

• Audience knowledge of the main three actors. Expectation of quality from Turner Pictures.

Institution - Ownership/Finance/Distribution

• Turner Pictures produced the film and Warner Brothers distributed it, they are part of Time Warner Inc the largest media and entertainment company in the world leading to an expectation of quality in the audience.

Institution - Statutory Controls

• In the UK, the British Board of Film Classification. This film is a 15 so must not depict graphic violence of horror.

Institution - Self-regulatory codes of practice

• The budget was a major constraint, the money available was spent on the stars leaving nothing for special effects and spectacle, the film relied on the narrative to attract an audience.

Institution - Marketing Controls

• Now the film would be viewed on video and television.

Institution - Intertextualisation

• Previous films with the main actors or by the director or the production company.

intermediate two media analysis. media analysis will involve the study of media texts in terms of...

Documents

text andor medium

study of media texts

media messages

categories tonewhat

categories purposewhat

categories genrewhat

range of media texts

key aspects of media