Wednesday, February 1st: Introduction to Media Literacy

What is Media Literacy?  Why is it important?

"Media literacy is a set of skills that anyone can learn. Just as literacy is the ability to read and write, media literacy refers to the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media messages of all kinds." 

-- The Media Literacy Project

Media is everywhere.  We are bombarded with media images, sounds, and messages.  The average adolescent (age 8-18) spends 7.5 hours per day interfacing with a media device.  Because of multitasking, that equates to nearly 11 hours of media consumption - per day.  So, what is the media in your life?

Media Consumption Graphic - NY Times

So, it's important to recognize that all of this has an influence.

Work to understand the messages you're receiving in all of this are controlled.  They have and create a meaning - and it's important to think about this.  And ask yourself questions:

- Who created this?

- What do they want from it?

- Can I trust it?

- What is it telling me directly?  What is it implying?

 When you start to ask yourself these questions, you should start to find that the answers can be very simple and very complicated all at once.  Hopefully, you'll also start to realize that the media you're exposed to all the time often carries many different meanings.

You may not realize the subtle messages you're receiving.  The people who MADE it may or may not have even realized that message would come across.  But what Dave is doing here is being media literate.  Thinking about the messages media is sending and what kind of an influence it's having on viewers.

From the Media Literacy Project:

"The goal of most media messages is to persuade the audience to believe or do something.
Hollywood movies use expensive special effects to make us believe that what we’re seeing is
real. News stories use several techniques – such as direct quotation of identified sources – to
make us believe that the story is accurate... We call these techniques the "language of persuasion”... Learning the language of persuasion is an important media literacy skill. Once you know how
media messages try to persuade you to believe or do something, you’ll be better able to make
your own decisions."

What are some common formulas and tricks that you see in media to try and convince and persuade viewers into believing in the product/message/etc?

Let's look at some basic examples - Lots of what we looked at today were from the Media Literacy toolbox from the Media Literacy Project, but here are some of the others:

Deconstructing the Media is important - let's look at the suggested guidelines for how to deconstruct a piece of media and what you should think about when you're watching and reading.

This commercial was in the top 10 most viewed YouTube videos of 2011 - think about some of the techniques we talked about (beautiful people, association, using cute/warm and fluffy, etc.):

It's not all just in advertising, either.  These messages are coming out of all different forms of media: movies, television, music, video games, online applications, billboards, politics, professional sports - the list is as infinite as the media we watch.


The number 1 YouTube video of 2011 has plenty of these messages - and in this case the video was so popular because most people didn't even like it! 

However, they still watched it - one of the most brilliant elements to these media and advertising messages is that we think we're not affected by them, we can see that they're stupid so we figure they may influence others, but not us.  Remember though, the effect can be indirect - you may not buy into a single ad or idea, but when it saturates our society - you kind of can't help it.  Remember to be conscious of your choices, be critical in your purchases and your own decisions as media viewers, and more importantly as media makers.


The number one YouTube video of all time has (as of this writing) nearly 700 MILLION views.  That's unbelievable influence.  What messages are you seeing here?  (watch out, you'll probably have to watch an advertisement first - hmm....)

You may or may not have seen these examples - but surely you've seen things that look and feel similar.  What are other examples you know of?  Think of a website you visit often or when you try to watch a video online - what kind of ads are you confronted with?  What kind of sites and videos are you seeking out, and why?  What about when you watch TV or movies, what kind of messages are you getting?  Driving and seeing billboards?  Listening to music?  How does it all come together to create a landscape of messages??

Even further - what are some common messages we receive all the time about how to act, look, purchase, and live in society?

How do these change if you are a man or a woman?  If you're transgender?  Straight or gay?  How is your race and ethnicity represented?  Your physical appearance?  Depending on your interests?

Cosmo Magazine 

Seventeen Magazine 

Maxim Magazine

hip hop weekly 

coding.smashingmagazine 

Deconstructing things further:

This app was created taking advantage the latest HTML coding language, HTML5 and has audio and video content from advertisements geared towards young girls and young boys exclusively.  With this app you can take the video content from one, and the audio content from another and watch where things are very similar and where things are very different:

Gender Remix

Here is a trailer for a documentary that analyzes the role of masculinity and how it influences messages coming out of hip hop music:

A tumblr discussing the representations of women in comics and graphic art:

Needs to Stop

And on a similar note, a man trying to do poses that women do in such art:

striking-a-pose

This is all a great start to analyzing how the media is made and how the message is delivered and intended to be received.  But, it gets even more intense if you dig a little deeper - and one great way to do that is by asking the question, who is making this?

Each piece of media is made for a specific reason - think about what that reason might be.  Often it's an attempt to sell a product or service and make money.  So, you have to consider who profits the most.

Wow!  Dow Chemical really cares about humanity - that's why they made such a pretty commercial!  But what they don't mention is all of the human rights atrocities they are responsible for in their factories which are located in the 3rd world - that the very chemicals they're manufacturing are destroying the health and well being of entire communities.  Instead of addressing those issues, Dow chose to spend millions of dollars on a massive public image campaign to represent themselves as a caring company.

This happens all the time:

What techniques do you notice they're using?

Thinking further about who is behind the creation of all of this stuff, look at some of these statistics:

In 2009 Women made up over 50% of moviegoers and movie ticket buyers, but far less than 20% of the creative teams of the most financially successful movies (only 3 films directed by women were in the top 100 box offices sucesses for the year).

Here's a link with more info and stats.

The numbers are even worse for minorities - and that doesn't even begin to get into the ways and roles in which minorities are represented in movies, television, and video games - here's an article on that subject.

Right now, women create only 8 percent of venture-backed tech start-ups.

Yet, there are more women than ever (and more women than men) in elite colleges and graduate programs.

Women in the advertising industry make up about 27% of the management, and only about 15% of the directors and executives.

But that's not all - it's not just about who is getting hired or not hired, it's about who is controlling all of this content.  Unfortunately part of the reason it seems like we get a lot of the same messages and all of these companies are using the same tricks is because that's exactly what's happening.  It all starts to sound pretty much the same, right?  Like there's really only a few key messages out there?  Well, take a look at this:

What happens when all of the media is owned by only a few entities?  How does this shape their intent and authority?

Media in the 21st century is a new and rapidly developing influence on all of this.  Think of major internet and tech companies like apple, google, and facebook.  Think of their role in your own life - and be aware of how they work in terms of media content.  Sign into your facebook account and you'll see advertisements on your homepage - advertisements geared specifically to you based on your likes and interests.  If you use a google product (and chances are you do - probably several), everything you're doing through that product is being used to cater an advertising and media experience specifically targeting you.

As the world changes, the media changes in turn.  Media makers are finding new ways to create and tell stories - which is fantastic, but can also be exploited.  Advertisers are capitalizing on the new ways in which people are connecting and telling stories, and they're working to put their own brand on it so that you feel like they're an essential part of it.

Monday, January 30th: Production team and equipment

Today we took a look at the production environment.  This includes knowing what all of the main departments and jobs during the production phase include.  Below is a sample chart that shows many of the main jobs and also demonstrates who the department head is.  Each person is responsible for answering to their department head, who in turn answers to the assistant director and the director.  The director is the boss of the set - and what's missing from this chart is the fact that the director answers to the producers.

For a complete listing of film crew positions and descriptions of what each job does, check out this wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_crew

In starting this conversation, we also had a look at some statistics about the number of women working in Hollywood ().  As it turns out, women make up more of the people going to see and pay admission to movies, but the number of women working on the movies is dismally poor.  Think about this next time you slap down $10 to see another Hollywood movie that you probably won't even enjoy!

We also took a look at some of the common production equipment, including:
The Camera - obviously super important, this is what controls, records, and stores your image:

Camera support - in order to control the motion of your camera you may need some kind of support.  The simplist way to support and stabilize your camera is with a tripod:

Large scale productions also have other things to control the motion.  For super smooth sideways or in and out motion you can put the camera onto a platform with wheels that run on a track.  This is called a Dolly:

And here's a look at the production crew working to pull off a dolly shot for 'Last Days':

Often, they also put the camera on a crane for high to low shots and swinging sideways shots with a great up and down motion.  This is also called a Jib:

At about 30 seconds in is a famous crane shot from 'Touch of Evil':

For shots where you need smooth motion but need to walk or run in environments where you can't use a dolly, they put the camera onto a shock absorbing vest and spring-loaded arm system called a steadycam - it looks pretty crazy but it is very effective:

 And here is some early and amazing steadycam work from 'The Shining'

The other major element to a movie is sound - so we looked at the main devices for capturing good sound on location.  They use a special kind of microphone, usually what's called a shotgun microphone, attached to a long pole called a boom pole.  All together this set up is often referred to as the boom microphone.  The long pole allows the microphone to be placed overhead or below the action, just out of the way of the camera's shot.  Here's what the boom microphone set up looks like - the microphone is usually encased in a wind-muffler:

We discussed the other departments - the main ones included the lighting and electrical departments, locations, casting, hair and makeup, and set design.  We'll look more in depth at all of this soon.

After we learned each of these roles and the equipment used, we broke into small production teams and did a very mini mock shoot where everybody was assigned a production job and had about a half an hour to plan out a simple scene from a script.

 Wednesday, January 25: The screenplay as a blueprint for production.

Today was all about using the screenplay and pre-production plan as a means to have a successful production.  This means that you have to look at the screenplay to include everything the script calls for in terms of location, characters, props, sounds, etc. - but you also have to start thinking about the style of your movie - how are you going to use the visuals to convey a certain feeling?

First, we finished our discussion on 3-Act structure.  In a narrative movie, you can always find a plot with a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Beyond that, there are a few things that typically happen in a narrative movie that fall into the three act structure.  Below is a graphic that demonstrates some of the key ideas within a three act structure plot:

Next, everyone started working for a little while on their own short screenplays - hopefully keeping in mind that their protagonist should be clear, and embark on a journey that will change them slightly, providing a nice arch.

Once you have a script though, then the real visual thinking begins.  You'll notice that every movie has it's own visual style - sometimes the style changes throughout the movie.  Remember, everything that ends up on the screen is a choice of some kind - from the costumes and the way the characters move, to the set pieces and the lighting, and the way the camera is moving and framing everything.  This was all part of a larger discussion in order to convey the emotions and meaning of the film.

Here are some basic terms that we'll use and hear a lot when we're thinking about our movie's visuals:

A scene: You probably already know what a scene is just from watching movies.  Usually a scene stays on one topic and/or in one location, and when that idea or location shifts or transitions to something else, you're in a new scene.  You'll know your own scenes because you'll have them in your script - each scene heading marks a new scene.

A shot: A shot is each camera angle, or set-up.  As we looked at last time, Slip of the Tongue had over 10 shots in a single scene (at the bus stop).  Sometimes shots last a while, and sometimes they move - a scene can be only one shot.  Other times, there are tons of shots within a single scene.  (remember though, not every edit in a scene is a new shot - they're cutting back and forth between several shots, there are almost always way more cuts than there are shots... if that makes sense).

A take: Takes are the attempts to get the shot right.  There are a lot of variables to get right when you're shooting a movie - so if the director doesn't like a performance, or the camera moves at the wrong time, or the lighting is weird, you have to try again.  Each one of these tries is called a take.

With those terms in mind, we looked at some examples of how directors use different visual styles and very intentional choices in order to make their movie everything they wanted:

This is a scene from Do the Right Thing, by Spike Lee.  There's a ton going on here - notice the colors and lighting.  The use of color is important in this movie because it takes place on the hottest day of the year, and is about racial tension.  The fact that it's a hot day is significant because tensions are heating up.  The costumes (Jackie Robinson and Larry Bird jerseys, for example) all tie into the theme of race.  The way the camera moves, when it moves, and the angle at which things are shot also all contribute to the emotion of the scene - sometimes it's right up in someone's face, sometimes it does a quick zoom out, etc. etc.  EVERYTHING is working together to create a larger feeling that contributes to the message of the scene and movie.

Here is the opening from The Royal Tennenbaums, by Wes Anderson:

Notice how perfectly balanced everything in the frame is in a lot of his shots (the right and left sides are almost like mirror images), the camera movements are very very smooth.  Every single detail on the walls and set are full of meaning that plays into the story - as is the placement of the actors/characters and their relationship to the camera.  Wes Anderson is known for putting painstaking effort into the overall look of his sets and being very specific about camera angles and camera movement.

And here is a scene from The Hurt Locker - a movie about a bomb diffusion squad in the Iraq war.  This movie was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and won her the Oscar for Best Director in 2008 - she is the first woman to win the award.  Notice how the camera work is the complete opposite of the Wes Anderson kind of smooth movement - why?  In a war movie, why is it better to have such a handheld/focus-shifting kind of camera?  She also used up to 4 cameras running at the same time in this movie.

Lastly, here is a super classic example of a long take, single shot scene.  In fact, this could be thought of as a few scenes within one shot - from Goodfellas by Martin Scorsese:

Monday, January 23rd - Overview of the production phases and a closer look at screenwriting:

We started today by looking again at the film, Slip of the Tongue produced in BAVC's Factory program.  This time, however, we were looking at it less for the content and message, and more for the aesthetics - in particular we were looking to figure out how much work went into the piece in terms of planning it, shooting it, and editing it.

Watching the piece, it's clear the director did a ton of work.  We looked at just one section of the movie where the two main characters are sitting at the bus stop and counted upwards of 10 different shots - which means that when they shot the movie they had to move the camera, set it up, and perform the scene at least 10 different times.  Likely it was a lot more than that, because often you don't get things quite right on the first try.

Many different shots/angles in a single scene - from 'Slip of the Tongue'

This is how making movies works, though.  It takes many many tries.  For each scene in a movie, the actors and crew are prepared to do so many different angles and takes of the scene, the same basic thing can easily be repeated 5, 10, 15 times.  Some directors have been known to go pretty far - Jazmin brought up the story of Stanly Kubrick forcing his actors to do a scene from the Shining upwards of 100 times.

All of this is important to know as you start thinking about what it means to become a filmmaker.  However, none of this matters unless you have a good story.  The best stories - the movies that people fall in love with, are personal.  This can mean many different things, but generally you want to pick a an idea and a story that you can connect with - and in turn others will probably connect with it too.

So - how does your good idea turn into a good movie?  There are many different styles of filmmaking, obviously, but there is a pretty basic flow to how every movie gets made.

There are three major phases in the process of filmmaking: Pre-Production, Production, and Post-Production.  Pre-Production is where all the planning happens, Production is the actual filming phase, and Post-Production is where the movie is put together in editing.

Here are key things that happen in each phase:

Pre-Production - Planning and screenwriting:
Idea, outline, treatment, pitch, screenplay, script breakdown, gather people, fund raising, budgeting equipment, create departments, casting, design, props, costumes, makeup, shotlists, storyboards, schedules, etc.

Production - Shooting the movie:
This is where everything you planned starts being put into action.  All departments are working together to create the world of the movie and capture the look in camera.  Rehearsals for actors, sets are built, props are placed, the electric department is providing power, lights are hung and tested, cameras are being loaded, tested, and mounted onto various rigs and moving parts, etc.  And of course, there are many different shots, angles, and takes being captured once the cameras roll.  One often overlooked but absolutely essential part of the process?  AUDIO!  You must be capturing clean, clear, professional sound as well.

Post-Production - Editing the movie:
As soon as footage is captured on-set it should be labeled and organized.  Then, it gets organized for editing, where the director and editor assemble the scenes, choose favorite takes, set the pace of each scene and actual assemble the movie.  Eventually they'll cut it down even more, clean up the edits, add music and visual effects, titles, etc.  Then they'll output it and put it out for the world to see!

A lot more goes into each step, but those are the basic ideas.  We'll talk about some of the complex stuff more in depth at a later date.

Next we looked a bit at screenwriting.  The screenplay is the heart and soul of the movie, it's where the story is first contained.  But, it also acts as the blueprint for planning the movie - in the same way that every department involved in building a house (contractors, plumbers, electricians, etc) looks to the blueprint - every department on a movie looks to the script.

Some screenwriting basics: Screenplays are formatted in a very specific way to make them easier to read and pull information from.  The formatting might seem strange at first, but thanks to modern FREE software, it's actually pretty easy.  Let's look at a few scenes from a screenplay and look at how it's formatted:

Every scene starts with a scene heading.  In this case it's: EXT. MONTAUK TRAIN STATION - DAY.  Scene headings are capitalized and always start with either EXT. or INT. which stand for Exterior and Interior, so we immediately know if we're inside or outside.  That's followed by the scene location (Montauk train station, in this case) and then a dash (-) and the time of day.  The time of day is usually pretty general (day, night, evening, afternoon, etc.) but in some cases it might be very specific (i.e. 12:25pm) if there is a reason (like, the bomb is going to explode at 12:30pm).

The scene heading is followed by an action paragraph.  Notice that screenplays are always written in the present tense, and from the 3rd person perspective.  They also only use visual descriptions and information.  If you can not SEE or HEAR it, then it shouldn't be in the screenplay.  Instead of saying 'Joel is worried because he's lying,' they say 'His speech is a self-conscious mumble' and we understand he's lying.

And of course, you also have characters who speak dialogue.  In this case our character is Joel.  When he's about to speak his name is always capitalized in the middle of the page, and his dialogue is underneath his name and justified in the center - but we don't have to worry about that too much because the screenwriting software will do the capitalization and alignment formatting for us.

The software we use is free and you can download it at www.celtx.com - it's called Celtx.  When you open it up, select that you'll be writing a Film project and you'll have a blank page in front of you.  You can now write your screenplay - use the drop down menu at the top of the page to select the appropriate formatting choice:

And remember the basic rules!

Welcome to Digital Pathways - All Girls Video!


I'm looking forward to a great semester working with everyone involved in the class and with the Digital Pathways program.  Over the course of the spring we will work together to learn basic video skills from idea creation to final product.  We will explore the three phases of production: pre-production (planning, writing, scheduling, etc.), production (the actual filming of the project), and post-production (editing).

Additionally, The Digital Pathways All Girl Video Production class has been designed uniquely for all female enrollment.  The curriculum is designed to challenge the lack of female presence in fields of media production.  Students will deconstruct and analyze representations of women put forth in Hollywood films, television, and advertising.  The class will provide students not only with the technical training and skills to excel in a competitive professional media production industry, but also with the critical thinking capacity to tell their stories in a way that doesn’t reinforce current stereotypes and inequity displayed in contemporary mainstream media.

For our first class we'll get to know each other a bit, overview exactly what it is we'll be getting into this semester, and we'll look at some student films that BAVC has produced to get an idea of what it is you can make and what you might be interested in creating!

Here are the pieces we analyzed today:

1. Sign of the Times:

 

2. Slip of the Tongue:

If you have any questions, just email me at ewen@bavc.org - or please feel free to get in touch with Jazmin Jones, the Teaching Assistant for the class at jazmin@bavc.org.

Best,

--Ewen W.