Contemporary British Cinema
Issues and Debates
Does Britain need a separate film industry?
How has the British film industry managed to survive?
Does Britain need a separate film industry?
This area of debate centres on the reasons for having a national cinema. This will include issues of representation. Do we need films that show ourselves to ourselves?
There is also the institutional context. The industry directly employs around 33,500 people and supports something like 95,000 jobs in total. The industry contributed around 4.3 billion pounds to the British economy in 2006. This was up 39% from 2004, so the industry is becoming more successful in economic terms.
In terms of audiences, on the whole the mass of the cinema going public might be just as happy if all their film entertainment came from Hollywood. However there is a substantial, largely cine-literate and middle-class audience, that wants to see films about Britain and on British themes.
The forms and conventions of British film are rooted in documentary and realism. We are also well known for costume dramas and comedies as well as gritty thriller. This type of cinema looks to Europe rather than Hollywood and would be lost without a native industry.
How has the British film industry managed to survive?
Issues of audience, institutions, forms and conventions and representation all impact on this debate.
Mass audiences tend to prefer Hollywood films. Certain types of realist low budget cinema are often seen as appealing to niche audiences.
The British industry is characterised by small production companies and a handful of studios (notably Pinewood) These institutions are supported by Film Tax Relief which the government introduced in 2006.
By representing Britain to the world, albeit often in stereotypical ways, the British film industry aids the tourist industry.
By concentrating on low budget genres many production companies survive from one film being completed to the next. However this is a hand to mouth existence that can easily spell disaster if one production fares badly. The industry is supported by a number of co-funded productions using the forms and conventions of spectacle and special effects which have much larger budgets.
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Monday, 31 March 2008
News Stars
Your task is to find out about an individual news "star". Who have they worked for? Do they have a particular style of reporting? What kind of work do they do?
Post your findings as a comment.
Post your findings as a comment.
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Broadcast News: Revision
Regularly watch news broadcasts and take note of what is considered news (Galtung and Ruge).
Watch Panorama.
Who presents the news? Are there news stars? How important is news to the institutions that carry the broadcasts?
Go over the notes and make new sets of notes. Try to condence notes down.
Are you aware of bias in bulletins? Why is this?
Is the news dumbed down by some institutions? Which ones? Analyse broadcasts for length and complexity of individual items. Do some "shows" carry more celebrity or sports news? Do some of them seem to have more "human interest" stories.
Watch Panorama.
Who presents the news? Are there news stars? How important is news to the institutions that carry the broadcasts?
Go over the notes and make new sets of notes. Try to condence notes down.
Are you aware of bias in bulletins? Why is this?
Is the news dumbed down by some institutions? Which ones? Analyse broadcasts for length and complexity of individual items. Do some "shows" carry more celebrity or sports news? Do some of them seem to have more "human interest" stories.
British Film: Revision
All notes should be actively engaged with. This means making new sets of notes based on what you remember. If you have made linear textual notes then change them to graphic notes such as mind maps and so on.
Visit websites such as britfilm, screenonline, the British Film Council etc. Actively research such things as personnel, distributors, exhibitors, production companies etc.
Watch the three case study films if you can get hold of them. Think again about how and why they were made and why they are British films. What is it about them that is British?
Watch any other films that are classed as British from the last ten years. Look at them in the same ways as we looked at our case study films. Remember: LANGUAGES INSTITUTIONS AUDIENCES REPRESENTATION.
Visit websites such as britfilm, screenonline, the British Film Council etc. Actively research such things as personnel, distributors, exhibitors, production companies etc.
Watch the three case study films if you can get hold of them. Think again about how and why they were made and why they are British films. What is it about them that is British?
Watch any other films that are classed as British from the last ten years. Look at them in the same ways as we looked at our case study films. Remember: LANGUAGES INSTITUTIONS AUDIENCES REPRESENTATION.
Friday, 21 March 2008
Broadcast News and Current Affairs: Gatekeeping
MCNELLY'S MODEL OF NEWS FLOW
An early point of criticism of the White model was that it showed only one gatekeeper rather than several, as one would normally expect to find in complex news operation. McNelly's model is addressed to this particular problem, since it seeks to represent the various intermediary communicators standing between the event and the ultimate receiver (newspaper, reader etc.)
The process which the model represents can be described in the following way, taking a hypothetical foreign news event. a foreign news agency correspondent learns of a news worthy event and writes a report which goes first to a regional bureau, from where it may be sent in shortened form to the agency central bureau. There it may be combined with a related story from elsewhere and sent to a national or regional bureau of the country, where it may be again cut for transmission to the telegraph editor of a newspaper or radio\television.
Through out the process, various forms of feedback response occur which may guide further acts of transmission.
The important points emphasized by the model are:
1. the fact that the gate keeping may well have been completed before the news reaches the telegraph editor of a newspaper, especially in the case of foreign news where foreign news decisions are made in a major bureau of big telegraph services;
2. gate keeping is much more than just selecting or rejecting, since the intermediaries often alter the form and substance of those stories that survive the journey;
3. gate keeping does not end with the news medium, since the initial receiver often acts as gate keeper for others;
4. Feedback is often infrequent and delayed.
The model is still in some respects incomplete in its own terms, since it could be extended as its initial stages. it tends to take 'newsworthiness' for granted and treats the agency correspondent as the primary source. There may well be two or three additional stages: there will be a witness to an event or one of the participants, thence often a local report, taken up by a stringer, and passed the agency correspondent.
An early point of criticism of the White model was that it showed only one gatekeeper rather than several, as one would normally expect to find in complex news operation. McNelly's model is addressed to this particular problem, since it seeks to represent the various intermediary communicators standing between the event and the ultimate receiver (newspaper, reader etc.)
The process which the model represents can be described in the following way, taking a hypothetical foreign news event. a foreign news agency correspondent learns of a news worthy event and writes a report which goes first to a regional bureau, from where it may be sent in shortened form to the agency central bureau. There it may be combined with a related story from elsewhere and sent to a national or regional bureau of the country, where it may be again cut for transmission to the telegraph editor of a newspaper or radio\television.
Through out the process, various forms of feedback response occur which may guide further acts of transmission.
The important points emphasized by the model are:
1. the fact that the gate keeping may well have been completed before the news reaches the telegraph editor of a newspaper, especially in the case of foreign news where foreign news decisions are made in a major bureau of big telegraph services;
2. gate keeping is much more than just selecting or rejecting, since the intermediaries often alter the form and substance of those stories that survive the journey;
3. gate keeping does not end with the news medium, since the initial receiver often acts as gate keeper for others;
4. Feedback is often infrequent and delayed.
The model is still in some respects incomplete in its own terms, since it could be extended as its initial stages. it tends to take 'newsworthiness' for granted and treats the agency correspondent as the primary source. There may well be two or three additional stages: there will be a witness to an event or one of the participants, thence often a local report, taken up by a stringer, and passed the agency correspondent.
Contemporary British Film:Media Languages, Forms and Conventions
Generic Codes and Conventions
Ae Fond Kiss and Love Actually belong to two of the most common genres in British film: Drama and Romantic Comedy respectively.
Codes of realism
Realism is the most common mode of address in film. The mise-en-scene will match that of the world around us. The events depicted in the film will closely resemble events that may occur in the real world.
This might suggest that films in such genres as comedy and science fiction might be outside this mode of address but this is not the case. Comedy takes place in a world that we recognize. The behaviour of the characters and the events depicted is outlandish but it is this juxtaposition of the real world and these odd events and behaviours that results in laughter in many cases. The world is internally consistent.
Ae Fond Kiss and Love Actually belong to two of the most common genres in British film: Drama and Romantic Comedy respectively.
Codes of realism
Realism is the most common mode of address in film. The mise-en-scene will match that of the world around us. The events depicted in the film will closely resemble events that may occur in the real world.
This might suggest that films in such genres as comedy and science fiction might be outside this mode of address but this is not the case. Comedy takes place in a world that we recognize. The behaviour of the characters and the events depicted is outlandish but it is this juxtaposition of the real world and these odd events and behaviours that results in laughter in many cases. The world is internally consistent.
Comtemporary British Film: Case Studies
This work on this unit involves three films as case-studies:
Ae Fond Kiss (2004)
Love Actually (2003)
Casino Royale (2006)
Ae Fond Kiss (2004)
Love Actually (2003)
Casino Royale (2006)
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