Audience and Institutions Essay

4.) Discuss the impact of funding on media products.

Nowadays mass media seems to aim towards one goal, profit. Whether that be blockbuster movies, youtube videos, or the news. Media is heavily reliant on ad revenue, private backers, and audience reception; all of which dictate how much money that product will gross. All types of media are seen as an investment, stakeholders invest their money and trust the production to make back on their contributions, and more. The effect of this relationship has affected the actual media product itself, leaning towards the interest of the stakeholders.

An introductory example would be the fourth installment of Hasbro’s franchise’: Transformers the Age of Extinction. This movie cost around $210 million dollars and grossed a total of $1.104 billion dollars. The reality is that $800 million of that came from overseas, with the majority coming from China. It’s quite interesting that a solid chunk of their profit came from one country. This is because the movie was orientated towards the Chinese market. Basically the second half of the movie takes place in Hong Kong and is the prominent backdrop for the action sequences. Scenes where it apparently has no value to the story rather than to promote Chinese brands and celebrities is rampant. China has recently had an economic boom like we’ve never seen before and with the government slightly loosening their grip on businesses, there's opportunity for profit.  With that comes a new new untapped market that the studio can profit from.

The hotly debated topic of media and its authenticity is prevalent these days. However, it is important to note the interests that are leaning and dividing platforms left and right. Most local national and local news organizations rely on non public funds to run their platform. These backers have their own agendas and push their beliefs onto these organizations where they then distribute that information to the masses; resulting in the lack of bi-partisan journalism. It’s well known that the more people you have watching, the larger the audience to profit from. The added urgency to accumulate as large of an audience base as possible leads to polarizing and simply disingenuous news articles and headlines. In the age of the internet of things, news companies feel the need to be the first to release breaking news. This can lead to objectively false or unverified information permeating the news cycle. A systematic effect of how news media outlets are financed in the status quo. 

Youtube is another platform that has been affected by how the organization is funded. Youtube creators make their money from ad revenue that Youtube establishes by making deals with other corporations seeking to insert their ads on the site. With Youtube being the second most viewed site on the internet and boasting around 2 billion users, it’s understandable why corporations want to advertise to that audience base. The issues arise when corporations start to pull their ads from certain creator’s  videos that they deemed inappropriate and not following their company's persona. Youtube has wholeheartedly backed their stakeholders whether their claims were justified or not in an attempt to save their revenue stream. In response, Youtube enacted strict guidelines to what can and cannot be posted and set an algorithm to prioritize the content they deem fit. Effectively, many Youtubers have been demonetised and their channels flagged for insignificant breaches of Youtube's absurd content policy.  Numerous content creators have criticized Youtube’s ad policy and how it’s disabling their audience from watching videos that they’ve subscribed to. 

As I reiterate, the way media is funded undoubtedly affects the content they produce. Unlike publicly funded institutions like PBS or the BBC, the majority of mass media products are funded by private means. The media companies effectively give up their autonomy and follow guidelines set by their shareholders for the fear of losing funding. It’s up to the individual media organization to find the balance of abiding to investors, and creating genuine content that they want to exhibit to the world. 

TEA Extract Essay: Game of Thrones

This is the practice essay I did for the extract of Game of Thrones

Watching the Game of Thrones extract I gained the sense that the director was trying to build suspense throughout those scenes. I am a Game of Thrones fan and finished the Game of Thrones series so I had extensive knowledge of the lore in the show. Since I’ve watched the show I know that the product is drama, a long drawn thriller meant to put the audience on the edge of their seats wanting to see what happens next. Hence, the purpose of each scene is meant to further the story through suspenseful narrative. In this extract, the director aimed to build suspense through camera shots, movement, editing and sound to further the narrative. 

The first scene is an aerial shot of a ship moving across the ocean with diegetic sounds of birds and the waves crashing. This establishing shot sets our characters as somewhere far away, they’re traveling to a place that far away. The scene then cuts to a two shot of our protagonist with a determined look on their face as they approach their destination. The camera zooms into an eye-line of the two characters as the scene zooms outwards, and pans to reveal a giant statue set above them as they enter the harbor. The camera goes into a wide shot and further zooms out revealing how minature the boat is compared to the statue and the city. Supporting this feeling of grandeur is the score in the background invoking the sense anticipation for what’s about to come.

After the establishing scenes, we move to the two protagonists waiting inside the bank in which they have a meeting. The camera shows a medium two shot of the characters with Stannis Baretheon pacing around while sir Davos is standing still. The shot then jump cuts to a wide shot of the two men alone in the gigantic room. A shot reverse shot is seen in this moment of conversation between the two men as the camera shifts to show when each man is talking. Sir Davos is trying to by time by small talking but a reaction shot of Stannis’s piercing stare silences him.  During this time there is an observable lack of sound in the room, only diegetic noise; this is meant to heighten the anticipation of the scene. 

Suddenly in the midst of waiting, a group of bankers appear as a tracking shot follows them to their seats. Most of the shots from here on are made up of wide shots and medium close ups to show when one is talking. Cross cutting is often used in this scene between the protagonist and the bankers as both are awkwardly staring at each other while making conversation. The continual cross cutting and shot reverse shots is overlapped by Stannis’ failed attempt at convincing the council to fund his usurpation. It comes down to sort of ex machina where Sir Davos gives a persuasive speech to convince the council to think otherwise. Along with this filibuster, are quick camera cuts to the dialogue of Davos and the council, to close up of Stannis’ face staring at nothing with the backdrop of Davos and the council faded in the back. 

In general, the aim of the directors in these scenes, as I reiterate, is to lead the audience on a suspful trail towards confrontation where the protagonists have to find a solution for.

TEA Extract: Game of Thrones

This was apart of a practice extract I did for Game of Thrones in preparation for the AICE paper component.

Film Final

CCR

This is our critical reflection video. Since Covid-19 has quarantined us in our respective houses we relied on filming on our cellphones from home. We each did a question from the CCR except for Preace as he had internet issues. Dividing up the work made this component much easier than doing all four different CCRs for each person. Also contributing ideas flowed between the group to help us answer the questions to a better ability.

Mid-Term Music Video

We did our Mid-Term music video project on the Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis song 'Thrift Shop'. When assigned this music video project we knew immediately that this was the song we're going to do since we've discussed this previously. Going into the project, we knew that we had to find a proper setting to conduct our shoot. My partner Preace said he knew a little thrift shop that we could visit and ask to film since it fit the aesthetic of the quaint thrift shop. We asked the shop owner if we could use his store as the set and surprisingly he agreed. Actually we had to locations we filmed at: the local thrift and a Goodwill, we didn't ask permission to film there more like we starting filming and they didn't really say anything. 

Commercial

This is my AICE Media commercial me and my partner did for Gatorade. This was our first project of the year and we could choose which brands we made a commercial for and we choose Gatorade since we knew the formula for Gatorade commercials quiet well and could replicate it effectively. The normal conventions for sports drinks focus on showing the audience how the product improves performance. We aimed to do just that by showing the improved performance. Since this was our first project, we were just starting out how to use effective camera angles and edit the footage. Alas as time went on, we got better at all things film related.