Theories

 

Theory	Theorist	Description (100 words)	Example (100 words)
Media ownership / regulation	N/A	Media ownership and regulation impact the content of the media text provided. Rules could prohibit certain content from being shown at certain distribution channels at certain times (eg. watershed). Ownership could influence the content by altering what is shown to make things look worse/better than it actually is.	Regulation: Watershed 5AM-9PM (British ASA) prevents content deemed appropriate from being shown in that time period Ownership: Washington Post (Jeff Bezos) plays down his divorce while "The Sun"(british) rips him apart
Synergy	N/A	When a media text and another entity collaborate for mutual benefit.	Skittles + Shazam! Fury of the Gods Skittles were represented as a sweet treat similar to those available in greek heaven that unicorns eat. It was used to tame unicorns to defeat the antagonist army
Cross Media Convergence	N/A	When a media entity is available in 2 different forms	The Last of Us (2013) - Video game (Naughty Dog/Sony) The Last of Us (2023) - TV Show (HBO)
New Media	N/A	Newer forms of old media (technologically converged old media)	TV -> Phones/Computers Phones have allowed for content once exclusive on TV to be consumed on demand on the go Example: South Park. Once exclusive on TV now can be consumed on Southparkstudios.com
Two Step Flow	N/A	(Newer version of Hypodermic Needle Theory) The idea that we get our opinions from leaders	CNN using gay anchors on big shows such as Richard Quest (Quest means Business) and Anderson Cooper (Anderson Cooper 360) in order to normalise homosexuality on their international channels
Technological Convergence	N/A	When 2 completely unrelated things become one due to technological advancements	Phone + Arcade = mobile games Super Mario Run (2016). Mario arcade game is introduced onto the mobile gaming scene. It takes the retro original game and simply copies it onto the phone
Genre Theory	Steve Neale	Conventions set for a certain theme of a media text. They give an idea for consumers expectation however they cannot be fully confromed to as to make the movie still unique enough to be differentiated from others. It also helps companies diversify risks	Example: Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga vs Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker Genre theory helps set audience expectations for these similar pieces (Lego is more comedic where as Rise of Skywalker is more serious and dark)
Desensitisation	N/A	The idea that repeated exposure may normalise things for the audience	South Park: The Passion of The Jew S8E3 (2004) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) Both series show a vast amounts of anti-semitism and that may make such acts normal to audiences who have consumed vast amounts of such contents
Reception Theory	Stuart Hall	How audiences perceive media 1: Preffered reading: As the directors intended 2. Negotiated reading: Partially in line with director 3. Oppositional reading: Against director	Chad Wild Clay youtube channel (eg. He is Back... [Nov 19 2022]) Preffered: Wow the "Spy Ninjas" are so cool! "Project Zorgo" are evil Negotiated: I think the "Spy Ninjas" are kinda cool but I don't get why "Project Zorgo" is evil Oppositional: Cringe content. "Spy Ninjas" suck. "Porject Zorgo" better beat them
Cultivation Theory	George Gerbner	things get meaning from media. We get our opinions from media	Angel Has Fallen (2019) 12 Strong (2018) The Interview (2014)  All potray traditional enemies of the US as evil. This may have shaped people's opinions on such countries.
5 Narrative Codes	Roland Barthes	How meaning is given and how audiences are kept engaged 1. Proairetic = action 2 Hermeneutic = mystery 3. Semantic = connotation 4. Symbolic = Deeper meaning (could be repeated semantic) 5 Cultural = known beforehand by audience	1. El Higho (2023) trading drugs in the intro 2. Bond movie hiding the villain's face 3. "Who's the girl?" Frank asked to Bill. BIll doesn't answer. He's gay. Frank takes Bill's towel off. They probably had sex 4. Star Wras Universe. Good lightsaber = blur/green Evil = red 5. Passion of the Christ: Jesus is good
Binary Opposites	Levi Strauss	Opposite/contrasting ideas that drive the narrative forward. Director's opinions on topics are often shown through who wins these binary opposites	Star Wars - Freedom v Opression (empire) The English Game - Rich v Poor
Globalisation	N/A	The movement of information on a global scale	kpop
Social Learning	Albert Bandura	The tendency for one to repeat acts which they have seen on media (typically dangerous ones)

eexample: tide pod eating

FINAL COMP 1

 This post contains the final video

In case youtube takes down the video or you are unable to open it, try this link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jUf_AejWH2SthgArqCjoWyVD1VNXJukT/view?usp=share_link

Critical Self Reflection Comp 1

Context: 

Adobe Premier Pro (Post-Production Slide 20-23):

Behind the scenes of "El High-o"

This post is about the filming of El High-O by Jason

Behind The Scenes of Filming

First and foremost, special thanks to:

We decided that day 1 of shooting should happen on 15 Feb 2023

We started with filming the drone scene:

Lets Play "Where's Jason?"

On the same day we recorded the first drug trade. Because I had no role in that scene, I flew the drone to get a good alternative shot which ended up becoming a cut for a title.

Me preparing the drone as they tried getting the shot down

We also filmed the scenes with hired actor: Mr Taras Sagarda.

Day 2, 16 Feb 23

On the morning of that day we decided to practice som of the shots that we were gonnna do with Mr. Ben during media class with Mr. Nick

Mr Nick drawing some of his ideas for us

Us practicing a low angle 

At 3:30 we met with Mr Ben to start filming his scenes

Us showung Mr. Ben his script, role and making sure that he remembers his lines

Example of a video we got with Mr Ben

Day 3, 17 Feb 23

We started the day with some McDonald's

We then proceeded to record the ending scene with Gus's Camera.

Gus's Camera

Example of a clip that we got on that day

Unfortunately Baron had to go home so we hit the cinema to watch Ant Man. It also meant that we had to record again and quickly to save time for editing.

I went home because I didn't have money to watch, I just bought Mixue for my sister and left

Day 3, 22 Feb 23

We could not document much as it we were out in the open at school. Phones are heavily restricted and some of us have previously been punished for using it. The camera was fine to use but we focused on filming

attempt at handshake scene

This is the one we decided to use

We first tried the handshake in the car. Many parents could've been watching us so we had to be incredibly discreet. I was hiding in the building because I was bringing the weed prop and didn't want to get seen by parents.

Once the area was empty we could then commence on a scene where the car had to back away quickly, which would be impossible during pick-up peak traffic.

Jason's editing experience

 this post is about the visual effects used and how it was edited - Jason's Post

EDITING!!!!!!!!

Because my computer is basically a Potato, I decided to edit where I got editing lessons ESDA Denpasar.

Job 1: The Drone Shot

the raw video

what we want to do

Step 1: Search youtube for solutions

This was far above my editing capabilities so far. Luckily I found this!

 so boom boom copy copy

I applied the camera tracker and added text with the decided font: Overwave [https://www.dafont.com/overwave.font]

While doing this we wanted to slightly edit the font

1. Baron wanted it to blend more with the wall

2. Gemi wanted it to be pure white

I had an idea to add glow to it

We ended up liking this one so we used it

After that I masked the text so it wont spillover and it left us with this:

So I uploaded it to Google Drive and Gemi can continue editing

Time spent: 1 Hour

Job 2: El Higho End Scene

The Idea was to have the El Higho text appear and shake in time with Gemi's cough which would be dubbed later on by Gemi. There is a problem with the rendering which caused audio to be sped up.

I learnt how to this at my lessons beforehand. Its just keyframes :) 

the raw video

But first we have to make sure the font looks good!

We chose the Doctor Punk font for it [https://www.dafont.com/doctor-punk.font]

1. Default

2. Niki wanted to invert colors and make thicker outlines which looked like this

we thought the outlines were too thick so...

boom, everyone liked it :)

At this point in time, there was a conflict of ideas

1. Niki wanted the text to appear one by one. [so "El" then "High" then "-O"] which looked like this:

2. Gemi wanted the text to enlarge and spin like this:

They compromised and decided to do both ideas at once and asked to make it faster becuase they thought the enlargement was "awkward"

Niki sent some drawings to help me

So we chop-chop edit and.....

Got approval from the crew and we move on

Time Spent: 2 Hours

Job 3: The Alleyway Transition

For a smooth transition we decided that the background behind Javier Raton should disappear as he walks

raw vid

This uses roto brush. Simple!

A roto brush tutorial for context

I turned the background to green so that it would work like a greenscreen when Gemi edits the final version. I was forced to make the video more zoomed in so it would work [discussed w/ Gemi about this beforehand]

So we got this:

and approved

Time Taken: 2.5 hours for 5 second video

Post-production [Gemi's editing experience]

 Here is the editing process of the movie. This post was produced by Gemi [teammate]

Our friend Gus Yudha does most of the camera work since it's his camera and he is the only one that knows how to operate the ronin mechanical tripod well. Some scenes really look professional and smooth due to the tripod. The camera was only used for the main shots, not the drafts or practice. The picture under is Gus.

We could have planned the schedule for the filming better, it took a while which limited the editing time. We did a lot of improvises along the way. (Like the alleyway after the car scene).

We did some drafts for clean drug transactions that look good on camera. We planned to make at least 3 different drug trades in different locations:

Our first rough draft:

• Too short
• Too simple
• Only 2 people

Behind the scenes

The second draft is roughly what's going to happen for the real drug and brownie trade, only need to edit the jump cuts to make it feel fast-paced as this is an action movie. I really like how the camera switches point-of-view to inside the locker as Jason tries to get the drugs. We added that undershot of baron to replicate a feeling to the audience that the teachers are the ones the dealers are afraid of but learn not all of them are bad. When we implement this for our film, we can't have more than 2 drug trades with different locations, due to the limited 2-minute duration cap. 

We used WhatsApp as our main communication method, it also has a feature to use voice messages and our friend Elang recorded the roar. We had the idea of changing the distributor credit opening in a more funny way, we spoofed it since we need a more comedic part, our movie is Action/Comedy. Also recorded the ambient noises of the school canteen to fill off space at the beginning.

The footage we recorded was all in big sizes, instead of using hard drives or USBs, we thought it will be better to take advantage of our special school gmail's google drive that has infinite storage. Everyone can also access it instantly. This probably saved a lot of production time.

I used premiere pro for editing, I'm more familiar with this software and if I'm confused in some parts since premier is so popular, I always get what I'm looking for most on Youtube. I'm in charge of every editing and Jason did the transitions between the clips with his software Adobe After Effects.

Special animations are better done with After Effects

Greenscreen alleyway clip

l

Jason used the roto brush feature on After effects to create some sort of green screen for another way to transition. To remove the greenscreen, I added the clip I want to transition above the green alleyway clip and used a tool from premiere which is the Ultrakey.

A simple drag and drop, then change the ultra key color to green to remove it.

Alot of the scenes uses jump-cuts. Thankfully it's very simple as I just have to cut clips and some scenes according to the beat of the song (Living La Vida Loca).

Raw footage, no jumpcuts

• 
  

After editing

I realized while editing, the camera work is the most important part of the whole movie making in my opinion. Without it, it's really hard to edit and put them all together. If done well, editing gets much easier as I just place one scene and another together without further touches.

Jason owns a drone at home so I had a great idea to fly down the drone with its built-in camera to transition to the first drug scene. It's a great way to elevate the opening's action feeling. Stuff like this enhance quality without intense editing. But of course, the drone or a professional movie boom arm were needed.

2nd drone shot

Establishing shot

Following typical high-school starter openings we added an establishing shot of the whole school with the drone also.

The next thing I did was edit our main antagonist, our teacher Mr. Benjamin roleplayed as the movie's school principal. He is meant to look intense, scary, and menacing on screen, we also added an easter egg where he mentions 'maggots' referring to the students because he is a military veteran. We chose him because his appearance looks like a stereotypical strict principal. 

We added a decent amount of different types of shots to show his character and appearance. We didn't show his face because it keeps the mystery to keep the audience interested. Jason did the camerawork.

Arranging the clips was easy but the hardest part was putting everything in sync with the audio. It's hard because the speech must follow his lips to make it synced. It took a while but trial and error did the trick. I used the website Soundtrap to edit the principal's voice with a reverb sound effect to make him sound like he is actually talking with the P.A mic. A good touch to enhance the quality of the footage. 

Principal scene

Mr. Benjamin's audio on Soundtrap

The audio clip sounded a little odd due to a recording error, the audio sounded like it was more strong on the right side of your ear if you use headphones, so I lowered the pan. Next to the pan wheeler is the reverb which increases sound echo, simulating his voice like being heard in hallways.