Representation of American Beauty:

Representation of Lester Burnham:
Lester is unsatisfied with is life and is lazy this is shown by the way he speaks. The way he acts also shows this because he is very sluggish, slouches and holds his head down showing he doesn't want to interact with anyone. His life is not how it used to be, also his family have dominated over him because him wife has become the male figure. Lester is forced to sit at the back of the car like a child showing his family no longer treat him with respect. Lester is jerking off in the shower which he claims is the highlight of his day telling us that there is no longer a strong marriage and they aren't having sex.

Camera work:
when Lester is taking a shower there is a plastic screen all the way around him, also he is looking at his wife from the inside of his house through the window and when he is at work the reflection on the computer screen has lines on it which go across his face. These things represent the fact that he is trapped in a life that he doesn't want. when Lester is in a meeting he is shown very small at the bottom of the screen sat on a chair, this shows his status and how unimportant he is. In another scene Lester is lying on his bed and half his face is in the darkness, this could show that he is hiding in the dark and wants to hide from the outside world.

Mise en scene:
The colour scheme is dull with creams and browns reflecting his boring lifestyle. Red, white and blue can often be seen and occur regularly representing the American title. Roses also often appear as these link to the films title.

Sound:
There is non-diegetic sound which is music playing whilst Lester narrates. The music is slow, repetitive and boring also reflecting on his lifestyle. Also when he speaks the narration he has a constant tone showing his lack of enthusiasm. 

Textual Analysis and Representation (The 7 key areas of representation).

you need to understand these technical elements (in the last post) create specific representations of individuals,groups, events or places and help to articulate specific messages and values that have social significance.

Particular areas of representation that may be chosen are:

• Gender
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Sexuality
• Class and status
• Physical ability/disability
• Regional identity

Textual Analysis and Representation (The 4 key areas of textual analysis).

Camera Shots, Angle, Movement, Composition

• Shots: establishing shot, master shot, close-up, mid-shot, long shot, wide shot, two-shot, aerial shot, point of view shot, over the shoulder shot, and variations of these.
• Angle: high angle, low angle, canted angle.
• Movement: pan, tilt, track, dolly, crane, steadicam, hand-held, zoom, reverse zoom.
• Composition: framing, rule of thirds, depth of field – deep and shallow focus, focus pulls.

Editing

Includes transition of image and sound – continuity and non-continuity systems.

• Cutting: shot/reverse shot, eyeline match, graphic match, action match, jump cut, crosscutting, parallel editing, cutaway; insert.
• Other transitions, dissolve, fade-in, fade-out, wipe, superimposition, long take, short take, slow motion, ellipsis and expansion of time, post-production, visual effects.

　Sound

• Soundtrack: score, incidental music, themes and stings, ambient sound.
• Diegetic and non-diegetic sound; synchronous/asynchronous sound; sound effects; sound motif, sound bridge, dialogue, voiceover, mode of address/direct address, sound mixing, sound perspective.

Mise-en-Scène

• Production design: location, studio, set design, costume and make-up, properties.
• Lighting; colour design.

Camera terminology task:

1. Over shoulder
2. High angle shot
3. Low angle shot
4. Tracking shot
5. Sideways tracking
6. Tilt shot
7. Zoom
8. Arc shot
9. Crane shot
10. Panning shot
11. Extreme long shot
12. Long shot
13. Mid shot
14. Two shot
15. Close up
16. Point of view shot
17. Extreme close up

Mock Research:

1. What % of global box office was the British film industry responsible for? 15%.
2. What was this % in 2009? 6.8%.
3. What might this change indicate about British film? It is becoming more popular worldwide and in England too, we are making more captivating films.
4. What films have been responsible for this change? Skyfall accounts for $1.1 billion of the $5.3 billion of the UK's tally, in 2011 Harry Potter was the reason for the higher market share with the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and The King's Speech. Films that were released without the backing of a major US studio, also did well in worldwide cinema The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Woman in Black, which made $135m (£88m) and $128m (£83.4m) at cinemas worldwide.
5. What % of the British film industry makes a profit? 7%.
6. What % of Hollywood films make a profit? 17%.
7. How does that % differ between £2m and £10m budget British films? £2m budget films only 4% made a profit and the £10m 1budget films 7% made a profit.
8. What might we infer from this difference? higher budget films made more profit.
9. Which age group makes up the largest % of UK cinema goers? 36% over 45s, 25% 15-25s.
10. Why do you think this might be? there is a rise in films aimed at an older audience
11. Which 'type' of film has seen an 18% drop in attendance? 3D films.
12. Within that 'type' which genre has seen the biggest fall? family films.
13. What did Charles Grant put this decline down to? Families need to economise, prices rise when 3D premium is taken into account as well as the need for paying for parking and tickets. He also said that 'the word can circulate when there's just a shoddy conversion' from a normal version of the film to 3D.
14. Who is Paul Greengrass? A British film director.
15. How did he describe the British film industry? A 'success story' and he predicted it would continue to see international growth, especially in China.
16. What did a BFI spokesperson say was the point of less profitable low budget British films? He said they are 'successful and beneficial to the industry for other reasons like skills and training development and for artistic and cultural importance'.
17. What was the budget for Filth and how much money did it take? Roughly the budget for Filth was £2 million and it made £4 million at the box office.
18. What advantage did James McEvoy feel £100m films have over low budget films? He said that they have a large budget to sell the film. He said that 'films like Filth can be leagues ahead of the $100m movie, but they've got no money to get a poster in the paper. So who's going to come and see them?'. 
19. What is VOD? video on demand.
20. What % increase did VOD see last year? 50%
21. What impact might VOD have on distributers and Studios? less impact
22. What impact has it had on Blockbuster rental stores?
23. What was unique about Ben Wheatleys 'A Field In England'? It was the first UK film to be released at the same time in cinemas, on TV, on DVD and through video on demand.
24. What does director of The Machine Caradog James think is the toughest part of film making? A film may be good but getting it to reach the audience is the toughest part.
25. Why have rules been relaxed on what makes a film 'British'? To encourage more investment in the UK film industry.
26. How has the use of visual effects in films been encouraged? They will include an increase in the opportunities available for using British visual and special effects. companies.
27. Name five of these rules and link them to The Kings Speech, Kill List, The World's End. End Film is set in the UK, British lead actors and majority of cast, lead characters are British citizens or residents, film based on British subject matter or underlying material, British director, scriptwriter, producer, composer, key staff and crew.
    The King's speech starred mainly British actors such as Colin Firth and Helena Bonham-Carter, it was based on a British subject matter and is about British heritage, which is another rule, the lead characters are British citizens, the director Tom Hooper is British and so are other members of the crew such as the scriptwriter, also it was filmed and set in England.
    The majority of The World's End cast were British actors such as Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as it's lead characters are British citizens. It was set in England and filmed in England, it's based on an underlying English material like pub crawls and the director Edgar Wright is British, other key members of the crew are also British, for example one of the producers Nira Park is.
    Kill List is set and filmed in England, it's lead characters are British citizens, the majority of the crew are British and director Ben Wheatley.
28. What rules has chancellor George Osbourne announced for tax on British films?He announced that tax relief would be increased from 20% to 25% on the first £20 million of qualifying production expenditure. Furthermore, productions will only have to spend 10% of their budgets on UK expenditure to qualify (down from 25%) to help more independent production companies and make the UK a more attractive co-production partner.
     
29. What is the highest grossing film in UK box office history? Skyfall
30. How much has it taken and how many screens was it available on?  It has taken £94.3 million in the UK and it was available in 587 cinemas.

Camera Angles, Shots and Movements

Film Production Task:

The Avengers

Development:
The idea for the film came from the marvel comic books. Marvel studios agreed to make the film and the studios is owned by Disney.  the film budget was $220 million dollars and was produced by Kevin Feige.

Pre production:
The script was written and directed by Joss Whedon. The film stars Robert Downey. Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Remmer, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgard, Samuel L.Jackson. It was filmed in America in various locations such as Pittsburgh, Worthington Pennsylvania at Creekside mushroom farms, Columbus Ohio based 391st Military Police Battalion, a vacuum chamber at the NASA Plum Brook station near Sandusky Ohio, the Detroit superior bridge, park avenue and central park.

production:
Filming the movie took cameras used were digital Arri Alexa, the Cannon EOS 11 and Cannon EOS 7D SLR digital cameras, Arriflex cameras.

post production:
The film was edited by Jeffrey Ford and Lisa Lassek. The film was released in the UK on the 26th of April 2012 and on the 11th of April 2012 in the USA. the film used ILM Zeno for modeling, Maya for animation, Pixar Renderman for rendering and the animated version of New York city were created using approximately 1,800 panoramas. The film was marketed in many ways such as TV conventions, posters and trailers in movie houses. One film review said that if you are a marvel fan then the film will feel like christmas however if you are not then watching it wont be enjoyable. Another said that the film is well worth your time and there is little moments in the film that are not fun. A third review said it is a slick block buster of what may be the ultimate team. A forth review said the film keeps the marvel comic crazed audiences and keeps the rest of us moderately happy. Finally overall another review said watching the movie with such vividness and ease it is tempting to overpraise the good but not great movie. the film made $200.3 million at the US box office and $25.5 million in the UK. The film made $641.8 worldwide. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on the 25th September 2012.

Les Miserables

Development:
The idea for Les Miserables came from the french historical novel by Victor Hugo. Pinewood Studios agreed to make the film owned by a group led by Michael Grade and Ivan Dunleavy. the films budget was $61 million and was produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Debra Hayward and Cameron mackintosh.

pre production:
Directed by Tom Hooper. The film stars Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfried. It was filmed in England and France. There were many locations used such as Boughton House, Winchester College, Winchester Cathedral Close, Her Majesty's Naval Base Portsmouth, Chatham Dockyard, St Mary the Virgin Church, Ewelme, South Oxford-shire, Greenwich, pinewood studios, Gourdon Aples-Maritimes in France.

Production:
The cameras they used were a 35mm spherical package of ARRICAM Lite and Studio cameras with ARRI/ZEISS Master Prime Lenses.

Post Production:
The film was edited by Melanie Ann Oliver and Chris Dickens. It was released on the 25th of December 2012 in the US and the 11th of January 2013. The film used SFX and CG special visual effects. The film was marketed in many ways such as TV conventions, posters and trailers in movie houses. One review said that is you are a Les Miserables fan then you will be happy with the film. Another review said they hate every minute of it and waked out because they couldn't hold of till the end because of the drama and singing not getting better.  A third review said its so strong with a lot happening so you don't quite know what you have witnessed. A forth said that the actors singing live on camera keeps the bewitched fans that love the stage play. A fifth said that every word of the dialogue was sung so it become painful to endure. The film made $103.6 million in the US and made over $400 million world wide. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on the 22nd of March 2013.