Funky Time

Today we explored Stop Motion and made our own video. We used a Canon camera and put it on continuos mode.

Human Traffic

Human Traffic is a film that focus's on the rave scene in the 1990s, when drugs and clubs were at their high. Its about five friends in Cardiff and their mad weekend off together, going to clubs and partying. It was directed by Justin Kerrigan and was released in 1999, at the end of the era.

Many people have said it was exactly like they remembered the nineties and was pretty much and autobiography, and others said it was nothing like the 90s and was too over the top. Of course, everyone have a different experience and so you would expect people to disagree. The filmed is mainly aimed at people who lived through the 1990s as a 18-30 year old

I'd considered the film to be British and all the actors and the director is also British. Unlike a lot of movies today which are produced by an American company, Human Traffic is produced by Fruit Salad Films which is an Irish/British company. In this respect I would class it as a British film. 

The characters in this are all part of a social group who share a common interest, drinking, drugs, music and partying every weekend - this brings it into a real context, people are friends with others they share a common interest in (and for a lot of people its the same things as the people in this film), the audience can relate to the characters in one way or another as they are pretty ordinary people. Each character has a weakness, Jip - sexually paranoird, Moff - bad life at home, Lulu - feminist, Koop -jealous and paranoid his girlfriend will leave him and Nina - Doubts herself. These insecurities also help the audience to identify with them.

Human Traffic is set in the Wales, United Kingdom. It only shows people from that area and so it is culturally biased, people from other countries (and even the UK) may have not had the same experience in the 90s as they characters did in this film. The way the film is shot, being narrated by Jip and the characters talking into the camera give it a documentary feeling and involve the audience into the film. Instead of feeling like a viewer, you feel like a participant.
In the intro it shows people at festivals and clubs partying which does show you an insight of what it was like at the time - not just the good points and partying, but also what was going on in the news and riots. 

The scene I have chosen to analyse is the scene where Moff and his new found friend are talking about Star Wars. It is shot from mainly a static angle which looks at both characters in the same shot, it just focus' on them and doesn't move in or zoom, it makes the audience feel as though they are an observer at the party watching the convocation. This makes them feel more involved and emphasizes how it is a socially realistic film.

I don't think Human Traffic promotes drug usage through the effects and uses of gratifications because it's down to what the people thinks and not how the media effects them, but how they affect the media itself.

Hyperdermic Needle, Two Step Flow Chart and Uses of Gratificiation.

The Hypodermic Needle/Syringe Model

This model says that the media is directly inputted into the receivers mind and they accept it.

Two Step Flow Chart

This is when you are influenced by somebody else to like something, it can be a celebrity you look up to, a member of family or a friend. The media is passed on secondhand to people who are influenced.

Uses of Gratification

Instead of asking people what media does to them, this theory asks what people do to media. It says that the audience are responsible for what they do with media and they choose for themselves.

Jeff Buckley - Grace (1996)

Jeff Buckley is my favourite musican and I thought why not post a music video of him?

All the video is set in a sepia filter and is mainly performance based of Jeff Buckley and his band, with a little bit of concept thrown in there. It's quite a dark music video filled with shadows, which contrast with the light that is cast upon the performers from different angles.
It is full of quick shots of the band from different directions, and also just random objects, such as a water glass, road signs etc. There are very short cuts of the video between scenes which look like old burnt film. This combined with the sepia tone give it an old fashioned feeling, and shots show Buckley in a Taxi (possibly) going around a city.

In the last minute or so of the song when it reaches its climax the video speeds up, some parts in fast forward, and things crash to the floor, like a vase of flowers which was previously seen in the video. This part of the video reflects well to the music but none of the song really relates to the lyrics.

It comes to an end of an extremly high note that Buckley is singing, and the video ends with a close up of his face in black and white with extreme contrasts between the shades and then fades out to a black screen.

Do people copy things they see in films, TV and computer games?

Studies in psychology show that people do get too involved in films and videogames to such an extent they think they are part of it. This has happened in the film Natural Born Killers.
The film was released in 1994 and is said to have influenced Columbine High School Massacre in North America and a couple who went on a killing spree in France.



With video games becoming more and more lifelike, I think people will start to copy things in videogames. Howeverer, I think it is all dependant on the person and how they think. The percentage of people who play videogames and are influenced by them is a lot lower than people who play videogames just because they enjoy them.
As TV and games advance in technology, such as 3D, it will keep progressing until it is a virtual reality and appear as the people are actually in the game. I think this will lead to problems and the players will become too involved and may leave behind their sense of reality.

Censorship

Censorship is when something is considered too rash for the public and so it is censored to stop harmful or senstive issues affecting people. Several films have been banned for being too racy or aggressive, these include, The Last House on the Left, A Clockwork Orange and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. All these films were made in the 70s and were all banned for the violence or disturbing nature of them. 

Caitlin Moll's A2 Media Blog :): Stop Motion

Caitlin Moll's A2 Media Blog :): Stop Motion: Me and Holly were brainstorming and decided that we didn't like the first storyboard we created and we wanted to do something else. We then ...