Skip to main content

Preliminary Exercise 4: Analyzing Setting for National Lampoon's European Vacation PowerPoint Presentation

   Setting plays a huge role in film. Setting in film refers to the time and place that the story takes place in. Setting can be in limbo, realistic, and non-realistic. The setting of a story can changer throughout the way. The key characteristics of a film are cinematography, mise en scene, editing, sound, and acting. The most significant characteristics for a film producer would be mise en scene. The following would be in the order of cinematography, sound, acting, and editing. Setting is very important in mise en scene because it reveals codes about the character, creates the mood, and reinforces the genre. 

   The objective of this assignment was to document and analyze the elements of setting in a media text. Me and my partner created a PowerPoint for this assignment. We were analyzing a 3:36s clip from a movie called "National Lampoon's European Vacation". The movie was about an American family going on a vacation trip to London. Throughout the trip they kept on running over things, viewing Americans as inconsiderate and British as forgiving. We were analyzing the place, geography, time period, mood, message, genre, and the setting values. While analyzing 

   We designed the PowerPoint as a bulletin to emphasize the mood of traveling. Cooperating with the elements of setting. This assignment required us to do a PowerPoint of 3-5 slides of our analyzation of setting and include pictures. This assignment taught me that setting is much more than just indicating the time and place. The setting helps to emphasize the mood of the scene and even indicates the social and economic values. Me and my partner decided to split this assignment up by having me put the research and my partner design the PowerPoint and edit. Now that we know our strengths and weaknesses we have been cooperating very well together. We have learned many new things about setting, such as it can influence a character's decisions in a movie. This project was very helpful and a fun experience. 








   

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Preliminary Exercise: Introduction to Storyboarding: Camera Angles

 Hello everyone,    During media studies class we have been focusing on the importance of camera angles. Camera angles marks the specific location at which the camera is placed to take a shot. This evokes a different experience and sometimes emotion. Camera angles includes low angle, high angle, overhead level, Dutch angle, eye level, hip level, knee level, and ground level. A high angle shot is where the camera looks down on the subject from a high angle. This shot emphasizes the subject vulnerability, or their lower status compared to another subject. This can be used to imply danger or tension. A low angle shot would be the opposite of this but can be used to evoke the same feelings. This camera technique is when the camera angle is positioned below the eye line of the subject, pointing upwards. This can convey vulnerability or power or a mixture between these two.     For this assignment I had to draw an example of each camera angle and include some details of the angle. My drawing

Preliminary Exercise 1: Barthes’ Theory of Denotative and Connotative Signs Semiotic Analysis Table

 Hello everyone,    During Media Studies class, I have been learning about semiotics. Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and what they are used for or interpretation (hidden meaning). Roland Barthes proposed this idea. Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' theory focused on reading signs and their hidden meanings. It focused on their interpretation by different cultures or societies. Suggesting that the physical form of a sign can be interpreted to have a hidden meaning, used to signify something. He uses the example of a photograph of his mother. The photograph corners were faded signifying his mother is dead but still has a great love for her for he still has the picture. Denotation is the actual meaning of a word or picture, while connotative is the meaning or symbolization of the word or picture. For example, a red rose symbolizes love and romance. The red rose will be the denotation, while the feeling o

Preliminary Exercise: Introduction to Storyboarding: Shot Sizes

 Welcome everyone,    During media studies we have been focusing on the importance of shot sizes. A shot size is how much of the setting or subject is displayed within a frame of the shot. This helps to emphasize specific emotions, ideas, and movements for each scene. For example, the establishing shot is usually the first scene of a movie. It’s used to establish the location and environment of a place. This can be used to establish mood and give the audience visual clues regarding the time period and general situation.    For this assignment we had to create a storyboard about the different types of shot sizes. We had to draw an example of the shot and include some details about the shot to help us memorize it. There were ten shot sizes I had to learn: establishing shot, master shot, wide shot, full shot, medium full shot, medium shot, medium close up, close up, and extreme close-up. These were fairly easy to learn. I worked on this assignment alone, since this was just notes. Later o