Page Layout And Design

Page Layout And Design Assignment

Poster Research

        The poster below is a quick information guide to always have your brain open meaning always try to be learning.

Another poster as you can see below was one which was used in World War 1, this poster targets all the men thinking that there country needs them otherwise they're going to lose the war. Fortunately for Britain our people listened to the poster and signed up to the army, even 250,000 young boys lied about their age to sign up to be in the army. They thought it was a necessity to join.

I have completed 2 posters which are shown below, for one poster I have put a lot of words on it meaning it is a long document so people who want to read more about it can do. 

Below are both of my posters, the first one with a lot of writing on, the point of this is for people have to read it to understand what is happening to the bursaries. All of my mages I used apart from the ' NHS ' logo was creative commons approved therefore weren't copyrighted meaning I could use it.

The poster above is more straight to the point, yes it does have a few words on it but it isn't as informative as the first one. 

" Repayment terms are the same as for other students who have taken out a student loan at university. Graduates become eligible to pay back their loans in the April after they graduate, and then they will have to pay back only 9% of their earnings over £21,000 per year. For example a newly qualified nurse earning £21,700 would pay back £5.25 per month. "

" If income drops below £21,000 for any reason, for example because of part-time working or a career break, repayments stop. Any amount not paid back after 30 years is written off by the government. Students who undertake nursing, midwifery and allied health professional subjects as a second degree will only be required to make repayments on the second loan once the balance of the first loan has been repaid. "

 - Quoted from 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-bursary-reform/nhs-bursary-reform

The poster above is a better version of the one I earlier did, it is better at it uses most of the white space and the title is also further together, next I will be putting an image below the text and the NHS logo. 

This is my final version of my poster, it uses all of the white space available to it and gives relevant information about the Bursary system.

What does BOSS stand for? - Bursary Online Support System

What can I do in BOSS? - 

• Submit a new or a re-application for an NHS Bursary.
• Notify us of a change in circumstances to a current bursary application.
• Apply for Dependants Allowance. This is a a section in the main application form on BOSS and it will only appear if you answer 'yes' to the question whether you will have somebody (a partner and/or child) who will be wholly or mainly financially dependent on you.
• Submit an application for Disabled Students Allowance. (The link to this will only become visible on your BOSS home page once you have clicked 'Submit' on your bursary application.) 
• Change the bank details you want your bursary to be paid into.
• View your annual bursary entitlement and the dates your payments are due to be/have been made.
• View the supporting evidence you are required to submit to support your application.
• Download a student coversheet (which must be sent off with any supporting evidence, paper forms and other correspondence that you send us).

What can't I do in BOSS? - 

Additional Allowances

The forms you cannot complete through your BOSS account, and that must be printed and posted to us, are:

Childcare Allowance (this form must be countersigned by your childcare provider or we cannot accept it)

Childcare Reconciliation (this form must be sent to us with your student coversheet or we cannot reconcile your costs)

Practice Placement Expenses (this form must be countersigned by your university and they will send it to us - don't forget to provide your university with a copy of your student coversheet which you can print off from your BOSS account)

Self declaration forms

Current Income Assessment (PSM1 CI)

Confirmation of Pay (PSM60)

Confirmation of Personal Pension Contributions Paid (PSM90)

I have used most of the white space provided as you can see above, there are important facts about the bursary system and also funny pictures which also get the points across, for example the coffin picture represents how the NHS is dying.

If I had to pick between the posters I would pick the first one, as it shows more in depth however very easy to read and quickly, it also shows good images such as the political side of the NHS e.g. Keep off the NHS Tories.

Above is a screenshot of earlier in the year when I was tasked to complete a page assembly exercise, it looks very similar to a newspaper.


Sourcing images in my page layout assignment - I got all of my images I used in this assignment from flickr.com - I chose to use flickr as I know many photographers like the software as well as the people from flickr respect their wishes and only allow them to be uploaded for a non copyright reason, e.g. helping people in college out who aren't allowed to use copyright images e.g. from Google Images.

Stop Motion Animation Assignment 2

Stop Motion Animation Assignment 2 

For my assignment I have been asked to develop  ideas, plan, prepare and produce my own piece of stop motion animation. This piece of animation will be considered to be shown at a cinema screen at the end of the year show. My finished piece will be at least 30 seconds long and have its own soundtrack. In my piece I will also have credits and titles at the end.

For my animation piece there are many different ideas which I can use, one of these is pixilisation. As in my previous blog, an example of pixilisation is shown below, a link to a youtube video where a man is cutting his hair with his hands, then reverses it.

Another type of animation which I can use is Time Lapse, at the moment this type of animation is the type I would like to make my animation piece on, I have yet to make my mind up on what the time lapse is going to be. An example of time lapse is shown below of a sunset.

At the moment I am thinking of creating an animation piece based upon time lapse either of something being cooked in the oven therefore the time lapse would be for example Yorkshire puddings rising or another example I could put ice cream under hot lights and make a time lapse of the ice cream melting. an example of these are shown below.

I have now decided I am going to create a time lapse on ice melting in a glass, it will be shot on an iPhone 5S which is very good quality. I have made sure that my iPhone 5S has a good quality time lapse option and I have created a draft time lapse from the top floor of Middlesbrough College looking out at the Transporter Bridge as well as cars going past and people playing football. Below is this 24 second long time lapse.

I have now completed my animation however I have not yet edited it or added a soundtrack, the link to the unedited version is linked below.

How I filmed it

I completed this animation task by placing around 8 ice cubes in a glass and putting it on my radiator in my bedroom, I already knew I was filming the time lapse on my iPhone 5S so I then put my camera into time lapse mode and then started filming, I made sure that my light was always on so you could always see the ice melting. It was quite an easy project to film. It took around 1 hour for most of the ice to melt. It is a 33 second time lapse, the soundtrack which is going to be on my animation is Ice Ice baby by Vanilla Ice. The frame rate is 30 seconds per frame. Kieran Atkins helped me with the credits where it says where the music is from as well as the director and produced by Ryan Boston. The ' glitch ' in the middle of the timelapse was me knocking the camera as my phone was running out of charge.

( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog8ou-ZepE ).

Below is my finished version, it has been edited and has had a soundtrack added to it, I edited this in a programme called Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015, this is a good piece of equipment to use as it is an easy software programme to get used to. I enjoyed both editing and filming this project. I knew that it it is in my best interest to work independently and not just at college. To achieve the highest grade possible I need to produce a stop motion animation with soundtrack to a technical quality that reflects near professional standards, working independently to professional expectations.

For my feedback from my class peers I will use Padlet - https://padlet.com/ryanboston31/ryanboston31


Below are a few screenshots of how I edited my animation.

The sudden cut at the end was very hard to edit, I had to make the most of the time otherwise it would've been even worse however with the 

Communication Assignment

Communication Assignment

Market Research

I have been asked by the college to produce a report on my TV show idea that includes market research, audience research and production research. The TV show I thought of would be called ' A Group Of Guys ' a panel based comedy TV show hosted by a celebrity e.g Ben Shepherd, ( the show would be sport based with different rounds meaning there would be something different every round therefore making it less likely for the public and audience to get bored. A similar TV show which can be compared with ' A Group Of Guys ' is ' A League Of Their Own ' hosted by James Corden with the famous Jamie Redknapp, Jack Whitehall and Andrew Flintoff. As you can see below ' A League Of Their Own ' reached the second most viewed TV Programme on Sky 1 in September, only Hooten the lady beat it. Hooten The Lady had over 2 million people watching their show live overall in the full month whereas A league of their own only had around 1.4 million watching overall. 

Similar to A league of their own is another game show called Play to the whistle, this is also a comedy based sports programme also with a very popular host Holly Willoughby - alongside her is Frank Lampard ( a very popular footballer who used to play for Chelsea and is now at New York City FC ). Romesh ( a well known comedian ) is also on the show and he is also my favourite person and personally I think he makes the show, just like Jack Whitehall on A league of their own. Finally Bradley Walsh is also a massive star for ITV as he hosts The Chase and he also is on Play To The Whistle competing against Romesh and Frank Lampard on the opposite team. In my opinion I think this show is also a very good one for its genre, many people think they're just copying A league of their own by doing the exact same thing but just different games, if ITV wanted to get ahead of A league of their own and its rival in the TV industry Sky 1 they would need to make sure many more people know about the show e.g advertising and promoting the show as well as after each season making sure there is another one which is going to be aired in the next couple of months as this is exactly what A league of their own do - I am saying this because just looking at the statistics for each episode I can see there has only been 14 episodes of Play To The Whistle as you can see below compared to A league of their own which has had 118 including the U.S Road trip which had only James Corden ( as he was in America at the time due to him hosting another show on CBS network called The Late Late Show With James Corden ), Jamie Redknapp, Jack Whitehall and Andrew Flintoff. I'd like to conclude this section with an image as you can see below of how many seasons Play to the whistle has had and when these were.

Audience Research

The audience target for ' A group of guys ' is most likely to be adults / teens and both male and female people, this is because there isn't going to be just sport in the programme, it will have sport but mostly adult humuoured comedy also. However it would be a good idea for the audience both at home and in the studio to be up to date with news stories which are about sport. For example Lance Armstrong taking illegal substances to make himself a better performer and in a result of that when he finally got found out he got all of his trophies and medals removed from him. A different type of research is demographic data, this data shows the different characteristics of a population such as the age, gender and the income of that person. An example for this TV show could be a 18-24 year old who consumes A league of their own, plays FIFA 17 and visits Twitter. This could have an indication of data to the person collecting it because lots of people would use Twitter on their smartphone and to play FIFA 17 you either need a PC, Xbox or PlayStation therefore using this data they may now know about income compared to another person. Another example of this type of data is shown below.

Production Research

There would be many roles for the production side of the TV show including a producer(s), cameramen , actors ( the celebrities which would be on the panel ) , editors, grips, sound specialists, special effects, props, lighting technicians, hair and make up. This is just a short list of how many people you would need to make a TV show a good one. There are many different types of equipment out there which can be used to shoot a TV show, from low end quality to high end quality. Since it is my first time making a show I wouldn't invest in all the equipment yet as it would be cheaper to hire equipment from a website such as hireacamera.com. For example I would want the top range equipment but may not have the financial statement to do so therefore I would have to rent the equipment which is better than not having it at all. As you can see below there are 2 images both representing the price per day just to hire one camera. To have this camera for 7 days it would cost £319.50 including VAT. 

Another example is shown below, this is a piece of equipment to make sure the lighting is correct and is well lit around people who are important ( for my case the celebrities on the panel ). This means just this 2 piece of lighting equipment would cost £229.50 including VAT also for 7 days costing £549 just for these to pieces of equipment, they're vital so I would have to pay that.

My TV show studio would be based in London, UK, I would choose this location as it is very common for big celebrities to live there as it is the capital city of the UK and therefore it would be very easy for them to get there. It's also the biggest city in the UK therefore it is more likely for the audience e.g tickets to sell out the quickest.

To conclude I think I have given enough research ( Market, Audience and Production ) to produce a report on a TV show idea which I have created. I also think this information could help other people starting a TV show as it could give them an idea of what to do.

Proof Read + SPaG Check

Market Research

I have been asked by the college to produce a report on my TV show idea that includes market research, audience research and production research. The TV show I thought of would be called ' A Group Of Guys ' a panel based comedy TV show hosted by a celebrity e.g. Ben Shepherd, ( the show would be sport based with different rounds meaning there would be something different every round therefore making it less likely for the public and audience to get bored. A similar TV show which can be compared with ' A Group of Guys ' is ' A League of Their Own ' hosted by James Corden with the famous Jamie Redknapp, Jack Whitehall and Andrew Flintoff. As you can see below ' A League of Their Own ' reached the second most viewed TV Programme on Sky 1 in September, only Hooten the lady beat it. Hooten the Lady had over 2 million people watching their show live overall in the full month whereas a league of their own only had around 1.4 million watching overall. 

Similar to A league of their own is another game show called Play to the whistle, this is also a comedy based sports programme also with a very popular host Holly Willoughby - alongside her is Frank Lampard (a very popular footballer who used to play for Chelsea and is now at New York City FC). Romesh (a well-known comedian) is also on the show and he is also my favourite person and personally I think he makes the show, just like Jack Whitehall on A league of their own. Finally Bradley Walsh is also a massive star for ITV as he hosts The Chase and he also is on Play to the Whistle competing against Romesh and Frank Lampard on the opposite team. In my opinion I think this show is also a very good one for its genre, many people think they're just copying A league of their own by doing the exact same thing but just different games, if ITV wanted to get ahead of A league of their own and its rival in the TV industry Sky 1 they would need to make sure many more people know about the show e.g. advertising and promoting the show as well as after each season making sure there is another one which is going to be aired in the next couple of months as this is exactly what A league of their own do - I am saying this because just looking at the statistics for each episode I can see there has only been 14 episodes of Play To The Whistle as you can see below compared to A league of their own which has had 118 including the U.S Road trip which had only James Corden ( as he was in America at the time due to him hosting another show on CBS network called The Late Late Show With James Corden ), Jamie Redknapp, Jack Whitehall and Andrew Flintoff. I'd like to conclude this section with an image as you can see below of how many seasons Play to the whistle has had and when these were.

The audience target for ' A group of guys ' is most likely to be adults / teens and both male and female people, this is because there isn't going to be just sport in the programme, it will have sport but mostly adult humoured comedy also. However it would be a good idea for the audience both at home and in the studio to be up to date with news stories which are about sport. For example Lance Armstrong taking illegal substances to make himself a better performer and in a result of that when he finally got found out he got all of his trophies and medals removed from him. A different type of research is demographic data, this data shows the different characteristics of a population such as the age, gender and the income of that person. An example for this TV show could be a 18-24 year old who consumes a league of their own, plays FIFA 17 and visits Twitter. This could have an indication of data to the person collecting it because lots of people would use Twitter on their smartphone and to play FIFA 17 you either need a PC, Xbox or PlayStation therefore using this data they may now know about income compared to another person. Another example of this type of data is shown below.

Production Research

There would be many roles for the production side of the TV show including a producer(s), cameramen, actors (the celebrities which would be on the panel), editors, grips, sound specialists, special effects, props, lighting technicians, hair and makeup. This is just a short list of how many people you would need to make a TV show a good one. There are many different types of equipment out there which can be used to shoot a TV show, from low end quality to high end quality. Since it is my first time making a show I wouldn't invest in all the equipment yet as it would be cheaper to hire equipment from a website such as hireacamera.com. For example I would want the top range equipment but may not have the financial statement to do so therefore I would have to rent the equipment which is better than not having it at all. As you can see below there are 2 images both representing the price per day just to hire one camera. To have this camera for 7 days it would cost £319.50 including VAT. 

Another example is shown below, this is a piece of equipment to make sure the lighting is correct and is well lit around people who are important ( for my case the celebrities on the panel ). This means just this 2 piece of lighting equipment would cost £229.50 including VAT also for 7 days costing £549 just for these to pieces of equipment, they're vital so I would have to pay that.

My TV show studio would be based in London, UK, I would choose this location as it is very common for big celebrities to live there as it is the capital city of the UK and therefore it would be very easy for them to get there. It's also the biggest city in the UK therefore it is more likely for the audience e.g. tickets to sell out the quickest.

To conclude I think I have given enough research (Market, Audience and Production) to produce a report on a TV show idea which I have created. I also think this information could help other people starting a TV show as it could give them an idea of what to do.

Stop Motion Animation Assignment

Stop Motion Animation Assignment

I have been asked to create ideas for a piece of stop motion animation which is going to be completed by students and then be shown onto a big local cinema screen, this is from digital graphics to video and stop motion.

Cel Based Animation

Cel based animation is a traditional form of animation used in the productions of cartoons and short films / animated movies where each frame of the scene is drawn by hand. A full length feature film produced using cel animation would often require a million or more drawings. An example of cel based animation is shown below, it is an animated film called Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs created by Disney, an example of a scene of the movie is shown below which is the transformation from a woman to an old witch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMU8qT1bJA8

Cut Out Animation

Cut Out animation is a technique for producing stop-animations by using flat characters, props and backgrounds cut from materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. An example of Cut Out animation is below, its a paper cut out animation piece where paper has been cut into shapes for example a sun and clouds which are then coloured in to make it look realistic. 

Paper Cut Out Animation from shirlene on Vimeo.

Another example of cut out animation is South Park as you can see below, it is an animated TV series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, The characters in South Park and the props and backgrounds are all a cut out animation piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOOdByzGxOY

Model Based Animation

As you can see below is a short video animation piece which I have just created, I have created this by using modelling clay to create a character. I used iStopMotion 3 to complete the task I was given, my animation was 17 seconds long as you can see. I completed this task by taking single images per every shot, each shot was 1 second long therefore there is a lot of shots in this short animation, this can be compared to big movies and TV series like Shaun The Sheep and Wallace and Gromit where there must be thousands of shots. This is how modelling clay can be used to create animation. At around 9 seconds in I selected all of it then copied and pasted then reversed it which added another part to the short animation. The camera I used is called HueHD, a clever camera which is very flexible making it a lot easier for the animation to be filmed.

Another example of modelling animation has been created by Ryan Marr, he used the same technique as I did however his animation was longer than mine therefore there are many more shots. 

 

Another example of modelling animation has been created by Ryan Marr, he used the same technique as I did however his animation was longer than mine therefore there are many more shots.

Below is a link to a short animation, myself, Jared and Ryan created, it is from cut out things from random magazines. I enjoyed doing this excercise as it was something very different to the other types of animation, however it was a little bit more difficult thinking of ideas to create a short story from the magazines. I maybe tempted to attempt this type of animation in the future however I have not yet decided. For this excercise as it was a practice we thought we'd make the storyline comical which is why Leonardo Di Caprio is being born by a random model with a body lotion as his body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPzp-tY9Bwc&feature=youtu.be

Pixilation

The video below is an example of Stop Motion Animation me and Ryan Marr completed, the animation was based on pixilation which is to do with people. The size for our short 15 second movie was 960 x 540 px, being 12 frames per second making 174 frames. The way we did this we used was iStopMotion 3 with the use of ' Onion Skin ' which is where you get to see where about's you left off due to the image you took before hand then being transparent. MP4 files are compressed down to a good size so its easier and quicker to upload as well as it being HD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6PFmv_Pjf4&feature=youtu.be

Below is a link to a professional example of Pixilation animation from Joe Weller, a famous celebrity YouTuber, due to it being made by a real animation company they use many features to make sure the audience look at it and think its very good, one of the features they use is the branches they use as ski's to ski down the muddy hill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo2-wdEVZi4

Another example of Pixilation animation is the video below where a man is using Stop Motion Animation to get a haircut, the programme and features he has used make it look impossible to do. He also then reverts it which makes it look even better!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HCdlc4xONg

Time Lapse

Below is a link to a YouTube video showing a house being built in a time lapse format, this video shows a house being built in 7 minutes which actually took them 6 months to build. Time lapse is something different compared to all the other techniques of animation, it can even have background music on such as if it was a time lapse of a city from morning to night. An example of a time lapse could be taking a picture of a flower every hour for a week then viewing the footage back and seeing what has changed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOY3gVV_KRE

Persistence of Vision

Persistence of vision can be justified as an optical illusion for the human brain where it can take lots of still images and put it into a film and it looks as though that thing/person is moving etc. The lowest rate for persistence of vision to work is 12 frames per second, anything under this the brain can make out it is looking at still images. Professional companies will use 25 frames per second for animation and video, this means they spend much more time and effort into their pieces. In the USA the standard is 29.97 frames per second meaning its more than the professional standards of the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heRuLp7CyTM

The link above is about a man ( Eadweard Muybridge ) who wondered when he raced his horse if all 4 legs came off the ground at one given time , to check to see if this was the case he lined up many cameras and as the horse went passed the cameras they took pictures of it. As you can see below Eadweard Muybridge found out that his horses legs did come off the ground all at the same time.

Early Animation Devices

There were many different animation devices before what we use today, one of these devices was called the Zoetrope, this was a piece of equipment where you would draw around 20 images around it and then spin it, one example could be horses galloping, of course this is only what your brain thinks however it is actually still images. The link below is an example of around 20 drawn horses all very similar however different being spun around making it look like the horses are running.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBg6dAE3mI0

Another example is the Kinetoscope, this was invented by Thomas Edison, this piece of equipment at the time was a very clever idea, it was used by lots of film in a device with headphones. This was a series of film which could tell a story / play. The example below was one of the first ever films which was created. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmZ4VPmhAkw

Another example of an early animation device was a Mutoscope, this was also a device which you could watch a play / short film on, the way it worked was there would be pictures in a device and which you would run your thumb over, telling your brain it was moving however they were just still images. As you can see from the link below, it looks as though it is moving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs3y-lhVWbc

Finally there was the Thaumatrope which was 2 pictures on each side of a circular piece of paper, this was then turned at a fast pace which made your brain they were together, below is a link of a bird and a cage looking like they're together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46Mlr4hvW-E

Pioneers of early animations

George Melies

George Melies was a French illusionist and film maker/director and was famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of the cinema. He was born in Paris, France December the 8th 1861 and died January 21st, 1938 ( Aged 76 ). He was known for his involvement in The Voyage Across the Impossible, A Trip To The Moon, The 400 Tricks of the Devil and The Devilish Tenant, however he was involved in many more short films. 2 of these short film links are below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrdVdKlxUk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPmKaz3Quzo

Winsor McCay

Winsor McCay was a writer, producer and director, he was born September 26th, 1871 and died aged only 62 on July 26th 1934. He was mainly known for Little Nemo which was a short animation TV series and Gertie the Dinosaur. Winsor McCay was exceptionally talented in animating and the way he coloured in every part of the story. The animation was the piece of a 10 minute short film entitled "Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics". Winsor McCay set a very high standard with this piece of animation and therefore had a big impact on animation. The link below shows a short TV series about Little Nemo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW71mSedJuU

Lotte Reiniger

Lotte Reiniger was born on the 2nd of June, 1899 as Charlotte Reiniger. She was a Director for animation projects and a writer. She is known for her work on ' The Adventures Of Prince Achmed ' and ' The HPO '. When Lotte Reiniger started doing animations she got very successful, it meant she could go to the institute for cultural research which was an experimental animation and short film studio. This was where she met her spouse, Carl Koch. She made six short films whilst she was there, all produced and photographed by her husband, some of these films even had special effects for there time - this being a silhouette falcon for a dream sequence for the film ' The Nibelungs '. As you can see below there is a link to a silhouette feature in "Däumelinchen".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDojanzKKmw

Finally Lotte Reiniger was a big animator back in her time, she was a specialist in silhouette animation with her husband, as you can see above is an example of her work, the cut out animation is superb, it must have took her a very long time to get perfect.This animation piece was made in 1935.

The information from this blog hopefully develops ideas for a piece of stop motion animation and how different parts of them can be explored and explained.

Ownership and Structure in the Creative Media Sectors - Assignment 1

Understanding Structure and Ownership in the Creative Media Sector.

There are many companies in the world who produce and distribute films and franchises, one of these is 20th Century Fox - classed as one of the ' big six ' ( 6 major conglomerates ) who do both distributing and producing top end films. The ' big six ' in the film industry are Universal, Disney, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. These companies alone are worth billions of dollars. The film industry is a huge place of business, for example the structure of 20th Century Fox is shown below, the flow chart represents the companies 20th Century Fox owns and the films the companies have produced. For example as the flow chart shows 20th Century Fox is a media conglomerate ( group or company which owns large numbers of companies in all of the media such as television, film, publishing and the internet ), which means in this case they own Blue Sky Studios which have produced both the Rio and Ice Age franchises and also 20th Century Fox own 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment which have produced Seal Team 8 Behind Enemy Lines and In The Blood which aren't the highest grossing films but still have made money.

20th Century Fox is one of the biggest film companies ever known, as you can see below is an image of 20th Century Fox's top grossing film with Avatar in the lead making $749,766,139 overall in the USA - this is also the biggest grossing films ever in the world overtaking Titanic.

As you can see above Avatar made $2,783,919,982 overall whereas Titanic made $2,207,615,668. The image above represents the biggest grossing films in history which can be looked at because there is only one before the 2000's which is Titanic. Avatar has been the leading worldwide box office from the year 2009 and it is still the top grossing, this is an interesting fact because the producers of Avatar ( James Cameron and Jon Landau ) are bringing out an Avatar 2 and 3 sequel therefore making it a franchise, the sequel to Avatar ( Avatar 2 ) is being released in 2018.

There are many ways the film industry makes money, for example this can be from general ticket sales to merchandise such as mugs, T-Shirts etc. The main way they make money is from ticket sales from cinemas and theaters around the world if it is a big film such as the Star Wars franchise. Another way they make money is from DVD and Blu Ray sales months after the initial release of the film. Very similar to DVD and Blu Ray sales is TV and streaming sites such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video and also TV such as Sky Store and Virgin Movies. Film companies can also sell new movies to airplane companies who do long haul flights such as British Airways to show to their customers so they don't get bored on the flight. Next is another way for film companies to make money which is to sell the license to authors to produce a book on their behalf, for example ' The Girl On The Train ' was released 15 January 2015 as a book and now in 2016 it has had very good reviews from all different people and they have decided to make a film therefore making more money.  Video games is also a very clever way of making money for example, Lego games have been released multiple times which are similar to the movies e.g Lego Batman , Lego Marvel Super Heroes, etc. These types of games also have micro-transactions in them therefore Warner Bros studios will make even more money. Finally tourism also plays a huge part into making money for big companies such as Universal studios in both Florida and Paris.

There are many different media ownership's from private to cross media, for example a private company who owns the rights to its company. An example of a private ownership is MTV, this programme would have different advertisements ( which is a big way of them making money ) compared to somebody like National Geographic. A public service is somebody like the BBC, they make money from the UK residents paying for their TV licenses as well as making money from merchandise and DVD’s etc. Cross Media is the ownership of multiple media businesses by a person or corporation. These businesses can include broadcast and cable television, film, radio, newspaper, magazine, book publishing, music, video games, and various online entities such as The Sun. Independent media refers to any form of media, such as radio, television, newspapers or the Internet, that is free of influence by government or corporate interests. The term has varied applications. Within the United States and other developed countries, it is often used synonymously with alternative media to refer to media that specifically distinguish themselves in relation to the mainstream media. In international development, the term independent media is used in relation to the development of new media outlets, particularly in areas where there is little to no existing media presence. Finally a conglomerate is Universal studios which is a film company owned by Comcast and NBCUniversal, universal studios has many subsidiaries such as DreamWorks Animation and Working Title Films.

There are many takeovers in the film industry, for example Disney has bought the Star Wars franchise - Lucas told Iger he was considering retirement and planned to sell the company, as well as the Star Wars franchise. On October 30, 2012, Disney announced a deal to acquire Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion, with approximately half in cash and half in shares of Disney stock. Walt Disney Studios also own Marvel , which they paid $4,000,000,000.


MTV is privately owned and own the rights to itself and is not a subsidiary to any other company in the industry. MTV makes a lot of money by viewers who tune into weekly shows such as ' Geordie Shore ' and ' Just Tattoo of us '. These shows get a lot of viewers who mostly only tune into the channel to watch something like one of the programmes listed. MTV make money mostly from adverts, and if the channel is achieving a lot of viewers then their advert revenue is going to be higher than it would be if there were only a couple of hundred people watching instead of thousands. Viewers who watch these types of shows are usually a teenager kind of audience which then means the adverts which are then targeted towards teenagers.

The film industry is one of the largest and most profitable sectors in the media industry. In the UK it employs 27,800 people, 62% of these people are employed in exhibition, 34% in production and the remaining 4% in distribution. The film industry is dominated by the major companies ( Universal, Paramount, 21st Century Fox, Disney, Lionsgate. ) These companies tend to make the big films which are released into cinemas across the globe, they tend to be able to do this as they have bigger budgets to produce whatever they like. There are also small film companies such as Pinewood Studios which is a small British film company, these kind of companies tend to produce smaller films, however these films can sometimes become very successful and therefore they may use it as an investment onto a bigger, brighter film. The film industry can be compared to the TV sector, this is because they are connected by the fact that channels often play films such as big companies like Sky with their movie channels ' Sky Movies '. You also get films on channels such as Channel 4, but they aren't as new compared to the ones on Sky Movies. Films are also mainly advertised on TV, both the cinema and DVD releases. As I was saying earlier in the blog, films and computer games often spin off each other either way, for example you could say that The LEGO Batman games had a positive impact towards the making of The LEGO Batman Movie, there are many films which make developers make games such as Transformers, Marvel Super heroes etc.

Assignment 1 - Pre Production

Pre - Production assignment 1

I have been asked by Middlesbrough College to prepare a blog post to explain to new students coming into the college next year, who are considering making their first film, how they may want to plan their short film productions and how they may want to monitor each stage of the production process.

Step One:

As it is my choice I'd preferably choose a film compared to a TV or video type of production. These can be compared and be all completely different in their own separate ways, they would be planned. For example for a film you could be thinking about making it into a franchise or making only one of them, which can be compared to a TV series where there has to be another episode until the finale. It also needs to be planned differently as you may need to think about different scripts , characters, plot and a story line and if there are any dilemmas you want to be in it. 

Step Two:

Secondly there are many ways to manage your time in this project, there is also a document called a ' Call Sheet ' this document is needed for all professional film directors and people who are starting in the trade, this document is essential, it is used for people to know exactly what they're doing at a specific time, for example if they're shooting different parts of the film on different days and different times of the separate days, the image below would represent a part of a ' Call Sheet '. This part of the call sheet is completed which shows in depth where everybody should be e.g. if you're a member of the crew you should be at the studio for 9.30 getting the equipment checked over and making sure everyone knows what they will be doing when they get to the correct locations e.g. Car Park, Scrapyard, Bus Station and the abandoned warehouse. If every member of the cast and crew have one of these and they're late or don't turn up to the shoot then the producer can question there whereabouts and can then have a reason to fire that person.

These work sheets are very important in the media industry because it puts everyone on the same page and as long as everyone gets one there can be no confusion where people are at a time of the day e.g if they are in a wrong place and they are late to set. Another part of the ' Call Sheet ' is the location list and cast list which is shown in the image below , this shows you where the filming will take place at various locations. Also on the ' Call Sheet ' is the assembly point which is where you would meet everyone when lunch time has occurred etc. Below is a completed call sheet where it tells you the correct places to be at a certain time, for example everybody should be in the car park at 10AM.

Step Three:

There are different ways to choose what resources you will need, one of these you can choose is BECTU.org - this website is for people who need to know what kind of people they will need for the production. For example the website shows you from people who would be working in the Art Department to the Camera Operators and the Editors. BECTU.org also shows you the recommended rates and the actual rates which are given to companies/ independent workers who will be in the shoots. For example a camera operator would be getting £620 if he was to work in a high budget film compared to a film operator in a low budget film only getting £373 - these rates are per day.

There is also another way of finding out what resources you will need to carry out a short film, this document is called a Script Breakdown. As you can see below there are many slots which need to be filled out before the production is anywhere near started, for example ' W/R ' = Wardrobe ( What clothes you need for that certain scene. ) Another example could be if you need a sword, many people would think it would be classed as a prop however when shooting any sort of film you need a weapons specialist who has a license to use them therefore a sword would go in the SFX/WEAPONS slot. This document is essential before starting your production as it helps understand what everyone needs to buy/rent in their separate teams and also what people you may need to bring in e.g. weapons specialist.

Step Four:

One way you can manage the budget for your certain project is the use of Microsoft Excel, it is a very easy platform to use and you can get many things out of using it, you can easily find out how much camera equipment , lighting equipment etc is to rent , then put it into an Excel document and find out how much overall it will cost you to get the products you need. As you can see below is an example of an Excel Sheet, this shows you how much a film shoot costs to run ( Prices came off www.hireacamera.com for cameras and lighting equipment ). In the spreadsheet there are slots for camera equipment, lighting equipment, camera operator, the main key grip, editor and the first assistant cameraman, just these people and the equipment total to £5,101 for just 3 days ( excluding the editor ).

Step Five:

On a film shoot you need to communicate with the people you are working with and in order to do this there are documents which can help you, one of these documents is a storyboard, a storyboard helps the actors as well as the film crew know what they're doing and how to film a certain part of the film correctly, as you can see below this is a completed storyboard, it is in depth as it shows you where the director wants the shots at different angles, e.g it has close ups and an over shoulder shot. This is an important part of the pre-production planning.

Step Six:

For a film to be broadcasted correctly there are certain rules and permission which have to be completed accordingly to correct laws. For example before anybody is filmed a ' Contributor Release Form ' has to be signed by every actor therefore they cannot say they don't want to be in the film, the producer can then say they have signed a document which means they can publish the film worldwide without any hesitation. One of these documents can be seen below. I have completed an example of one which would be completed with an address and a signature.

To conclude I think these six steps and the information provided with the examples will help new students who are considering making their first film a lot easier and how they can monitor each stage of the production process made out to them.