David Bordwell wrote that “Narrative is a fundamental way that humans make sense of the world”, a... more David Bordwell wrote that “Narrative is a fundamental way that humans make sense of the world”, a very solid statement, an event without a story to it is unheard of, if we are not told the story then what is left for us to make sense of the event? The notoriously ambiguous 2001: A Space Odyssey (see fig.1) is remembered for its groundbreaking visual effects and its distinctly noticeable lack of dialogue, with only 40 minutes in a 141 minute film. With such minimal dialogue, not necessarily always driving the narrative forward, we are provided with captions on the screen telling us the changing times, and some other very interesting visual story telling devices. I am going to be analysing the narrative of 2001: A Space Odyssey and whether or not the decision to remove a vast majority of the dialogue affects the way in which the story is told. From that, I am going to look into the relationship between image and sound, focusing on the way in which the narrative is driven forward through images and music, and whether or not this enables the viewer to interpret the film in their own way – just as Kubrick had intended.
I will be concentrating my research on the online marketing campaigns for three films, AI: Artifi... more I will be concentrating my research on the online marketing campaigns for three films, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Inception and Cloverfield. They each adopt different methods of online advertising from augmented reality games, to viral videos and websites. I will be discussing the limited use of social media within these campaigns and how they may have been damaging to the revenue and reputation of producers. I will also analyse the campaigns in relative depth as the intricacies of the Inception and Cloverfield campaigns undoubtedly contributed to their success. I will be looking at comment pages and blogging sites as secondary resources, getting to the heart of the campaigns at the time of their unravelling and noting the effects that they had on fans of the films, whether this be in a positive or negative way. I would like to formulate an idea about how some campaigns can be damaging and others successful and whether their techniques and complexity are attributed to this success. In this case, Inception was the most highly acclaimed and successful film at the box office but with a less complex campaign to Cloverfield and AI: Artificial Intelligence. I will be investigating into whether or not these online cultures matter to film revenue.
With four of the UK’s biggest internet service providers opting in to David Cameron’s “porn filte... more With four of the UK’s biggest internet service providers opting in to David Cameron’s “porn filter” (Penny, 2012) the question of censorship on the internet has been the subject of debate. Information circulates on the internet easily and quickly through file sharing sites like Dropbox, MediaFire and 4Shared which are three of the most used file sharing sites currently on the web (Ebizmba, 2014) as well as video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo and through the piracy network fronted largely by Pirate Bay. With approximately 2 billion world wide users of the internet (Internet World Stats, 2012) it is no surprise that governing such a space becomes an impossible task. China, famously created their “Great Firewall of China” which restricts inhabitants from accessing information deemed “threatening by the Government” (Open Democracy, 2013) which includes Google and Facebook. This control from the Government allows for such a sophisticated method of censorship to take place, however, “communities around the world have exhibited enormous creativity in sidestepping constraints on technology in order to exercise their freedoms” (Deibert & Rohozinski, 2010) and in the argument of liberation versus control in terms of the internet, the vastness of cyber space makes it seemingly impossible to govern. With “a significant proportion of social, economic and political activity across the world” (Margetts, 2012) taking place on the internet, it becomes increasingly difficult to govern the content being uploaded by users. Through these current developments of online censorship we can begin to map the impacts that they are having on users.
Film classification is the practice of assigning information and guidance to a film based on its ... more Film classification is the practice of assigning information and guidance to a film based on its content. The British Board of Film Classification is the non-governmental organization responsible for classifying films distributed in the UK and they define classification as a way in which to “give consumers information they might need about a particular film or video before deciding whether or not to view it, the BBFC examines and age rates films and videos before they are released” (BBFC, 2012). They look at “Issues such as discrimination, drugs, horror, imitable behavior, language, nudity, sex, sexual violence, themes and violence” (BBFC, 2012) when they make the decision to classify a film a certain way. They also have to consider how the film may make the audience feel through impact and context and how it will be classified for home release. The classification system is defined by age from a U which is suitable for all ages, right up to R18 which is used to identify films with explicit content only to be shown or sold in licensed premises. The BBFC have been responsible for classifying films since 1912 and it has been somewhat effective in policing film distribution. However, censorship is becoming an increasingly difficult part of film policy to regulate with the online video culture steadily evolving. When the organization first started, they would have only had theatrical releases to contend with, but now there are multiple avenues for viewing films including DVD’s, Blu-rays, digital files, on demand services and the internet. Piracy has also been a huge issue for classification as there is no policy to regulate who can download what, with underage children able to freely access content which has been deemed inappropriate for their age group by the BBFC. This of course raises the question; how are the BBFC going to keep up with a continually digitized society? Looking through policy documents on their website and addressing academic arguments surrounding film policy and classification, an analysis can be formed and the future movements of the BBFC subjectively determined.
David Bordwell wrote that “Narrative is a fundamental way that humans make sense of the world”, a... more David Bordwell wrote that “Narrative is a fundamental way that humans make sense of the world”, a very solid statement, an event without a story to it is unheard of, if we are not told the story then what is left for us to make sense of the event? The notoriously ambiguous 2001: A Space Odyssey (see fig.1) is remembered for its groundbreaking visual effects and its distinctly noticeable lack of dialogue, with only 40 minutes in a 141 minute film. With such minimal dialogue, not necessarily always driving the narrative forward, we are provided with captions on the screen telling us the changing times, and some other very interesting visual story telling devices. I am going to be analysing the narrative of 2001: A Space Odyssey and whether or not the decision to remove a vast majority of the dialogue affects the way in which the story is told. From that, I am going to look into the relationship between image and sound, focusing on the way in which the narrative is driven forward through images and music, and whether or not this enables the viewer to interpret the film in their own way – just as Kubrick had intended.
I will be concentrating my research on the online marketing campaigns for three films, AI: Artifi... more I will be concentrating my research on the online marketing campaigns for three films, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Inception and Cloverfield. They each adopt different methods of online advertising from augmented reality games, to viral videos and websites. I will be discussing the limited use of social media within these campaigns and how they may have been damaging to the revenue and reputation of producers. I will also analyse the campaigns in relative depth as the intricacies of the Inception and Cloverfield campaigns undoubtedly contributed to their success. I will be looking at comment pages and blogging sites as secondary resources, getting to the heart of the campaigns at the time of their unravelling and noting the effects that they had on fans of the films, whether this be in a positive or negative way. I would like to formulate an idea about how some campaigns can be damaging and others successful and whether their techniques and complexity are attributed to this success. In this case, Inception was the most highly acclaimed and successful film at the box office but with a less complex campaign to Cloverfield and AI: Artificial Intelligence. I will be investigating into whether or not these online cultures matter to film revenue.
With four of the UK’s biggest internet service providers opting in to David Cameron’s “porn filte... more With four of the UK’s biggest internet service providers opting in to David Cameron’s “porn filter” (Penny, 2012) the question of censorship on the internet has been the subject of debate. Information circulates on the internet easily and quickly through file sharing sites like Dropbox, MediaFire and 4Shared which are three of the most used file sharing sites currently on the web (Ebizmba, 2014) as well as video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo and through the piracy network fronted largely by Pirate Bay. With approximately 2 billion world wide users of the internet (Internet World Stats, 2012) it is no surprise that governing such a space becomes an impossible task. China, famously created their “Great Firewall of China” which restricts inhabitants from accessing information deemed “threatening by the Government” (Open Democracy, 2013) which includes Google and Facebook. This control from the Government allows for such a sophisticated method of censorship to take place, however, “communities around the world have exhibited enormous creativity in sidestepping constraints on technology in order to exercise their freedoms” (Deibert & Rohozinski, 2010) and in the argument of liberation versus control in terms of the internet, the vastness of cyber space makes it seemingly impossible to govern. With “a significant proportion of social, economic and political activity across the world” (Margetts, 2012) taking place on the internet, it becomes increasingly difficult to govern the content being uploaded by users. Through these current developments of online censorship we can begin to map the impacts that they are having on users.
Film classification is the practice of assigning information and guidance to a film based on its ... more Film classification is the practice of assigning information and guidance to a film based on its content. The British Board of Film Classification is the non-governmental organization responsible for classifying films distributed in the UK and they define classification as a way in which to “give consumers information they might need about a particular film or video before deciding whether or not to view it, the BBFC examines and age rates films and videos before they are released” (BBFC, 2012). They look at “Issues such as discrimination, drugs, horror, imitable behavior, language, nudity, sex, sexual violence, themes and violence” (BBFC, 2012) when they make the decision to classify a film a certain way. They also have to consider how the film may make the audience feel through impact and context and how it will be classified for home release. The classification system is defined by age from a U which is suitable for all ages, right up to R18 which is used to identify films with explicit content only to be shown or sold in licensed premises. The BBFC have been responsible for classifying films since 1912 and it has been somewhat effective in policing film distribution. However, censorship is becoming an increasingly difficult part of film policy to regulate with the online video culture steadily evolving. When the organization first started, they would have only had theatrical releases to contend with, but now there are multiple avenues for viewing films including DVD’s, Blu-rays, digital files, on demand services and the internet. Piracy has also been a huge issue for classification as there is no policy to regulate who can download what, with underage children able to freely access content which has been deemed inappropriate for their age group by the BBFC. This of course raises the question; how are the BBFC going to keep up with a continually digitized society? Looking through policy documents on their website and addressing academic arguments surrounding film policy and classification, an analysis can be formed and the future movements of the BBFC subjectively determined.
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Papers by Ellie Wilkin-Smith