Audience and Institutions Practice Essay

Has the audience consumption of movies changed over time?

Over the course of time movies have changed drastically in terms of how they are made, who watches them, and what the movies actually show. Technology has played a huge role in not only the production quality of movies, but also the way people can watch movies. With the introduction of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, I think it’s safe to say that the movie industry has changed for the better. 

First let’s talk about how it all started. For the biggest movie company in the world right now holding about 36.3% of US/CA Market Share as of 2018, Disney started off with one of the first animated movies in the world, Snow White. This movie was a simple one, made with stop-motion animation and drawings of the characters moving at high speeds through the camera roll to portray an animated character. This was obviously a kids' fantasy movie starring Snow White and her dancing 7 Dwarves, but soon the way people saw movies would change. Marvel, a subsidiary to Disney after they bought them for over $4 BIllion, would work on the movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. This box office hit raked in over $860 million because of it’s humor and action packed scenes; however one thing that is often overlooked is the complexity of animation that the film had. It portrayed giant aliens and spaceship fighting scenes which, in my opinion, is a big step from flashing drawings in the Snow White movie. Time has shown that animation in movies is getting much more complex and involves much more technology then it did before. There is an 80 year difference between the release date of these movies and a slightly bigger gap in terms of when they were being worked on. Audiences are now treated with intricate yet understandable animation that brings the movies of today that are “it” factor that we’ve all grown accustomed to. 

Secondly, the way people view movies has also changed. Before people would have to go to a movie theatre in order to watch a movie because those were the only places that offered the technology to display these features. Now people can watch a movie anywhere they want. Thanks to the likes of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video people have the technology to run a full film right in their pockets. According to “The Ins and Outs of Hollywood Film Distribution,” by Jonathan Paul, “With each passing year, digital distribution is positioning itself to surpass disc-based media as the top home-entertainment revenue.” This goes to show that people used to rely on DvDs and Blu Ray disks in order for movies to be available at their homes; however, now people can use these digital viewing apps to watch these movies for almost less of a price then what a movie theatre ticket would cost. 

From everything that I have presented it is clear to see that the way audiences watch these movies has undoubtedly changed over time. With the new online streaming services, the evolution of filmmaking technology , and the new ways movies are being presented, it’s clear that time has revolutionized the kinds of movies we watch.

CCR TMZ Interview

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions And how does it represent social groups or issues.
 -My movie follows the conventions for the normal introduction to an action movie. Most of the action movies that I have watched, the majority, have never been too serious. Most were comedies or light-hearted action movies, and that’s what we were trying to go for. In the beginning of action movies like, Guardians of the Galaxy, you are introduced to an old nostalgic song that instantly gives you a fun, up-beat mood. We tried to go for the same in our movie. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to use Teddy Bear by Elvis Presley in our movie because I sent RCA Records, the owners of the rights to the song, an email and they never got back to me. Instead, me and Andrew had to settle for a royalty free track that we found online. We checked through many different websites looking for a track that sounded similar to Teddy Bear but we couldn’t find anything similar. So, instead, we switched gears and went for a more rock song. Me and Andrew had two different songs we wanted to have on the movie and because he ended up finishing the editing over the quarantine we went with his song. Or he went with his song. A social group, maybe people who are too good at what they do. Let me explain. Our character is an ex-military sniper. He is retired obviously from the first few scenes. And then as he is eating his breakfast, that we see him make in the beginning, another government official comes to his front door knocking. Once our character opens the door, the official tells him that he has a new mission to do. Our character closes the door in his face. So what I mean by people who are too good at what they do, our character was good enough at his job that the government wants him to come back to do another mission. I don’t think we really highlight any active issues or any social problems.

2.  How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?
 - I think our product engages with audiences with the music, the different elements, and the comedy at the end. First the music. The music is loud, powerful, and hard to ignore since the starting second of the movie. It instantly changes the mood of the film and sets a mood for the rest of the 2 minutes. It is up-beat, it is happy, and its hard not to give any attention. The different elements of the room and his morning routine also played a crucial part. The breakfast was something relatable and something that everyone who is watching has done at some point. The way I would distribute this movie is through a film festival. The reasons are the budget and the cast. I think some of the props and the house that we used could’ve been better and more fitting to the situation. We also wanted our main character to be a grown, retired, ex-military sniper, but we had a young actor. I feel like this movie is like some of the movies in a film festival, where the point isn’t to be highly produced, it’s to entertain or to send a message and even though we don’t have an overwhelming message in this movie, we do try our best to entertain the viewer.

4. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
 - My skills developed so much over the course of this project. I learned how to direct the movie and have a creative eye for how I was going to approach something. One thing that I used to not completely understand was editing. I only understood the basics. For example, I would know how to import and export and occasionally trim the clips; however, after this project I learned how to do much more. I learned how to add titles and add music to the video. I also learned how to properly trim each video and how to zoom in, in order to get rid of any small video fragments that I didn’t see before. Unfortunately, because of the quarantine I had to leave the editing up to my partner, Andrew Cambron. Not to say that he is a bad editor or teammate, but I would’ve loved to be able to finish the vision I had for the project. I also learned how to constantly check up on our location to make sure that it was okay for me to go over there to begin to film. We filmed at Andrew’s house and I was behind the camera up until the very final scene. I think my cooperation to projects, also improved during this final task. I came up with the comedic bit at the end of the film, and had many other contributions throughout this movie. My teamwork also improved. Before I would ignore people’s feedback or contributions, but with Andrew I was always open to suggestions and together, we both came up with this product.

3.  How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project
-  Without the integration of technology this project would not have been possible. Firstly, I want to thank our teacher, Ms. Marchionne, for teaching us how to use this technology to the fullest. Anytime we had questions regarding editing or how to add something special to our video, she would help and explain to us what exactly we had to do. But computers and Pinnacle studios played a crucial role in making sure that we had the product that we wanted. The editing software, Pinnacle Studios, was a little shaky and didn’t work half the time, but when it did work, we tried our best to do the most amount of work possible. The biggest technology that really saved the day was Andrew’s computer, because going into quarantine, we still had a few additions we wanted to add to our final task. And I didn’t have an editing software, but Andrew did so he ended up finishing the project by himself. He sent it to me, to make sure that we both approved of the final product and we both did, so we turned it in. Another piece of technology was the internet. We didn’t get to have the music we wanted; however, we looked online and found some royalty free music that fit with the category and feeling that we were trying to portray in this film. Without technology this project would have never happened.

Growing and Learning Throughout The Year (Final Movie)

Throughout this year I have learned a lot of things thanks to the AICE Media Studies class. I have learned how to do things in and out of the classroom. In the classroom I learned how to edit, something that I've been wanting to learn how to do for a long time. I also learned how to coordinate and work with others better than I already do. I had to speak to all of my group members and adjust my schedule to theirs and be the most productive group we could be. Outside of the classroom I learned how to manage my work and how to remind myself when something is due. Before Media I didn't remember all that well, the work that was due for classes and almost always finished the work a few minutes before it was due. Media taught me how to combat that. It taught me to set reminders on my phone for upcoming work and to also help remind my teammates sometimes that work was due that day. Unfortunately, because of these troubling times we didn't record a CCR video. We didn't have enough time before the quarantine to complete it either. One thing that we do have completed is the final movie task. This movie was worked on for weeks. We added titles and music and we are both very happy with this final product. Although some of the editing is off, we still tried our best to make the greatest final task we could.

Re-Shooting

We didn't find it necessary to re-shoot. Our main focus was to make sure that our editing was good. We needed titles, transitions, and music. Over the past week that's all we've been focusing on. Our editing was our main priority and we did our best to make sure we fixed that. When we we're originally shooting we made sure that everything came out the way we wanted to. We re-shot on that day. When a scene came out a little off or something wasn't right, we re-recorded that scene for it to match with our storyboard. Even during the peer review we didn't see it as a problem. Our reviewers watched our video and marked on their paper however didn't give us any outstanding comments. They didn't really question the filming or suggest re-shooting any scene. Were just making sure that our editing was up to par. Like I mentioned our lack of titles and transitions where something that we needed extreme work on. Another reason that re-shooting wasn't really working was because me and Andrew both have busy and similar schedules. We both play the same sport for the same school and have been flooded by games and practices. Even then it still wasn't something we were focusing on. We have so much raw footage already that we can easily go over the required time. Some of our scene that we have written on our storyboard don't even fit into the movie in terms of time. So when it comes to having footage to make the movie, we have extra. And as I mentioned earlier we were so specific and careful with our original shooting session that we aren't missing anything.

Re-Editing

The feedback that we got back from the peer review was really useful. Me and my partner learned that we needed to add more titles and throw in smoother transitions. Our re-editing session was very important. Firstly we had to wait about 20 minutes for the pinnacle studios to boot up on our computers. And we had to go through a number of computers to finally find the ones that worked. Eventually we found a functional computer and could finally edit. We imported our raw footage through the techniques we learned from the previous projects. We set all of our raw footage into one folder on our desktop labeled "Movie," then when we go to import we click the plus sign next to desktop and then the folder labeled "Movie," and then we have all of our footage and then all we do is click import. After that, I was mainly in charge of the editing. Because we had such few functional computers and editing is really just a one-man job, Andrew wasn't clicking anything. However, he still gave me lots of suggestions and also chose the music that we are going to be using in our music video. Originally, we planned on getting permission from RCA records to use Teddy Bear by Elvis Presley, but they never responded. So instead we chose the easier route. We looked up "Elvis like royalty free music" and got many options. We chose for something a little different than our original song. This music is much more upbeat and lively and more like a rock song. But after watching over it a few times it was clear it fit in perfectly. The titles haven't been added in yet, simply because we ran out of time. Transitions to us look clean and well-placed. And finally, we are still looking back at our video and adding more footage to make sure it reaches the time that it needs to reach.

Peer Review (Add Pictures)

Monday was the peer review session for our Media class. We entered the class room and looked at our names on the board. Our names were given each an individual number which matched our teammates. From there some other group got our number as the group they had to review. Me and my partner Andrew were number 16 and were given to review number 9 who was Angelo. The peer review went through very smoothly. We asked Angelo for his movie and he gave it to us immediately. Me and my partner watch the video 3 times. Once just to watch how Angelo's film was coming along and what it was about. Then we watched it while answering the questions on the peer review worksheet that was given to us. Then we watched a third time to make sure we had the information correct. Of course we kept rewinding and fast forwarding to make sure that we had counted the right amount of camera angles, for example.His film was about a basketball player who, while warming up, is having flashbacks to a moment he shard with his father, where he would teach him how to dribble the ball and how to score a point. Angelo like us was lacking in terms of editing. He could've done more with the background sound and also forgot to add the titles. But his film has potential of becoming a very good final project. It was a really fun and easy process. We also gave up our movie o the group that was reviewing us. It was Zachary's group and it they were really helpful in the process. One thing that I think we could've worked on as a group is timing. I don't expect that we got a good review on our peer review because we could've worked a lot on the editing. The computers at our school are very unreliable in terms of whether they can successfully open the editing program, but we got what we needed done. Something else that would've helped with the editing is the timing. Me and my partner ended up filming the day before the peer review so once again our editing was really lacking in that front. Luckily, their group was patient and let us at least put all the raw footage together.

Still Awaiting Filming

Me and my partner are still awaiting filming. We haven't begun filming yet because of the schedule. We set up the schedule a certain way that compliments both of our schedules. Me and Andrew spent a while going back and forth about how and when we could film. Originally our conversation mainly consisted of ideas for our intro. We were brainstorming things that we could add and created a product that were both going to be happy with. We are also still gathering props. We are still making sure we can borrow a prop off someone that we know and is reliable. We have a schedule that we plan to follow to make sure everything goes smoothly. The schedule says that we are going to record this following weekend. So this week we are going to make sure we have everything in order. This includes the props, location, safety, and equipment. We need to make sure we check out the camera and tripod on Friday or Thursday. This is to ensure that we won't be lacking any equipment when we arrive at the filming location. Most of the props are already collected. We are both really excited to film this weekend. We believe that this is going to give us an opportunity to display something that we've been working on for a while. We have the location ready to go. We have the props ready to go. And most importantly we are ready to go.