Representaion Theory: Stuart Hall

 

Key Points of Stuart Hall's theory 

• Hall emphasises the importance of visual representation – the image seems to be the prevalent sign of late modern culture.
• Representation – to present/to depict.The word suggests something was there already and has been re-presented by the media.
• Representation as that which stands in for something else.
• Representation is the way in which meaning is given to the things which are depicted that stand in for something.

This is a usefully concept for our film as we are aiming to re-present our to teenage characters as not thugs or menaces to society but as two young people at are trying to finding there way in life and discover their "Utopia" through this life of depression and unforfillment.

Key Concepts

Narrative Theory: Propp & Todorov

How these apply to Utopia

Propp

We feel that our film subverts the stereotypes of these character types, the audience are not given a character that they can call the 'hero', but are shown two sad and depressed lifes of Charles and Jordan and follow them on their journey to there 'Utopia'. There are also no clear cut characters like Villain, Helper, Mentor or a Dispatcher, therefore completely subverting these character stereotypes. This then lets the audience decide who they perceive as their 'Hero' which make the audience become more involved in the storyline and the film in general.


Todorov

We have not fully used Todorov's theory in our film as we have skipped the first step "Equillibrum" and have started with the "Distruption" as the two charcters Charlie and Jordan do not have a "perfect" life to begin with. So the audience will be more involved as they will more concerned for the characters as they will be more connected.

Reception Theory

Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall (1970)

-When a producer constructs a text a desired meaning is encoded in it.

-Sometimes the audience will get the correct meaning from it, whilst other times not. Sometimes they may even reject the correct meaning.
 

3 text readings:

-Dominant; Here the audience decodes the meaning the way the producer wants them to and agrees with it.

-Negotiated; The audience accepts, rejects or refines parts of the text.

-Oppositional; The dominant reading is recognized but rejected for ideological, political or cultural reasons.

Applying this to 'Utopia':

Dominant: Empathise with Charlie(Charles) and Jordan, think that they have had a hard and tough past life.

Negotiated: Accepts that Charlie and Jordan have had a hard past life.

Oppositional: Don't like Jordan because of his involvement in possibly being a bully to charlie and other school pupils and feel that it is his fault that he is in this situation.

Richard Dyer

Richard Dyer

According to Richard Dyer (1985) representation can be looked at in the following ways:

•As re-presentation: presenting reality over again to us. Reality is mediated through forms of representation available in the culture.

 

•As ‘being representative of’ in the sense of being ‘typical’. This, of course, raises the question of what is ‘typical’.

 

•In the sense of speaking for and on behalf of somebody or a group.

 

•In recognising the existence of audience responses, with different kinds of representation.

Apply this to Utopia

 

Audience Theory:- The Effects Model & The Hypodermic Syringe Theory

The Effects Model

-The consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience.

-It is normally considered that this effect is negative.

-Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence.

-The power lies with the message of the text.

Key evidence for the effects model

- The frankfurt School theorised in the 1920's and 30's that the mass media acted to restrict and control audiences the benefit of corporate capitalism and governments.

 

The Bobo Doll Experiment (Albert Bandura 1961)

- This is a very controversial piece of research that apparently proved that children copy violent behaviour that they have seen themselves possible on television or in real life.

 

Applying this to Utopia

As our film is a 15 rated we have to make sure that all scenes that may content violence has to follow the set guidelines of the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), however our film is about two teenagers who find each other and go on a journey of revival, through which they both try and find their "Utopia" a task easier said then dne. This we feel will content a minimal amount of violence if not none.
 

Here are some key factors where it is thought that violence in media were contributing factors or causes of inappropriate behaviour in the real world:

-The film A Clockwork Orange (1971) in a number of rapes and violent attacks

-The film Childs Play 3 in the murder of James Bulger in 1993

-The game Manhunt in the murder of Stefan Pakeerah in 2004 by his friend Warren LeBlanc

-The film Severance (2006) in the murder of Simon Everitt

However, it was found after calls for bans for each of these medias, there was no evidence that could proven the link between it and these violent acts.

Hypodermic Syringe Theory

-The message is injected into the audience in a powerful syringe like way.

-The audience is powerless to resist.

-Therefore, the media works like a drug and the audience is drugged, addicted, doped or duped.

The Film Name

We chose the name "Utopia" as it represent the goal that our two characters want to get to. The definition of the Utopia in the oxford dictionary is "Modelled on or aiming for a state in which everything is perfect" this we thought would fix our film and encase our film in one word. However before choosing "Utopia" we had sorted through a number of names for the film, such as voyage and 'atteindre un but' which is a french translation for "reaching a goal", but we felt the the word "utopia" is more of a universally used term which everybody would understand.

 

 

   

Questionnaire & Results

Here is a picture of the questionnaire that we handed out to all different genders and ages of people. The aim is to compile results that we could use to improve our own trailer.

 

 These are the results of the questionnaires that we handed out.

 

Questionnaire Results Analysis from Morgan-R

Target Audience

This is our chosen target audience which are teenagers aged 15 to 21, as this is the age that we believe will have the most disposable income, with the most free time, and are the people who go to the cinema the most often being with friends or family. We feel that even though the film is aimed at both male and female genders, the predominant gender that would see our film would be male, As from research we discovered that British social realism is a popular genre with in males, with films like Ill Manors, Kidulthood and Spike Island, which brought in big profit with a predominantly male audience. 

What is British Social Realism?

"British" Social realism is a genre that shows us to ourselves and pushes the boundaries in the effort to put the experiences of real Britons on the screen for the world to see.

 

This above a just a few example of some brilliant British social realism films that have been produced.

British Social Realism: Mood board

 

This is a mood of the British Social Realism genre showing the codes & conventions.

 

Character Profiles

This is a mind map of the two characters types we will be using in the trailer we are making.

My Brother The Devil: Case Study

My brother The devil is also fast paced British social realism film that is about two teenage brothers how have to face there problems head on, to survive the harsh reality of being British Arabs growing up on the streets of gangland London. The film touches on subjects of gang culture with drugs, guns & murder which some taboo issue throw in between.

Budget: About £650,000



Box Office: Nov. 9-11 2012 - $44,833 at 57 theatres
 

Release of the film:




Reviews: 

The reviews for My brother the devil where pretty average at a 6.2 on imdb.com but on rottentomatoes.com it was given a rating of 91% on the Tomatometer and a average rating of 7.2/10 by the critics and a 75% Tomatometer and a aberage rating of 3.8/5 by the audience.
 

Social Media:

My Brother the Devil has a facebook page with around 12,673 likes and many video reviews on Youtube.

 

The Selfish Giant: Case Study

The Selfish Giant is a British social realism film about two teenage boys (Arbor and Swifty) that come from hard backgrounds which has made their friendship stronger. We then follow these two boys in their journey as they are both excluded from their school they decided to make some money and help out their families through the means of stealing scrap metals and cable off railway lines which holds hidden dangers that we later find out with Arbor and Swifty. As the greedy to make more money from the scrap metal Arbor gets in to trouble with Kitten (owned of the scrapyard) and results in a terrible and tragic accident ending a friendship and a life.


Budget:



Box Office: Oct. 25-27 2013 - $132,128 at 35 theaters




Release of the film:




Reviews:  The reviews for The Selfish Giant where pretty average at a 7.4 on imdb.com and on rottentomatoes.com it was given a rating of 97% on the Tomatometer and a average rating of 8.4/10 by the critics and a 73% of the 267 users liked the film and gave it a average rating of 4/5 by the audience.

 

 

Spike Island: Case Study

Spike Island is fast paced, coming of age British Social Realism film about teenage life around the late 80s and early 90s released in 2012 by Mat Whitecross. The film is based around a group of five teenagers as they come to the end of their school lifes and possibly the end of their friendship. As they come closer to the end of the school year they decide to find a way to go and see the legendary Stone Roses at Spike island in Liverpool. We follow them as they try and find a way into Spike island where friends are made and lost with also a bit of romance in between. 

Budget:



Box Office: Jun. 28-30 2013 - $157,036 at 19 theatres



Release of the film:




Reviews:

This reviews for Spike Island were not good as it only scored 5.7/10 on IMDB and scored worst on rottentomato.com with 41% on the tomatometer with an average rating 5/10 by the critics and a 50% of the 204 users liked the film, with an average rating of 3.4/5 by the audience.

 

Kidulthood: Case Study

Kidulthood is about the life of seven teenagers in west London. As they get involved in gangs and violence when they are still in school. This then leads to them using drugs and alcohol, which leads them to committing petty crimes for money. The film touches on British social realism themes like teen pregnancy, bulling which leads to a suicide and gang life that leads to a murder.






Budget: Estimated £600,000


Box Office: Mar 3-5 2006 $175,239 at 41 theatres



Release of film:



Reviews: