3 pieces of theory

Laura Mulvey: Male Gaze (1975) Women objectified to look at in media

Kate Domaille: 8 narrative types (2001), Achiles, Candide, Cinderella, Circe, Faust, Orpheus, Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Iseult.

Stuart Hall (1980) All Audio Visual products are encoded to have a set purpose

LO1 Task 2 - Analysis of X-Men

20th Century Fox Vlog 2, and I'm looking into X-Men the movie.

To avoid confusion in case you think I'm referencing the franchise as a whole or the actual team of mutants, I'll be calling it X-Men 2000 because of it being the year of release and it's... because it's shorter (title: no it isn't) Let's take a look at it in terms of Purpose, genre, form, style, content and meaning, and production process, woo!

Purpose: To quote Stuart Hall 1980, All Audio Visual products are encoded to have a set purpose, and the purpose of X-Men 2000 as a movie is to both entertain and engage the audience. This is because the movie denotes many scenes with action through the powers and CGI utilised in the movie since, you know it's a super hero movie and powers are always a plus, and CGI means they could have all of the crazy wacky effects whenever they want them. The movie also has character interaction that people may find engaging since the movie isn't just an action fest, and lastly this is based off of the Comic book series so fans of X-Men already may find enjoyment in seeing the story they grew up with back in movie form. Also this will appeal to people who aren't already fans of the X-Men franchise as this is an origin story, and they appeal to people who might not find X-Men mature enough as they made the movie less cartoony than the comics.

Genre: X-Men 2000 is a Super Hero movie where suddenly there are people who have been mutated into having powers, such a bending metal and moving metal with the mind, shape shifting, and creating storms to attack others and laser eyes.  Now while its genre is called a Super hero movie, it's also one where the super heroes are somewhat looked down upon compared to the rest of humanity creating some emotional drama between characters. So you know things like (Bad impressions) [Rogue] "LOGAN NOBODY WANTS ME I KEEP ALMOST KILLING PEOPLE" [Wolverine] "THAT'S OKAY HUMANS SUCK, ANYWAY JUST DON'T KILL 'EM OKAY?"

So there are some dramatic elements to the film. There's also action found in scenes in the movie where the main X-Men team actually get together, but this is an origin story however so these scenes are much later on in the movie. Because the script, costumes, casting and locations are all fit for this genre of film, the genre would have been decided pre-production. Also the genre links to the purpose of entertaining and engaging the audience since Superhero movies have action for those purposes and the dramatic elements will engage the audience, especially pre-movie X-Men fans.

Form: X-Men is a feature length movie which is produced by 20th Century Fox and lasts for 104 minutes... not much to really say there.... okay the budget was estimated at 75 million which at the time, was huge. It's not like now where "Oh look another 50 Marvel movies came out, cool" was what people were like, no, comics back then were for nerds back then so taking a comic book franchise this seriously for the first feature film is pretty insane for the time. (title: decided during pre-production) And the budget would help for the effects for the powers to link with the genre since powers are a common convention of the super hero genre, in fact they're required, alongside the money put into the newer character designs to appeal to a more mature audience for the purpose.

Style: The movie is set in an alternate reality of the modern day, or at least the modern day of the year 2000 since that is when the movie had been released. This does mean locations that at the time would create some slight verisimilitude (though everything is incredibly clean looking and shiny since this is a movie that appeals to a mass audience and if environments have a really gritty tone to them, some people may not take their children to watch it). Now this is a representation of the comic book series, however changes have been made for a more modern and more adult friendly style. For starters compare colourful wacky-zacky Wolverine and Magneto from the comics to the serious and fairly settled down adaptation we have found in the new one. You can tell they want to make this a little bit more toned down in comparison to the originals. Even the fonts show this, the comics have an overall pop to the font while the movie is all shiny and bold and italic which can connote just how seriously they're taking this one. This style would have been decided pre-production as characters are writ to fit that specific style, and costumes work for this modem realistic take than a old comic take. Things like the font being shiny and bold will catch people's attention linking to one of the purposes of the movie which is to engage the audience, alongside the less colourful purpose to help this movie work for a more adult audience.

Content and Meaning, and how they link to the Production process:

Locations: Now like I said earlier, X-Men 2000 isn't quite the same as the comic books due to the lack of wacky colours and its more grounded feel - the locations help this. Places are made to look like real to create slight verisimilitude. I mean yeah it's a big budget movie so things look all clean but some areas do look quite convincing like at Auschwitz at the beginning of the movie you can see a lot of mud connoting very bad conditions for people, barbed wire connoting the lack of escape, and of course the pathetic fallacy of rain which generally signifies a very depressing scene. The gritty location here definitely connotes they were not afraid of creating something honest about the event in history. However other locations in the movie are much cleaner in how they look thanks to the modern aesthetic. These realistic locations help the purpose of appealing to a more mature audience, and having locations that are beneficial for the powers help for the Super Hero genre.

Characters and acting gesture: Leader of the X-Men, Professor X, is a handicapped psychic, played by Patrick Stewart who is the most reserved of the group thanks to his calm attitude, less violent powers and leadership over the rest of the X-Men. Wolverine, X-Men member is practically the main character of the movie and probably the franchise. He has a crazy wacky healing factor making him hard to kill but easy to cause pain to, and claws out of his knuckles. His back story is that he knows nothing pretty much and is a fighter. He isn't the most pleasant of characters, in fact Wolverine challenges the stereotype of super heroes being morally perfect because of how grumpy he is and the fighting he does, he even mocks the X-Men at the start and questions on which side it right. Cyclops, also X-Men member, probably the worst character in a super hero movie because of his haircut, has the power of laser eyes and is more confident in the whole justice thing than Wolverine, just really unlike-able about it. Jean Grey is more important than she may seem but doesn't have much of a character to her. She is introduced as a doctor for Wolverine yet unlike a stereotypical doctor, Cyclops' girlfriend Jean Grey is more significant than she may seem. She is introduced as a speaker in favour of mutants at the start of the movie, which is unsuccessful due to the uncertainty of mutants, but she is properly introduced as a character as a doctor for Wolverine yet unlike a stereotypical doctor, Grey uses telepathy for it and at the end she uses her power in cool ways, though personality wise she needs some development. Same goes for Storm has the power of (pause)  you won't believe this… storms. Her character sadly isn't really developed at all; in fact not many are in this movie, but Storm especially. She pretty much has the personality of a sack of potatoes.  Lastly on non-villain characters is Rogue who is rejected from society as her power is to literally suck the life out of anyone she touches and if she touches another mutant then she borrows their power as well. Rogue is very shy and scared so you should see a lot of motionless gestures due to her lack of confidence and some freaking out here and there. Magneto is one of the earliest mutants who's power of moving and shaping metal with the mind was discovered during Auschwitz in a flashback scene at the start of the movie where here he's very angry and upset. Throughout rest of the movie though he can be a pretty care free villain because of his power, just comes in like "HAHA" (use his entrance to the train scene) and just walks across a path while he's making it out of metal (show that scene). Mystique, the shape shifting mutant, can be angry with humans such as the scene where she just kicks a guy in the head, but since she shape shifts, her gestures become more reminiscent of who she shifts into which makes her a bit more unique.  Sabretooth is a villain who has animal like abilities and a healing factor similar to Wolverine's... just it's never shown in the movie making him the worst character in the movie next to Cyclops. For the most part he just stands around looking kind of upset, he has his moments of anger just they're not very common. Lastly we have LIZZARD MAN. Or Toad I suppose. Toad is barely important. He's got a long tongue like a toad and spits acid like... I'm not really sure but all you can take from his character is he's funny looking. These characters act a little more realistically and are a tad grittier, especially Wolverine, than the comics helping the purpose of appealing to a more mature audience, also the fact they have powers obviously links to the genre of the movie being a Super Hero film.

Costumes and Makeup: X-Men 2000's a superhero movie, so obviously Costumes don't matter! (shows props followed by DJ scratch sound effect) alright, alright I'll go into a tangent on costumes.  For Professor X, because of his reserved nature, he doesn't require some kind of costume or flashy clothing, instead he just wears a suit and tie like a basic person, since in the movie he pretty much acts as so. Wolverine is a very gritty take on a main character super hero as he does all the fighting and such, so very dull cheap looking clothing is applied to the character for the connotation of his gritty character. Cyclops is a more modern character in comparison to some others, and by that I mean modern for 1998 to 2003. His clothing such as his jacket is reminiscent to that time period, same goes for his hair, and because his power is laser eyes he wears either special sunglasses or this thing (show the other thing he wears on his eyes) to stop everyone getting accidentally killed and his obnoxious haircut. Jean Grey is both a part of X-Men and a doctor, but unlike a typical doctor, while she has a white jacket on, Grey is wearing basic clothing like a red shirt - not protected in antibacterial clothing alongside hair not tied back which could be thanks to her telepathy.. or you know they wanted to introduce one of the main characters without a mask on. Jean Grey usually challenges the Male Gaze (Laura Mulvey 1975) as she never dresses or poses to create sex appeal, hm times were different then I mean yeah you can still find her attractive, but overall despite the small screen time she's just another member of the X-Men. Same goes for Storm who has the power of storms. Never dressed provocatively, independent character... also white hair because of the shock? I dunno. Rogue generally wears cheap clothing in the movie because of her rejection from society, but at the end of the movie after being used for a possibly mankind ending machine, she has a white streak giving her character some more identity. At the end of the movie all aside from Rogue wear their uniform which is a black, padded suit with an x there to represent x-mas. I mean X-Men. This is where you get to see a big difference between Magneto's group and the X-Men as the X-Men are the heroes who work together, hence the same uniforms, and are generally more organised. This contributes to the good vs evil binary Opposition (Levi Strauss 1958) narrative though this only appears later on in the movie. As for Villains: Magneto, while not red like in the comics, has a head plate over him and wears tight clothing with consistent colours to represent his costume; and he also has a cape. Typically the cape connotes power since kings usually wear one so it makes sense for someone with power. Mystique. the shape shifting character. is completely blue with orange hair and eyes with very specific patterns on her face, connoting she is very different from other mutants as appearance isn't as affected with the rest. There could be reasoning as to why she is blue which links to her shape shifting ability, but is never explained in the movie as this may require knowledge of the comics or they are to explain this is a future sequel or prequel. NYEH HEH LIZARD MAN Toad is dark green for the toad in him with some wacky hair and not much more. Lastly there's Sabretooth, who actually looks more animal-like than Wolverine for he has sharp teeth, actual claws rather than PoundLand cutlery claws, and he's very, very hairy. As for non-mutants they appear as basic looking people to connote that more grounded feel. Police officers look just like police officers with their caps and coats, people wear shirts and jeans, jackets and trainers, and other basic clothing you would get in a realistic year 2000 setting to create mild verisimilitude in comparison to the comics. These would have been decided both during pre-production and production as the X-Men suits would have obviously been preproduction since it's encoded into the script and all X-Men members wear it, yet some things like non-significant characters like regular people in a crowd would have just been added in during production. These costumes are for the genre of a super hero movie since things like a cape are a common convention in Super hero movies and comics, and having unique costumes in general is a convention that you would just expect to see.

Props: Because of the powers, Props aren't always required; however human characters do use them. Police officers use guns to show they're there for an emergency, and a megaphone for negotiation - only for Magneto's refusal. Other props include phones for the communication of non-mutants since Professor X is shown to easily communicate through his powers, microphones for news reporting and other basic props for basic uses. Again, this is a power focused movie so the lack of significant props creates a meaning of how insignificant tools can be in this mutant run reality, which helps the Super Hero genre since they are the ones in the focus due to the lack of significant human action with props.

Lighting and Colours: The lighting and colours of X-Men 2000 vary throughout the movie to connote different emotions as what the audience sees can make them think in differing ways. For example when the movie introduces the Academy for mutants, high key lighting is used as it creates the connotation of a lively mood where the characters of Wolverine and Rogue meet the people they will be working with for the franchise and people who are just like them in terms of being a mutant. However during the later scenes in the movie where the villains are at the advantage, low key lighting is applied for well obviously the night setting, but for the connotation of the mysterious, vulnerable and sometimes negative emotions given by the night. Plus the night lets characters use powers to their advantage like Storm whose lightning appears more obvious in the dark. The actual lighting would have been done during production, though what lighting would be applied for scenes would have been planned during preproduction. This lighting can be used to create drama which links with the purpose of making a dramatic film version of X-Men as lighting for moods is a common convention in cinema.

Camerawork: X-Men 2000 uses many different camera techniques like any big budget Hollywood movie. Depth of field is applied where when a shallow depth of field is used the objects in the foreground are in focus while when a deep depth of field is used the objects in the background are in focus, these depth of field uses are found many times in the movie, and they switch from a shallow depth of field to a deep depth of field too, which is known as a pull focus which directs just what the audience pays attention to. There's also camera movement uses in X-Men 2000 like a tilt movement

which establishes scenes as it views something vertically creating the connotation of a large size, tracking shots which has the camera following a character or object meaning the camera is moving on a track or held by hand, and a pan where the camera turns horizontally, usually used for scene introductions or when everything on the stage is important to look at, X-Men 2000 doesn't use this camera movement too often in the movie. These camera techniques will have been decided during pre-production when storyboarding. Also things like the pull focus aides the purpose and genre of a dramatic super hero movie since they're used when events can happen in the foreground and background, alongside conversations.

Editing: X-Men 2000 uses cuts to move scenes from one to the other, cross cutting to show two things happening simultaneously, jump cutting to show the same character or object in different shots without going off timing, and insert shots where an object is shown in a wide view, then to a close up, then wide again which creates the meaning of significance whether positively or negatively. Editing in general would have been handled during post production. X-Men 2000 takes advantage of super heroes and super villains so a lot of SFX and VFX are used for their powers. SFX being things actually created on set so things like Wolverine's powers, the objects in this train scene rattling around, getting wrecked and such, which would be done during production, while VFX are done during post production and are things like lens flairs, this CGI bullet, and Mystique's transformations. An example of both working in unity would be Storm whose hair flies around but her eyes and thunder is obviously done through VFX… Like really obviously, I could probably do this kind of effect. VFX is used though as it is much easier than actually lighting someone on fire and it genuinely looks good most of the time it's executed. The editing for X-Men would have been done during post-production as obviously you can't chop a filmed movie up without a filmed movie, and things like the VFX like the lightning wouldn't have been done during production as sadly Halle Berry doesn't actually have lightning powers... or maybe she does who knows but the ones found in X-Men 2000 were obviously done post production to help the genre of a super-hero movie.

Sound: X-Men 2000 uses sound just like any other movie with diegetic and non-diegetic sound. What I mean by this is that diegetic sound is what fits into the movie's world, also known as the diegesis. So in the movie's world if somebody fires a gun, the gunshot sound will come from the movie's diegesis. You can tell this because the gun's right there and the sound played right when the gun fired. This would have been a sound effect added in but it was put in a way where you know it was in the world of X-Men. Which also applies to the superpowers, Wolverine's claws make that sound right when they come out, Storm's lightning makes the sound of lightning because of it being her power, Cylops' laser does go pew-pew-pew. While some sounds may be computerised like Cyclops' laser, sounds like a window smashing or Wolverine's claws may have been done through Foley sound, which is using an object or material to create a sound that sounds similar to another sound, so throwing grapes on a wall could sound like a gun when repeated a lot. Same goes for dialogue even though that wouldn't have been a sound effect added in. Wolverine's speaking so his voice will be in the diegesis. However what isn't a part of the movie's diegesis and is non-diegetic sound is the music. X-Men makes use of incidental music quite well, as when positive emotions are encoded through scenes like the mutant academy introduction thanks to the long high pitched notes combines with the upbeat melody, when Magneto's mutants are in the power strong lower pitched music plays to connote emotions of negativity and power to the evil mutants, when a sad emotional moment is on then softer, slower and a combination of high and low pitched music plays, and my favourite, almost like this is Magneto's sound motif, is when Magneto appears  in the train scene with menacing "NEH NEH NEEEEH NEH" music, just works so well even if it may appear a little bit goofy in retrospect. It connotes how menacing Professor X really successfully. Since the powers have sounds and the dialogue is sound, these benefit the genre of a Super hero drama movie, alongside the realistic sound effects for the purpose of appealing to a more adult audience.

Narrative: X-men 2000 fits under the Kate Domaille narrative types of Orpheus and candide. Orpheus is the tragic loss of something personal and possibly the journey that comes from it. With this movie the loss is the rights of mutant people as they're outcasts compared to humanity strongly affecting characters like Rogue and Wolverine. This out-casting is what leads to the build up to the potential war between humans and mutants which needs to be prevented. Also the movie fits under candide as it focuses on super hero mutants, usually dealing with hardships, unable to be put down by the other mutants. There's also the Tzvetan Todorov Narrative structure theory where a movie or story in general begins with a State of Equilibrium, where everything is fine without major conflict, followed by the disruption to the equilibrium where the main plot begins, followed by the repairing of the disruption where action is taken place to this problem and the narrative ends with a new state of equilibrium where the problem is fixed but something is different so the movie has a worthwhile ending and a sense of progression. (make sure there are clips of the movie synced with what I'm saying). You may have seen I used clips to match up what I'm saying because X-Men 2000 fits this structure. The Equilibrium isn't really perfect as there are outcast mutants with people debating whether to allow them or not alongside talks of a possible war, but that's not the conflict. The conflict is that a mutant called Rogue has the power to steal other powers, which the villain Magneto finds pretty cool as it powers his machine to transform non-mutant people into mutants. After Rogue and Wolverine find themselves in a mutant academy after Magneto tries to capture Rogue, Mystique - the shape shifter, shifts into a potential love interest for Rogue to convince her to leave allowing her to be kidnapped. The repairing of the conflict is Wolverine joining the X-Men mutant hero league thingy to get her back, get Magneto in jail, stop the machine and get really happy and that's just what they do. The new state of equilibrium is that Magneto is in jail yet the war still may be coming, but now there's Wolverine as a part of the X-men to prevent it for the sequels, which is overall pretty groovy. This narrative works for the genre of X-Men since Super Hero movies are all about the good people with powers vs the bad people with powers which X-Men uses, alongside other Super Hero movie conventions like the moments when the villains are in great power in comparison to the heroes and it even started the convention of heroes having snarky remarks to each other with Wolverine and Cyclops.

Production Process: Now I have already mentioned which parts of X-Men 2000's content would have been decided or executed during pre-production, production or post production, but I will go over what they mean and more things that would have been decided during what stage of production. Pre-production is basically planning the movie, what people will be cast, what script will be said, all plot details, storyboarding what each scene will look like and their camera techniques, location scouting and deciding where the scenes will be filmed for the effect that will be given, deciding finances and what the budget may be for the movie, etc. Production will be going out there and making the movie. Actors will act their roles, makeup artists will make actors fit their characters, lighting will be lit using various light sources, special effects will be created, directors will guide actors, and the camera crew will make the shots, move the cameras and film everything on set. Lastly is post production which will edit the movie into the finished product removing unnecessary parts, creating the movie's score, placing the score into the movie while mixing audio to sound good, advertising the movie to the general public with trailers, posters and other means of advertising, and then the movie is distributed to cinemas.

Overall: X-Men... pretty good movie. Presentation wise you have great costumes, great lighting, and great SFX blended with VFX. The plot is alright, though the characters aren't really developed or aren't really enjoyable so you may need to watch X-Men 2, sorry, X-2 stupid name to get more out of it, which is fine... I suppose.

Round Up - Use of Sound.

1. Digesis - The film's world, what is actually going on in the area whether added production or post production

2.Incidental Music - Music that fits a specific incident

3. Sound Motif, specific sound that appears when certain event happens. For example when Jaws is around then the theme plays

Project work: Write up first four points of task 2 mindmap into script.

1. Purpose.

2. Genre.

3. Form

4. Style.

Choose three sequences from the film before Monday that you want to analyse to demonstrate 5. 6. 7.

LO1 Task 1 - Ownership of 20th Century Fox

Script:
(Really boring intro, really unenthusiastic) hello this is Andrew here and I work in Pretty alright Education and I am here today to speak about 20th Century Fo-
(explosion, fire on bottom of screen)
JUST KIDDING. I'M ANDREW FROM EXTREME EDUCATION OF DEATH FOR KIDS; THE LEADING IN TEACHING ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.  DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE THIS VLOG ON 20TH CENTURY FOX? DO YOU?!


Alright I won't yell throughout the whole thing. 20th Century Fox is a film company owned by 21st Century Fox, which is a behemoth company who are most likely very evil (picture of Mr Burns). They own a big chunk of your entertainment, have a revenue of over 27 billion dollars (lower voice a lot) according to Wikipedia (back to normal), have the Chairman being Rupert Murdoch, and they set orphanages on fire. (gasp sound)


Just kidding!


In this... VLOG (lower voice a lot) god I hate that word (back to normal) I will be looking into 20th Century Fox and their business model in the categories of Ownership, Operating Model, Products, Market Position, and competitors.  I'll mention their cool new dad, 21st Century Fox in this Vlog too, so buckle down and get in for the ride. (get a really evil looking face and have a maniacal laugh sound effect)


Ownership:

Now 21st Century Fox is known for being a Conglomerate, which is basically a big company made up of smaller companies. So you like some Grapes being made up of.. grapes.. bad example, but you know just a collection of things mish mashed together to make something else, that's what a Conglomerate is. Now these smaller companies that make up 21st Century Fox are known as Subsidiaries. 21st Century Fox's subsidiaries include Fox News, FX, STAR TV Shine Group, and Fox Sports Media Group. So yeah they're in charge of a lot of things. But the main one for this Vlog will be 20th Century Fox Movies. This is where a lot of the movies you may enjoy stems from. Now 20th Century Fox also has its own Subsidiaries, including Blue Sky, 20th Television and TSG Entertainment.


21st Century Fox are a cross media ownership so they produce things like their News and websites, but they mainly specialise in Television and movies which is where 20th Century Fox shines. You've most likely helped them get the money they have by watching many of their shows and movies. I will get into them soon, but there are a lot. (show a bunch of movies scrolling to the side and then stop at How to Train your dragon) Huh.. what's this? How to Train Your Dragon 2? Isn't that DreamWorks? Well that's a joint Venture 


Which reminds me, now it's time for Operating Model

Now back onto the joint venture, a Joint Venture is the collaboration of two different companies that aren't owned by each other but collaborate in a way where they both benefit. This can vary from things like Coca Cola product placement in a movie, to all the cartoon characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Joint Ventures can occur to get more people interested in a brand or product by showing it in another to generate Synergy, now keep that word in your mind. Synergy is a very good money generating technique as say in a 20th Century Fox movie like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has a scene where Caesar drinks Coca Cola. Why would he drink Coca Cola during the time where apes take over Earth is unknown but whatever. Suddenly the Planet of the Apes fans are thinking of Coke, which may make them all buy a lot of Coke after the movie, making Coca Cola gain a lot of money. For getting Coca Cola promoted in the movie, 20th Century Fox should take a slight cut of those profits which ultimately generates a lot of money for Coca Cola and Fox simultaneously... and all they needed to do was make a chimp drink a can of coke.

Business.


But anyway you know how I told you to remember Synergy? Well it doesn't only have to work through A Joint Venture as since 20th Century Fox owns its own subsidiaries, they can very easily promote each other. Fox TV produce The Simpsons and Blue Sky produces Ice Age movies; since they're both ultimately 21st Century Fox, just like my Planet of The Fizzy Beverage loving Apes example, a cross promotion can happen. Hey forget can, it already has! (show the crossover). Subsidiaries working together is incredibly easy yet incredibly profitable business.


20th Century Fox, like any movie/TV company, operate by this. The production process, distribution and consumption - with the creation of the movie or TV show itself being production, getting that said product out there to an audience via advertising and sending to cinemas being distribution, and having consumers use it being consumption. This can work two ways. If a company was to handle these three things on their own then that would be Vertical integration which is more common for very independent film production companies. But since 20th Century Fox is under big scary monster corporation 21st Century Fox, horizontal integration can be done. This means anything that's produced by 21st Century Fox can be used to promote something. Fox News could have advertisements for a movie on their websites and radio, the Simpsons could parody it, and anything else to show off the movie. Since they're all under the same company in the end, this is very easy to do creating Synergy.


Products.
20th Century Fox has a huge lineup of TV shows and movies, including (speed up voice to show there's a lot) The Simpsons, Die Hard, Firefly, Let's be cops, How I met your Mother, Night at the Museum, Modern Family, X-Men, Archer, The Maze Runner, Sons of Anarchy, The Planet of the Apes series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Aliens, Glee, Avatar, Family Fat dad adventures (show Family Guy), Ice Age, Cops, Garfield, other Family Fat dad adventures (show the Cleveland show), Rio, It's always sunny in Philadelphia, We bought a zoo, Raising Hope, Tooth Fairy, King of the Hill, Gulliver's Travels, Water for Elephants, My Name is Earl, Taken, Bob's Burgers, Marley and Me (Sad music plays with a slow fade to black in white which is immediately cut into me singing) "You're not the boss of me now, you're not the boss of me now"- (show Malcom in the Middle obviously), the best movie of all time Space Chimps, 24 and a whole lot more. Basically they have a lot and you've probably seen or heard of most of the examples I set, possibly all of them


Market Position.


20th Century Fox is obviously a successful subsidiary for 21st Century Fox. Their movies are everywhere and they have a hold on some of the most popular franchises and studios right now including Planet of the Apes and DreamWorks... you know they made Shrek 2 once.. but still the point remains. In fact 20th Century Fox is so successful there's like 25 Seasons of the Simpsons, what other animated sitcom lasts that long? [pause] And it's not even a good show any more! Can you safely say you've never seen a 20th Century Fox Produced TV show or Movie? Of course not. They're a media giant! Look at how much 21st Century Fox are worth. over 27 billion dollars according to Wikipedia, and according the Forbes the brand name for Fox alone is at over 10 billion dollars which is insane, also meaning 20th Century Fox movies end up with a truckload of money put in to guarantee people know about new movies and they can be up to a high standard.

Now 20th Century Fox make movies for a mass audience. This means that they aim to create films that try to please an incredibly large amount of people, which generally means they include tropes people will be used to. Classic Cartoon character brought back in CGI while contrasting in the real world, that's a popular trend Scooby Doo started and look, Fox did Garfield and Alvin and the Chipmunks (lowered voice) sadly (rise up again) and some other cartoons brought back.... even the smurfs. Unfunny parody movies that, unlike a good parody movie, don't make clever use of simple jokes but rather put really predictable and cringeworthy references, you know the stain on comedy that Scary Movie left - oh would you look at that, Fox produced Vampire's Suck... like seriously they failed the easiest job ever of making fun of Twilight? But I digress. Roald Dahl book made into a family film - yup (show Fantastic Mr Fox), popular person takes the role of a quirky fairy tale like character - sure (show Tooth Fairy)- you see these are movies that sell, and 20th Century Fox just churn them out because people will keep paying to see them. Did we need a Madagascar 4, really? No. Of course not, but people will see it. They're even turning to the video game fans with Hitman and Assassin's Creed movies for crying out loud, they may as well just get a money printer.


However, other companies also want a share of that money so now we're onto Competition


Firstly there's the Walt Disney Company who, like Fox, operate in News and TV via ABC [TEXT: It's American if you don't know what ABC is], have popular Super Hero movies like 20th Century Fox (lower voice) in fact Disney actually have good Super Hero Movies [poke fun at Fantastic Four] (normal voice), and Disney - like 20th Century Fox, own a lot of Subsidiaries dedicated to movies and TV. We're talking Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, The Muppets Studio.... yes that's what it's called, and more. Unlike 21st and 20th Century Fox however, Disney have only started buying most of these studios while Fox has always been about owning different subsidiaries. It's interesting that Disney lasted so long on its own Live Action and Animated content.

There's also Viacom. Now tell me: How many people do you know that know a whole lot about Viacom? Not that many. Now what would happen if that things like The Godfather, Jackass, Spongebob Squarepants, South Park, Good Burger, Forrest Gump, Titanic, and Star Trek all to be ultimately produced by the same company? They'd think Nickelodeon and Paramount were the main companies in charge, well no, it was Viacom. Viacom's pretty much a cartoon evil company that - like 21st Century Fox, own a ton of things. But unlike Fox, Viacom is kind of unknown to the common audience as you rarely see their logo or name in an emphasised way in their products. But yeah with what Viacom own without the consumer even knowing, you can imagine they're serious competition for Fox.

There's also Sony, Time Warner, Comcast and more big contenders for the money fight. How does 21st and 20th Century Fox combat these? Army of Assassins... wait no never mind, I mean they have to make bigger, better and more universally popular products than the competitors. While Comedy Central's Futurama is an infinitely better show, 20th Century Fox's The Simpsons is ultimately the bigger Matt Groening money maker and that's why The Simpsons didn't have to end like Futurama did.  And the same can apply to other things, 21st Century Fox in the end has to rely on what makes them money, which is 20th Century Fox, leading to their huge success. As much as I hate Family Guy, Vampires Suck, Ice Age movies and the fact that the Simpsons is still on, if it wasn't for the money that things like that get, I won't have my Sons of Anarchy, my Archer, new Planet of the Apes movies would either not be made at all or be of lesser quality as another company would have to make them, and Futurama wouldn't have ever been made in the first place.

So...yeah 21st and 20th Century Fox, love 'em or hate 'em their business has probably helped all of us in the end as we all must have some memories of 20th Century Fox movies and TV programmes. I hope I covered all you need to know about 20th Century Fox in this vlog and also how they operate as a business.

KTA 1: TASK 1, LO1 – Tutor feedback

Strength of my analysis: Mentioned plenty of detail with the examples with a way to find them quickly.

2 improvements for my analysis:

 Todorov and Kate Domaille are missing from my narrative structure sections from my analysis. 

Referencing needs to be fixed correctly.

I will include them by next Wednesday and reference properly.

Aims for this lesson

In this lesson I wish to:

- Complete an extra 3 minutes of the blog at minimum 

-If Vlog is (somehow) complete I will go back and add more animation to images.

LO1: Task 2

1. Purpose - What something is designed to do, what it is for. Films are meant to educate or entertain and to create money.

2. Genre - type of movie. Daniel Chandler (2001) "Genre means type or category."
 Barry Keith Grant (1995) "All genres have sub-genres"
Hybrid a mix of genres.
Sub-genre a genre within a genre like how Horror has Vampire, slasher, hammer

3. Form - Medium. What is it? A movie, independent film, feature film, short film etc.

4. Style - Way something looks, how a movie presents itself. Aesthetic quality - the way something looks. Modern, old fashioned, nostalgic, futuristic.

5. Content - What is in a movie, camera work, Mise en scene, sound, editing.

6. Meaning - Why something in content is done, combining the two.

Mention microelements

7. Production Process
Pre-production
Production
Post production