“Cross media convergence and synergy are vital processes in the successful marketing of media products to audiences. To what extent do you agree with this statement in relation to your chosen case studies?

Cross Media Convergence and Synergy Are Vital Processes in the Successful Marketing of Media Products...

ER clip - January 2013

This clip is from the American TV drama, ER. It is set in a hospital and the first scene that audiences see is a long show of two characters walking towards the camera in natural, day-light lighting whilst discussing the reports of a patient using digetic dialogue. The audience assume that both of the characters are doctors due to their white lab coats; however the female, who looks older than the male doctor, seems to have more authority as she orders the younger doctor to carry out tests. This positioning of the characters side by side suggests equality however when the female doctor starts talking we can assume that she is wiser and the male character approaches her for advice due to her experience as she is older.

The scene then continues into another where the male doctor walks into a room with low-key lighting which foreshadows the morbid tone of a patient’s illness which is about to be revealed to the audience. In the room a young male character is sitting on the bed with a book, dressed in a hospital gown. This may surprise audiences as a child of his age would be expected to be playing a game or using a technological device such as a mobile phone instead of reading. The director then uses several ‘shot-reverse-shots’ to display the dialogue between the doctor and the child. During the conversation, the digetic dialogue portrays the child to be very mature as he tells the doctor how he asked a graduate student to perform a muscle biopsy “on the DL”. The fact that the child seems to have lots of knowledge about his disease of Progressive Motor Disorder puts him on the same level as the doctor and suggests to audiences that even though the child is young, he is still very intelligent. This is re-emphasised when she doctor asks the child if there are any experimental treatments, to which he responds by shaking his head and later confirming that the disease “is inevitably fatal”. When the child refuses to tell his mother in fear of worrying her, the roles between the doctor and the child are almost reversed. However this is dismissed when the doctor forces the child to reveal the news of his disease to his mother which is emphasised by the high and low angled shots. The high angle shot makes the audience feel as if they are looking down on the child, placing the doctor in a place of authority which suggests that with age comes wisdom. The maturity of the child is juxtaposed with a clip of another stereotypical child who is whining about a gerbil bite. The attitude of this boy is the binary opposition of the terminally ill child suggesting that maturity depends on circumstances and personality rather than entirely on age.  When the doctor is talking to the child with the gerbil bite, she crouches down to his level in order for the child to be able to speak to her confidently, however the doctor soon stands up, which is shown through a low angle shot making her seem like a wiser character as she is older and of higher authority. This is re-emphasised when the doctor dismisses the young boy by telling the nurse to just prescribe him antibiotics.

Furthermore, in one of the later scenes the audience hear immature dialogue between some of the male nurses saying things such as: “There’s no o-zone in the tropics…our skin will melt off”. This character’s childish behaviour is further highlighted by the high-key lighting which is contrasted with the low key lighting of the second scene. This immaturity juxtaposed with the behaviour of the sick child signifies how an older character may not always be wiser due to their extended education and further emphasises the complications of age and the judgements and expectations that society places on people depending on how old they are.

Narrative continuity editing typical of TV dramas is allows this scene to flow into the next using ‘cut’ editing. The final scene in this clip depicts a worried young girl whose boyfriend has been forced to have an operation by the police in order to remove a bullet from his body. The doctor who leads the girl into the ward is obviously lying about ‘losing the bullet’ due to the smirks on their faces which suggest how with age may come authority, however this may not bring wisdom as the doctor is obviously doing something illegal by ‘losing’ a piece of evidence. The patient is a young youth lying on the hospital bed who has been associated with gun crime, signifying how society judges all youths to be criminals even though details about this patient are never revealed to the audience due to the lack of dialogue.

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Analysis of Looking For Eric Case Study

Below is the YouTube link for my analysis of our group case study - Looking For Eric. It is a British production that was directed by Ken Loach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEieQqpugdt

Looking For Eric prezi

Media Mock

Media Mock

This extract is from the BBC drama, ‘Coming down the mountain’.

The clip starts with a high angle, crane shot of a bedroom. The audience can see that Ben’s side of the room is decorated with brightly coloured bed sheets and posters, whereas David’s side is predominantly grey and black. Here, the colours that have been used act as a metaphorical illusion of the moods that the brothers are feeling. There is non-digetic narration by the character of David whom states: ‘Last summer, I planned to kill my brother’. The director then pans the camera around David through a mid-shot (MS), before cutting to a medium close-up of Ben, who is asleep.

This clip uses narrative continuity editing that is typical of British TV Dramas. The CU of Ben fades into a short montage of clips that have been edited in, showing the life of a dinosaur, gorillas and a caveman. All of the clips in this sequence are in black and white and the quality is of an old film-reel projector.

The director then cuts the camera to an establishing shot of a block of flats, with a popular song playing, which is non-digetic. There is then a sound-bridge and the next shot is of the family’s kitchen, where the song changes to a digetic sound and it sounds as if it is coming from the radio.

The scene from inside the kitchen follows David as he complains about Ben finishing the cereal. David tries to steal some of his brother’s breakfast, but both parents tell him off. The audience hears the mother telling David to ‘grow up’ through the use of digetic sound. The mother then gets ready to leave the house and the audience see a CU of her kissing Ben’s head before walking out of the frame. The director then shows a CU of David’s face which seems to display his jealousy, suggesting that Ben is treated better and taken better care of due to his disability. This is re-emphasised when their father explains why David must watch over Ben when he goes to the bathroom. Here, binary opposites have been used to display the contrasting ways that the boys are treated by their parents.

Non-digetic music starts to play as the director cuts to the next montage of short scenes where David narrates his duties as a brother of a disabled child through a non-digetic voice-over. The music includes a percussion instrument and a guitar, which is quite up-beat, signifying the many thoughts going around in David’s head. The first shot is of the boys walking to the bus stop with David in front and Ben following behind. The placement of characters signifies how David, as the able child, must lead his disabled brother and guide him in the right direction. The way David is dragging his feet suggests that Ben is a burden who is weighing his brother down due to his disability stopping him from being independent.

When David talks of people dragging Ben away to their ‘sex dungeons’, the percussion instrument in the non-digetic music speeds up. This signifies the implications of ever leaving Ben’s side and his inability to look after himself. The percussion could also be symbolic of a heartbeat, illustrating David’s worry for his brother.

The non-digetic music fades out and the audience hears the digetic noises of a classroom instead. It seems as if the noise of the classroom breaks David’s train-of-thought and so, his non-digetic narration and the music both come to a halt.

The director shows an over-the-shoulder CU of David as he draws a dinosaur, which is a visual aid to remind the audience of the earlier montage of dinosaurs, suggesting that David is questioning why his life is the way it is and why the ‘mixed-up chemicals’ were so ‘messed up’ in Ben as to make him disabled.

After witty dialogue between the teacher and some students the scene cuts to a shot of students walking out of a school building. The director shows a CU of David with Ben standing behind him as the audience hear the digetic sound of David’s friend asking if David had to ‘babysit’. This, along with Ben standing behind David, shows that David is Ben’s protector and suggests that Ben’s disability makes him inferior.

David tells Ben to go home alone and requests Ben not to tell their parents, before giving him money to buy chocolate. This re-emphasises Ben being treated like a child due to his disability.

The scene cuts to the next where non-digetic harmonic, piano is playing as the audience hear David’s non-digetic narration on how he ‘had to get some space’. The CU of Ben’s face as he clutches tightly onto the bar on a seat on the bus reveals his fear of being forced to go home alone. The fact that Ben is so afraid of independence evokes sympathy from the audience as Ben deviates from social norms and therefore can find small, everyday tasks daunting. During this time, the harmonic piano music signifies the sympathetic emotions that the audience is meant to feel for Ben and juxtaposes with their anger towards David for abandoning his disabled brother.

This clip suggests that disabled people are inferior and need constant supervision, however it does imply that it is through no fault of their own and cannot be helped or avoided and that avoiding responsibilities of looking after a disabled person could lead to that person getting themselves into trouble due to them being unable to look after themselves properly.