Slumdog Millionaire; Screen Shots & Youtube Clip.

Here are some screen grabs from the Film Education website of Danny Boyle, the director of Slumdog Millionaire speaking about the production of his blockbuster movie.

Below is the Youtube clip of Danny Boyle recieving an Oscar for his directing skills.

Film Enrichment; Slumdog Millionaire.

Question 1a

What perspective of life in India does this film offer? Consider the locations as a starting point.

The film shows India from a poorer perspective, it shows us that India has a very distinctive culture with the way in which they dress, the ways in which people behave and the things they do to survive in their daily lives such as washing clothes in dirty river water, young children looking in dumps for food and things to sell for money and homeless orphaned children fending for themselves on the streets. 'Slumdog Millionaire' was filmed in a Mumbai slum, later moving to the part of India which is considered better off further into the movie and showing some famous indian landmarks. The movie shows us that children have to grow up quicker then expected within developed countries. Family seems like a strong moral ground in which the people of India live by, people would do anything to protect and keep their family with them, this is displayed through Jamel and Salim's relationship.
We can see that the tourists are much more sensitive to the way in which the men within the slum treat the children, they don't approve of the way in which they are abused and victimised whereas the people who live and have been brought up in the slums don't seem to see what they are doing and the way people are treated within their culture as, they don't see such treatment as degrading.

Question 1b
Think about the function of those scenes? Do they back up your initial thought of India before watching the movie?

There are aspects of the movie that back up my initial thoughts and opinions of India, the evidence of the slums and orphaned children back up my thoughts. However the family loyalty and the way in which the children are forced to grow up and mature so fast challenges my initial stereotype, I had a negative stereotype in my mind saying that everyone who was born and raised within the slums lived by a 'every man for himself' moral value'. The presence of the westernised house with the big iron gates and plasma screen tv also challenges my idea of the way in which the people of India live. The fact that Jamel is on who wants to be a millionaire also challenges the stereotype I personally had of India, who wants to be a millionaire is a very westernised game show which I wouldn't expect India to have adopted into their culture.

Question 2

Do you agree with these views? What evidence can you use to support your response?

Yes, people believe that India is a place where slums a poverty have taken over every inch of India, whereas this is a bad stereotype as every city in the world has bad and good places, if you take London for example, there are bad parts of London where crime cripples communities and poverty grips families,  but there is also uptown London which is home to million dollar houses and historic buildings and landmarks such as Big Ben. We can see from the movie that there are richer parts of India involving brand new sky rise buildings and nice big westernised houses including flat screen TV's and big iron gates. This challenges people's negative stereotypes surrounding India. The presence of the big high rise buildings also enforce a very westernised approach to India, as high rise buildings tend to be in places such as the USA or the UK

Question 3
Boyle talks here about the film being considered shocking because of its truthfulness. Think about how the realism in the film contrasts with more fairy tale aspects of the narrative. How well do you think these approaches fit together?

The slums represent the harsh reality of India, they show the conditions in which young children are families are forced to live, needing to rummage through rubbish to find food to eat or scrapes to sell in the sweltering heat. It's everyone's dream to escape the slums and make something of themselves. We are shown that the 'gangsters' and the crooks are the ones living the high life with the nice cars, mobile phones, beautiful girlfriends and lots of money, this shows us that people are prepared to turn to crime or dodge dealings to try and rise from the slums and lead a comfortable life in which everyone dreams. The host of who wants to be a millionaire, the show is which Jamel is competing also talks about his experiences in the movie, he tells Jamel that he to is from the Mumbai slums and is the only man from the slums to go from having nothing to being a millionaire overnight. This shows us that not everyone turns to crime such as robbery and ripping off tourists to earn a living.

Assignment 3; Genre Exploration Task.. (Draft 3).

Here is my third draft of my assignment 3 genre exploration task; for my previous drafts I chose to complete them on the horror genre, however now I have chosen to pick the genre of drama to complete my assignment.

Assessment Record For Assignment 3.

SELF ASSESSMENT	N/A
PEER ASSESSMENT	N/A
TEACHER ASSESSMENT
GRADE	The grade I received for this task was  E2 This is    below   /   on   /   above  my target grade of a C .
TARGETS TO IMPROVE	To improve this work I need to:  ·         Use sentence starters given. ·         Put in better effort. ·         Identify conventions better.

Assignment 3; Genre Exploration Task (Draft 2)

Below is my second draft of my genre exploration task, for this piece of work I achieved a E2 grade, this was a disappointment as I went down a grade from my first draft.
I now know what I must do for my third draft to improve and aim for a higher grade.

Assessment Record For Assignment 3.

SELF ASSESSMENT	N/A
PEER ASSESSMENT	N/A
TEACHER ASSESSMENT
GRADE	The grade I received for this task was  C/D          This is    below   /   on   /   above  my target grade of a C .
TARGETS TO IMPROVE	To improve this work I need to:   ·         Use more images and exmaples in my work. ·         Explore hybrids more.

Assignment 3; Genre Exploration Task (Draft 1)

Below is my first draft of my genre exploration task, I was given a D/C grade fot this piece of work due to my lack of images and chunks of information taken from the internet.

A Seperation; Cinema Trip.

as a class me and my media group went to the cinema to watch the drama movie 'A Seperation' the movie was very gripping and intresting, however the cultural differences between westernised drama movies such as 'Precious' or 'My Sisters Keeper' and the Persian drama movie in which we went to see are clearly noticeable. The movie has a good twist troughout and didn't have a predictable ending like most movies tend to, the movie ended on a cliff hanger. There are many typical conventions of a drama movie within 'A Seperation' with divorce, violence, crime and a court battle over the married couples young daughter taking place.

Fish Tank Film Review.

For this task my group included Helen, Pamela and Chelsea.

 Firstly each person wrote their own paragraph and underneath each paragraph the persons name who wrote that particular paragraph is listed.


'Fish tank is a 2009 British kitchen sink drama directed and written by Andrea Arnold. Fish Tank stars Katie Jarvis ( and acting ammeture), Kierson Wasing and Michael Fassbender. Fish Tank was a generally low budgeted movie, only being grantted a million dollar budget. Fish Tank was released on May 14th 2009 and has a running timr of 124 minutes.
'Michaela'

The genre of fish tank is 'drama'. A drama film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with an emotional theme. However fish tank would be a drama because there's always something that happens and it's normally predictable what would happen at the end. All drama films would normally have teenagers and there everyday life, however in fish tank it has teenagers acting and how they would deal with their problems, this would lead to that the audience would predict that everything would go well at the end of the drama film, therefore this explains that almost every drama film is predictable. What we would also see in drama movies, is conflict, real life scenario's friendship problems etc. Furthermore, fish tank would have these conventions as Andrea Arnold has included these types of conventions in her movie. For example there has been a friendship situation between Mia and her friend have had a friend ship problem where they wouldn't talk again because of there past, this would be a typical drama film as Mia and her past friend would make the film even more dramatic as there would be hatred in the film.
'Pamela'

There are many different types of themes explored in fish tank .
Loneliness is one of the many themes explored within fish tank  Mia feels like there is no one there for her like she is all by herself in the world. another main theme is emotion Mia lacks the typical emotional bond most families share within her family unit it's hard for her to express herself the only way she feels she can express herself is  through her passion for dancing.
'Helen'

Andrea Arnold uses scenes in the film to metaphorically represent the characters, particularly, her portrayal of Mia through the trapped 'white horse' she is seen attempting to release on many occasions to no avail. Arnold's closing scene is one of the most powerful throughout the film, as Mia learns about the death of the 'white horse' that was to symbolise herself and her fight for freedom, and the truth about her mums new boyfriend, she finally finds her way out of her council estate aquarium and into the big ocean of the outside world. Saying goodbye to her family and the home that was all she knew, Mia drives off with newfound friend Billy, leaving behind the 'fish tank' and a single runaway balloon that you can't help thinking describes the perfect ending to this chapter in the main characters life.
'Chelsea'


Next we each recorded ourselves reading our paragraphs on the imac computers using Photo Booth.

We then uploaded our video onto youtube by firstly signing up to youtube, and then uploaded our video, in the unlisted category.

Next we copied the enbedding code from youtube, and enbedded the youtube video, below is the video clip of me reading and recording my paragraph of fish tank called 'trapped'


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Blogger Tutorial.

Step one:
To start using the blogger app you have to install the app from the App Store to do this simply search for blogger once you've installed this you have to sign into your gmail account.

Step two:
To make a post you click on the grey area which states tap to compose a new post.

Step 3:
Their are two ways to put photos on to your post the first is to click the camera icon which will lead you to take pictures through the app, and the second is to insert a picture from your photos

Assessment Record.

Below is my assessment record which is all of my grades so far in media.
My current grade is a grade D3.
To improve in media, I need to

• explore media contexts further
• use more key terms and examples in my assignments
• use a range of ideas in my assignments and classwork 

Assignment Assessment Record.

NAME: Michaela Ives-Kingshott.

TARGET GRADE: C

COLOUR KEY         GREEN:   On or above target grade                  AMBER:  1 grade below target grade                         
RED:        2 or more grades below                    BLUE:     Incomplete assignment

C/W or EXAM		ASSIGNMENT #/NAME	Targets to improve		LEVEL	GRADE	DRAFT2 GRADES	DRAFT3 (or more) GRADES
c/w		Assignment 1: Creative Media Task	include more information. better presentation.		2c	N/A
c/w		Assignment 1: blog analysis
both		Assignment 3: Genre group task	describe how you developed/challenged/ reinforced stereotypes in your scene. make storyboard more accurate.			C/D
both		Assignment 1: Genre exploration task	include more examples. include images		2/3	C/D	E2
Exam (A)		Assignment 1: Denotation & Connotation	learn how to identify Denotations and Connotations more effectively.		1/2	D/E	D/C
both		Genre Test	more revision needed to improve grade. make sure I gain a clear understanding of different keywords and theories.			E2	C3
	CURRENT GRADE			Grade Comment:

Self Assessment.

Here is a self assessment based on my target grade in media, how I think I am doing generally in media studies so far and what I feel I could do to improve in media studies.


My target grade in media is a grade C.


So far in media studies, I think the following things are going well:

• Creating and organising my online blog.

• Working in groups to produce work to the best of my ability.

• Learning the key features of media and what media is used for in the modern day society we live in.

To improve in media, I need to:

• Better my understanding of the more complicated key terms and theories.

• Better my understanding of being able to identify different sub-genre's.

• improve my understanding of identifying denotations and connotations of objects.

Thinking about my overall performance and considering the grades I have received so far, I think I am working at a grade D level.

Film Enrichment; Crash.

 In film enrichment we watched ‘Crash’ (2004) starring..

• Sanda Bullock

• Don Cheadler

• Matt Dillon

• Jennifer Esposito

• Brendan Fraser

• Terrence Howard

• Chris "Ludacris" Bridges

• Thandie Newton

• Ryan Phillippe

• Larenz Tate

• Michael Peña

• Directed by Paul Haggis.

• Crash is a gripping and powerful American Drama film, Crash is based on a true life incident in which the director 'Paul Haggis' had his car 'carjacked' on Wiltshire Boulevard in 1991. Crash is a movie based around racial and social tensions in Los Angeles, California. There are many different people from different social and ethnic groups involved in the movie, there is a racist white police officer, a Persian Immigrant father who is wary of others, a Mexican locksmith, an African-American Hollywood director and his wife who find themselves dealing with the racist white police officer. There is also a black detective who finds himself estranged from his mother and younger brother. The movie is based around a two day time period in which during that time all the characters in the movie, from every background collide.

• Some of the main themes present in the movie are Love and Romance, Violence, Action, Poverty and Family

•  I really liked the character ‘officer John Ryan’ because he was a very mysterious and interesting character, he enforced the meaning behind the racist views within the police force. 

•  My favorite scene in the film was the car fire scene because it was a great cliff hanger, you didn't know if the couple were going to make it out alive, or before the car blew up.

• I enjoyed this film because it was very gripping and interesting, even though the conventions were typical of a drama movie 'crash' had an interesting twist to normal drama movies. I liked the way eventually everyone in the movies lives collide in some way.

Conventions	Scene example from film Crash	Scene example from other films that are similar
Love/Romance	When the district attorney called up his wife after he shot the innocent man and set his car on fire to tell her he loved her. The attorney and his wife seem to have a strained relationship due to her lifestyle and his job.	Titanic, is an example of strained love, an upper class girl falls in love with a lower class boy on a ship, the ship begins to sink, however they do everything in their power to stay together through the tradgedy.
Violence	When the officer assumed the black man had a gun in his pocket when he didn't and shot him as a consequence of his wrong thought.	Freedom Writers, the upper class white teachers who work in the school advise the new teacher not to wear her pearl necklece to school, this suggests that the other teachers have reason to believe the children would rob the teacher due to their social backgrounds.
Ethical/Racial Stereotypes	The white officer assumes the black man was carrying s gun, the people in the movie living in poverty are immigrants to the USA.	Adulthood, the general public feel intimidated by the younger generation due to the way in which they dress and behave. The gangs members tend to all be young, black and a member of a working class family.
Action	Carjacking, car fires, shooting  weapons, chases, explosions.	James Bond. typical action movie involoving the use of weapons such as guns and grenades, car chases, violence, explosions, fires etc.
Family	When the man is being held at gunpoint and his young daughter comes running out to him and is almost shot.	Taken, an action film in which a mans daughter is kidnapped and he is determined to get her back.