Sound in media

In media, there are several types of sound used;

The first being Diagetic Sound - these are natural sounds that are all scourced whithin a scene, for example, a conversation between characters, the sound of a door opening, or the sounds of the city(background noise).
For example, in soaps such as 'Hollyoaks', usually only diagetic sound is used to keep social realism.

The second type of sound is Non-diagetic - This is sound that is added after filming to create an atmosphere of tension for example, a theme tune.
A problem with this type of sound is that it may corrupt the scene to be less realistic although an advantage is that it may create more drama.
For example, the iconic theme tune from 'Jaws' automatically creates a tension in a scene.

Other types of sound include;
A sound bridge - this is sound that bridges over two scene and creates a transition from one to the next.
Indicental music - This is a short sequence of music added to emphasise an emotion being portrayed in the scene e.g. a death.
Asychronous sounds - A 'natural' sound that is out of place in the scene, without a scource.
Contrapunctual - This is sound which contrasts an emotion in a scene, this creates an exact binary opposite almost for example, a sad piece of music playing when a charater is portraying happiness.

How Sexuality is represented in TV Drama Skins.

After viewing a 10 second clip from the first ever episode of skins, we, as an audience, are able to gather many questions about Tony, who is being introduced in this scene.
There is firstly, no dialect in this scene as it is purely based around sound to influence thoughts and connote questions as an audience. The clip begins with an extreme close-up camera shot of Tony’s eyes, wide open, the camera then begins to slowly zoom out. Whilst this is happening, church bells ring, an asynchronous use of sound, this is a cultural code which triggers British civillians to believe that this day is a Sunday and a church service is probably congregating. This, as an audience, makes us question why a teenage boy is awake so early on a Sunday, as stereotypically, teenagers are portrayed as being lazy and useless. This could be interpreted as an enigma code.
As the camera zooms out, we see that the bed has not been slept in, it is clinically tidy, which makes us question, was the character awake all night? or could he have possibly just gotten to bed?
The most obvious thing to notice about Tony's bedroom is the two clear naked pictures of a man and a woman side by side, printed on his bed sheet. This raises an enigma code, questionng how Tony's parents would react to the quilt being in his room?

How the editing creates the narrative and represents the character and his disability in Memento

Moral panics, Hypodermic Theory and the Passive Audience

Representation of Northern characters.

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In this clip, two Northern workers are taken out to dinner by their two Southern bosses. They are sat opposite eachother across the table, this immediately shows the diffrence and seperation in class.
The mise en scene in this clip shows the four men seated in a 'normal' looking yorkshire pub; this could have been carefully chosen by the bosses as in an upper-class stylish restaurant, the two workers may feel uncomfortable or even the fact that the bosses may be embarrased to take the workers out in anywhere that they do not look comfortable in. This could be taken as a symbolic code.
The expressions of the workers could maybe also imply that the workers do not like the upper class. This is shown through humour in the script, when one of the worker's makes a joke about one of the boss' son, ' Ben-t-rotter'. This joke also implies that Yorkshire workers are Homophobic as noone objects to the statement made, maybe in fear that they may too get accused.
At the start of the clip, the camera panns across the table on a close-up shot. We can see that the two bosses have wine glasses whereas the two workers have a typical Yorkshire beer in a beer glass. This could show the stereotype of the yorkshire workers, as well as signif again the diffrence in social class.
The food on the table could be described as good, honest yorkshire food, 'bloody great steak though', one of the workers says.
Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze' is present in this clip. A mid-shot is used from behind one of the worker's shoulders, a waitress walks past him and he turns to look at heer behind, the mid-shot then shows 3 of the men at the table staring in the same direction. When asking for the salt, the worker also refers to her as 'bab', this could be seen as stereotypical dialect from yorkshire but also it could be taken as offensive to a woman.
'Bollocks to that', another stereotype from the Yorkshire workers could be that they are very agressive and get angry easily, wheras the Bosses use more formal register and a higher frequency of standard english.
There is also no soundtrack to the clip, just diagetic sound which promotes the social realism in the scene.

How ethnicity is stereotyped in British TV Drama.

Ethnicity was my assigned topic of stereotype. For my character of discussion I have chosen 'Anwar Kharral' played by actor 'Dev Patel' in the first generation of ' Skins', aired on 25th January 2007.

Anwar is primarily portrayed as being a Muslim boy, with over-controlling Pakistani parents who constantly try and attain his interests to his religion inside the Mosque. Despite this, Anwar goes tests his stereotype as he is shown taking drugs, having premarital sex, drinking excessively at parties and eating pork. Although, he does try to pray five times a day and does believe that homosexuality is against his religion. This often takes strain on his relationship with his best friend 'Maxxie Oliver' in the series who is homosexual.

Storylines Anwar is involved in:
In Series 1, an episode shows Maxxie persuading Anwar and other friend Chris to come with him to a 'big gay night out' by telling that that "there will be lots of beautiful women there and they (Chris and Anwar) would be the only ones there to shag".
Another storyline happens on a school trip to Russia, Anwar loses his virginity to a married Russian girl, who he along with friend 'Sid', believe they were rescuing her from her abusive father who turned out to be her husband.

Stereotype Presentations (Prezi).

In pairs, we were all assigned a different social group, stereotyped in Tv dramas and soaps. Each pair had to gather their information and create a 'Prezi' presentation on the Internet about our stereotype. In class, we sat down and watched each pairs presentations whilst we copied down notes.



Age - On the Tv, children are often stereotyped as being very annoying; crying all the time, screaming and throwing tantrums although on the other hand they can be stereotyped as being very cute and cuddly. At the other end of the age scale, elderly people are very much stereotyped as being grumpy, bitter and stubborn. They may also be stereotyped as being crippled and helpless, or stereotyped as being very clever and wise. These two age stereotypes could be labelled as a binary opposite; a symbolic code used in Tv drama to contrast the two ages and make them appear more extreme perhaps.
We were shown a clip from the Tv comedy series 'Little Britain' in which, 'Vicky Pollard' advertises herself as being loud, gobby and rude; showing a typical stereotype that teenagers may have put upon them. Afterwards, we were shown a picture of a hard working teenager to contrast the bad stereotype of adolescents in the media.

Regional Identity - The 'Northerners' of the country are often stereotyped as being very friendly and social people. The fact that they live in a rural area has often stereotyped them all as being very nature-driven and all seem to own their own farm. This could back up the stereotype of Northern people being quite simple and not very bright. On the TV, a series such as 'Heartbeat' is shown as being very colourful and green. This is a contrast to the south. A clip of the series 'Spooks' was shown, in which the scenes were very grey and monotonal, this could possibly be a semantic code, to represent how the South is very urban, materialistic and fast-paced, meaning that the life of a Southerner is very dull and repetitive. The fast-past lifestyle could also be a stereotype in itself, stereotyping that all Southern people are clever and work in office buildings, for example, in the comedy series ' The Office'.

Sexuality - We were shown a clip from 'Little Britain' again, in which an extremely stereotyped gay male, 'Daffyd Thomas' is shown wearing tight-fitting clothing and appearing very feminine with a high-pitched voice. In the clip, he is also filmed in front of a dark background to make him stand out more and appear more alien-like to his surroundings. In contrast to this, a male homosexual could be shown as being very masculine and having an interest in any stereotyped straight male past-time. In argument to this, Lindsey Lohan, an openly-bisexual female, could go against all stereotypes of a gay female being very butch and masculine. In the media, she is portrayed badly but also as being very feminine, wearing tightly fitting dresses etc. In Tv soaps and dramas, a common 'gay-plot' would be; a character realising that they are gay, then everybody finding out, and then how they react to the news.