This advert has several parts that stand out to entice the customers into buying it by using connotations to make the customer want to feel like the model in the advert.
For example, the shininess of the perfume bottle connotes elegance. It is reflecting the light from behind the model which makes her seem mystical. The windswept look of her hair connotes glamour and sexiness. The glow of her skin makes her look even more glamorous and connotes that if you use this product you will have beautiful skin. The use of rule of thirds is present and the eye is drawn to the product because of its placing. The woman is staring out of the advert which connotes dominance. The use of chiaroscuro shows the contrasts between light and dark. Also, the positioning of the woman connotes that she represents innocence while the perfume allows you to access your dark/wild side. The nakedness of the model implies that the perfume is all you need to wear to look and feel sexy. The name of the perfume also sounds mystical.
The Amish boy's naivety is shown when he asks his mother what the water fountain is. His mother then shows her relative naivety by allowing him to wander off in a large public place. The boy sees a man that is wearing clothes similar to him and approaches. When he realises that the man is not part of his culture he seems confused and slightly out of his depth.
In a new scene the mother allows her son to go into the men's bathroom alone. This is another example of naivety/innocence. The bathroom is very dirty which connotes the corruption in the city. The Amish boy then witnesses the murder of a man in the bathroom by two others. The shot of his eye through the crack in the door connotes claustrophobia. When the boy makes an involuntary noise, one of the murders hears it and checks the cubicles. A sense of desperation overwhelms the boy as the murderer gets nearer. The boy manages to crawl under the wall just in time. The expression on the boys face is one of fear. The next scene opens with a shot of some handcuffs on a policewoman's belt. This tells us that the law has arrived. The use of low angled shots may connote that the film is from the boys perspective.
We then go to the mother and son being taken to a suspect by the police. The streets are very dark and wet which is another common aspect of noir thrillers. Chiaroscuro is also used. The location of the subject is a packed bar. This is another use of claustrophobia and little lighting. When the they are taken to the Inspectors sisters house to make sure they stay in the city, we find out that she has a man with her. This contrast of rigid Amish beliefs about sex and marriage and an unmarried women spending the night with a man highlight the differences between the two cultures. The Inspectors sister also shows some dislike for the Amish culture through her response to the mother acknowledging their beliefs.
The boy is asked to look at a lineup through a very dirty window which is a thired example of using dirt to connote the corruption present in the city. A second example of the differences between the Amish culture and everyone else is shown when they pray before eating while Harrison Fords character just eats it. When in the police station, a closeup shot is used to establish that the murderer is actually a police officer. Another key aspect of thriller films used is the underground car park scene. The loneliness of the the cark park and the elevator show that something bad is probably going to happen. The shootout with the corrupt police officer confirms this. This scene also indicates that the corruption runs deeper in the department as Book (Harrison Ford) had only told his superior. The barren landscapes in the Amish community enhances the feeling of emptiness and desolation.
The contrasting halves of black and white connote the battle between good and evil, showing that use of the product is good (innocent) and bad (naughty) at the same time. The use of foreign words makes the product seem elegant and exotic. The use of a location relates the product to that place to gain some of its respect. By showing that it has won an award, the audience knows that the product is good.
My name is Dan. I got 12 GCSE grades A-C including B’s in English and English Literature. I got my only A in History. I spend most of my time listening to music, playing sports or with friends.
Print Media:
I don’t regularly read newspapers but I will try to read an article if I am told there is something interesting in it. I have never taken to reading newspapers because I have limited access to them. I don’t look at magazines for the same reason.
Radio Media:
I used to listen to several radio shows on Virgin Radio. I listened to The Geoff Show and The Sunday Night Show with Iain Lee almost every week. After the radio station changed its name to Absolute Radio and the times of the radio programmes, I listened to them less frequently until I stopped completely. I tend not to listen to any other radio stations as I don’t really like the music played.
Music Industry:
I have a very wide taste in music genres but I mainly listen to post-grunge, symphonic metal and melodic metalcore. I used to play guitar and drums but I stopped as I didn’t think was good enough to be in a band. I get most of my music through Spotify, Youtube or CDs bought online. I think that downloading music illegally from the internet is a waste of time as the sound quality is usually terrible and it can take a long time to download or let a virus onto your computer. I believe that the music industry can affect some peoples attitudes and aspirations positively or negatively.
Video Games:
I don't have a specific favourite but I do enjoy playing Uncharted and Uncharted 2. The games use of long, cinematic scenes give it a sense of being as much about the story as it is about the gameplay. It also includes various comedic references and scenes, as well as the main character making sarcastic comments throughout gameplay if the player makes a mistake.
Most action-based video games are about a man who who has to use a lot of violence to solve his problems. Some activists think that violent video games should be banned because of stories that surface about "a troubled teenager who goes on a murderous rampage and then blames it on a video game". I think blaming violence on video games is a cheap way of excusing the someone who has done something wrong and then tried to think of a way to get out of the punishment. For the majority of people, playing video games actually allows them to release feelings that could potentially cause social problems.
New Technology:
A large amount of new technology available globally has allowed the entire world to come together and lets people keep up with news, friends and family even when they are hundreds or thousands of miles away. Technology lets me do many things. It lets me keep in contact with family members who live far away and friends if I haven't seen them for a while. I often use BBC iPlayer or 4oD to catch up on any tv programmes that I have missed and use Spotify to listen to music.
Television:
My favourite TV channels are BBC1, Virgin1, Sky1, Bravo and Sky Sports News. I think that the first four have several interesting programmes while SSN allows me to keep up with everything in the sporting world. My favourite TV genres are comedy panel shows and sitcoms because I tend to watch TV to wind down. However, I find that no shows are able to to keep me interested in the long term as I can't think of any shows that I would call memorable.
Feature Film:
While I tend to watch mostly comedy or action films, I think it is because I watch films based on who is in them rather than what critics say about them. A film that I consider as one of the best ever is Die Hard. It is an action film that took two relatively unkown actors (Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman) and catapulted them into stardom and resulted in both of them appearing in several major films over the last 20 years. The film is set in a skyscraper on Christmas Eve that is besieged by a group of German terrorists, led by Hans Gruber (Rickman) who want to steal the millions of dollars of bearer bonds inside a virtually uncrackable safe. Unbeknownst to them, NYC cop, John McClane (Willis), is also in the building. As he tries to inform the authorities of the threat, he is discovered and chaos ensues as the terrorists try to capture McClane, he tries to kill all of the terrorists and the bumbling police/FBI team outside try to resolve the conflict. The film also contains many features now considered classics, such as the main characters catchphrase "Yippee kai yay, motherf***er" and Gruber's slow motion fall from the building. The film contains many uses of music, diegetic and non-diegetic, to enhance the scene. For example, Ode To Joy, the classical piece by Beethoven, is used as a recurring theme for Gruber and his associates. Also, as the film is set around the christmas period, sleigh bells are used throughout as well as Winter Wonderland and Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Another film that I would call a classic is Some Like It Hot. The 1959 film stars Tony Curtis, who unfortunately died shortly before finished writing this, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. It is about a pair of struggling musicians who witness a gang murder, similar to the St. Valentines Day Massacre, who escape to Florida dresed as women in an all-girl musical band. Also in the band is Sugar (Monroe), also escaping her past life, who becomes the love interest of Joe/Josephine (Curtis). Jerry/Daphne (Lemmon) also becomes the target of an admirer, in the form of eccentric millionaire, Osgood Fielding II, much to his annoyance. In an effort to woo Sugar, Joe adopts another alter-ego, Junior, heir to the Shell Oil company. Daphne is eventually convinced by Osgood to marry him. When things finally start to look good for Joe and Jerry, the gangsters arrive and the pair must try to escape without being caught. After several comedic chases, the duo escape down to the pier to Osgood, who is waiting for them. Having realised that Josephine and Junior are the same person, Sugar also goes to the pier and leaves with them.
While generally considered a comedy film, it also has aspects of romantic and gangster films. It was one of few films that went against the censorship rules at the time and contributed to its removal. The film also contains several songs sung by Monroe's character, Sugar. These fit into the plot well as the characters are portraying members of an all-girl musical band in an effort to hide from the gangsters. The film is generally considered a comedy classic and achieved first place on the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Laughs list as well as placing 14th on the AFI 100 Years... 100 Quotes with the final line of the film, after the main characters have escaped with Daphne/Jerry's (Lemmon) millionaire admirer, Osgood Fielding III, who proposed to Daphne earlier in the film, Jerry desperately tries to convince Osgood that they cannot marry before giving up and revealing he is actually a man, Osgood simply replies, "Well, nobody's perfect".
Most films I watch are on TV or a DVD played on my PS3. I used to regularly go to the cinema but have only been a handful of times in the past few years. I don't have a favourite cinema as I haven't been to one for a almost a year, but I used to go to Hollywood Cinema in Anglia Square often. I don't have a preference for watching films alone or in a group as I've done a mixture of both.
Conclusion:
I dislike the majority of mainstream "popular" music acts because I see them as generic and unoriginal. I also think the use of technology to alter voices is wrong and often sounds worse than the artists normal voice. There isn't anything in the media that stands out as altering my attitude towards anything as I tend not to go with the popular opinion but rather choose my own based on my experiences. If I were asked to create a media text to inform people about something I deem important, I would use an online article as it would be the easiest to access to a large number of people. I chose to do Media Studies as I am interested in some aspects of the media industry and wanted to find out more about those aspects.
