Thriller Conventions

The Music - Has to be fast, dramatic and intense to build up tension with the audience.


The Titles - Black and White, Simple and In sync with the music.


The Shots - Camera shots are vital for a thriller, they have the be quick and mysterious.


The Actors/Speech - Normally in a thriller there will not be much diaolge in the opening sequence and you will normally not see a characters face.

Camera Test

1. What are 2 effects of increasing video gain ?
The image gets grainy
More light is made available so you can shoot in the dark
 
2. What should the shutter speed usually be set to ?
50 frames per second


3. When should you increase shutter speed and what is the side effect of doing this ? When you are planning a slow motion you should increase the shutter speed to make the slow motion look smooth, the side effect of doing this is that your light becomes limited meaning you need more lighting.

4. What is the pupose of doing a white balance ?
To set the colour balance.

5. What is the effect of increasing the audio gain ?
Makes the volume higher but may distort the audio


6. Describe the stages of focusing a camera.
Click focus button, zoom into hair, bring hair into focus, use expended focus to get in a little further to check it is perfect.

7.Why would you use the ND filter ?
For shooting in bright positions outside and to shoot stuff like clouds in more definition


8. If you are shooting in a dark location, would the exposure be better at F1 or F8 ?
F1

UK Broadcasting Systems

In the UK today there are many ways of broadcasting television to people through out the country, including; Satellite, cable, terrestrial, digital and internet. Broadcasters include companies like BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and more. The television providers like Virgin Media and Sky are also part of the broadcasting process as they are the companies who bring the picture to your screens. The original broadcasters of terrestrial TV are BBC, ITV and Channel 4.


The first form of broadcasting I am going to look at is terrestrial broadcasting or digital video broadcasting – Terrestrial (DVB-T). Terrestrial broadcasting is broadcasting which doesn’t involve satellites or cable. Terrestrial broadcasting uses radio waves, the radio waves are sent from the big local antennas to the smaller antennas or aerials in or on your house. Terrestrial broadcasting was one of the first ways of broadcasting television to a wide mass of people. The size of the signal is also known as a bandwidth; This way of broadcasting has been out for decades but in the modern day we have even better ways of broadcasting now. The main problem with terrestrial broadcasting is that radio waves only travel straight meaning that if your local antenna is based on one side of a hill and you live on the other side of the hill you will not receive the radio waves meaning you will not have any television channels. Anther draw back of terrestrial broadcasting is that if there is poor weather then your television will not receive the transmissions in the correct way meaning certain channels will not work, also radio waves are limited and don’t travel far. The best example for use of DVB-T in the UK is Freeview, Freeview picks up the channels with the box when an areal is plugged into the box or television and then it transmits the signals onto your screen as moving images.


The next form of broadcasting I would like to look at is satellite TV. Satellite TV is mostly connected in the UK to the television providers Sky who use satellites to transmit their channels. For satellite TV to work you need a satellite dish fitted to a part of your house to pick up the transmissions. Another use of satellite TV is for live transmissions in programmes like the news where the footage is being sent live to the news studio and then sent to our televisions. One of the main benefits of satellite TV is that terrain does not affect the satellite signal as the satellites are much higher up compared to antennas meaning that terrain does not block signals. Also another benefit of satellite television is that it provides a better bundle of higher definition, interactive TV. A big step for satellite TV and other forms of broadcasting was being able to pause, rewind and record live television, television providers Sky where the first to make this available with there now famous Sky+ box which later was available in HD as well. Another benefit for satellite TV users is that there is nearly no restriction on where it can be broadcast but this is a challenge for cable TV.


Another form of broadcasting as I have mentioned is cable TV. Cable TV is one of the most competitive markets within television providers. Cable TV provides TV via signals which are transmitted through fixed optical fibres and coaxial cables located on the subscribers property. There are many benefits and drawbacks for cable TV. The main benefit for the broadcasters is that once a company has laid cables on a road then that is the company you would have to go with if you wanted cable TV, this meant that companies would compete against each other to lay cables first. Virgin media, one of Britain's top cable providers, made a big but clever move between 2006 and 2007 when they bought and merged with NTL: Telewest to create Virgin Media. Following this Virgin Media followed in the footsteps of Sky and released the V+ service. Along with there V+ Service they had Virgin on demand services where they had catch up, TV choice, music and films all on demand to there customers for no extra fee, depending on the costumers package. All do virgin took this approach on the cable TV market they do not occupy the whole cable TV market. The drawbacks of cable TV is that if your area is being maintained then your TV will not be received until the providers feels it is safe to turn the cables back on. This means that a lot of people that live in the middle of a city where there is a lot of maintenance work would find it less hassle not to have cable TV.


Finally I am going to talk about internet TV. In the 21st century most UK residents will have access to broadband or the internet. Many TV providers also offer broadband services. In the last few years TV companies have realised a new way of making the younger audience watch more of the shows they offer and to earn more money on advertising. This was the birth of Internet Television. After a show had been shown on the televisions channel for example Channel 4 the company would then put it onto there website in the form of a television player on the internet in this case 4OD (where you can watch a show for up to 7 days after it was first shown). Other companies have there own internet TV players, for The BBC it is the BBC iPlayer, for ITV it is the ITV Player and many channels now use YouTube. The main advantage of internet TV is that you can watch a show when you want to watch it instead of when it is scheduled for the television. The main drawback is that you have to have internet connection to watch the shows and in increasing popularity some channels may start to charge for there players for exclusive viewing or other perks of membership. I predict that in the near future internet TV will have taken over the broadcasting system and many people may stop watching there televisions as much if they can choose when the watch it.


My conclusion is that the older versions of broadcasting like analogue terrestrial broadcasting will slowly die out making more room for internet TV and maybe even new forms of broadcasting like mobile TV, which is currently available but not as successful as other forms of broadcasting. Also I think that when cable TV does find an even faster way to transmit the television it may become the more popular choice between cable TV and satellite TV but people will feel disappointed when they lose their cable TV while the wires are replaced. So my final conclusion is that; all the currently popular ways of broadcasting TV have now been around for about 10-20 years, apart from terrestrial broadcasting which has been around for 60 years, and are no where close to stopping yet. In addition to the broadcasting market growing people will start to face even more choices when choosing how to watch TV programmes especially with the newest release of 3D TV being broadcasted into your home coming soon and the competition of cable against satellite being its best for years.

Digital Video Technology

Digital video technology has changed television broadcasting because it means that we can be offered a wider variety of channels rather than just BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV, Channel 4 and Five. Also digital technology means that the quality of content is better than analogue content. Without digital technology we would not be able to record TV at the standard we can now, for example with Sky+ you do not have to rewind your recording like you do have to on an analogue VCR deck. Editing is helped by digital technology because it means that you can add effects so much more easily.

TV and Your Brain

TV Pixels and Your Brain

If you divide a still image into a collection of small coloured dots, your brain will put together the dots into a meaningful image.

TV Motion and Your Brain

If you divide a moving scene into a sequence of still pictures and show the still images in a quick succession, the brain will puts together the still images into a single, moving image.

British TV uses 25 frames per second to make a smooth moving image.

Aspect Ratio

- When you pan and scan the picture of the film blurs and you lose the full affect of the film and picture.
- The ratio for wide screen is 16:9
- The ratio for full screen is 4:3
- For the past 50 years most films have been filmed in wide screen

This is a 16:9 TV – This gives the viewer a more panoramic experience.




This is a 4:3 TV

There are many ways of converting widescreen onto a 4:3 TV and full screen onto a 16:9 TV. For example for widescreen on a 4:3 TV you could letter box the image and for 4:3 image on a 16:9 TV you could pillar box the image.