I Am Playr

I Am Playr is an interactive game located on the social networking site FaceBook, and was created by Nike. Nike frequently use their sponsored players in the game, such as Aaron Lennon and Theo Walcott, who are both international footballers.
http://iamplayr.com/

The game is designed to be an interactive representation of the life of a professional footballer, and gives frequent decision making opportunities such as the choice pictured above.

The British Board of Film Classification

The British Board of Film Classification is responsible for giving every new film in Britain a rating, for example a U/PG or a 18.

U stands for universal - suitable for anyone to watch.
PG stands for Parental Guidance - suitable for most people, but younger children may need to watch the film with parents because, for example, of mild comedy violence.
12 is literally the minimum recommended age for a person to watch the film. Although people under the age of 12 will be allowed to watch this film in the cinema, they must be accompanied by an adult.
15 is also the minimum recommended age for a person to watch the film, as it may contain mild nudity, violence and swearing.
18 is the highest rating a film can be given, and will probably contain frequent and graphic violence, nudity and frequent swearing.
Some films are too explicit to be given a rating and are therefore banned by the board to be shown in Britain.

Vevo

Vevo is a new music website, and is similar to YouTube. The service was launched officially on December 8, 2009, and at present day contains around 27,000 videos.

It is a joint venture with: Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Abu Dhabi Media, with EMI licensing its content to the group without taking an ownership stake.

VEVO offers music videos from three of the 'big four' major record labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI.

The VEVO service in the UK was launched on April 26, 2011, and this also saw the VEVO app for the first time on the UK app store on iTunes, which has massive potential to increase VEVO's popularity.

Gran Turismo 5

I chose to write about Gran Turismo 5 as it is one of the biggest games ever - and also had an amazing production. It took several years to complete, and comes with over 1000 cars, 26 locations and 71 tracks. It can also be played online - however due to the recent disruption with the Playstation network service, this is unavailable. It was reviewed positively by every source I found, one even being 10/10 (found at http://www.destructoid.com/review-gran-turismo-5-188383.phtml)

Official PS3 Magazine	Gold
GamePro	Editor's Choice
PlayGamer	Editor's Choice
PSX Extreme	Best Sound Effects of the Year
Gamescom 2010	Best Console Game
Tokyo Game Show	Future Game Award
Play (UK magazine)	Technical Merit, Editor's Choice
GameTrailers	Best Racing Game
GameSpot	Best Driving Game, Readers' Choice
GameRevolution	Best Racing Game
PlayStation LifeStyle	Best Racing Game of 2010
PlayStation Universe	Best Driving Game

Any Given Sunday

This scene is from a half-time speech in an American Football game, from the film Any Given Sunday. The coach, played by Al Pacino, gives an inspirational speech that has a great effect on the team, which turns their game around.

One way in which the speech is intensified is through the use of the soundtrack. At the start when the player's morale is low, the music is slow and quiet, but as the coach starts to inspire the players the music gets slightly louder and more promising.

The use of camera shots and angles also added to the effect of the scene. One effect in particular was the gradual zoom on the coaches face. At the start the camera is not zoomed in, instead showing a medium shot of the coach with some of the team shown, as pictured at the top. As the speech goes on and the mood changes, the camera angle that is shown above is shown again, but this time more zoomed in, this effect being used several times, until finally there is a close-up of the coach.

Finders Keepers



As part of my personal research, I studied Finders Keepers, who are an independent record label. I felt that this was the best example to compare to a major record label, as it is the perfect representation of a normal independent record label. This is because its operations, such as marketing, distribution, production, ownership and exchange are low-key and low cost, in contrast to major record labels such as EMI (the other label in my research.)

Production Notes

So far, Bradley and me have filmed several times, producing a few minutes of footage, which we narrowed down (e.g. removing poor clips.) During our filming, we constantly think up new ideas which we wouldn’t have thought of previously. However, this sometimes causes a problem as the shots or scenes can sometimes detract from the plot of the opening sequence.

One shot in particular we wanted to do was inspired by other spoofs, such as Hot Fuzz and more recently, Kick-Ass. They parody older action/superhero movies, and their use of a rapid zoom onto the character’s eyes. Although this took us a while to do perfectly, we felt that the resulting shot added to the feel of our film.

Another shot that we want to do, but haven’t yet, is a low angle shot. However, as this shot is used regularly in films today, we still need to think of a twist that would make the shot seem clichéd. The result of this will hopefully be that the audience reacts in a different way than the low angle shot normally would prompt. Instead of the character being portrayed as heroic and brave, it will hopefully look cheap and over-used.

We also need to do more on our editing and sound that would add to the feel of the opening sequence. For example, we will be filming a few scenes shortly that use fast-cutting editing, as this technique is also used a lot in action movies, to add to their intense feel. However, in our piece we hope that by using this frequently it will reverse the effect, as the frequent use of this technique will make the scene look nervous and rushed.