Electronic Media Product: Bioshock series

"Bioshock"is a series of FPS Role playing video games, namely for XBOX 360 or PS3. The first two games, labelled Bioshock and Bioshock 2 respectively, revolve around the events of the fictional underwater city of Rapture as it devolves in civil war and chaos.

The first Bioshock was released on August 21st 2007 by 2K and Irrational games. The first trailer was released on August 12 2007, 9 days before the games actual release. It is a teaser trailer that shows the protagonist fighting against one of the in-game enemy's, a Big Daddy. It also shows some of the in-game features, such as Plasmids and weapons.

The game follows the silent protagonist, Jack, as he makes his way through Rapture after surviving a plane crash. The game itself has mechanics that make it differ from other FPS, for instance; Ammo conservation, observation of surroundings, and most interesting of all, morality. One of the key in-game physics of Bioshock test the players morality of whether to save or harvest ADAM (In game currency) from the Little Sisters.

The sequel, Bioshock 2, was released on February 9 2010. Taking game 10 years after first game, it follows the protagonist Subject Delta as he fights through Rapture to reunite with his Little Sister, Eleanor Lamb. Using most of the gameplay mechanics from the first game, more features were added into the sequel, such as new enemy's, the most prominent being the Big Sister, the option to adopt a Little Sister to yield more ADAM, and different location, plus a whole new story line going into how Rapture was destroyed in the first place.

The target audience for this game is 16-18, as not only does it contain blood, gore,violence etc, but it also contains content that may be disturbing for younger players.

http://www.2kgames.com/#/

http://irrationalgames.com/

Audio: Bob Crosby

Bob Crosby, brother of the better known Bing Crosby, was an American Dixieland (Jazz) bandleader during the 1930's to the late 1960's.

Born in 1913, and the youngest of seven children, Bob's first stages in his singing career began in 1933, when he was one of the several to star in Anson Weeks "Luck strike magic carpet" radio program, and later on going into works with the Dorsey Brothers in 1934-5. His first real breakthrough came in late 1935, where he formed a band from former members of Ben Pollacks group. With this, he made recordings with the Clark Randall orchestra, led by Gill Rodin. With the revival of jazz during the 1940's, Bob Crosby spent 18 months in the US Marines during WW2, touring alongside various bands of the Pacific. During this, he had his show played on the air by NBC and CBS, and during 1947 to 1953 he was aired by "Club Fifteen." In-between 1952-3, he replaced Phil Harris as the band player on the "Jack Benny show," boosting his popularity as he was frequently seen with Benny, until the show was retired in 1955. In-spite of this, Bob and his band, whom had come to be known as the Bob-Cats, had frequent reunions in-between the 1950's to the 1960's. During the 1960's, two former members of the "Bob Crosby Orcherstra," Bob Haggart and Jack Lawson formed a band in order to keep dixieland jazz known, which also used several of Bob's techniques, which made it the worlds greatest jazz band (Though the two founders kept the original Lawson Haggart Jazz band as their title." Bob later died in the 1990's, due to unforeseen issues of cancer.

In-spite of his death in the 1990's, Bob's work is still known throughout several films and, most recently, the video game Fallout 3 which features three of his pieces, one of which was recorded before he died.

180 Degree Rule

The 180 degree rule is a term used for filming. An imaginary line is placed down the center of two characters, and the camera is not allowed to cross this line, or else it would make the film confusing for a viewer. If the camera goes over the 180 degrees, it is known as a reverse angle.

Target Audience Member

My character is a 16 year old boy called Sam. He likes to listen to old rock, Elvis, The Doors etc, in places such as Star bucks when he is socializing with his friends. Generally he eats Dominoes or McDonalds when his parents are out. One of his hobbies are watching films at the cinema, namely ones including Tom Hanks. His favorite kinds of games are the Half Life series, and Bioshock. He also reads newspapers such as The Daily Mail for updates on important events, he also does this on BBC but he also likes the Simpsons.

Horror Stills Report

Horror Stills Report

Genre

· Western

· Musical

· Science Fiction

· Romantic

· Comedy

· Horror

· Thriller

· Gangster

· Animation

Genre is a term used to categorize a film into a certain type. It takes the elements of the film and places it into said category, e.g. Blood, gore and victims generally fall into horror categories. The audience uses it so that they get a brief idea of what they are about to watch, and also what they may not want to watch. A film producer can use pre existing methods for a certain genre to make his or her film more impacting on the audience. The conventions in a film genre are generally well know via the category, e.g. a Western is presumed to have cowboys and standoffs, and a horror is presumed to have victims and masked murderers, blood gore etc.

The Task

The task we were instructed to do was to take a total of 10 shots of different perspective and angle. These photos are known as stills, and the 10 angles are as follows;

· Establishing shot

· Close up

· Extreme close up

· Mid shot

· Canted angle

· Long shot

· POV (Point Of View)

· Over the shoulder

· High angle

· Low angle

Our first idea as a group was a basic setting; Man walks into elevator, gets attacked by zombie. The idea itself was appealing at the time, so we focused on the camera shots. The storyboard itself was done on post it notes in case we needed to change shots around. One of our particular shots was from the perspective of a CCTV surveillance camera, which was used for the cantered shot. Our ideas changed in the means of location and characters, only two people were used in the stills; Tom and myself. We all added images off of Google to compensate for this, I used zombies from Half Life 2 as there were not many other images available at the time, but even though they were computer generated, they worked extremely well In the stills. As for the location, out first set up was the elevator in the reception area, but this was unfeasible at the least due to people constantly going through the place. Our luck changed however when we were given permission to use the G block elevator.

Production and Construction

Shooting was simple in some areas but more complicated in others. The establishing shot for instance was the easiest shot to do as it was a simple matter of having a man walk towards an elevator, and the area was relatively open, but the cantered shot was extremely difficult on my account, as we had to put a chair into an elevator to get the elevated position. But the shot itself paid off in the long run by my standards. By taking several blank shots we were able to edit in Photoshop and add effects such as dismemberment, blood and zombies. By using the lasso tool I cut off some of the limbs of the victim and placed them elsewhere, then I used some custom-made blood spatter brushes to add the after effect. I also changed the layer to multiply to make it seem more realistic. Whilst in Photoshop I also added an image onto one layer, then another image onto another layer to create a sort of overlapping effect instead of having to use the eraser tool. And as for the soundtrack, I picked each piece to have a sort of build up effect to make the audience believe that something shall happen.

Reflection and Evaluation

On the whole I believe my short to be good overall, minus having some plot holes. But what I would prefer to do differently next time would be to have a change in location, as the elevator scene was something I jumped into too quickly. But aside from all of this I have learned several different techniques in Photoshop, such as how to add certain effects, plus how to make a shot film on Final Cut.

Find Your Tribe

www.findyourtribe.co.uk This site allows you to complete an interactive quiz asks you questions about tastes on Music, Fashion, Lifestyle, Brands and Media Preferences. At the end of the quiz it places you in your tribe, these include;

1. Trendies
2. Hipster
3. Craft kids
4. Clubbers 1
5. PC World
6. Techies
7. Townies 2
8. Rahs 1
9. Chaus 1
10. Street Rats
11. Boy Racers
12. Sports Junkies 1
13. Blingers 1
14. Bhangram Muffins
15. Trackies
16. DIYers 1
17. Get Paid Crew
18. Smart Urban
19. Indie Kids 1
20. Skaters 1
21. Mosters
22. Grungers
23. Emos
24. Goths
25. Scene Kids 1
26. Indie Scenestars

(No I did not make these up!"

"You are a Townie! Your job might be a bit boring but it brings home the bacon and helps you save up for those two weeks away to Spain. Your weekends are set in stone – trip to the shops in town, buy yourself something nice, head to the All Bar One with friends, have a laff, maybe go for a club, as long as there’s none of the indie weirdo music. Keep it straight, you say."

The outcome of my quiz was "Townie," this does sum me up in a nutshell (Minus the six pints) as I generally do save money and I'm not a fan of goth music.