Star Trek (Paramount pictures)
-Star Trek is one of the most successful media franchises of all time. Created by Gene Roddenberry, it has been on our screens, at home or in cinemas, in one form or another since the 1960s.
- Star Trek franchise in general, contextual terms and to identify its position in media history.
- Star Trek has reached audiences through five television series, upwards of 24 console games and 12 ‘official’ films. It has been the inspiration behind countless magazines, websites, fan fiction novels and movies, YouTube spoofs, animations and a whole host of other media - even inspiring a number of hit singles.
- Promoting militarism and American expansionist values, it also promoted liberal attitudes, particularly regarding race and gender. To include a Russian (Chekov) as the helmsman at the height of the Cold War.
- Deeply controversial during this time of great racial tension in the states; never more so than when the show depicted the first African-American/white inter-racial kiss on US television.
-The rise in DVD box set sales has changed the landscape for television drama:
• More complex narratives can be attempted as it is no longer important to ensure that broadcast episodes can be missed without losing the idea of the plot’s development.
• Stories that cater to adults can be very profitable as they are likely to invest in the costly purchase of a box-set
• Institutions are likely to invest in more challenging ideas as there are several ways for them to make their money back rather than simply relying on large television audiences bringing in advertising revenue
- Star Trek provided an opportunity, not simply to revisit the Trek universe to tell new stories but to restart the franchise
-Genre theory tells us that there is a tension within genre texts: retell the same story and meet audience expectations of the genre too precisely and the audience will get bored, but deviate too far away from the traditional codes and conventions and the audience will feel alienated and unable to connect to the text. In the expansion of Star Trek over the decades the franchise had become thinly stretched and tired.
- Tell their story again from the beginning - going back slightly further in the character biographies than had been covered by the television series. Actors who resembled the original actors were cast (and in places could be identified delivering lines in ways very similar to their predecessors).
- (Difference with the old to the new) film series was not restricted to events and relationships that had been set up in previous versions of Star Trek, the events that took place in Star Trek (2009) were shown to be part of an alternative timeline.
Convergence and synergy in the film industry
-Company owning more than one step in the supply process of a particular product. For example, the supply process of a film would include production (making),distribution (marketing) and exhibition (showing the film).
-The concept of synergy is closely linked to convergence as the ‘coming together’ of the separate companies associated with different technologies within a conglomerate allow for synergy to happen. Synergy is the process through which media products derived from the same text are promoted in and through each other and throughout the subsidiaries of a media conglomerate.
- E-media subsidiaries
The online versions of the reviews in the Sun and the Times featured on the publications’
websites also included links to the Avatar trailer. In addition, MySpace Video (MySpace is
also owned by News Corporation) hosted a teaser trailer for the film in High Definition and
there was an official MySpace profile that included the trailer for Avatar’s theatrical run and
later the TV spots promoting the Blu-ray and DVD release.
The Romantic Comedy Film Genre
Rom-coms and audiences
-The tropes within the rom-com genre revolve around emotional intelligence, communication and expressing feelings. As these are stereotypically female attributes, the feminised genre is often considered as a guilty pleasure.
-These films satisfy an audience because they offer uncomplicated and easy to access pleasures, due to the heavy referencing to relationships, light-hearted subject matter, and inevitably idealist representations and narrative outcomes.
-All rom-coms will hold an emphasis on the aspirational love story, and the plausibility of this is a crucial factor to the success of the film. If we consider the audience theories of Blumler & Katz (Uses & Gratifications) or Dyer’s Utopian solutions, it is clear that rom-coms in their traditional form offer clear gratifications of entertainment, personal identification, escapism and narrative transparency. However, it is necessary to consider how audience needs have evolved and how this affects the narrative structures, tropes and representations.
Rom-coms and modern ideological values
-The traditional rom-com offers an idealist approach to our societal ideologies. In this approach all couples are heterosexual and attractive, everyone achieves successful with relative ease, and couples who do engage in sexual relationships can only do so because the narrative is headed toward monogamy and/ or matrimony. However, as societal values change, so do the media texts that seek to reflect them.
The future of the genre…
-As values and ideologies change and respond to the societies that form them, so too will the media texts that are produced. The romantic comedy continues to be a highly popular genre, however the increasing use of unconventional narratives juxtaposed with the tropes and generic conventions makes this a genre which is moving away from simple, idealist representations of gender and form, into a category of film that is worth more detailed consideration. However, it may not be possible to move too far from the tropes of romance that underpin the narrative. After all, without a happy ending, would it still be a Rom-com?
British Films
-British Film and Censorship The custodian of censorship and classification in the UK for the last 100 years has been the British Board of Film Classification, (the BBFC). Although when first created in the early decade of the 20th century the BBFC originally stood for the British Board of Film Censorship which tells you a little about how attitudes toward film have changed in the UK over time. All British and imported foreign films have been subject to censorship and classification by the BBFC according with the social, cultural and political trends and beliefs at the times at which the films were made and considered by the BBFC.
-Difficult to label a film as British, however those few films that can be labelled as British are so because of the content and focus on British culture. This is the first step towards targeting and appealing to a British audience as with any film made by a country for its own populace. The main characteristics that can be identified as appealing to a native British audience would include; the actors, British actors tend to be clearly identifiable as British and will often be associated with a particular genre of British film, for example Hugh Grant having an association with British romantic comedies.
Identity and Film
- 12 Years A Slave tells the story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in New York in 1841. He is kidnapped and sold into slavery in The South where he is passed between several owners who treat him with varying degrees of cruelty. The film won the academy award for best film in 2013 and was praised for its realistic depiction of slavery.
-Film also increasingly provides a mechanism for audiences to explore identities that have been hidden and marginalised. Gay and Trans people have often been absent from popular films or represented in stereotypical ways when they have appeared. For young people growing up and
identifying themselves as gay, the lack of film representations of homosexual characters can make it difficult for them to find role models to help them build an identity. Writing in 1991, Steven Harsin stated: “Most young men who are homosexual are not raised in an environment in which homosexual development is even recognized, much less encouraged. It is not unusual for men who have recently identified themselves as gay to not have any idea what being gay is all about”. Therefore, films representing gay characters and lifestyles are an invaluable resource for young people trying to make sense of their self concept.
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