UNIT 8 PREP WORK

Please collate research on the following areas ready for the first week back after half term

• What is the BBC? - The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a public broadcaster in the UK and one of the largest broadcasting organisation in the world. The BBC is funded by the TV licence fee that is paid by UK households and business who have televisions.

• How is it funded? - The BBC is funded by people paying for their TV license, the money brought in from TV licenses are used to pay for its TV, radio and online services, plus other costs. 

• When did it start? - The BBC started in the 1920's the first regular radio broadcasts and the first edition of The Radio Times, and the first ever demonstrations of television. The 1920's saw the end of the amateur radio enthusiasts and the beginning of a professional broadcast organisation. 

• What current changes are they making to their channels or programmes? -

• BBC1 is reducing the minimum hours of arts and music from 45 to 40, achieved through cutting episodes of shows.
• BBC One and Two will "largely be protected from making significant cuts".
• Repeats on BBC One will increase, but remain under 10% of all output (the current rate is 8.4%).
• Expenditure on sports rights will be cut by 15%. This has largely been achieved already by sharing rights to Formula 1 coverage.

• Can you find 2/3 articles on people arguing the pros and cons of the licence fee?

1. http://www.groundreport.tv/what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-the-tv-licence-in-britain/

2.  http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/feature/a560323/ds-reader-view-why-the-bbc-should-keep-the-licence-fee.html

3. https://kingb94.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/pros-and-cons-of-the-bbc-licence-fee/

• What are commercial TV channels? - Commercial TV channels are popular channels such as Film 4 or Sky Sports, because these are private companies but are popular commercial channels. 

• How are they funded? - Funded by people who pay for the channels on Sky and subscribe to the channels, they pay a specific amount per week and year so they can watch the programmes and thats how the channels are funded. 

• How do we know if a commercial channel is successful or not? - If you look at the viewing figures of a channel and see how many people tune in to watch each day that will tell you how much of a popular/successful channel it is. 

• What are the highest rated programmes on ITV or channel 5 -  Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Broadchurch are the most watched programmes on ITV. Channel 5's most highest rated programmes are CSI, Big Brother and Home and Away.

• What is a meant by the term 'media conglomerate'? - "A media conglomerate, media group or media institution is a company that owns large numbers of companies in a variety of medias such as television, radio, movies, and even the internet." 

• Find some 'media conglomerates'? 
  

• Who are the major film production studios? 
  

• Find two or three films for one of the major studios, how much money did they make from it (box office and DVD)

Paramount Pictures films

Wolf of Wall Street - worldwide the film made $392,000,694

Mean Girls - worldwide the film made $129,042,871

Titanic - $1.84 billion worldwide 

• What is meant by the term 'independent film'? - An independent film is made outside the major film studios, it's produced by a smaller company that isn't apart of the multimedia mass studios. 

• Can you find examples of independent film producers? -  

Kevin Smith "Clerks" was produced on a shoe string budget. Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier produced the comedy "Clerks." Smith used his entire savings to produce this movie. This movie ended up becoming a cult classic and shooting Kevin Smith to fame and other projects.

Byron Kennedy While his name may not immediately scream out, his work remains a classic. This producer solidified his standing in movie history with the production of the “Mad Max” series starring Mel Gibson.  This Australian film was created with a $400,000 budget, yet the effects of this movie still carry on.

• What independent films have won awards?

Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook (The Weinstein Company)

Actor in a Supporting Role
Chritoph Waltz – Django Unchained (The Weinstein Company)

Costume Design
Jacqueline Durran – Anna Karenina (Focus Features)

• What are the new technological developments in the way we watch/make television and film?

"The most recent developments in the way we watch and make tv and film are that we can now stream programmes and films from our laptops/computers and phones, this can we done through sites such as BBC iplayer and 4OD. There are new apps for phones such as Netflix, this is an app but also a website which you  pay monthly with in order to watch films and tv programmes from over the past few months.

Another development in the way we watch TV is that over the past few years 3D viewing and 3D TV's have been introduced to us, first 3D was available in the cinema but has more recently been developed to watch in the comfort of your own home through 3D televisions and channels. 

We can now also record tv which allows us to watch the programmes we want at later times, for example if you are in work and are going to miss a programme you can set your sky box for example to record the programme, so then you can watch it later on when it suits you."