Intro to Media Exam

You are the manager of a major Hollywood production firm.  Each year you are allotted 20 million dollars to fund films, ads, and public service announcements.  You will be presented with 20 proposals from people who need your money to get their projects made and you must decide who gets the money.

Rules for how you spend the money: 

1.    You may split the money anyway you like from 0 – 20,000,000 per film but your TOTAL amount may not exceed the 20,000,000 per day limit.

3.    You MUST spend all 20,000,000.

4.    You may not finance your own project.

5.    Once the money is gone, you cannot fund anymore projects so CHOOSE WISELY!

Click HERE to see the Rubric I will be using to grade the exams.

Click HERE to begin giving money!

Video Production - Shot Length Analysis

First, using your extensive knowledge of media (movies, TV, commercials, video games, etc.), make a guess.  How long would you say the average shot is held before changing to a different shot?

Second, learn a little about Average Shot Length.

Then look at the Cinemetrics database.
Find at least 3 movies that you've seen and record their ASL and MSL.
Does this surprise you in any way? Compare the types of movies to the ASL.

Finally, do some analysis of your own.  Go to Youtube.com and find an APPROPRIATE music video. I would choose one no more than 3-3:30 minutes for this assignment so it won't take you so long to calculate. Use the Online Split Timer (Click on Stop Watch and the use the SPLIT button) to track the shot length of the music video. You should hit the split button ANY TIME THE CAMERA CHANGES ANGLES OR MOVES. Record the times on a spreadsheet by copying from the online timer and pasting into Numbers (go to Applications --> iWork 09 --> Numbers). Calculate the time between splits and then average them.  What is the ASL of your music video?

What do you think the the tempo, subject matter, etc. have to do with the ASL?

We will be talking about music videos next class. If you get finished with the assignment above, come up with a list of at least THREE songs that we could discuss making a music video of in class. The song lyrics/content must be SCHOOL APPROPRIATE and I don't mean just using the "clean" version. Think outside the box!