Applying narrative theories

Recently i have watched many films, many big budget films and many indie films. From what ive seen all of them use Todorovs and Propps narritive theorys. The reason why is because people like a plot where it is structured in such a manner. Its keeps the audience entertained and on the edge of their seats,  many early films did not use the theories and to the modern audience they seem very unorthodox.

One film i watched recently is the film elysium, this film staring matt damon follows all five stages but in a very interested way.

Equilibrium:
The story established, earth is a world which has be ravaged in war and over population. All the privileged people live on Elysium, a citadel which was created and is suspended in space. On Elysium there is war, no disease, a haven where they have the technology to cure any disease. On earth people struggle and the struggle of  the main protagonist is introduced as well as many side characters.

Disruption:
In this film there are two problems which are introduced, one is where the protagonist had been exposed to a high dose of radiation and only has five days to live. This makes him desperate to get to elysium where he can get treatment but he needs to get there by doing a job for a crime lord which is his friend. As this is happening the antagonist which has a high status on Elysium is planing a coup in order to take over Elysium, she has the codes of the main frame of Elysium which she puts in the hand of a fellow resident of Elysium who is on his way to earth for a business meeting.

Recognition of disruption:
The crime lord gives the protagonist a job where he must steal information from a rich individual for money.This person happens to be the person who has the codes to reboot Elysium. They retrieve the info and then they realise what they have come across and the potential of what they have. This causes a mass hunt down for the info which is encoded into the main characters brain. Therefore the protagonist is being hunted down.

Attempt to repair the disruption:
With the new info they have they try and get into Elysium and take over using the codes in order to have a better life. They get onto Elysium but on their journey they are constantly followed by a psychopathic bounty hunter which works for the antagonist on Elysium. But when the bounty hunter finds out the extent of the info he decides he will take the codes for his own use.

Reinstatement of equilibrium:

The main character fights off the bounty hunter and both the crime lord and main character reach the control room. In there the crime lord finds out that extracting the data will cause the death of the main character. The protagonist is prepared to trade his life in for a better future for all the people on earth. He sacrifices himself and Elysium is rebooted and the technology to heal is made accessible to the people on earth. From there the film ends.

As you can see this film follows the theory very well. In-fact almost all modern day films do but they do it in their own way. the main thing i noticed from this film is how they borrowed ideas from many successful video games. in particular Halo and Mass effect. For example Elysium has a lot of similarities with the rings from halo and similarities of the privileged life style of the citadel from mass effect.

Here are some comparisons:

Elysium.

HALO ring, from the Halo franchise

Living and environment on Elysium.

Living quarters on the citadel from mass effect.

D.A.W script

Hello and welcome to this video tutorial on how to set up a DAW.

Representation and early computer games.

Stuart hall had the theory in which he said that a media platform will have an aspect of which the consumers can relate too. He claimed there were three main ways to represent the negotiation between producer and consumers, to an extend he was right.

One way

prefered reading: when you can relate what you see to somthing in real life E.G.
negotiating readig: is a specific idea put across towards the audiance which the consumer accepts E.G.
the opposition reading: when the idea put across by the producer is rejected by the consumer, mainly because it did not resemble what the producer wanted to put across or because it was very rubbish E.G.

pilot

Action/shot:

A shaky camera turns on in a dark corridor,

The camera makes a charging noise as the night vision turns on.

Jamal walks through the corridor breathing heavily with heavy steps.

Suddenly a figure walks out of the kitchen, the camera strafes into the living room and proceeds to record as the figure (kasim) yawns and then walks down the corridor into another room.

As soon as kasim as gone the camera continues to journey through the corridor as it reaches the room at the end of the passage where there is a girl looking out of the window, the camera gets closer to her and the breathing gets heavier,

She turns around and screams, then she throws stuff at the camera as she curses and screams.

Jamals laughs and the camera runs out of the room into another room to the mirror.

in the mirror you can see the reflection of jamal and the camera but jamal has a horror mask on and is laughing hysterically.

UPDATE

What you have read above was the pilot for my previous idea for a film. Since then plans have changed and the story is completely different. There for a new pilot is needed, here is the script for my pilot.

Pilot script

Setting 1 – int – planning room (unknown location)

DARK EMPTY  ROOM – LOW SPOT LIGHTING ON A TABLE, CLOSE UP SHOT ON THE RED MUG AND KEYS.

Voice over:

Money is the root to evil; the greed, which it makes, consumes people.

ZOOM OUT SHOT OF A BOARD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM.

Voice over:

Gives them a thirst, a thirst that will never be satisfied.

DISTANT SHOT OF THE DOOR OPENING WITH THE TABLE AND BOARD IN SHOT.

A man walks through the door; he walks through the dark into the spotlight

Voice over:

And this city, London. Packed fully with crooks and corruption on a professional level.

HIGH ANGLE SHOT OF THE LOWER BODY OF THE MAN, AS HE WALKS OFF TOWARDS THE TABLE.

EXTREME CLOSE UP ON THE RED MUG.

The man grabs the red mug

SAME HIGH ANGLE SHOT OF THE LOWER BODY, CAMERA GRADUALLY CIRCLES AROUND THE MAN AS THE CAMERA PANS UPWARDS, UNTILL THE BOARD IS IN SHOT.

The man drinks out of red mug

Voice over:

Because the criminals wear suits and carry brief cases, it’s called a business.

LOW ANGLE CLOSE UP OF THE BOARD

The man starts writing on the board.

Voice over:

Parasites, they feed off the blood and sweat of the workingman.

DIRECT LEVEL SHOT OF THE BOARD.

Man carry’s on writing

Voice over:

And the wrong suffer.

SHOT OF THE TABLE,

The man walks up to the table and puts his mug down.

HIGH ANGLE SHOT, OVER THE MANS SHOULDER FACEING A FILE ON THE TABLE.

The man opens up the file and grabs two pictures of two individuals.

MEDIUM SHOT OF THE BOARD.

The man walks up to the board and pins up the picture of one of the two individuals on a board.

CLOSE UP ON THE PICTURE, THE SHOT ZOOMS OUT AT A MEDIUM PACE.

Voice over:

Exhibit A,

SHOT OF THE DOSIER NEXT TO THE PICTURE, CAMERA ZOOMS DOWN TO SHOW ALL THE INFORMATION.

Voice over:

MR. Motomba Danjuma…the devil on earth. 

AT THIS POINT A MONTAGE OF MANY CLIPS ARE SHOWN.

Voice over whilst the montage is shown:

He has private armies all across Africa and from the shadows is responsible for many conflicts around Africa.

From blood diamonds to Liberian cannibals.

It’s even said he is responsible for the Uganda–Tanzania war.

Voice over:

He is my target.

The man uses a marker to draw a circle around Motomba Danjumas head.

THE CAMERA IS ON AN EXTREME CLOSE UP OF THE MAN, THE CAMERA PANS AROUND THE MAN AND CIRCLES HIM.

The man is rubbing his face and looking around as if he is thinking deeply as he is thinking there are many voices in his head.

Voice over:

Mr. Danjuma never leaves Africa unless it is serious business

Does not speak English

Fluent French

Aggressive, capable of anything.

Blood of thousands on his hands

Will not rest till he gets his way

Deadly, but his influence is restricted in the UK

CAMERA CUTS BACK, MEDIUM SHOT OF THE BOARD AS THE MAN WALKS INTO SHOT.

Man walks into shot and pins up another piece of paper onto the board aswell as another photo of a black male.

CAMERA IS UNFOCUSED, AS THE CAMERA FOCUSES YOU SEE THE IMAGE OF THE BLACK MALE APPEAR CLEARLY

Voice over:

Exhibit B…MR samuel conteh

CAMERA CUTS TO THE OTHER PIECE OF PAPER, IT HAS INFORMATION ON SAMUEL CONTEH AND THE CAMERA PANS TO THE RIGHT SHOWING ALL THE INFO.

Voice over:

Typical high end scum

CAMERA SHOT OF SKYSCRAPERS, TO SHOW THE LONDON SKYLINE.

(MONTAGE STARTS)

voice over during montage:

selfish, he only does business that benefits himself only.

All of his workers are treated like crap.

There are a lot of rumours around the suspicious death of his father.

Which caused him to get everything in the will.

Exhibit B, Mr. Samuel Conteh. Typical high-end scum. He is prepared to take big risks in order to gain bigger profit. Selfish he only does business which benefits him and treats his workers like crap. There are a lot of rumors around his father’s suspicious death, which resulted in him obtaining everything in the will. His known for hiring Somali pirates to sink the ships of his competition, which killed everyone on board. He is my target

THE CAMERA IS ON AN EXTREME CLOSE UP OF THE MAN, THE CAMERA PANS AROUND THE MAN AND CIRCLES HIM.

The man is in deep thought again, he is revising all he knows within his head

Voice over:

Born and bred in London, he will never miss a meeting for anything

He gained a lot of wealth from his father’s death

Straight and composed

He loves coffee

He likes to keep stuff short and simple

THE CAMERA IS AN FAR ANGLE OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT OF THE MAN

The man walks up to the flip chart and turns over to a blank page as he slips out of his mug. He then walks off to the direction of the table

(A MONTAGE OF MANY DIFFERENT SHOTS OVER LAPPING EACH OTHER WITH A SPEED INCREASE TO SHOW TIME PASSING)

During this the man is working very hard to get everything sorted and to put everything together.

OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT OF THE MAN AS HE STEPS BACK, THE CAMERA PANS AROUND HIM TO BECOME A SIDE SHOT.

Voice over:

In a few days both men will be meeting to make a secret deal,

The man looks at the board one last time and takes a long sip out of his mug.

Voice over:

Only problem is I will be there to make sure there plans don’t go their way.

CAMERA MEDIUM SHOT OF THE BOARD

Man walks into shot and rips of a whole page of planning off the chart, he scrunches it into a ball, and does it again to the next page of planning.

CLOSE UP ON THE CONER OF THE TABLE

Man thumps down the cup of coffee onto the table

MEDIUM BODY SHOT

Man puts his jacket on very aggressively

HIGH ANGLE SHOT OF THE TABLE

Man walks into shot and grabs his hat and places it on his head, he then grabs the folder with all his notes

CLOSE UP ON THE CUP OF TEA TAKING UP ONE THIRD OF THE FRAME

The man is walking away from the camera, he walks all the way over to the door and walk through.

The door closes behind him and the lights turn off.

The end.

vision narrative idea and planning

The plan for our visual narrative video

1. Basic plot

What we want to achieve is basically to get many images and combine them together with music into one video, because the images will be in order it will be like a time-lapse. We also want to give off an emotional feeling and the best way to do that is to get images which reflect emotion, adding the right type of music acts as a catalyst giving better results.

An example of what we want to achieve would be something like these:

This video has the emotion of unity and the world overall, as you can see it has a very emotional feeling, this is done by the nature of the video, the concept, the music and the people.



This video has an emotional effect but one which is not positive, it shows hurt and suffering of one individual over a long amount of time, this will be similar to my video because it will be a time lapse and also have stills.




Our concept will be in London in a busy location. We shall have a fixed camera and as time passes people will come and take their own pictures and videos, they can do what ever they like and how ever many people they want. All the footage will be taken and put together with emotional music to cover it.

2. Locations

• Trafalgar Square

We want choose Trafalgar Square because it's a busy area with many tourists, plus it is an easily recognisable monument of London with beautiful stone work and a large tower, we can get a great shot

of. It would be great to get an effective shot since the camera would be stationary.

• Our aim will be to get as many people as possible and get them smiling and happy.

3. Music

• For music we shall choose something which works well with the tempo and nature of the footage, this can be decided in the post production when we can work with the finished footage. 

4. Timing

• We are planning to get footage of the sun setting as we keep going, to do this we need to stay on location for an extended period of time. 

what is a television pilot?

A television pilot is an episode or quick sketch which is created to sell or give a taste of what the Tv show is about. Pilots tend to be the first ever episode and are generally shorter that other episodes which follow. When a pilot is made it is used to test the target audience and also to sell to certain company which could air the show. Television companies tend to used the pilot to test the TV show, if the audience enjoy and engage with the pilot then its safe to assume that the audience will enjoy the rest of the series too.

After the testing phase the TV channel will look at the results of the test and decide wether the show will be invested in for more episodes. Almost every TV show on TV has had a pilot, its an effective and accurate method of research and has helped TV networks see whats worth the money.

Below is the pilot episode for the very well known TV show 'Friends'.

G.M. analysis

no dialog, script was entirely  a description of action this was because there was no dialogue in the whole film just film and music.\

simplysc

noise control

noise control

this was a short film, about a group of people who planned on created a documentary about low flying aeroplanes in the welsh valleys. Every time they tried to interview the local residents there would always be an obstical in the way preventing them from shoot e.g. loud plane noise downing out the sound, or kids getting in the way.

10 grand budget and in the script they have used different keys for other instructions which i haven't seen before, and they have also used a lot of description on the speech and also the way the film is actually filmed, this is good for me because i am filming my film in first person and the techniques used to describe the shots are good guidelines for me.

the Darjeeling limited script analysis

This script is incredibly descriptive, firstly the setting is described very clearly and anyone can recreate the image in there heads. it describes a city in india with a crowd of street children and a black and yellow taxi, straight away this makes you imagine a scene out of such films like slum dog millionaire or other Bollywood films, one thing the script does not do i describe the music which had a considerably large effect of the film. other things it describes well are clothing, for example the description of the suit and the sari.

computer game story development

Audience

write a description of an 'average' gamer - use the most recent evidence you can find?

There are many different levels of gamers but the average gamer is the most common and the most well known as they mostly play the big game titles and spend a considerable amount of time playing and these days playing online. These gamers are a mix of male and female but mainly male, they tend to stick to the two main consoles ps3 and xbox 360 unlike more serious gamers which would use these platforms and many more such as PC's and sometimes retro platforms. The average game would purchase mainly the popular titles and hardly venture out to find less known but great games, the games they would buy include GTA, Call of duty, Need for speed, Skyrim etc. The average gamer is not really stuck to one genre this depends on the individual, some may prefer a rich story whilst other would prefer a simulation racing game etc. As i mentioned before the average gamer tend to play online this is like a social network where friends can come together for co-ops or small banter games for fun against friends. A more serious gamers would be more competitive and may be in a certain group of gamers known as clans in certain games. although average gamers are mostly banter most tend to have allegiance or loyalty to many games or even consoles, this adds to the gaming world, it will not be unusual to see to average gamers debating about games for example Call of duty fans vs battlefield fans, in modern slang these people are known as 'fan boys'. with the next gen consoles coming out very soon these 'fans wars' will just get more intense and more interesting. 

Diary 1, snowy and the seven gangsters film review

Snowy and the seven gangsters is the 45 minute film made by the year previous year 13 class which was a very great amateur film with many great aspects and techniques. The film was 45 minutes and included a lot of scenes and a lot of music.

Watching this made me think very hard about what i wanna do for my short film, i decided to stay away from the gangster film and do something a little more fun, Im going to do a zombie survival film!

things i learn from this film would be to be very careful with sound proximity, in the film they were very  careful with sound and it came out very well, i want to be able to make my film sounds just as good.

criticism i would give would be to use less music and to have less running and commuting scenes as it got very boring after a while and i believe a lot more of the story could be shown without including a running away scene everytime.

Survey analysis (london advert)

I asked 10 people to fill out my survey, here are the results:

1)What are your views on the title of the advert, do you believe it was effective and gave you a clear image?

The response to this was mainly yes, one person wrote yes, because of the sights and attractions shown.
Another wrote that it was straight to the point. The is great news and we are happy at the out come.

2)Do you think the music worked well with the advert and complimented the images?

The answer here was mainly yes, one person saying the cuts worked well with the music and another wrote that it made them feel as if London was a paradise. This is a great response because this is exactly what we wanted to send out.

3)What are you views on the slogan 'Welcome to London'? how does this make you feel?

Most people's answers were very similar, that they felt welcome, comfortable, warm, open, inviting and also engaging by the title and the feel. This is better than we expected and i am proud we did better than we actually expected.

4) Does the advert urge you to visit London?

Most of the answers were yes, one person said not really because i live here, another person said if i wasn't from London, yeah and one more said yes because all the positive aspects were nicely shown and summarised.

I could have improved here and asked people who specifically wern't from london.

5) This advert was aimed at families and travellers. Do you think the advert targeted these groups well?

Most people agreed it was for a family market, one person said it was more for travellers rather than families but still attracted families.

6) Can you see any negative aspects of the London advert?

Mainly people said no but there were some interesting points that people brought up. one person said they noticed the resolution difference, this was caused by the change of camera and we can improve this in the future. Another talked about how they are not keen on the font, this is also something i believe i could have improved on as the font really ruined the experience. One person said more green space were to be shown, we did not notice this until reading the surveys and i agree more green spaces should have been shown as the advert is mainly showing a concert jungle. The last person said 'nope all rabbits'...I do not understand what exactly they ment but ill take it as a good answer.

7)Do you believe the footage was filmed well?

5 people said that they do think it was filmed well, 3 others saying that it looked very professional and the camera was steady but 1 person said we could have filmed a bit more steady. 1 person wrote yes then crossed it out and wrote no.

8) Do you see the advert and icons as a good representation of London?

All 10 people agreed that the icons represented London great.

I am very happy with the outcome of this survey and i believe our target audience and public love the advert.

TV advertisement, evaluation and testing.

1. How did you develop your ideas and did other adverts inspire you

The options for the adverts were chicken soup, biscuits, Jaffa cakes or London. I believed an advert for London would be very interesting to make and would really be challenging, when brain storming and researching we looked at how many people visit London and our results showed that a large number of tourist came from america to visit London with their families so we decided to target that audience whilst also going out to people from other parts of the world. After this i brain stormed many locations and monuments which tourists would visit or have heard of, after brain storming i put the locations into a tally chart and asked people, 'would you go to these locations if you visited London with your family', this helped a lot as it narrowed down the exact locations which were the most iconic of London. (the tally chart is part of the research documents). After getting the results i checked out other holiday adverts to see the aspects, shot types and nature of them, i came across a very interesting advert promoting California.



In this video they presented the great aspects of California and also shows many happy people smiling as well as celebrity which people can relate too and feel familiar with, in the London advert we cant get hold of any celebrates therefore we had to compensate by getting recognizable monuments which the audience can related to. Another great aspect with this advert is the dialogue, the actors are talking to the audience directly and i integrated this aspect using the text in the London advert talking directly to the audience, also the music fitted the sunny beaches and speed cars for the California advert very well, in the London advert i based the whole advert around the music which was paradise by Cold play. I mapped out where the music slowed down in pace, where it sped up, when certain instruments kicked in and of course when the beat dropped. during the editing process i carefully plotted the footage with the music just like this visit California advert does.

Here is another video i took inspiration from:



Once again in this advert, had happy smiling people and great scenery with complimentary music, i used these techniques in the London advert and it worked just as well.


2. Explain your contribution to the video production project (what did you do from start to finish)?

For this project i made a massive contribution to, during the planning phase i researched about monuments, locations and checked out other adverts. these were all put down on paper and from this i analysed the music which was chosen by Nicholas, i analysed the beat of the video and mapped out the areas were the footage would work well, i put this all into a power point presentation for our planning. When writing out the reece i planned out filming days according to weather and availability, i also planned the best routes we could take to get as many locations done in one journey and got my friend to drive us for the city filming.

On the practical task i was in charge of shots, looking after equipment, filming and talking to police about the project so we do not get into any trouble. During the filming we came across a massive problem which delayed us by a great length of time, the camera we were using had been lost by others and we could not film, because of this i used a DSLR Nikon D90 to film myself and used the footage in the advert. When we got back i edited the whole advert and after finishing i posted the video on you tube and shared on twitter, Facebook, instagram, word of mouth etc. The video received 210 views and 7 likes. At the end of the project i received a school Oscar for best advert and the advert was shown at an independent cinema at the Morpeth moscars.

3. Where did you go to film your advertisement and how successful was that?

Because our advert was about London, locations were very important to us, we had to choose iconic places which people will know and recognize instantly, we also had to show the awe and greatness of many of the places and why they were so amazing. all the place we filmed were.

• Oxford circus (filming crowds, buildings, shops and busy day to day lives)
• Buckingham palace (filming statue, monuments, palace, flags and we hoped to get the 'changing of the guard' but it was not taking place at the time we went to film)
• Trafalgar square (filming people, obelisk, lion statues and open marble spaces)
• canary wharf (filming business men, financial district, art, fountains, suits, buildings, wealth of London and the professional aspect of the working class Londoner)
• tube station (capture the iconic London underground system and everyday commuters)
• Hyde park (green areas and open natural spaces of London)
• Thames/saint Paul's cathedral/ big Ben/ south bank/tower bridge/ London eye (all associated with London very strongly and has its own perks to add for example, history from the cathedral, young vibrancy of south bank and artistic monuments from the London eye)
• O2 arena (shows, monuments and beautiful scenery)
• Piccadilly circus (technology, street art, street performances, dancers and talent)

Overall id say the locations were a massive success because we got great shots and covered a lot of locations very well and fast as well as capturing some great unexpected stuff like the performers (we also came across the hangover 3 film premier and filmed one of the main actors which wasn't put in the advert)

4.  Your overall opinion of the video production.

Through out the production of the video i had many mixed feelings because at some points the production went very smoothly and at other point we hit massive walls and got delayed. Overall i'd say that when we did get the chance to film the shot types and footage was very good, also in the editing process which was the most smoothest part of the production. The times we had trouble was when the cameras were not available for use, so we had to find an alternative which took a large amount of time then afterward during the editing process we noticed that some one had filmed on top of some of our footage. Also every time we filmed with the big cameras the weather was really bad and many occasions we had to stop filming because of rain.


5. Your choice for the style and structure (story) of the final video

The style was amazement, we wanted to imprint an image of our advert into the mind of the audience so that they can remember it very well. As i explained before the structure was based on the actual music but there was also a structure where when the beat dropped the footage would speed up in pace and more night footage would be present.

6. Your reasons for use of sound and visual material in your final video?

The visual material had to be features of London but sound wise the music we used was about freedom and a play like paradise, we tried to play with this and show London as a paradise, the other reason why we choose this song is because the pace and structure of the instrumental worked very well with the task we've been set and it was easy to work with.

7. What equipment did you use to produce your video?

I used a vast number of equipment to create the advert, of course filming equipment. such as large sony cameras which we filmed onto tape with, tripod for stable shots and panning scenes and the Nikon D90 after we lost acess to the other cameras.

Editing wise the soft ware we used was final cut pro, and i downloaded the music from youtube. All of the editing was done on a mac.


8. The strengths and weakness of the video.

The strength would be the shots and idea of our advert and the fact that everything was planned out before and fitted into place during the editing process with footage, pace and music. The footage we capture was very good and in a way complimented everything else, the structure defiantly help out. Weakness would be the font we used for the text, the font wasn't really that pleasing to look at and we could have chosen better, also we should have filmed more green spaces.

9. Any alternative approaches you might use in the future.?

What we would do in the future for better results:

• use one constant camera
• make sure we film when the wether is better and check for weather forecasts 
• take care of the tapes better and make sure no one films over our footage
• make sure the settings on the camera work well with the environment we are in (gain, ND filter etc.)

These are really the only things i would change int eh project and in the future i would try and get the filming done as soon as possible, therefore if a problem comes up later i have more time to fix it.

10. During post production (editing) we used (audio, images, effects, transitions)?

As i have mentioned before to edit we used mac's and final cut pro, all i did was put the footage in place because the placing of footage was planed out even before production. We did not use many effects because we wanted to keep the footage original and the only effect we used was to speed up some slow footage.

11. How would the advertising standards association respond to your advertisement? Do you think there would be any issue with content such as harmful advertising? What time of day could the advert be shown?

I believe the ASA would have completely no issues with this advert as it is suitable for every audience, it does not have any material which would be considered offensive or inappropriate and does not promote any prejudices or assumptions. The advert goes by all the regulations and could be shown anytime during the day.

12. During which sort of programmes could your advert be shown and on which channels? how much money would these channels charge to show the advert?

Mainly day time shows on all british channels including the main 5, other channels such as dave, pick TV, yesterday etc. can also show the London advert. the timing of the advert would be 7 days a week between 8.00 to 7.00. The advert should also be shown on channels that are based outside London such as BBC's other regional variations like BBC ireland, scotland and wales. The advert should also  be shown on many american TV channels as the american public are our main focus.



1.We tested our final video by:

We tested our video by handing out surveys to many people and we have a lot of positive response from many of the surveys as well as a lot of interesting answers. other ways i tested it was by publishing the video on my blog and as well as you tube where we had a lot of veiws. I've also post it on twitter and Facebook and many people were impressed with the advert and had a a lot of comments and criticism.

2. The final video is sutible for our intended audiance because:

It goes out to them very directly and comforts them as well as imprinting an image into their minds, the best thing is that your advert reaches many other audiences very well and our overall audience grew a lot.

What is an audio guide

An audio guide is a pre recorded hand held device of spoken words, these devices are normally used at tourist attractions and places of interest. There are many different kinds of audio book ranging of different platforms and models. Some of these include audio guides, audio books, podcasts, magazines, book and even on the radio. The first spoken word recordings were on radios and tape recorders as the years went on more devices were available to use audio guides on from cheap to state of the art, some could be a normal tape recorder whilst others could be of state of the art tablets. An example of this would be the Tate moderns code based audio guides. For a small price at £3.50 you would be giving a galaxy S3 by the Tate modern which is fixed with the Tate modern app, in which you type in a code corresponding the code on a specific exhibit, after this the device plays a recording about the artist, the feel and many other bits of information which the user would find useful. This specific audio guide was created so people specifically going to the Tate modern can use it easily and understandably, audio guides can be molded into many different ways just like it had been made to be used for the Tate modern.

This is only one use of an audio guide other ways depend on what sort of information is being given such as tourist and travel as well as diet, health and medical advise. They are made in a way to interact with the audience as if they are being talked to directly, due to this you may have a certain voice depending on the topic or you can even get and audio guide for many different languages. This is ideal for overseas visitor, which may have trouble reading or understanding a normal tour, and offers a quality experience of discovery to the customers.

As said before they can be used on many different platforms therefore some many be obtainable on mobile phones or pads via download. you can obtain audio guides from library’s, companies, tour groups or even online websites. An example of a website which sell these would be audible.com. Audible.com is an Internet provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming. Audible sells digital audio books, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers.

here are there price plans, they also offer a 1^st one month free trail.

Other websites include amazon and iTunes. Itunes sell an audio guide for around £3 depending of the age genre and demand.

According to statistics, Europe is selling the most audio books in the world and the UK alone sold 71 million audio books in 2006, audiobooks are a massive market which is growing very fast with new integrated technology such as tablets and smart phones. The best selling audio guide was the hunger games, which went for £25 on amazon and sold 800.000 units. And the main celling target audience for audio books is between 3-8 years old and between 30-50 years old. Audio guides are very helpful in such places as museums, galleries or any other place. They help you understand and guide you into discovering, learning or acquiring knowledge about the piece observed.

They mainly explain how the piece made was inspired, were the inspiration came from, who's designer made it etc.

Audio guides also prove useful for the less able for example such as people with disabilities, learning difficulties, dyslexia etc. they are very simple to use and can easily be understood as the voice is clear and goes at a very fluid pace. This is ideal because a lot of school trip and groups attend attraction, which use audio guides. An example of this would be a blind individual which can receive a special audio guide for the blind, which will offer in depth informational directions at a slow and easy pace. Another situation would be if a new popular book is released, the individual can listen rather than reading, as said before audio guides can be tailored depending on the situation. A charity, which deals in these matters, is Calibre Audio Library; this charity provides audio books for people whom suffer from disabilities such as dyslexia, sight problems, being blind or other disabilities. Because this is a charity people using the service get the service for free. They have the newest books out for this kind of customers.

[ Source: http://www.calibre.org.uk/ ]

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[http://www.blind.org.uk/links/links.asp]

My opinion is that audio guides are such an asset in the day of today, it provides a great service on multiple platforms so easily, it has only recently been getting popular and I can see the audiobook industry expanding continuously, as well as this I believe audio guides can keep getting better, target more people and become a lot more integrated into day to day lives. In the future there will be more smart and intuitive ways of using audiobooks and different types of audiobooks, in the near future it will become a massive commercial product and many artists, organizations, attractions will keep using and improving the concept of audio guides. Already audio guides are being used in the education system as they are extremely well at teaching and many students and teachers prefer these rather than books. The future of audio guides is a bright one.