Case Study - Valve Corporation (Overview)

The Valve Corporation is a private company responsible for video game development and digital distribution. Valve is an American company and is based in Bellevue, Washington. Valve was founded by two former Microsoft employees, Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington in 1996 who privately funded the development of their first game, Half Life which was a great success and sold over 9.3 million copies and won over 50 PC Game of the Year awards. The game was released on Windows originally in 1998, then on Playstation 2 in 2001 and Linux & Mac OS X in 2013 over Valve's online distribution service, Steam. 

Steam was released to the public in 2003, was designed to distribute games from small independent developers as well as larger software companies alike, in 2012 Steam started distributing non-game software. Steam sells over 1860 games, has 54 million active user accounts and has an estimated 50-70% of the market share of the digital distribution market for video games.

Valve wishes to remain a private company and does not disclose it's financial data but it is estimated that the total equity of the company is $2.5 US Billion and that in 2010, steam made an estimated $1 US Billion of revenue, with 60-70% of that going to the game developers themselves, meaning that Valve made approximately $300-400 Million, combined with the revenue from Valve's own products meaning they made approximately $700 Million that year. Valve only consists of around 400 employees, meaning it earns more profit per employee than giants like Apple and Google.

 In 1999, Valve released Team Fortress Classic, a team based multiplayer first person shooter game. The game was originally a modification for Quake, another first person shooter released in 1996 but was made as a modification of Half Life in 1999 (A standalone version of the game was released on Steam in 2003). The game consisted of nine different classes which the player could choose between, each offering a different style of play and benefiting the team in different ways.

In 2007, Team Fortress 2 was released for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The game was a remake of the original Team Fortress, encompassing many of the same aspects of the original game but with more stylized and up to date graphics as well as new types of game-play and interchangeable items for each class. Team Fortress 2 was released on both Steam and in The Orange Box. The Orange Box is a collection of three Valve games; Half Life 2 (including Episode 1 and Episode 2), Team Fortress 2 and Portal. The Orange Box was developed by Valve for the Windows and Xbox 360 release and Electronic Arts for the Playstation 3 release. Although the games became available individually at a later date, the Orange Box was far cheaper than buying them separately. 

In 2011, the game became entirely free on Steam and was supported by it's micro-transactions  players could buy things such as weapons to use in the game and cosmetic items to show off. The game also allowed players to trade their items, creating an online trading market where in game items could be exchanged for real money or other items. In 2012, Steam released the Beta of the Steam Community Market, allowing players to sell items from games such as Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 to other players in exchange for Steam Wallet credit, which they could use to buy more items or to buy games from Steam, not only does this create more sales for Valve due to players spending their wallet credit on Steam games, but also Valve takes 15% from each transaction.

Orange Gold Spots

The Orange mobile phone network's advertisements in the cinema (Orange Gold Spots) are very effective, they use the surrealism of placing a mobile phone advert in the middle of an advert for an actual film that is being released, this works is a very comic way and ads an extra joke for people who have already seen the actual film trailer or the film itself. These advertisements are effective because they are funny so people actually take the time to watch them, also they air at almost every cinema screening across cinemas in the UK. There have been numerous different Orange Gold Spot adverts since they first started being shown in cinemas in 2010. The best example of these, which worked on me the best was 'phone break' where they made a mock interview with various members of the film audience, proposing a 2 minute break at 15 minute intervals throughout a film so you could check your phone, the interviewees were all impressed by the idea saying that it was "the time of my life". This advert was so effective because it was such a preposterous idea and it was such a funny concept to grasp, this is one of the few examples of Orange Gold Spots which does not involve an actual movie trailer. Another example that I found very effective is the Expendables 2 trailer parody which involved James Buckley who Facebook'ed the location of the expendables secret base tagging it the 'funky bunker' and claiming it has 5 likes already. I found this advert effective as I had already seen the actual trailer for the Expendables 2 and the placement of James Buckley in it makes it very funny because he is so out of place, claiming that he is more of a "social network communications expert".

Magazine style review - Dexter (Series 1 Episode 1)

Magazine style review
Dexter - Series 1 - Episode 1 (CBS, 2006)
http://www.free-tv-video-online.me/player/putlocker.php?id=9497FC282387E6BA





Dexter Morgan (picture 1) is a Blood Splatter analysis working for the Miami Metro Police Department, however by night he lives a double life as a serial killer, killing criminals who have slipped through the justice system. In this episode, Dexter is helping his sister Debra with a case of a serial killer murdering prostitutes and leaving their bodies cut up in various places around Miami. Ever since Dexter was a child, he had never been normal, he started off from a young age killing small animals. Dexter's step-father, an ex-police officer, cannot control Dexter's psychotic tendencies, instead he tells him of all the guilty men who managed to escape prosecution and implies that if he must kill anyone, it should be them. Dexter claims to feel no emotions for anyone or anything and has a very reserved personality. In this episode, we meet James Doakes(picture 2), another member of the Miami Police Force sees Dexter as his minor and bosses him around, there could be a possible confrontation between these two characters as James sees Dexter as a freak and hints towards Dexter being a psychopath because of the way he refers to killings as art forms. Dexter tries to lead a normal life in order for him to fit in and not appear like a killer, he is a mastermind and plans everything perfectly so as not to get caught.


I would give this episode a 4/5 rating as it keeps the viewer in suspense and tries to make you sympathise with this killer. The plot engages the viewer and makes the show very exciting, it ends on a cliffhanger of the serial killer leaving Dexter a 'message' in his fridge. The use of flashbacks to Dexter's past from scenes of the present show how he has not changed and explain to us why he has the personality that he does.

Breaking Bad - Series 4, Episode 7

Breaking Bad - Series 4, Episode 7 - Trouble Dog (AMC 2011)
http://www.putlocker.com/file/05F4750B02CB4FAB# (sorry about pop-ups, it's the only one I could find)

I will be analysing the representations of Jesse in the sequence between 0.32 and 2.05. We know from previous episodes that Jesse has a huge amount of guilt after having to kill an innocent man in order to protect his partner and he cannot accept it.
 The scene opens with a straight cut between the recap and a shot of the graffiti on Jesse's wall, this gives a very negative connotation that he is some kind of thug type figure. We then cut to a diagonal tilt shot showing the large amount of rubbish on Jesse's floor and then showing him in the left of the frame playing a shooting game with a gun controller, the amount of rubbish on the floor shows us that he has stopped caring about his house and cannot get over what he has done. The light in his room that keeps changing colour is quite low key giving a dark eerie atmosphere.
 Jesse has a very worried, perhaps scared expression on his face and the diegetic suspense music coming from the game shows how he feels.
 At 1.13 we get a great shot in which the camera is attached to the end of the gun controller, this shows that the gun is in control of Jesse and he is not in control of it, belittling him and showing he is not in control of his actions. This also shows us how much that his hand is shaking as he cannot keep the gun still, also showing us how nervous he is. These types of shots are used quite often in this series, there is another where the camera is attached to a shovel as he is digging.
 As he shoots an enemy in the game, exactly as the enemy hits the ground, we get a panning shot for a split second of Gale, the man that Jesse killed. This shows us that he cannot get the image out of his head and that he is traumatised by it. The panning shot continues back round to Jesse playing the game again with no obvious cut. We see him shoot one enemy in the chest and smile while wiping his forehead and then he shoots another in the head, we immediately get another split second panning shot to Gale being shot in the head by Jesse, the gun sound from the game perfectly matches when Gale is shot. In the next shot of Jesse, he looks concerned rather than happy like he did before he thought of Gale. The fact that Jesse fails the mission shows how he was very reluctant to shoot Gale and only did it because he had to, in a situation where he had a choice, he would not have shot him, this is what happens in the game.
 There is a pull focus shot, pulling the focus away from the screen and onto Jesse's face looking down at the ground in a disappointed manner. He hovers over the option to quit, but then decides to restart, I think this is symbolic of how Jesse made the choice to continue on in the business rather than quitting it after he was traumatised by Gale's death. When he is pointing the gun at the restart option, we see his hand is shaking profusely and this shows us that he is very unsure about what to do but as soon as he chooses restart, we see his facial expression change to a somewhat violent one. I think this relates to a previous episode where he was told to take 'no half measures' by Mike. He has made a decision of what he wants to do and that is carry on in the business.

Practice Shots

I made this short video as a practice at using both a camera to actually take the shots and editing software( VideoPad - Video Editor) to piece it all together.
 The camera was a bit shaky at times due to my lack of a tripod

SKYFALL Trailer - Textual Analysis

Skyfall - Official Teaser Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24mTIE4D9JM&feature=relmfu

The sequence opens with a fade from black into a scene of James Bond standing on top of a building, the camera is behind him and we can see all of the sights he is looking at. He is slightly to the left of the frame and it is a medium-long shot. Where he is facing, we can see Big Ben and various other monuments along with a large array of Union Jacks, this helps give a very patriotic feel to James Bond, which has always been a convention throughout the previous James Bond movies. He is dressed smartly in what looks like a black fitted coat, this makes him look fairly classy. The camera tilts slightly down to show his feet, so we can establish he is standing very close to the edge. The sense of patriotism is maintained by the soundtrack, as the first thing we hear is someone say "Country?" and James say "England".
 We then fade to black and then fade into the next shot of a man running, it is presumably James but it is hard to tell due to the extreme long shot. The subject is in the background and is slightly to the right of the frame making them look fairly unimportant. The dialogue within the soundtrack shows us the same two voices with the man saying "gun" and James saying "shot".
 Yet again another fade is used, this time we see James as a silhouette in a doorway, though he is not centre frame, he is clearly the focus of the shot as the doorway is where all the light is coming from and the fact he is standing in the doorway means that he is blocking a large amount of the light that is entering the room.
 We fade to a shot of a shooting range where the target looks like a person, as the soundtrack says "murder". We then cut to a shot of James and the man 'interrogating' him and realise that the dialogue before this shot was not non-diegetic but instead a sound bridge from this shot and James says "employment", this signifies that he sees killing as a neccesary part of his job. Though technically there are 4 people in the shot, the two in the foreground are just silhouettes and have their backs facing the camera which makes this almost an over the shoulder two shot of James and the interrogator.
 The camera moves to the other side of the two characters, this time it is a two shot and is a medium shot. We can see that James is wearing what looks to be a prisoner's clothes where as the interrogator is wearing a nice suit with an identity card attached to his left jacket pocket, making him seem very official. We can no longer see through the window in the room where the camera was previously as it is one way glass, people can see in but not out. This makes it seem like more of an interrogation as they do not know who is watching from outside. The walls are quite grotty and not very nice which makes it like a prison. James is sitting upright in his chair with perfect posture and the interrogator is slouching which makes it seem like James is taking this  more seriously than he is.
 As the interrogator mentions "Skyfall", we cut to a close up of James' face to show his reaction, then immediately cut away to a shot of a man with a gun standing in a room which looks like it has been ransacked with a man sitting dead (possibly sleeping/ unconscious) in a chair, for just a split second and then we cut back to James' reaction. This shows that "Skyfall" provokes memories, likely bad due to the nature of the memory.
 We cut to a three shot of the people looking into the interrogation room, we have the one in the background and the one in the foreground both slightly out of focus with the one in the centre in focus, bringing more attention to him. However as he looks towards the woman in the foreground, we get a pull focus shot putting her in focus and him out of focus.
 We cut again to a close up of the interrogator repeating himself "Skyfall" and then James confidently saying "Done". We cut back to the original shot we started with when we were first shown this room, as James gets up and walks away.
 We get a high angle shot of a city at night with all of the bright lights on the buildings, then we cut to a woman standing in the window of her hotel/apartment room which suggests a possible love interest for Bond.
 The next shot is a panning shot of Bond walking into a room and firing two shots from his gun, these two shots fit perfectly with the music, connoting that James is in control of the soundtrack. The camera is at a slight low angle in order to show his power and also we notice that he is wearing a very smart black suit to show that he always likes to look classy.
 We have a shot of coffins with Union Jacks draped upon them. The next shot shows James on a boat in China, he is centre frame, with the camera low angle and he is still dressed very smartly with a bow tie and a handkerchief sticking out of his jacket pocket.
 We see a shot of James running down a road in London which has a lot of traffic along with a large number of police vehicles. He is running the opposite way from where the police vehicles are headed which seems to show he is running away from something that his happened, he has a concerned look on his face. Despite running, he still looks very smart with his suit.
 We get a shot at 1.01 of James walking down a dark corridor and as he comes closer to the camera, the small amount of light shining through settles upon his eyes leaving the rest of his face in darkness. This is an interesting shot as it makes him look like quite a dark character which has not really been shown before.
 We then see a silhouette walking away from a burning building, we cannot tell who this is however it does not look like James and is more likely to be the villain of the movie.
 The trailer ends with James Bond saying "there's a man coming to kill us, we're gonna kill him first" and then a rapid montage of action shots and then the iconic 007 logo with the 7 looking like a gun.

Looper - Official Trailer

Textual Analysis - Looper - Official Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AXwtch744A

The trailer starts with an extreme close up of a pocket watch ticking, it cuts back to a close up of a hand closing the pocket watch and then cuts again to a long shot of the main character placing it in his pocket.  A close up of the main character raising his gun and then a tilt down shot of a character with a bag on their head appearing in front of him. As soon as the character begins to shoot, it cuts to the 'Tristar' logo.
 There are several shots of the Loopers to show us who they are and as soon as the narration says Loopers, the camera zooms into a sign saying "Looper's guns here".
 There are low angled shots of the Loopers and high angled shots of their victims to show that the Loopers are more powerful and their victims are helpless and weak. The high angles are used when the main character shoots the man with the bag on his head and also when he drops the body into the incinerator.
 When there is the line "never let your target escape even if your target is you", we get a lot more close ups of the characters in order for us to see their reactions more rather than in the very first scene where the main character started shooting right away.
 When the main character is getting shot at, we get a panning shot of him running through the apartment in order for us the be able to see the whole scene within one shot rather than having to use more than one. As we see him falling, a crane shot is used to capture all the action, and it is put into slow motion to make it more tense.

The first sound we hear in the shot is the diegetic ticking of a pocket watch which the character is holding and this sound bridges for the next two shots where we would be too far away to hear the ticking, yet it is still at the same volume.
 Throughout most of the trailer, we have a narration (presumably by the main character) explaining what time travel is and who the Loopers are etc. in order for the audience to fully understand what is going on as it would be very confusing if this was just replaced by ambient sound or music.
 The Loopers are very in control of the music throughout most of the trailer, for example, when a gunshot is fired, it cuts to the next shot. Another example is the shot starting on the sound of a door being kicked open.
 There are ambient sounds such as the zoom of the 'hoverbike' driving past the camera, these sounds we expect to hear and without them, it would be abnormally quiet (apart from non-diegetic sound).
 We get several more examples of the Loopers being in control of the soundscape, when our character drops the body into the incinerator, it cuts to his face and then he shuts the door and it cuts again.
 We get sound FX in the action scene between our main character and his older counterpart for example the noise of the thrown weapon hitting him and the sound when he is punched in the face.
 We then have a montage of a large amount of action shots from the film accompanied by music, the shots all fit perfectly with the music and the shots all cut with the beat. The trailer ends with a character pretending his hand is a gun and firing it, as he does so, there is the final drum beat of the music as it cuts to credits.

In the shot where the Loopers are walking through the street wearing suits, we get 2 moments where the camera purposely goes out of focus to fit with the music. As the three characters in suits put the bag over the man's head, we get a film grain effect to show that this has happened in the past and then we cut to him appearing in the present day where there is no film grain effect.
 There is a constant cross cutting between the first scene and the other scenes, we are shown the first scene 3 times, each time it is different with the third being the main characters future self being the one being killed. As he raises his head, we get rapid shot reverse shot between the 'two' characters eyes to show the similarity and also to show us they are staring at eachother.
 As we see the main character falling out of the window, it is in slow motion, fitting with the idea that when you think you're about to die, everything slows down and also so the audience can see what's happening rather than the shot being half a second long if it was at full speed.
 At the end of the scene, we cut between the actors names and various scenes of them in order for us to know which actor plays which character.

The pocket watch shown at the beginning is quite old and antique, this shows us that he has had it for quite a long time, rather than using a fancy wristwatch. The victims of the Loopers have a bag put over their head when they are killed, this makes their death somewhat less dignified as they are denied their identity and cannot even see who is going to assassinate them. The Loopers are quite classy and fairly wealthy, we are shown this by their expensive cars, fancy suits and the general way they act.
 In the future, there is a flying motorbike which is a stereotypical thing that people always think of when they talk about the future, also in the background there is a car which is very rusty and looks out of date.
 The three criminals are all wearing the same clothes, the same suit with the same hat, this makes them lose their individual identity and makes us identify them as a group rather than separately.
 When the narrator says the line "loopers are well paid", we are shown the Loopers watching some girls dancing, showing us what they get up to in their spare time.
 The character picks up a piece of paper saying "11.30" and we immediately cut to the shot of the same pocket watch from the beginning which reads 11.30, as this happens the target appears who is the main character's future self.