Thursday 30 April 2009

Tracking Progress...

From my last blog entry I have slightly changed the original question, it is now:
How children's TV programmes effects their behaviour (or upbringing/child development).

My final question will be gathered after I havent summoned further relevant research and where I can find information which I can find alot on and would ultimately be easier for me to answer and talk alot about supported by appropriate media theories.

I have done my popular criticism on all of my 3 texts where my main text is Teletubbies. I still need to look at institutional data and my textual analysis will be easily completed when I watched an episode of teletubbies, tweenies and fimbles. I will record each episode which wil give me time to take notes and pause when neccessary. It is a plus point that these TV programmes are no more then 30minutes, enough to keep a child focussed on the programme without feeding to much to their brain.

(The deadline for my notes page is next Friday, however at this stage in time it seems extremely difficult to meet this deadline due to having a graphics exam on wed-fri which overlaps my deadline and even on the following monday my art exam till wed so it will be difficult to complete the entire notes page but will made a decent attempt on this).

Tuesday 31 March 2009

Popular Criticism - 3 texts REVIEWS

You need to find 3 different forms of popular criticism (reviews, interviews, user comments, blog entries) on your text. Paste the website link into the space below and the write a summary of the comments made by the ‘critic’.


TELETUBBIES

Link: http://www.ciao.co.uk/Teletubbies__Review_5142059 http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/tv-programs/teletubbies/1199749/#rev

At the height of the show's popularity, it was referred to widely in other shows and publications.
In the webstrip Sluggy Freelance dated 9 March 1999, the characters Torg and Riff discuss the fact that "Drinky Winky" from the "Teletubbles" is "an abusive drunk because of the bottle of booze he carries", says Torg reading from a newspaper. Riff counters saying "That's not a bottle of booze! It's his magic bottle that makes his problems go away! (...) never mind." Torg goes on reading, "The abusive side of Drinky Winky is demonstrated by..." to which Riff argues "Tipsy and Hoe had it coming!"

In 1998, Tom Fulp of Newgrounds created a spoof of Teletubbies called "Teletubby Fun Land" which resulted in a law suit from the BBC. This resulted in a boost of notoriety and media exposure, and the video was renamed "Tellybubby Fun Land".
The first thing you see is a sun rising above the horizon with a baby’s face giggling. This catches the attention of my babies. It is a well-known fact that babies are fascinated with faces. My daughter was caught and I could leave her for a few minutes to get on.

You have arrived in Tellytubby land which is a green hilly area with trees in the back ground, lots of brightly coloured flowers and rabbits running all over the place. In the middle of Tellytubby land is a mound which is their home. Have you ever had a redundant showerhead? This makes an excellent toy for Teletubby fanatics as it can tell you it is time for the telly tubbies, just like in the programme. The showerhead is a loud speaker system around the land telling the tellytubbies what to do.

Have you ever had one of those windmills, which can be made out of a piece of paper on a stick? This is another Telly tubby accessory. As the windmill blows round you know that something is going to happen. There are four characters who dominate this programme the Tellytubbies. These are just four big soft toddlers. They have such imaginative names. Tinkywinky, Dipsy, Lala and Po, names which have become part of the every day language of children in the last 5 years. On their tummies these brightly coloured characters have a television screen and on their head an individually shaped antenna.

The high light of the program is when the Telly tubbies become televisions. Who is it going to be? Each time one becomes a television he becomes the centre of attention, as with all toddlers the others are disappointed. They soon settled down to watch a programme. These consist of some children with something to show you. It could be someone doing a job, or counting or looking at something in nature. In case you didn't get the full details you get to see it again. The rest of the programme consists of these Teletubbies playing around their land. They could play ball or chasing around, hide and seek. They often find something and explore. Sometimes there are processions of animal. Some times you go inside their home and see noonoo the cleaner or the tubby toast maker. You get to see the life of a telly tubby, which in many ways is just like a child’s life.

This programme is well pitched at young children. I have found children from about 9 months old enjoying part of this programme. They do soon loose interest so only watch a few minutes. As they get older they watch more of the programme and then play out different parts. Tellytubbies is a 20 minute programme, just enough to keep a little child’s imagination. This morning I was surprised to find that they put on two Tellytubbies programmes back to back. One programme is quite long enough for the children it is aimed at so I could see no reason for two.
As an adult I find these programmes repetitive and not worth watching but I have watch my younger children enjoying Tellytubbies so I cannot fault it

WHAT IS IT ABOUT: Set in a landscape of rolling hills, the Teletubbies are creatures that live in a futuristic dome. Each episode, screens on their tummies show videos of children engaging in different activities, with each video usually repeated later in the episode. The show is aimed at pre-school aged children.

IS IT ANY GOOD: This show works for many reasons, some more bizarre than others:
1) Bright colours and odd shapes - each Teletubby is a different colour, and they all have different shapes on their heads; these features make the show very visually alluring for little ones.
2) Ritualistic format - the show always follows the same format, with the intro, opening and repetition of the video always coming in the same way. This allows even the smallest babies to recognise the show, increasing enjoyment and focus from pre-school viewers.
3) Non English verbal communication - "eh-oh" and other odd verbal communication is very cleverly used on this show: it encourages verbal experimentation in young viewers who cannot talk in English, but suggests any verbal communication is important. Some have criticised the dialogue as a bad example, but I don't agree.
4) Repetition of the video - studies show you will learn a lot better when something is repeated studies show you will learn a lot better when something is repeated, and this show repeats each video, increasing the learning.
THE DOWNSIDE: For a (sane) adult, the odd language and repeating videos can be really annoying!
IF YOU LIKED IT: 'In The Night Garden' is a BBC kids show that follows a lot of the same rules, including repetition, bright colours and non-English verbal communication. TRIVIA: In different countries, the video on the Teletubbies tummys is from those specific countries. IN CONCLUSION: A cult show that little ones love but be warned it may annoy adult viewers!


TWEENIES


Link: http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/tv-programs/tweenies/1215847/#rev http://www.ciao.co.uk/Tweenies__Review_5491613

Tweenies is a television programme aimed at young children, broadcast on the BBC. The programme is set in a nursery attended by the four Tweenies themselves: Milo, Jake, Bella and Fizz. They are supplemented by two adults, Max and Judy, and two dogs, Doodles and Izzles.
In my opinion the Tweenies is very good for many aspects of children's development. Now comes my slightly psychological analysis of it all which I hope doesn't bore you all to tears!!

Educational - The Tweenies enhances children's educational development, as they are constantly learning new concepts and ideas.

Language - Unlike the teletubbies and some other programmes for the preschool age group , the Tweenies encourages the children to develop their language skills. If one of the Tweenies pronounces a word wrongly they are corrected by one of their friends or one of the carers. The Tweenies are also often introduced to new words and their meanings by the adults, which children will pick up on.

Relationships - The four friends show many of the different sides to relationships, such as the trust, arguments, playfulness, consideration and problem solving. Children only learn about relationships by observation and by watching good friendships as well as the relationships with the adults (ie respect and politeness) their social development will be enhanced.

Moral - The Tweenies regularly come across moral dilemmas, which are relevant to preschool children such as not owning up to doing something etc. The consequences of such incidents are dealt with well and helps children develop a sense of morals related to issues which are relevant to them.

Emotional - Children also get to see the range of emotions expressed by both the adults and the children and what causes these emotions and how they are dealt with in the social environment and this is something which will help children understand the people around them more.

There's so much you can do with any doll, and these are no exception. Firstly, they provide comfort, and now Ashleigh has rediscovered them she's been taking them to bed every night. Then they can encourage the imagination, firstly as the child uses them to act out the particular episode of the programme they've just watched. But Ashleigh will also use them to play school, where she's the teacher and they're the pupils, or for tea parties. all of this play is helping her develop her social skills.

For the younger child you can use them as props to help teach them the names of different body parts, for example get them to show you where Jake's nose is, or Bella's ears. The final thing that is going to help your child develop new skills is when they start dressing and undressing the, which will help their fine motor co-ordination.


FIMBLES

Link: http://www.ciao.co.uk/BBC_CBeebies__Review_5314378

CBeebies, for those of you who don't know, is the BBC's channel for pre-school children and carries kiddy's favourites such as Teletubbies, The Tweenies and Bob the Builder. CBeebies latest offering for children is The Fimbles and that's what I've come here to tell you about. I probably wouldn't normally find myself watching programmes like this (maybe back in my student days but that's another story....) except for the fact that I'm the mother of a 26 month old little girl. She enjoys The Teletubbies and The Tweenies but has never really been that into TV, that was until The Fimbles started and now she's obsessed!

...What on earth are the Fimbles?... The Fimbles are three large people/animal type combination things. Their bodies are much like the Teletubbies, ie. fat with short legs, but their heads are more animal-like, long snouts and little floppy ears and they each have a little top knot on their heads. Their names are Fimbo, Florrie and Baby Pom.

Fimbo - A male Fimble and the biggest of the three, he's yellow with green stripes.
Florrie - A female Fimble, medium sized, blue with purple stripes.
Baby Pom - The baby (obviously!), female, little, green with pink stripes and can't talk properly (well she's only a baby).
...Where do the Fimbles live?...
The Fimbles live in Fimble Valley a wonderful, magical land of grass, flowers, rocks, strange trees like the tinkling tree and a bubble waterfall. There are also tuffets (of the Little Miss Muffet variety) which the Fimbles sometimes sit on.
...Who else lives in Fimble Valley... There are four other strange colourful characters in the Fimbles.
Bessie - Bessie is a fat pink fluffy bird with a northern accent.
Ribble - Ribble is Bessie's chick, or 'my little chickadee' as Bessie affectionately refers to her. A fat orange ball of fluff with no eyes, wings, legs or other body parts except a little blue beak. He/She makes a weird warbling sound that only Bessie can understand.
Rockit - a frog, blue with red stripes, leaps around, goes cross-eyed a lot.
Roly Mo - A green and purple stripey mole who lives in an underground cavern full of books.

...What do they do?... The Fimbles are all about finding things. Each episode starts with one of the Fimbles getting the 'Fimbling feeling'. Their fingers and nose twitches and the top knot on their heads moves up and down, they sing the Fimbles finding song and go off to find the thing that is waiting to be found. Once found, this thing is the theme for the day. There is uaually a clip of real children doing something with whatever it is they've found, but they're short and they don't play it twice like the Teletubbies insist on doing. At some point Roly Mo turns up and asks them if they'd like to hear a story. Then he rolls off to his underground library, 'back in a roly mo', sings a song, brings a book and reads the story to them.Towards the end Bessie flies off to find Ribble and they talk about what happened today in Fimble Valley and have a good old chuckle about it all.

That's it really. Like I said before, my daughter is obsessed with this programme and I can see why, it's colourful, educational and fun with lots of songs but without being totally repetitive like the Teletubbies or scarily manic like the Tweenies. It would appeal to children from around two years old up to perhaps four or five.You can see it on the CBeebies channel or on BBC 1 at 3.30pm repeated at 9.30am on BBC2.Find a small child and check it out for yourselves!

Friday 27 March 2009

My Question

A study of children's TV and consumerism. 

3 TEXTS:
. Teletubbies
. Tweenies
. Fimbles

Research into sales of toys in relation to these three texts.
Analysis their statistics in sales.
Lead towards textual analysis and constructing paragraphs. 
A study of children's behaviour of their desire to want something?  

Sunday 8 March 2009

Benjamin Button (Critics)

Rated: 12A
Running time: 2hrs 46min
Genre: Drama
Theatrical release: 06.02.09

Rotten Tomatoes - 64%

''Consensus: Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an epic fantasy tale with rich storytelling backed by fantastic performances''.

''Remove "curious" from the title and replace it with "twee and pointless", and you're close to it. What a incredible shaggy-puppy of a movie, a cobweb-construction patched together with CGI, prosthetics, gibberish and warm tears.'' Peter Bradshaw (Guardian UK)

''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button leaves you colder than it should, and it shouldn't leave you cold at all.'' Kenneth Turan (Los Angeles Times)

''The anti-Slumdog Millionaire: a film that's stately, tasteful and genteelly melancholic rather than fevered, rollicking and euphoric. It's a film about time that seems almost out of time.'' Sukhdev Sandhu (Daily Telegraph)

''The Curious Case of Benjamin Button sighs with longing and simmers with intrigue while investigating the philosophical conundrums and emotional paradoxes of its protagonist’s condition''. A.O.Scott (New York Times)

''Aptly for a film so concerned with time, Button is 13 minutes shy of three hours and just flies by. If this is Fincher selling out, can he sell out more often please?'' Ian Freer (Empire Magazine)

''Given the resources and talent here, quite a movie might have resulted. But it's so hard to care about this story.'' Roger Ebert (Chicago-Sun-Times)

''An epic tale that contemplates the wonders of life -- of birth and death and, most of all, love.'' Kirk Honeycutt (Hollywood reporter)

''An epic, melancholic romance that employs a multi-generational cast and groundbreaking visual effects. It’s a testament to Fincher’s skill as a storyteller that the film actually works, albeit sporadically.'' Tom Huddlestone (Time Out)

''A richly satisfying serving of deep-dish Hollywood storytelling. '' Todd McCarthy (Variety)

''An unusual conceit brilliantly executed. A moving work of golden fantasy poised just above the dark waters of our own mortality.'' Matthew De Abaitua (Channel 4 film)

''It is a tedious marathon of smoke and mirrors. In terms of the basic requirements of three-reel drama the film lacks substance, credibility, a decent script and characters you might actually care for.'' James Christopher (Times UK)