Black Mirror: 15 Million Merits

In this episode we are shown the future reality world and a sarcastic version of a reality show where people live in a secluded world. They must exercise on a bike daily, arranged in cells in order to power their surroundings and generate currency for themselves called Merits. The only way to get out of the world is to impress 3 judges at a talent show called “Hot Shots” (basically X Factor but a very exaggerated version).

This episode sums up the title of the series ‘Black Mirror’ which is partly a reference to an Arcade Fire song and partly an allusion to a turned off screen: all you see is a black reflection staring back. Nearly every surface in the episode was a screen. From the moment inhabitants of this dystopia woke up to the moment they went to sleep they were always looking at a monitor. An individual could even incur a penalty by shutting their eyes and not looking at a display.

Again, technology was a big part of this programme and showed our addiction to the digital world. Have all we come to is looking at a computer screen all day? Is the best way of communicating with people is through a screen rather than face to face? It also shows how far reality shows have come in this modern day and age and what has become of it. The writers in the programme have blatantly criticized reality shows for how they are made and then shown towards the audience. It is a scintillating piece that addresses how these shows work and how they manipulate and meld people so that they can be sold on the market. They are showing that reality shows may be pristine on the outside but on the inside they are much more of a vicious and cruel nature. This could be relatable to our film where if you get a character/building they may be pure and good/beautiful on the outside but on the inside you may get a person that is morally evil or a building that has toxic chemicals that you wouldn’t expect.    

         

Black Mirror: The National Anthem

When people hear the words “national anthem” you would think ‘patriotism’ or ‘public spirit’ and it is one of the biggest symbols in the UK – if ruined: the Uk’s reputation may never be the same. In Black Mirror: The National Anthem, we are shown Princess Susannah is kidnapped and for her to be released, the prime minister must have sex with a pig live on television. We know this as a Youtube video was released instead of the government trying to cover it up and it then being announced on the news.

This made the social media go ballistic – if this happened 10 years ago, we didn’t have this type of technology as we only had the news and newspapers to inform us which would quickly print out and spread around the news but by then the government would of had more opportunity to try and cover the situation up and solve it before anymore of the situation is leaked out to the newspapers. Now: If a YouTube video/tweet is shared and takes everyone’s interest – this can spread around the world in minutes (this was shown during the programme when a normal couple were looking through Twitter and seeing every tweet being about the kidnapping & the YouTube video having over 1 million views within 10 minutes.) In relation to our film, it shows that government cover ups are not as easy in the modern day because once the media has got a good story, they can spread it around numerous amount of social media before they print it in the newspapers. To think that the PM had so many advisers but none of them could make an impact = powerless. Yet in reality, this would probably never happen as no broadcaster would be able to show it as they may get shut down immediately, surely they would not want to risk their company that much?

When creating the plot for the film, we have to think about what type of media should be put in to our film. News reports are very effective in terms of it being very informative and trustworthy but if we were to create it, we would have to work at the graphics for it to be professional otherwise we would end up with a not very convincing news report in our trailer. If we were going to set our plot in the modern day, social media as from the programme we realise how a tweet/status can spread like fire around the world – for example if a pandemic was to happen, the use of social media would be so important to spread the news around and show how powerful the internet & social media is. 

The programme had very dark satire and was not for everyone. Of course every programme would always have mixed reactions but was the programme really about a parable of the modern world of technology (the intended message) or was it really just a mock of the current PM and how he does not always stand by his decisions. When making/researching the film we have to think about the cultural reference – this was very much to do with today’s contemporary culture and the digital world and caused a lot of debate & discussion. We would want our plot to not only create a clear intended message but also create discussion about the trailer.