Kirby Fergusson
Everything is a remix
The belief that everything is connected, that 'originality' is impossible and that creativity relies on the ability to copy, transform and combine.
Unattributed (a general postmodern theory)
Parody
An imitation created to mock, comment on or trivialise an original work
Unattributed (a general postmodern theory)
Homage
An imitation created to respectfully reference previous work. It celebrates rather than mocks.
Lyotard
Grand and Little Narratives
Essentially 'big stories' and 'little stories' which we use to interpret and understand the world around us (e.g. Science and Religion)
Levi Strauss
Bricolage
Taking an item and placing it in a new context to create a new meaning (e.g. a punk using a safety pin as a nose piercing)
Addition - Add something extra to the narrative
Deletation - Taking something away from the narrative
Substitution - Substituting something within the narrative
Transportation - Taking two unconnected things and adding them together.
Jameson
Criticism of Postmodernism
It is vacuous and trapped in circular references
Baudrillard
Simulacrum
An image without the substance or qualities of the original (e.g. a can of coke)
Baudrillard
Hyper-Reality
An inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality (e.g. google glasses, computer games)
Julia Kristeva
Intertextual Reference
The shaping of texts' meanings by other texts (e.g. Inglourious Basterds refs)
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Class Notes
Frederic Jameson - Criticism of Postmodernism
- He sees it as vacuous and trapped in circular references
- Postmodernism is nothing more than a series of self-referential 'jokes' which have no deeper meaning or purpose
- He thinks everyone should follow conventions and rules and that the world has become too identical and hyper-real
- Doesn't like breaking up core structures
Jean-Francois Lyotard
- Rejected 'grand narrative' or universal 'meta-narratives'
- The grand narrative refer to great theories of history, science, religion and politics. He rejects the idea that everything is knowable by science or that, as history moves forward in time, humanity makes progress.
- He favours 'micro-narratives' (taking small parts of other films and copying them) that can go in any direction, that reject diversity and that are unpredictable.
Simulacrum - A copy of a copy
Authenticity - Real/original
Hyper-reality - Replicating an admiral lifestyle.
Postmodernists want you to know they've copied someone else and credit the original. They acknowledge you've seen it all before.
- He sees it as vacuous and trapped in circular references
- Postmodernism is nothing more than a series of self-referential 'jokes' which have no deeper meaning or purpose
- He thinks everyone should follow conventions and rules and that the world has become too identical and hyper-real
- Doesn't like breaking up core structures
Jean-Francois Lyotard
- Rejected 'grand narrative' or universal 'meta-narratives'
- The grand narrative refer to great theories of history, science, religion and politics. He rejects the idea that everything is knowable by science or that, as history moves forward in time, humanity makes progress.
- He favours 'micro-narratives' (taking small parts of other films and copying them) that can go in any direction, that reject diversity and that are unpredictable.
Simulacrum - A copy of a copy
Authenticity - Real/original
Hyper-reality - Replicating an admiral lifestyle.
Postmodernists want you to know they've copied someone else and credit the original. They acknowledge you've seen it all before.
Sunday, 17 February 2013
Wednesday, 6 February 2013
Narrative Theory
Theorists that are applicable to my product:
Narrative - The way in which the story is told
Things to remember when analysing a media text:
- Structured basedon Todorov's theory
How conflict is established/resolved
- Conflict is established by Andrew Goodwin's suggestion of matching the visuals to the lyrics. We used mid and long shots to show the arguments. The resolution is after the instrumental when we used voyeurism with the girl looking in the mirror.
How we constructed our characters and made them relatable
- Majority of shots contained our star. Her costumes and make-up contained natural colours which connoted the idea of innocence and vulnerability. Eye contact with the camera makes the audience feel more involved and allows here to become more relatable.
Heroes and Villains
- The boy could be the villain in our narrative however there are some shots such as the flashbacks where he doesn't come across as a villain
Importance of mise-en-scene/editing
- We used simple mise-en-scene with simplistic colours to convey our character as innocent. We edited to the song lyrics and, at some parts, we edited to the beat of the music.
How far did you chose to follow the lyrics in your storyboarding?
- We chose to illustrate the events described in the lyrics through our narrative.
Key lines which were given visual dominance
- 'I don't think so' --> we used lyrics on screen to emphasis her emotions
- 'Back up, baby back up...' --> After the instrumental, there is about 15 seconds of the girl singing through the mirror to the camera lens.
"Videos tend to only suggest story lines and focus on fragments of the lyrics" (Steve Archer)
- This is true with our video as the audience don't see the entire narrative, they do not see the events leading up to the break up neither are they given details as to why it happened.
In our video, the artist plays the role of both the narrator and the protagonist. The narrative is objective as opposed to subjective as we only see the story from her point of view; the other side to the story is not shown. We also used voyeurism, as suggested by Andrew Goodwin, when the girl is looking at the audience through the reflection of the mirror.
Firth 1998 - "Videos can be characterised by 3 broad stereotypologies". Our video comes under 'narrative' which means... "Action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen" (Schwichtenberg 1992)
"It is the lip synch close up and the miming of playing instruments that remains at the heart of music videos" (Steve Archer 2004)
Andrew Goodwin
Illustrative - Images are given literal representation.
Amplifying - repetition of key meaning e.g chorus
- Todorov (theory of equilibrium)
- Laura Mulvey (male gaze)
- Andrew Goodwin (relationship between lyrics and visuals)
- Roland Barthes (action codes, enigma codes)
Narrative - The way in which the story is told
Things to remember when analysing a media text:
- Technical Code (sounds, camera angles, editing, mise-en-scene, colours)
- Verbal Code (how language is used to convey the story)
- Symbolic Codes (Clues in the narrative. e.g. ripping up letter shows distress. Link to mise-en-scene)
- Structure (beginning, middle, end. Todorov, 3 part structure, theory of equilibrium)
- Character (Protagonist - hero, Antagonist - Villain)
- Narrative Conflict ( Levi Strauss - "all narratives are moved forward by conflict". Binary oppositions, one item carries a negative value whilst the other has a positive value)
- Introduce a character
- Establish narrative structure
- Captivate audience interest
- Establish core themes
- Establish sense of enigma
- Establish audience expectations through the use of generic conventions
- Show predominance of action codes
- Introduce inconography
- Structured basedon Todorov's theory
How conflict is established/resolved
- Conflict is established by Andrew Goodwin's suggestion of matching the visuals to the lyrics. We used mid and long shots to show the arguments. The resolution is after the instrumental when we used voyeurism with the girl looking in the mirror.
How we constructed our characters and made them relatable
- Majority of shots contained our star. Her costumes and make-up contained natural colours which connoted the idea of innocence and vulnerability. Eye contact with the camera makes the audience feel more involved and allows here to become more relatable.
Heroes and Villains
- The boy could be the villain in our narrative however there are some shots such as the flashbacks where he doesn't come across as a villain
Importance of mise-en-scene/editing
- We used simple mise-en-scene with simplistic colours to convey our character as innocent. We edited to the song lyrics and, at some parts, we edited to the beat of the music.
How far did you chose to follow the lyrics in your storyboarding?
- We chose to illustrate the events described in the lyrics through our narrative.
Key lines which were given visual dominance
- 'I don't think so' --> we used lyrics on screen to emphasis her emotions
- 'Back up, baby back up...' --> After the instrumental, there is about 15 seconds of the girl singing through the mirror to the camera lens.
"Videos tend to only suggest story lines and focus on fragments of the lyrics" (Steve Archer)
- This is true with our video as the audience don't see the entire narrative, they do not see the events leading up to the break up neither are they given details as to why it happened.
In our video, the artist plays the role of both the narrator and the protagonist. The narrative is objective as opposed to subjective as we only see the story from her point of view; the other side to the story is not shown. We also used voyeurism, as suggested by Andrew Goodwin, when the girl is looking at the audience through the reflection of the mirror.
Firth 1998 - "Videos can be characterised by 3 broad stereotypologies". Our video comes under 'narrative' which means... "Action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen" (Schwichtenberg 1992)
"It is the lip synch close up and the miming of playing instruments that remains at the heart of music videos" (Steve Archer 2004)
Andrew Goodwin
Illustrative - Images are given literal representation.
Amplifying - repetition of key meaning e.g chorus
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Inglourious Basterds
For my case study on 'Inglourious Basterds'. I need to talk about:
To present this, I will use windows movie maker and for some parts, I will use my bamboo tablet to illustrate the ideas that I am putting across.
- Van Johnson (actor)
- Leni Riefenstahl (film director)
- Noel Coward (director and actor)
- Nation's Pride (film)
- Sergeant York (film)
- The Odessa Steps and Its Descendants (film)
- Battleship Potemkin (film)
- The Untouchables (film)
- The Dirty Dozen (film)
- The Inglourious Basterds Soundtrack (soundtrack)
- Quentin Tarantino (director)
- Pulp Fiction (film)
- Tarentino's filmography
- Tavern Scene in the film
- Cellar Scene
- Inglourious Basterds review
- Influences
To present this, I will use windows movie maker and for some parts, I will use my bamboo tablet to illustrate the ideas that I am putting across.
Essay
How did the conventions of real media texts inspire you to use new media technology to create the style of product you achieved?
Over my two years studying at AS and A2, I made a variety of products. My magazine, music video and digipak being the main projects where I used new media technologies. I was faced with new software such as Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and using new hardware such as the Apple Mac computers and Canon video cameras.
At AS, I created a music magazine. I used the pre-production stage to carry out research and planning to gain a better understanding of the conventions for this product. I learnt that generically, the cover had to have a masthead, a strapline and a close up image of the star. Using new hardware such as my FinePix S6500, I was able to take high quality pictures to my magazine and take a clear close up photograph for the cover image. The close up connoted that star image is important to the music genre I was representing. I could then use software such as Photoshop to create my masthead and strap line. Conventionally, the masthead is positioned at the top of the cover so I decided to follow this convention however; I used Dafont to find a striking font to support my cover image and make my magazine stand out.
At A2, I created a music video in the country/pop genre. After carrying out research in pre-production, I found that 90% of shots needed to contain the star with a wide majority being mid-shots and close ups. I took this advice on board and, when filming with the Canon video camera, ensured that I framed the star in a variety of close ups. I learnt also that my genre used zooms in videos therefore, for the mid-shots, I was able to use the zoom tool in Final Cut Pro to add a steady zoom; this allowed me to create the style and look that I was aiming for.
I also created a digipak at A2, which supported my music video. To make this, I primarily used Photoshop. After researching into the conventions, I found that I needed to use a head shot for the cover image. I used my FinePix S6500 camera to take a selection of photos that we could later choose from and even added some effects such as black and white to some of them. I decided to use a black and white image for my digipak cover; this develops conventions in my genre and helps my product to stand out from others that are similar. Photoshop allowed me to use the magnetic lasso tool to cut around my image and achieve a professional-looking product.
For all of my products, I looked at the conventions and planned how I could use them to create a new product. I was inspired by the quote ‘The making of the new and the rearranging of the old’ (Bentley 1997) as this is what I have done across all three projects talked about above. For my music video, it was about taking the idea of the conventional relationship break-up narrative and storyboarding shots and camera angles that would convey my narrative convincingly and make it look completely new. My research taught me that video in our genre tended only to use straight cuts for transition from shot to shot; we chose to follow this convention and ensure we only used straight cuts when editing on Final Cut Pro.
For my narrative, I used Todorov’s theory. The equilibrium was the couple being happy followed by the dis-equilibrium being the fight and break up. Finally, normality is restored with a new equilibrium where the girl is happy being on her own without the boy. All narratives must follow a certain pattern in order for them to make sense to the audience. I used a long shot when filming to show the girl and boy when they are arguing to clearly highlight the dispute so that the audience don’t lose a grasp on understanding my narrative. I used Final Cut Pro to arrange the shots in the narrative into the correct order.
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