R1 - Q1(b): Theory & Application - 2010/11: April 2011

Thursday, 28 April 2011

1) Representation

The representation of gender in this music video agrees with Laura Mulrey. She believes women are always shown in a explicit way. Close ups of the parts of the women to show a sexual nature, this was placed in the music video on purpose to attract a specific type of audience e.g. through out our music video we used the 'bootie music' title and linked it with chloe booty shaking. The men are also shown as quite dominant as they have all the 'bling' and cars.

2) Audience

We wanted the audience for the Thriller opening to interact with the text, so we wanted to set up unanswered questions for the viewer so that they continue to watch the film. The target audience would be young adults, as the characters are young, so its more likely to attract young people. So the expectations would be to be able to slightly relate to the topics or situations brought up through out the film such as fear, sadness etc.

Analysis of coursework - representation & audience

1: Representation

For the opening shot of out thriller project consisted of, instead of just doing a basic shot of the main character walking into shot to introduce him, an aerial shot slowly zooming outwards. This allowed us to incorporate two things. One, the shot represents Emiles isolation and vulnerable which is the main point of the thriller and how Tom gains his trust. The second reason why we put in the slow zooming shot is so that we can make the end of the shot seem more suspenseful that it actually was, this would keep the audience engaged for the opening credits.

The end shot of our thriller project where Tom is talking to the phone to a stranger, this is a low angle shot, we did this to show now that Tom was the powerful one of the two. Throughout the rest of the thriller we made sure not to include any other low angle shots etc. so not to give the audience a clue that Tom was anything more than a friend.

The gradual moving from afternoon to evening allowed us use the darkness to make Tom seem even more sinister at the crucial point in the story.

Audience Analysis of own Product

JLS - PCD music video audience analysis.

We want our audience to be active rather than passive because this is what keeps the audience attracted. We tried to make our video different in a way so that people remember it and talk about it. We also want people to be able to relate to the story and see their own lives in the video.
We want our audience to interact with the text because if the audience interact and relate to the lyrics they remember and learn the song, meaning they will watch the video more. This is why we emphasized the lyrics a lot in the video and put real meaning to the lyrics.
Our target audience would be young teenage girls mainly because our song is a love song and the main objective of the song is to follow a story of love and lust, meaning that the teenage girls will do the same, and wish they were the lusted girl.
Our classification would be a 'U' as there is nothing in the video which would be controversial, explicit or offensive.

Representation of own work

This is Martin's version of a thriller concept from last year (AS). It goes with some conventions of a thriller from the use of dark lighting to the use of being alone in a scary place.
The calming car drive adds to the audiences feeling of being reassured by the movie, as they feel it will not be that bad. But the use of the black and white sections adds an extra creepy feeling to the production.
By the movies title turning from white to red at the end, red symbolizing blood shows us that this film is not a simple childrens film, it will have blood and gore in it.

The use of a female as the protagonist shows the film shows a strong minded female character and that the film dosnt put women in a typical damsel in distress position when a male saves her.

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Coursework analysis - narrative and genre

1: Narrative analysis.

For our thriller we used narrative in a number of ways. One way we did this was organising time and space into a compressed form. We did this by only telling part of the story - the opening scenes - in the two minutes availiable.

We also made clear whose perspective the story was being told from, Toms. However, at the same time we also made it clear that even though it was Toms story he was not the 'good guy'. We did this similarly through Emiles character. By showing him as not a 'normal' person this shows him to be the vulnerable, the way we did this was by his random 'fits'.

The narrative for our thriller was constructed through a number of elements. The main one was mise-en-scene. We used mise-en-scene to show the audience that this was a opening sequence for a film through the opening credits, for example. But more importantly we used mise-en-scene to show it was an opening sequence by introducing them to the characters, giving glimpses of their true personality but not all of it.

2: Genre analysis.

For a psychological thriller the main premise is that the conflict between the protagonist and antagonist is mental and emotional, rather than physical. Our thriller is primarily a psychological thriller, as Tom does not force 'the pill' down his throat to kill him, he however gains his trust and allows Emile to kill himself, in a sense.

narrative analysis of music video.

Our music video for JLS' song PCD has a very specific narrative in it and is used to tell a story and link to the lyrics.

A story is told in our music video, it shows a love story evolve and develop throughout the song. we did this because people like and are interested in this type of narrative, we figured that if we chose this narrative and storyline, more people would be interested in our video and want to watch it.

we compressed the time in the storyline, the music video is only 3 minutes long and so we had to tell a whole story in that time, the love at first sight scene, the meeting up, the getting closer together and then the ending where they leave together. we did this by showing the important parts, where words weren't needed and you could tell what was going on purely by the body language.

we tried to link the lyrics in the song to what was going on in the video. "i fell for those big brown eyes and the sweetest smile"; we used an extreme close up of the desired girl here to show her big brown eyes and sweet smile to emphasis the point that she is lusted over.

There is constant cause and effect in the video, right from the very start, he see's the girl, he wants the girl, so he goes after the girl. during the video they get to know each other and because it turns out that they like each other, they go back to his house, this again is cause and effect method. this helps to write a better storyline because people can follow it easier making it more pleasing to the viewer.

we have the perspective being told from the featured male's point of view, because he is the one singing the song and the song and lyrics are all revolved around what happens in the video. if we changed the perspective to the featured female then the song and lyrics would change completly but then that is an option for a follow up song, which would be easy to promote as the same audience that watched this song would watch that and therefore all we would need to do is link that song to this.

Genre Analysis

hip hop what you see in hip hop uk elements why put in

The genre of our music video was hip hop which has many different conventions. In our video we tired to meet most of these conventions and element and also trying to meet some of the elements of uk hip hop/grime. the thing is genres change constantly, they are a fluid concept. they evolve to reflect different issues socially. one of the conventions is concentrated on was the fast pace cutting that we saw when researching and watching other peoples videos.

genre analysis: thriller

1) Genre analysis of 1 of your products (thriller or music video)

We decided to analysis the genre on the opening of our thriller. Most thillers have the same characteristics, this is why we think you can genrise films/tv programmes, for example the music and narrative gives this away.

But agreeing with Robert stams theory, there is many different ways to define films, it all depends on what the person personally feels is the key characteristic element of the film.

2) narrative analysis of 1 of your products.

The thriller tells a story

Music Video Genre Analysis

This is Marty Martina's music video constructed by mainly him and partly by Ned, Emile + Minty.
This music video holds many characteristics of the rock genre, from the look of the artists in the video and the style in which it is shot and its location (in a gritty looking carpark).
We stick to the conventions that audiences would associate with rock video's, by using dark lighting and rock items such as guitars and dark grebby clothing and log rocking out hair. And which if this where a real product would help the sales of the song by giving the audience what they want and are comfortable with.
We feel this music video meets expectations of the 'Rock' genre as a whole, by its incorporation of low lighting and extreme close-ups. There is also a large amount of jumping through-out the video sequence, which is also seen in many videos seen under the 'Rock" genre.

Genre Analysis on Thriller

What is genre?
Genre can be described as many things. it can be described as a set of characterstics recognised by audiences which functions like language - offering a set of rules and vocabulary with wich to organise meaning. It is not static. it is constantly renegotiated between audience and industry.

Above is a link to our Music video we completed for media last year. Though the genre is depicted as Thriller, the actual video does also contain different characteristics from genres like Horror. This is because over the past few decades, the thriller genre has been renegotiated to include some classic horror characteristics. Like for example the Quick editing found at 1:09 is an example of a classic type of editing found in the majority of horror movies. Over time this has become an editing technique used in Thrillers to keep the viewers attention. Examples like this help to prove the concept that genre can be renegotiated. Doing this allows a more similar relationship between audience and producer which helps further the risk of financial failure, as (in effect) more than one genre is used.

What is Narrative?
The narrative of a film is the way that the story is told (How meaning is constructed in order to promote audience understanding).

From the opening you can get a glimpse as to what the film is going to be about. The narrative at the start helps to introduce the genre and the underlying story, as well as the overlying story (the underlying story being, the hitman-carer, and overlying being, the schizophrenic's life.), and it identifies these two narratives as being very different stories both merged into one film. If the film didnt have a narrative, it wouldn't be a film.
From the 4 minute film starter there a significant range of narratives have been identified, but none of them have finished. personally this makes me want to see how the rest of the film unfolds, so it would be good to see other audience's reaction given the same introduction.

Thursday, 7 April 2011

the idea of the music video is to have three city guys listening to a new song as they go about their business. this relates to david gauntlett theory of identity as the three characters have similar identities as it is shown they like the same music. we made the characters city guys to relate to the audience as most of our audience are from cambridge, also genre of the music goes with the urban scenes.

Todorovs theory does not link into our music video as we do not include an equilibrium dis-equilibrium and new equilibrium as our music video does not have much of a narrative to follow this

applying theories to our own work

Our music video^^

David Gauntlett was interested in the effects debate, he disagreed with the fact that media influences people's actions our music video is not particularly controversial so would not be likely to influence poeples actions but some music videos such as 50 cent p.i.m.p this objectify's women and gives the impression that doing this is 'gangsta'. Some people would argue that videos like this makes people inspire to be like 50 cent and may treat women differently but David gauntlett critises the effects debate with ten different points.

Laura mulvey thinks that women are placed in film or music video's as a subject of desire. this can actually link in with our music video as we have a female actress in the video who is the subject of desire for the male singing the song. this then makes us desire her as well because she is wanted by the singer.

Tzvetan Todorov writes about the equilibrium theory, our music video does have a certain type of equilibrium change but not a drastic one that is the usual type. it does not have a dis-equilibrium, but there is an equilibrium and new equilibrium. at the start everything is normal and the singer is on a bridge, he then see's a woman walk past which he falls in love with and lusts over. he then spends the music video trying to seduce her which is then the change in equilibrium. at the end he succeeds in seducing her and walks off with her into the distance as a new equilibrium is made.

Applying theories to own work

In our music video you could apply David Gauntlett theory about how different social groups create and view media texts. In our media text we are in a mind set of older teens and young adults who are into rock music. Having this mind set created the look and style of the video which is what davids theory was about how different social groups create different looks and styles .

Thriller analaysis

Media Production Analysis - Using Current Theorists' Theories to Theoretically Theorise the Theories Behind Our Own Work, in Theory

Nedrick: Child of the Woods

One of the key techniques used in our Year 12 media piece aimed at children was sex appeal. This was done by taking off the majority of Ned's clothing and subtle rips in the clothing which we were unable to convince him to remove. This goes directly against the theory of Laura Mulvey, a feminist who believes that women in the media are used entirely for sex appeal and males are generally seen as the heroes of the piece. Also Emile's hair.

Also, the only woman in our video just so happens to be cleaning.

David Gauntlett's theories can be applied to our work by looking at the way childhood is represented to the children we are trying to appeal to. In our introduction, childhood is represented as an isolated, potentially lonely place. The titular protagonist has clearly spent far too much time alone and has become separated from society; much like the actor who plays him.

Applying Theory.

In this media form, women are exploited in a sexual way which links in with the theorist Laura Mulvey who was a feminist and believed that men are always shown as the heroes and women are always shown as the victims. As female producers we decided to exploit the woman in a sexual way to attract a male audience.

Ways theories can be applied to coursework

Music Video
- In a way our music video can be compared to Laura Mulvey's 'Male gaze' theory as our video focuses on a female character, with a male artist in between which could signify that the song is about the female and the artists feelings towards her. However our music video does not objectify women, as we have mainly used long to mid shots - instead of the close up and extreme close up shots that are related to objectification.
-Our ancillary texts of a dvd cover and magazine article do suggest that Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory does apply to our coursework as we used a series of photographs of just the female from the video and not the artist so the main focus is on her. Although this could be seen as the female character has dominated the male artists life, showing Mulvey's theory of creating a new feminist avant garde of film making has been produced.
-Our music video can not relate to Todorov's theory of Equilibriums as there is no clear equilibrium, dis-equilibrium then new equilibrium. As our music video just contains a female dancing and having fun, mixed with shots of the artist singing, There was no narrative to our music video, as we wanted the music video to have a different feel to most of the other music videos.
-Roland Barthes theory does also not relate to our music video, as he believes that in media texts there is an 'enigma code' which is a hook or mystery that needs to be resolved for an audience. In a small way, it may be seen our music video has an enigma code, as you may wonder what the significance of the female in the video has to the artist, however this may not be picked up by all spectators.
-David Gauntlett theory of fragmented construction of identity may relate to our music video. Fluidity of identities and the decline of tradition: traditional view of women as housewife/low status worker has been kicked out by a feisty successful 'girl power' icons. Whereas masculine ideals of absolute toughness, stubborn self reliance and emotional silence, have been taken over by a new emphasis on mens emotions, need for advice and problems of masculinity. Our music video has a slight relation to David Gauntlett's theory as the female may be seen as a 'girl power' icon, as she dominates the music video and there is only small scenes of the male artist.
- Vladimir Propp's theory of 'spheres of action' and that there are 32 basic categories of actions called functions, with 8 character types; hero, villain, donor, father, princess, helper, false hero and dispatcher. This theory does not relate to our music video as there is no clear character types that comply with Propp's theory, even though there is a male artist and female main character. This theory is more clearly related to our Children's film opening coursework, which did contain a Princess and an evil stepmother; who could have been the villain.

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

David Gauntlett

David Gaun

tlett is from the university of westminister, he does preojects using visual methods (drawing, collage and video) to get the brain working in a different way in comparison to using interviews and focus groups, he feels that visual methods is a more switched on hands on approach which hopefully gets more truthful results. He published a book describing all of this type of work called creative explorations in 2007. He has similar ideas to the earlier theorist merleau ponty who said ''we live our lives in bodies'' he says that using our bodies is likely to lead to a more realistic response. David uses objects such as lego serious play which is a certain type of lego where people are asked to think and build in metaphor. He asks people to make their identity metaphorically with lego.


This model is an example but they can look like anything depending on the person

David argues that making the identity out of lego means they can express their identity as a whole rather than a list giving participants a sense of balance.

The study was conducted with 79 different people in a number of groups such as...

Architects
unemployed people

charity managers etc

overall there was a very diverse set of people he says it gives people a chance to communicate different types of information he says people get that chance to communicate using intangible concepts expressing things easier than trying to express it with words. You also get the fruitful additional meanings which is the primary meaning that you would get with words but also the additional meaning. He had 11 findings from this study but above all the most interesting was perhaps the set of tensions which people deal with every day and also the stories and metaphors we use circulated to a great extent by the media to understand our lives.

The effects debate- The effects debate is the theory that the media has a big influence on the way that people act in everyday life. David disagrees with this theory he identifies ten things wrong with the theory:

1. The effects model tackles social problems 'backwards'
2. The effects model treats children as inadequate
3. Assumptions within the effects model are characterised by barely-concealed conservative ideology
4. The effects model inadequately defines its own objects of study
5. The effects model is often based on artificial elements and assumptions within studies
6. The effects model is often based on studies with misapplied methodology
7. The effects model is selective in its criticisms of media depictions of violence
8. The effects model assumes superiority to the masses
9. The effects model makes no attempt to understand meanings of the media
10. The effects model is not grounded in theory

charles

Todorov's most notible piece of work was his work regarding the definition of the Fantastic, the fantastic uncanny, and the fantastic marvelous. Todorov defines the fantastic as being any event that happens in our world that seems to be supernatural. Upon the occurrence of the event, we must decide if the event was an illusion or whether it is real and has actually taken place. Todorov uses Alvaro from Cazotte's Le Diable Amoureux as an example of a fantastic event. Alvaro must decide whether the woman he is in love with is truly a woman or if she is the devil.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uR5jufwSqm8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Laura Mulvey

'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' 1975
'Male gaze' - Argued cinematic apparatus of classical Hollywood cinema inevitably put the spectator in masculine subject position, with the figure of a woman on screen as the object of desire, (political stand).
Wanted to radically challenge/reshape the filmic strategies of classic Hollywood with alternative feminist methods.
Called for a new-feminist avant garde of film making.

Objectify men

4.25

Objectify women

Tzvetan Todorov!

Tzvetan Todorov (born March 1, 1939 in Sofia) is a Franco-Bulgarian philosopher. He has lived in France since 1963 with his wife Nancy Huston and their two children, writing books and essays about literary theory,thought history and culture theory. Todorov has published a total of 21 books. Todorov's historical interests have focused on such crucial issues as the conquest of The Americas and the Nazi and Stalinist concentration camps.

Todorov's theory is "the fantastic"; the fantastic is the study of whether a supernatural occurance is actually real and happenening or whether it has been an illusion. After deciding whether the event is real or an illusion, Todorov thinks we enter the stages of uncanny and marvelous. In the event of a fantastic uncanny, the event that has taken place is an illusion with an explanation; the fantastic uncanny can include dreams, drugs etc. In the fantastic marvelous the event has actually taken place which means the laws of reality have to change.
Todorov also developed the theory of the equlibriums; the equilibrium is the part of a film when everything is peaceful at the beginning, the disequilibrium is the opposite of the equilibrium in the way that it is when the bad stuff is happening and then the new equilibrium is when peace occurs again better than before.

Todorov's other theory is that of 'Equilibrium'

Todorov analysed these 3 steps

- Equilibrium

- Dis-Equilibrium

- New Equilibrium

Another way of breaking this down would be to use 5 steps

- Narrative Structure

- Development

- Complication

- Climax

- Resolution

-Narrative Function

(1. To organise groups of events into a pattern of cause and effect. 2. To organise time and space)

Roland Barthes

Full name	Roland Barthes
Born	12 November 1915
Died	25 March 1980 (aged 64)
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Structuralism Semiotics Post-structuralism
Main interests	Semiotics, Literary Theory

Theory: Collection of media such as films, TV, music videos or any other media collections are all made up of different images that represent something and have a different meaning for different things for example a 'rose', means love, valentines day, death, labour party, all depending on its context.

Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Propp created a theory based upon the idea that every narrative(storyline) has a selection of stereotypical characters being:

The Hero – a character that seeks something

The Villain – who opposes or actively blocks the hero’s quest

The Donor – who provides an object with magical properties

The Dispatcher – who sends the hero on his/her quest via a message

The False Hero – who disrupts the hero’s success by making false claims

The Helper – who aids the hero

The Princess – acts as the reward for the hero and the object of the villain’s plots

Her Father – who acts to reward the hero for his effort

Not all story lines follow these conventions exactly but all roughly follow the same structure.

The Hero is Robin Hood he is the leading character and is paired up with Maid Marian, playing the princess role. The helper is Little John who stays by Robin throughout the film, trying to defeat and over come the villain, The Sheriff of Nottingham.

Friday, 1 April 2011

Minty!

Niche genre - a genre which appeals to a certain group of consumers

codes and conventions - the rules the media sticks to be part of any genre

theorists - john fiske described genres as attempts to structure some order into the wide of text and meanings

intertextuality - the shaping of texts' meaning by other texts. included is referencing and alteration of past texts

sementic - the ideas that a film is defined by its contents. for example guns, horses and cowboy hats in a western

syntatics -

Genre theory

Background of genre theory:
Genres make the film more efficient as well as more marketable. Andre basins work on westerns in the 1950's explores the significant advantages of genre from an institutional perspective.

Niche genre:
A niche genre is when a media text is created for a small specific audience, for example the vauxhall magazine is produced for vauxhall owners.

Codes and conventions:
Codes give meaning to an audience and conventions of the genre such as themes, ideologies and narratives. The codes and conventions are important for the instituions because there is a genre framework for the text and its more likely to attract audiences.

Theorists:
Propp - 32 functions and 8 charactersistics
Rick altman - Agruges that genres are usually defined in terms of either certain media language or ideoloiges or narratives. Semantic is conventions such as costume or mis en scene

Paper Toss Quiz

1. Background to Genre Theory - Categorizes different types of films or media products.
2. Niche Genre - a media product aimed at a specific market group, made for them.
3. Codes and Conventions - what we expect to get from a movie action film would have explosions, guns, fighting - our perception of the film. Specific to different viewers.
4. Theorists - Rick Altman, Andre Basin
5. Intertextuality is the way in which texts refer to other to media texts that producers assume audiences will recognize

Genre Theory

Another of the key concepts essential to the study of the media is genre. At its most basic level, genre means 'type'. Genre is a key concept due to many different reasons. The main individual theorist we consider when considering genre theory is John Fiske. He described genres as 'attempts to structure some order into the wide range of texts and meanings that circulate in our culture for the convenience of both producers and audiences.' Genre is, therefore, simply a way of categorising texts in our media-saturated culture.