Thursday 29th January lesson notes

Simpsons - Bricolage - Halloween special.

• Intertextuality
• Ironic playfulness
• Self reflexivity.

Conventions of horror/in the opening sequence;

• Eerie music
• Storm
• Font if the title was in red blood
• Cemetery
• 'Elvis, accept it' written on a grave stone
• 'A balanced budget' written on a grave stone
• 'Subtle political satire' written on a grave stone - making a dig at it
• 'TV violence' written on a grave stone which then gets shot

Simpsons sat in front of the TV, mise-en-scene credits are on a TV screen, there was a family guy episode in which they started the show in the style of the Simpsons i.e. the opening couch sequence that is seen in every episode.

In the Halloween episode we also see Bart pretending to be Rod Serling in a suit. They are creating a pastiche of 'Rod Serling's night gallery'. within this pastiche we see famous paintings however they have been adapted to fit each of the Simpsons characters into one of the paintings. We see Homer as Van Gogh, Lisa as Picasso and also as the 'Scream' by Edward Munch, Maggie as Salvador Dali and Homer Chasing Bart as Eester.

-Self Reflexivity - Marge says to Bart to warn about this 'scary programme'
- 'War of the Worlds broadcast' - read out Orson Welles book as a news paper report and people believed it.
- 3 separate films in one episode - Homer & the devil which is based on a 1941 film. - The devil & Daniel Webster
- Irony - Homer is in charge of a nuclear power plant yet he is supposed to be very stupid
- Irony - Ned Flanders is the Devil yet he is supposed to be a Christian
- NY Hells Kitchen - Homer sells his soul for a doughnut
- 'Hey Bart' (Devil) 'Hey' (Bart) - they know each other - Bart is a trouble causer
- Ironic punishment - Homer is fed doughnuts until he pops
- Hired a lawyer who had watched Mattlock Layer is a bar and he said the sound wasn't great but he got the gist - he doesn't have a clue what he's doing.

• Benedict Arnold trailer
• Lizzie Borden - killed her mother and father with an axe.
• John Wells - killed Nixon
• Richard Nixon
• Black beard pirate - can't read

- Police men wanting to eat Homers head because it looks like a doughnut - stereotype

- Terror as 5 1/2 ft. - is a pastiche of Twilight Zone Nightmare at 20,000 ft

- Futurama - pastiche of the opening to Twilight Zone

- Captain Kirk performing Eminem's 'real slim shady' in Futurama - confusion of time

A Knights Tale notes

2001 - A Knights Tale - Heath Ledger

• Set in the 14th/15th century
• Directed by Brian Helgeland
• singing Queen in this time period however the song is from the 1970's. We Will Rock You creates an illusion of time.
• Using trumpets instead of guitars for the guitar solos.
• Music from David Bowie used in the ballroom when dancing.
• character as Geoffrey Chaucer put into a fictional film even though he is a real historical figure.

Genre Theory

Genre Theory

The main strength of genre theory is that everybody uses/understands it. The potential for the same concept to be understood by producers, audiences and scholars makes genre a useful, critical tool. It can be applied across a wide range of texts because it's accessible.

Genre Development & Transformation

Over years genre develops and changes as the wider society that produces them also change - Generic Transformation

Christian Metz - 1974

Genres go through a typical cycle.

1. Experimental stage
2. Classic stage
3. Parody stage
4. Deconstruction stage.

Music video

Medium intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures by reinforcing generic elements of musical genres. They're called pop-proms as they're used to promote a band or artist.

Music videos are post-modern texts whose main purpose is to promote a star persona - Dyer - 1975

They don't have to be literal representations of the song lyrics.

The label/name given to a historical era in society and culture, post-modern is the label that we're living in now.

David Bordwell - 1989

Horror films - modern fairy tales often act as morality plays in which people who break society's rules are punished.

Fear of the unknown - Monster - Anything is scary because it's alien.

Sex = Death - sex is immoral and must be punished. Ware wolf = Puberty & Vampire = STD or rape.

Breakdown of society - Post-modern movies are about our fear of this. Human kind reverts to their animal instincts.

Youthful Themes

• Teen angst
• Rebellion
• Romance
• Sex
• Nostalgia
• Nihilism
• Coming of Age
• Tribalism
• Bullying
• Juvenile delinquency: moral panics and the teenager as a folk devil
• The currency of coal
• Thedonism - living for pleasure
• Friendship

Other Themes

• War
• Crime
• Poverty
• Capitalism
• Racism

David Buckingham - 1993

Argues that genre isn't given by the culture it's a negotiation.

Post-modernist - Jaques Derrida states that the 'vow of the vow of genre is a principle of contamination'.

Stereotypes

What is a stereotype?

- A person or individual who fits into a certain form or group. e.g.

• Emo's
• Goth's
  
• Popular's
• Chav's
• Hippies
• Nerd's
• Geek's
• Comedian's
• Sporty
• Drama
• Dance
• Scene

Tessa Perkins

 - Stereotyping isn't a simple process and and contains a number of assumptions that can be challenged.

5 Assumptions;

• Stereotypes aren't always negative e.g. the French are good cooks.
• They aren't always about minority groups or the less powerful e.g. upper class twits
• They can be held about one's own group
• they aren't rigid or unchanging
• They aren't always false.

- People assume that stereotypes one negative for e.g. young troublesome youths 'hoodie culture'. they assume that stereotypes are aimed at and targeted towards lower class however it does happen the other way round.

- They can be held about one's own group, we're based as a group within Wyke college, within our own group we can stereotype or individual.

- Once a stereotype has been created it is very hard to change however Perkins states that over a period of time can change and develop.

- There has to be some truth in them other wise where would the representation come from.

- We witness and read many stories in the media that helps us shape and understand.

- They are about groups with whom we have little or no social contract; by implication therefore, they're not held about one's own group that;s a stereotype of a stereotype. How can this be reliable or believable.

- They're about minority or repressed groups most of the time creating negative representation of the lower class possibly giving the upper-class more power.

- People either 'hold' stereotypes of a groups or don't. this can lead to negative behaviour or wrong assumptions.

- Before someone holds a stereotype of a group his or her behaviour towards a member of that group can be predicted. This can lead to unfair treatment of certain members of society.

Complications with this weekend

I was planning on filming this weekend however my actress for my music video has injured her leg so a lot of the shots I wanted to film we wouldn't have been able to. To add onto this problem I went to book a camera etc. out however there was none left which meant I did no filming at all this weekend because I had nothing to film it on. I did however go and explore one of the sights were I will be doing some filming in the near future.

Narrative Theory

Tim O'Sullivan - 1998
He argues that all media texts tell us some kind of story. through careful mediation, media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves, not usually our own personal storied however they story of us as a culture or set of cultures. Narrative theory sets out to show that what we experience when we 'read' a story is to understand a particular set of constructions or conversations and that it's important to be aware of how these constructions are put together. We are representing the human condition.

Kate Domaille - 2001
Every story ever told can be fitted into one of eight narrative types. Each of these types has a source, an original story upon which the others are based. These stories are fallous.

• Adilles - The factual flow that leads to the destruction of the previously flawless or almost flawless person e.g. Superman, fatal attraction.
• Candide - The indomitable hero who cannot be put down e.g.Indiana Jones, James Bond, Rocky etc.
• Cinderella - The dream comes true e.g. Pretty Woman,
• Cince - the chase the spider and the fly, the innocent and the villain e.g. Smokey and the bandit, duel, the terminator.
• Faust - Selling your soul to the devil may bring riches but eventually your soul belongs to him. e.g. Bedazzled and Wall Street.
• Orpheus - the loss of something personal the gift that is taken away, the tragedy of losses or the journey which follows the loss; e.g. Romeo & Juliet
• The love story - e.g. Titanic
• Tristan & Isulet - the love triangle, man loves woman unfortunately one or both of them are already spoken for, or a third party intervenes. e.g. Casablanca

A Song For Whoever - The Beautiful South

- Cinematography

• Close-up emphasising his emotion for the women.
• Pans to show the members of the group
• Medium close-up shows him lip syncing

- Ideology

• Identifying his audience by stating that he loves 'you from the bottom of my pencil case' he is addressing his target audience as young teenage girls because they are the type of people who are likely to own one.
• The mould a blemonge into a star

- Editing

• Edits to the beat
• Cuts straight to the very next shot

- Sound

• 'Jennifer, Alison, Phillipa, sue' Naming many women suggests he cheats on them.
• He is obsessed with finding 'the one'
• 'cheap never cheap' could be suggesting that he doesn't go for cheap women

- Narrative

• the Blemonge represents 'the one', someone different.
• the jelly looked great but it couldn't sing, represents some stars, taking the mick out of them.

- Mise-en-scene

• Instruments show a live performance
• Wearing the same clothes to show they're all band members
• High key lighting on stage shows the performance more clearly.

there is not point in creating a media text if it doesn't relate to their audience. Narratives are based around what it is like to be a certain culture and relates back to the culture. Media creates narrative based on our society.

all conventions have iconic Mise-en-scene

Satine - The use of human to criticise or ridicule e.g. A Song For Whoever by The Beautiful South

There are basic themes that run through narratives and showed between everyone in society;

1. Narrative
2. Performance
3. Abstract

Richard Dyers' Star Theory

Richard Dyers star theory is the idea that icons and celebrities are constructed by institutions of financial reasons and are built to target a specific audience or group of people. Dyers theory can be broken down into three sections;

1. Audience and Institutions - Stars are made to make money for that purpose alone. Audiences want to consume what they think is the ideal. The institution then modifies the stars image based around the target audience. They make a star based on what they think they're looking for, the 'full package' they want to please the audience as they are what will make the star a success or not if the case may be.
2. Constructions - The star is built for an audience and is not an actual person, a persona is created for the audience to identify with and so stars can differentiate between different stars, why they like them or not. ~the star is built specifically with someone's signature to them.
3. Thegemony - leadership -  We relate to the star theory because they have a feature that we admire or share with them. This develops from an admiration into idolisation. some people may attempt to replicate what they like about a star.

Quotes - 

• 'Stars are commodities that are produced by institutions'
• ' A star is a constructed image represented across a range of media and mediums.
• 'stars represent and embody certain ideologies'

Extras notes

Extras is a self-reflexive TV show.

• Non traditional
• Undermined the realism of a text by showing the means of a construction.

Kate Winslet episode

• Kate is seen as upper class which is a media construct
• She dresses in a nun costume whilst giving phone sex advice to two other characters which happen to be dressed up as Anne Franke and a WWll Nazi (Joseph Gobils). After this the Nazi says to Anne Franke 'Maybe keep a journal' They do this on purpose because they have an active audience.
• Religion is used as a meta-narrative, post-modern believe there is no meta-narrative.
• 'I've got cerebral palsy' 'oh good!'
• 'My tap dancing class was cancelled' this was said by the girl with cerebral palsy as a joke.
• Kate Winslet is playing a hyper-real version of herself.
• Nun saying 'Christ that's bloody hot'
• I've got Jeremy Clarkson's clothes' - intertextuality
• Ricky Gervais as John Travolta - Saturday night fever - intertextuality

Some of the things that were said would have been in the past been censored. But in post-modern society it is the individuals choice as to whether they're offended by the statement or not.

See the sit-com 'when the whistle blows' when Ricky Gervais gave the script to his agent in a previous episode.

Orlando Bloom episode

• Barry (Shaun Williamson) is known by his name in TV soap 'Eastenders'.
• See Keith Chegwin (children's TV presenter) in the sit-com doing things wrong. Intertextual playing a hyper-real version of himself. Playing a racist homophobe.
• Picture of Lenny Henry behind Ricky when he's trying to think of  'funny black people'.
• Contrast between traditional media 'when the whistle blows' that relies on puns, double entendre, stereotypes, costume and catch phrases. Where as extras itself is very post-modern. This in itself is post-modern.
• Intertextuality - T-shirts with other funny programs are worn by audiences watching 'when the whistle blows'.
• his sit-com was being made fun of by David Bowie and goes to find his fans, he is about the fame.

Daniel Radcliffe Episode

• David Dickinson intertextuality - tan nearly blew his eyes out
• Daniel Radcliffe is supposed to be innocent yet he is being portrayed as a 'bad boy' however everyone else still sees him as a very young boy. Hence the scouts uniform.
• Lord of the Rings reference - 'what do you think I've got this ring for?' 'I don't know you're a hobbit' - This is said to Verne Troyer who is a dwarf.
• Hyper-reality - The Wright stuff & This Morning.
• Steven Merchant calls a boy with downs syndrome a 'mongoloid'
• Intertextuality - scout boy neckerchief is the colours of Gryffindoor (yellow & red)

Saturday filming

I am going to be doing some filming on Saturday the 24th of January. I will be booking out a camera, an SD card a tripod and a camera charger because last time we ran out of battery so I will not make the same mistake twice. I will need to organise this with Charlie the main actor as I will need her assistance with this and I will also need my younger brother to film in some of my shots. the weather forecast for Saturday is;

Media & collective identity representation of youth & youth culture

As individuals we wrote down 5 of more things that came into our heads when these questions where asked of us.

How is Youth Culture represented in the media?

• Selfish
• Boisterous
• Moody
• Rude
• Lazy
• Alcohol
• Drugs
• Sexually Active
• Rebellious
• Disrespectful

How is youth culture represented in TV programs?

• Lazy
• Moody
• Socially Active
• Rule breakers
• Immature
• Emotional
• Dramatic
• No Common Sense

How is youth culture represented in the news?

• Criminals
• Deviant
• Trouble Causers
• Males
• Gangs

How is youth culture represented in films?

• Gangs
• Brave
• Bullies
• Fashion Concious
• Humorous
• Courageous

How is youth culture represented in social media?

• Stalkers
• Cocky
• Opinionated
• Closed minded
• Arrogant
• Technology controlled

Do young people perceive representations of youth in the same ways as parents and adults?

My opinion? - No - Younger people have logical reasoning behind their ways of doing things (usually) and not all youths are bad, a lot are kind people. It's really just a small handful of youths who are miscreant and they're the ones that the media portray and give the rest of teens a bad representation for adults to then go by.

Fonts

These are fonts I took from a website called 'DaFont' which as many different font types in many different genres. these are just a few which  thought matched the genre of my artist, here's why; 

As I found from doing research into similar products I saw that a lot of the fonts had a 'blocky' style to them, they were very structured. This allowed me to filter out many of the very fancy fonts as I knew I wouldn't like any of these. One of the pop CD covers I researched had a replaced letter which I have used in one of the fonts here which is one of my personal favourites as it is very similar to 'Bastille' a current artist in the pop genre. I also used a few more fluid fonts because some of the pop artists that I researched such as 'Nelly Furtado' used more fluent fonts on their DC cover.

video techniques and influences

 The album covers above are mainly from the rock genre (baring Bruno Mars) which is dominated by the male gender. The theme in which these album covers all have in common is that they all feature a person on their front cover to advertise the band/artist that this promotional package is being produced for.They also all have at least one very bright colour. Even though in some the colours can be very shaded such as 'crazy' and 'bones' there is still the use of high key lighting to show the artists' faces and allow them to be fronted in the CD cover. the 'Bones' album by 'Young Guns' does not feature any of the band, instead it features a girl in mid air which could connote to one of their song lyrics 'I feel it in my bones' (hence the name of the album). These album covers also have very similar font types. They're all very structured, there is a lot of straight lines and there is no fluidity to them. It is very boxed. However the fonts that these bands use on their CD covers are used as their logo and used on every CD cover that they produce.The people featured in these album covers are also shown at a long shot baring Green Day's album which is a mid-shot. This would allow them to fit in all of the band should they be on the cover. It also gives room for the album name and artist logo/name. I shall take this into account when planning my ancillary text and designing my fonts.

The album covers above are from the pop genre. However such artists as 'The Script' and 'Demi Lovato' have a punk element to their songs. Demi Lovato's first album 'Don't Forget' was a lot closer to a pop-punk style than it was punk. And The script are soft rock-pop band who are similar to rock in that they all play their own instruments with Danny being the vocalist. Again similarly to the rock album covers they all feature the artist that the CD is trying to promote. Again these also have bright colours somewhere on the CD cover however it is noticed that the colour scheme is only present in a few of these. 'Ora', 'Unbroken' and '#3' are all very monotone colours using sepia and black and white in their album covers. In a way this could allow it to be seen against the bright colours of albums such as 'Take Me Home' and 'Salute'. The fonts of these front covers are very similar to the rock covers in that they're very structured especially Lana Del Rey's 'Born To Die'. However as we realm deeper into the pop industry the font style begins to change and become more fluent in style. Take One direction and Little Mix's album covers their fonts are much more rounded than 'Ora'. This could be to do with the style of music. Rock music is very much about solid beats and sharp precise guitar solo's. Where as pop music has many crescendos and ballad type songs such as holding onto notes for a longer amount of time. Again the artist with many people in them are shot as a long shot to fit them all in and the solo artist are shown in mid-shots and close-ups.  This makes the pop album covers more personal as you can see more of the expression on their face.

The album covers above are very pop orientated album covers. All of these album covers advertise their artist that they're trying to promote very much like the other album cover I have analysed. these album covers also have very bright colours on the front of them. It is evident that I should use some form of colour when planning my ancillary text. The fonts in these album covers have changed significantly from the rock fonts. these are all very fluid and have a wacky edit on them to make them different from any other artist. In Katy Perry's album 'Teenage Dream' the font used is in the style of a candy cane which is symbolic of one of her songs 'California girls' as in the music video he is in a candy land filled with sweets, chocolate and evidently, candy canes. Miley Cyrus has used a neon bar sign affect for her album 'Bangerz' which is carried on in the theme with the palm tree's behind her connoting some sort of teenage holiday abroad. Her target audience is predominantly teens. Half of the artists are giving direct eye contact to the camera which again draws in the audience because it makes it more personal as if they're directly looking at them. However Nelly Furtado and Ke$ha are looking away from the album cover. Both are common in album covers when the artist is featured. Troye Sivan's new EP album 'TRXYE' has a rather unusual feature in that he has replaced the letter 'o' in his name for an 'x'. This can be seen in other fonts on other album covers but it is rarely used. the pink substance over his face also gives a sense of mystery because unless you have seen Troye before it automatically gets you intrigued because you want to know what he looks like.

Of all the ideas and inspiration I have gathered from looking at these existing products I can now being to plan my own. Taking into account areas from all genres. Including colour schemes, what framing my artist will be in when shooting for the cover and font type which is evident it should be of a more structured style as Avril Lavigne is closer an artist to Demi Lovato than Miley Cyrus.

Filming diary

When I started to film some of my shots outside for my music video it was very windy outside which I did not take into account when filming some of the shots. I did my best to not show this in the shots by filming out of the direction of the wind. this worked very well for some of the shots with lip syncing because it didn't obstruct the actors facial expressions.

We only had a set amount of time during this day because this was when the actors who play the roles were free as we did it over dinner and Charlie and Corey asked their tutor if they could film for me and she granted them permission otherwise his would have taken away a large chunk of my filming.

I booked out a camera, tripod and an SD card from the media technician on the day of filming, a camera for recording (obviously) a tripod to stand and steady the camera on because I needed my shots to not be hand held. I also took an SD card out because I have lost mine and needed something with a large amount of storage space to hold all of my footage be it good or bad until I could transfer it onto my memory stick the next day at college.

I took the camera home that night to do some more filming that I had arranged with the main character Charlie to do some filming at my house, not much arranging was needed for this as we live fairly close so travel was not a problem. That night we filmed several different shots from through out my music video all in the same outfit because they were all in the same setting just in different times in the video.

I had a problem putting on my actors make-up as I am very bad with make-up and no very little about it other than it goes on your face. I took this as an opportunity to be as messy and as creative as I liked and the dark eye-shadow and red lipstick matched the colour scheme of her Americana styled dress which is the closest I could get to an american themed piece of clothing as I have seen that a lot of rockers and hipsters wear this sort of clothing these days. (Although Avril Lavigne is from Canada).

We managed to get a lot of filming done and made a few props along the way, however I came across a flaw in my decision in what to book out in that I did not book out a camera charger. This meant that after a while of shooting my camera decided to call it a day and ran out of charge. This problem could have been solved if I had been a bit more thoughtful and organised in my decision making. I could have also got more filming done if I shut the camera when I wasn't filming to save battery. My actor and I also got very distracted at one point wasting a lot of time during this filming and we recorded on the camera which could have also used up valuable space and battery life.

When I arrived at college the next day after filming the night before I could not get into the technicians room as he does not get in until 10 on a Wednesday, luckily I found Tim the head of media and he took the tripod and camera of my hands for me as I had to go to my first lesson of the day. Before I did this however I quickly transferred all of my footage onto my 8GB memory stick and deleted the footage of the SD card so that another person could use it.

Health and Safety grid

This is the health and safety precautions that had been taken into account prior to filming for my mock up. More will be added once I have filmed more, as you can see they're all very low in chance of injury as there isn't very much strenuous effort needed to film these parts of my music video, in further scenes there will feature some shots that could be potentially dangerous and I shall state how I intend to do my best to avoid this from happening.

Monday 19th & Tuesday 20th January 2015 lesson write up

Quadrophenia

• the film represents Jimmy being controlled by the ideology of a mod
• He turns to drugs , violence and crime to try and become accepted
• His ultimate goal is to be a perfect mod
• He wants to fit in, the ideology takes over his life and controls who and what he becomes
• Ace copies Jimmy and tries to be like him.

What caused the London riots? (contemporary)

- Future - If Quadrophenia was today

Cohen - Stereotype could have been different

Tessa Perkins - There has to be some truth for the media to show it

If there was a 'Quadrophenia 2' they could show he positive/a more fair example of the Brighton mods & rockers fight. The film was a biased opinion from the press which has carried on into today's society. shows them as brutal and violent.

What actually caused the riots?

A white police man shot an unarmed black youth

What was the main reason for rioting?

People were annoyed by this and it was a good excuse to start a riot. They wanted to loot things however there is no official reason.

Who was blamed?

Teenagers, there would be images of hooded youths and stories about them when it wasn't necessarily all them.

Reason;

• Racism
• Classism
• Hooliganism
• Gang culture
• Government
• Crack down on benefits

Researchers say that is was the stupidity of youths. Political unrest causes society to be vulnerable to rioting. Reasons also include;

• Unemployment
• Poverty
• Poor relations with the police
• Social exclusion
• Family break down
• Criminal opportunism

News then;

- Teenage lawlessness on the estates where they cause problems

- Calling them thugs

- Interviewed an older man and he said that they offer help to the youths but they don't take it but teens don't see it that way because no one listens to them.

- Interviewed a black man and he asks why someone would act this way? Because the press aren't taking in the full picture.

- young looters were smashing ans stealing

- Teens are stuck in the gangs

- they show texts to do with money and looting and not the real issue

- 'Pure terror, havoc and free stuff'

- young white males cleaning up the mess

- mainly young masked

One thing that cant be disputed is that social media is the present time it is 'now'. It's the immediate feelings and thoughts of people. It is the news as it's current and informative and it only takes a few awe inspiring, hard hitting or attention grabbing tweet to go viral, this is why social media should come with a level of social responsibility, that's something worth keeping in mid. You never know who's reading it and how it will go down, especially if it reaches the masses. (BBC News)

Wednesday 14th & 15th January 2014 - lesson write up

American government were showing live footage of the Vietnamese war into peoples homes.
- Civil rights - U.S.A - 1962

• Jimmi Hendrix - star spangled banner and The Beatles' - revolution number 9 were a new form of music and was called 'abstract'
• Rolling Stones - I Can't Get No Satisfaction - They were singing about drugs and things such as wanting to hold your hand when in reality it is a connotation for sex.

Kent state shootings - Ohio

• American soldiers shooting students for protesting
• society at war within itself. People are rejecting the ideologies of that time.

Marshall Mcluhan - ' the medium is the message'

Timothy Leary - 'turn on, turn in, drop out'

1970's

Sex pistols song banned because it was seen as offensive to the Queen yet it still went to no'1 but the BBC stopped it and it only went to no'2.

Key feature of post-modernism is irony - sex pistol member wearing a swastika and swearing on TV especially before the watershed.

- New conservative agenda - 1980's

- Post-modern food - McArabia - everything can be post-modern

- prior to this people didn't have credit cards. They wanted them so they could be like the - - - stars and have expensive things. e.g. 'Duran Duran' 'wham!'

- 'conspicuous consumption' - showing off what you own.

Margaret Thatcher stopped parts of the trade union and shut down many manufacturing companies. this caused the collapse of the soviet union and they couldn't afford it so it went back to normal after they had banned many things one being 'The Beatles'

Twin towers attack - Hyper-real TV, live but we weren't actually there - globalisation 9/11

we are presumers

the world has become a global village and has got smaller because of technology.

- Simulacrum - copy of a copy of a copy

there is not such things as originality

- 'media no longer holds a mirror up to society and reality - it is society and reality'. - Strinati

Hybrid genres - cowboys VS aliens , Shaun of the dead

Pastiche - e.g. Blue harvest, family guy star wars episode.

Self reflexivity - in the post-modern world media texts make visible and challenge the ideas of the truth and reality removing the illusion that films, music or any media text can ever accurately or naturally reproduce reality or truth.

'All things are subjected to interpretation, whichever interpretation prevails of a given time is a function of power and not truth.' - Niezche.

- we get the idea that there are always competing versions of reality.

Lesson write up 13th January 2015

• Moral Panic - sudden anxiety causing irrational behaviour
• Folk Deviling - taking something that one person has done & use it to stereotype a whole group of similar people.
• Why moral panic? - the media portray things in such a way that it is a disaster even if it existed before.

Mods & Rockers - the mods & rockers riot in Brighton did create an ideology for younger teens by creating a bad stereotype. However teens are now responsible for their own persona - this could've been changed over 40 years to become a good ideology yet it is still the same. Newspapers still use the same words to describe miscreants today as they did 40 years ago.

Mods & Rockers Documentary notes

• Men from the fight hadn't returned to the beach in 50 years
• Men were going away for war leaving wives pregnant and the babies were all teens in the 60's
• Teddy boy gangs - freedom & money
• Tunner boy gangs - motor bikes
• Teens taking risks - no helmets/speed limits
• 1958 - 'new species' - modernists, wanted to create a new ideology, have more money than they ever had before, they're the first generation to not have to do general service
• 'older generations looked on with suspicion' by the clothes & listening to black music
• 'Clackton is afraid of the future'
• 97 youths arrested - caused by boredom on both parts
• 'wild ones' - reference to young people
• changed the identity of Britain.
• journalists give out information as to where the fights were going to take place - like twitter for the London riots.
• 'hunting in packs'
• reporters gave them money to cause a disturbance
• smaller episodes were correct but most were exaggerated
• engineered to show that the police were taking control
• arrested for use of 'foul language'
• police man said the teens weren't that bad
• by 1965 a new collective identity began - mods were pretty much gone.
• number of youths now is a lot less

weather forecast

for the parts of my music video that I had recorded a lot of it was inside there fore I did not need to know what the weather forecast was like. However some of this was filmed out side. I did not look at the weather forecast because I could see myself that It was appropriate weather, it was not raining which would have stopped the filming because the equipment would have been damaged and the actors and id have got wet. It was a bit windy which could have affected some of my shots and they could have been better had it been less windy but I was filming in December so there was little I could do regards to the weather.

Laura Mulvey's Theory

Laura Mulvey - Male Gaze Theory

Looks at how the audience view women who are presented in the media. she states that women are there to be seen and that the use of camera portrays them as sexual objects through shot types and movement. Her focuses are how men look at women from images, how women look at themselves from images and how women look at other women from images. Do they also see them as sexual objects or unrealistic ideologies that they're supposed to conform to?

she states that the 'Male Gaze' focuses on emphasising the curves of the female body to make them 'more attractive', they refer to women as objects rather than people, women are often sexualised ad seen as objects and viewed based on sexual desire and the way they look.

The 'Male Gaze' describes how the audience or viewer is put into the perspective of a heterosexual male. This means that the camera is focused on the curves of a female's body.

She states that in film women are usually the objects rather than the possessors, the camera uses particular women in an idealistic view, some women may disagree with this use of camera yet others may feel liberated. she also states that the female gaze is the same as the male gaze in that women look at themselves through the eyes of men.

A downfall of her theory is that men are also sexualised in media aswell and she doesn't take this into account. They can also be seen in this way. Only mainstream music conforms to the sexualisation. Women are seen as sexual objects in the media and are there for voyeuristic pleasure. However they may like to represent themselves in this way to make themselves feel powerful and desirable to both males and females.

Survey Feedback

 The following are responses to my questionnaire that I sent around Wyke college.

This response indicates that I should include a performance element to my music video be that lip syncing or instrumentally. Not one person in my questionnaire would like to not see performance.




My opinion would be that It would suit fast paced editing because the song has a very fast beat. According to my audience 4/5 people would like it to be fast paced which indicates that this s what I should do. I could possibly include some slower paced shots towards the end of the song where it starts to slow down to appeal to the other 1/5 of my survey.






Most of the people I surveyed watch four or more music videos a week, and only 10% never watch music videos, this would indicate that the people who answered my questionnaire watch a lot of music videos there fore they have more of an idea as to what it takes to make a music video that appeals to them.

When I decided where my music video would feature this is why I decided I would put my music video on YouTube. It is a very popular website for streaming music for free and according to my target audience it is also used more than music channels to listen to music.

 This shows that  I should more or less balance the ratio between narrative and performance in my music video, however I did not take this into account when planning my story board. I should go back and alter this and add in any slides that I missed to make sure that my music video will appeal to my audience.

 This shows that the people who are answering my questionnaire are in my age range of my target audience which is what I need to hear from. This means that I can take my questionnaire into account. If the people who answered my questionnaire were of an older age this would have made my questionnaire invalid and the information that I gained from it would be useless in trying to communicate with my target audience.

This indicates that I should include lip syncing in my video as 90% of the people who answered this said they would like to see it. However I should also include some shots with no lip syncing to appeal to the niche audience who said they would not like to see lip syncing.

costume, makeup, location, lighting ideas

This image is all the make-up I used to do Charlie's make-up in my music video. This includes; Brush for eye-shadow and for thinning out eyelashes to make sure there is no clumps. Eye-shadow pallet, Red lipstick, Two black mascaras, black eye-liner, and a pale foundation. I chose to have black eye make-up because more 'Gothic'characters are stereotypically seen as wearing heavy black eye make-up e.g. Taylor Momsen (Lead female singer of rock band 'The Pretty Reckless'). The red lipstick is not only a colour representative of love but also of danger connoting that she is a dangerous girl, this is seen in the music video with her being reckless and daring. It also is a very vibrant colour that matches the colours of the dress she is wearing in this particular part of the video. The pale foundation is because although more 'Gothic' characters have dark eye-make-up they have very pale skin which is seen in many of Avril Lavigne's video's. I used two mascaras to make her eye-lashes slightly bigger so they would make her eyes stand out more from her face along with her lips.

The second picture is a picture of the prop I used/made for part of my music video. I simply got a piece of plain white paper and wrote 'YEAH!' onto it using a black ball point pen. After doing this and looking through the camera lens I noticed that you could not see the text on the piece of paper. This lead me to go over the text in a red felt tip pen. Not only did this show the text very well against the white paper but it can also connote again danger especially with the bold shape surrounding it suggesting an explosion.

text message screen shots

 The following are text message screen shots of me organising when my cast and I were going to film. The following texts are to Charlie (Chal) who plays the main character and Jennie (Jensen) who plays the main characters ex love interest. with Charlie I also discuss what costume I would like her to wear whilst filming these parts of my music video.

behind the Scenes.

Lesson Write up January 5th

David Gauntlett

'Identity is complicated everybody thinks they have one' - means that by everyone thinking they have their own makes them the same as everybody else.

the top news stories about teens are;

• Pregnancy
• violence
• bullying
• Drinking
• Crime

Research of six UK newspapers over the past 10 years found that the words most commonly associated with teens, youths and youngsters were;

• Binge-Drinking
• Yobs
• Crime

Bob Satchwell, executive director of the society of editors said, 'if teenagers looked at media coverage more widely they would see a more balanced picture.

The portrayal of teenage boys as 'yobs' in the media has made boys wary of other teenagers, according to new research.
More than half of the stories about teenage boys in national and regional newspapers in the past year (4,347 out of 8,629) were about crime.
The best chance of a teenager receiving sympathetic coverage was if they died.
Youth controls social media, we control out own stereotype, future stereotype of youths could change due to gloating about the positives in your life and constantly trying to better yourself could mean that teens are seen as more positive rather than 'trouble causers'