Postmodernism.

Postmodernism is a difficult concept to define - postmodernism is intended as a rejection of conventional reality and conventional forms.

Postmodernism deliberately rejects:
-Boundaries between high and low forms of art
-Rigid genre distinctions.

Postmodern texts favour:

-Pastiche (a work of art that borrows or imitates from the work or style of other artists)
-Parody (a humorous imitation of something serious)
-Reflexivity and self-consciousness
-Fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structure)
-Intertextuality - one text may make use of a different text in order to add a different layer of meaning (referentiality)
-Bricolage takes intertextuality a stage further (a French term for putting together different articles as in punk fashion). Bricolage suggests that this referentiality has been used in such a way that a new meaning has been constructed, e.g. fusion of documentary, game show, and soap opera became reality TV show 'Big Brother'.
-Irony and playfulness.

An example of a postmodern film :-
Moulin Rouge...



Moulin Rouge directed by Baz Luhrman, is a postmodern romance in terms of theme, characterization, musical and setting. The intertextual love story, the songs, which are tied to each other with the pastiche technique and a musical within a musical are some of the postmodern characteristics of this film.

The Gulf War can be seen as the first postmodern war. Postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard described it as a 'masquerade of information'. The media recorded 'smart' missiles from America able to purely destroy Iraqi missiles without killing innocent civilians. However, this was not the case as American bombing caused large civilian casualties - extremely under reported by the media. The Gulf War is a postmodern because the media has presented a version of reality, also known as simulacra.

Group Contribution.

I think this year has been very productive through working well as a group.
Due to Karly's work commitments, it was me and Nichola who went out in our spare time to film the scenes for our music video. Nichola directed the scenes, while me and Ryan Beecham were the 'actors' of the video.
Nichola and I edited the music video together in our own time and lessons. It took a long time since we had to restart the whole editing stage again with extra filming, but by staying behind after school for a couple of hours at a time we finally got there.
We both also spent our own time completing our digipak and magazine advert, which did not take as long as we had expected.
We contributed our own ideas and brainstorms and I think we worked effectively together.

Evaluation Question 4.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

This is a diagram created on Microsoft Publisher, demonstrating the ways in which we have used new media technologies throughout the four stages of research, planning, construction and the evaluation.

For three of the stages, the most useful new media technology to our availability has been the Internet. With the Internet, we have been able to research professional music videos on YouTube; gaining ideas and tips on how to recreate our own video. Also, being able to download a 6-panel digipak template for our third task, whilst also gaining understanding of how to arrange and design our previous task of a magazine advert.

For our evaluation, we used the Internet to compare professional music videos with our own and screen capture the similarities (e.g. the web cam shot). With the audience response section, we videoed two audience members, using the same techniques and equipment as seen when creating our video. We also created an online survey that audiences could answer after watching our video; then later used wordle.com to create a diagram overview of positive and negative responses.


If I had the opportunity to redo the project again, for the music video I would try to develop the story line further to make it much more clearer. I would rather focus more on a story line that is slightly more simple for the audience to understand, but still have a few more twists. A rock song seems more effective if it has a video to relate to it, enticing the audience into an interesting story. Adding a story to a video also increases the chances of it sticking in a person's memory, which is what is needed for it to become more successful. As for the secondary tasks of the magazine advert and CD digipak, I would take better photographs of interesting locations and the characters; instead of repetitiveness.

Evaluation Question 3. (Part 2).

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Survey Review -


Here is a preview print screen of an online survey we conducted.


Using the website http://www.surveymonkey.com/ , me and Nickki organised our survey which we would later ask different groups of people to further evaluate the coursework we have completed.

By using an online survey, we were able to see if we had successfully fulfilling our aims of enticing our audiences with our promotional products of the band.
Due to the popular use of computers and the Internet within our target groups, alongside the efficiency of e-mails; we decided the easiest and quickest way of getting responses on our survey would be to e-mail people the web-link for our survey.


If you would like to take part in our survey, follow the link below to start answering our questions:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VTJKSF3


By asking 20 people, here are the results collected from our survey:


Question 1 - Are you male or female?
















Question 2 - What age group are you in?

















Question 3 - Where did you hear about our video?

















Question 4 - How would you rate our music video?




The majority of ratings given were 'Good'. This is evident to the amount of responses suggesting what they would change about the video.









Question 5 - What was your favourite part of the music video?


For this, the most common answer that we came across was the subway scene. 6 out of 20 participating audience members described their reactions as the boy character is seen walking past the girl character in the subway. However, as he turns around to take a second look at the passing girl, no one is there except a missing poster of the very same girl which has been plastered on the wall of the subway. Many described this as a good twist in the video.

The next most popular sequence was the web cam scene followed by the mental breakdown of the girl. The comments made of the of the mental breakdown scene was how they were impressed with how it was edited and the emotion in the actors face.

Overall, the audience was very impressed with the many twists we had in store for them through the storyline of the video.


Question 6 - Would you change anything about our video?


45% of the participating audience members had replied that they would change parts of our music video.



Some of the replies had suggested that at times there should have been less lip-syncing near the end. As Chloe Wallin had earlier stated in our evaluation video, the lip-syncing had become slightly tedious by the end of the video. Linking this further with the other responses received; we could have spent the extra time used on lip-syncing to develop our thriller story line instead - as criticisms were that our video needed to make the story more clear to understand and follow.


Question 7 - If you saw this video on a music channel, would you continue watching it?





The 5% of audience members who replied that they would not continue watching our music video if it appeared on a music channel also stated the reason for not. This was because the actual song was not their type of music that they would listen to.






Question 8 - Do you believe that a storyline helps make a music video more effective with connecting the song to the audience?



Only 5% of the audience believed that a video did not need a storyline to connect the song to the audience.

Evaluation Question 3. (Part 1).

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Here is a video recording of our audience feedback. The benefit of receiving audience feedback is that we can understand and see our video through our target audiences eyes. This means seeing the positives and taking on board their constructive criticisms. Since we are creating these media products for the use of audiences, we have to take on board their responses; otherwise the products would not be able to promote the band successfully.



These selected audience members have given us two completely different opinions, which widens our understanding of the range of views taken on board by the viewers.

From these audience reviews, I have learned that less is probably more. Taking this from the view expressed by Chloe Wallin of how the many shots of Ryan lip-syncing become tedious, I have realised that although lip-syncing of the song improves the technicality of the editing, it does not necessarily entice the audience and their interest. We need to take into consideration the audiences interests as well as technicalities; so if I had the chance to recreate this music video, I would still include the necessary lip-syncing scenes - but also develop the story further, using improved effects and techniques.

Taking on board Jacqueline Perido's comments, I have learnt that a good way to attract an audience is to relate to them. With the break up scene most people can relate to this as they have personally experienced the break down in a relationship; whether they were the cause of it or not. However, we do need to make sure that the emotions are more obvious in the character's actions (as Jacqueline suggests is needed with the male character in our video). Without the right acting, we would not reach out to the audience, portraying and provoking the desirable emotions.








MFLTV Kudos for making this clip. We're happy for you to use our music because you're doing something that a lot of people wouldn't bother. Keep this up and hopefully one day you'll be making video clips for a living

This is one of the responses received from the band 'My Future Lies', who kindly let us use their song to create our music video. This was posted from their YouTube account onto our music video. Their first response was by email:

"Hey Jessica,
really like it!! It makes me want to shoot a video for that song. I think you've captured why i wrote it really well!!
We've posted it up on our facebook for other fans to see.
well done. let me know how u go with marks oxxo
lukess"

I'm so glad the band approved of what we done with the song and the video. It makes us feel much happier about our project as a whole, especially as some of the bands fans have given their seal of approval too on the bands facebook page.

From this www.wordle.net/ image, we can see from the key words selected that the idea of the missing poster, the webcam lip-syncing scene, with a mental breakdown all interwoven in a more complex storyline including unexpected twists were most favoured by our target audience.

On the right is another image created by www.wordle.net/ but this time involves the most common words which had arisen when questioning about what could be improved. Some had answered that they would rather a happier ending than seeing the female character in clear distress. Some had described the storyline as being too complex and unclear at times, with the lip-syncing scenes near the end becoming quite 'tedious'.

Evaluation Question 2.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts (DVD digipak, Magazine advert)?





Throughout all three of our products (the music video, digipak and the magazine advert), we have made sure we interlinked certain aspects to keep with the theme of a thriller. One specific is the example image below:

This twisted mirror reflection image had been created by manipulating and cutting two screen-grabs of scenes for our music video. These images have been used on two panels of our digipak and and as the centre-piece of our magazine advert. We used this image because we felt it gave the best overall visual understanding to sum up our theme. Since the song is called 'Paranoia', we decided to derive further examples to use through the meaning of the word paranoia. The mirror image reflects the confusion of the characters and their state of mind. In the video, both characters are lost; especially the female character. The distorted image structure also parallels the disturbing nature of the video - near the end the girl goes into a mental breakdown, with the end scene witnessing her walk in front of an oncoming car. In an effective thriller, nothing is ever straightforward, with unexpected twists and turns - which is what we wished to achieve with our products.

Evaluation Question 1.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product does use and challenge forms and conventions of real media products. Our music video entails a thriller-style storyline. Since our chosen song (My Future Lies - 'Paranoia') is part of the rock genre; we decided to try and create a tense atmosphere, with a plot that would draw the attention of the target audience. Through the use of different locations we filmed different angles of lip-syncing sequences, to try and avoid a monotonous and tedious feel in the audience throughout. The opening lip-syncing scene is constructed using new media technology in the form of a laptop web cam.


This web cam sequence is not entirely different from the beginning scenes in Bon Jovi's music video for the song 'It's My Life'. The web cam is used in Bon Jovi's video at the beginning, where it shows the scene of the band and the boy's friend at a 'tunnel concert'. The rest of the video shows the man in an action sequence just to get to the scene that was shown on the web cam.

Below is another comparison between the mental breakdown scene in our video and the breakdown scene in Green Day's video 'Wake Me Up When September Ends'. In Green Day's video, the girl is crying because she has had an argument and her love has been sent to war. Although it is for a different reason, both videos show the breakdown/complications that arise in a relationship. Both girls are holding their head in their hands in anguish.