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.

Analysis of Finished Video.

How does the text communicate to the audience?


Our music video contains a thriller aspect in the storyline, which was specifically created to hopefully attract our target audience of rebellious teenagers who listen to rock music. It has the typical love story where two people fall in love, however, there is a dramatic break-up. It is this dramatic break-up which causes the twist in the music video bringing in the thriller context. Most people can relate to the break down of relationships; however the twist is rather sinister. The girl is seen having a mental break down, slowly sinking into depression. She keeps believing that she is being followed by her ex-boyfriend, but in reality, he is not there. By the end of the video, the girl has sunk deep into a depressive state. The final scene is her walking on the pavement, seeing a car coming towards her on the road, and she decides to walk in front of the car. This is possibly a suicide attempt, but it is left to interpretation of the viewer/audience.
The fact that depression and suicide is portrayed in our video is highly important to the audience as statistics show that 1 in 3 people develop depression during their lifetime.


Camera Work : -


We tried to use as many different camera angles and shots as we could, to keep the storyline going and keep the audience interested. To keep the interest in the video maintained, we started the first lip-syncing scene with it being recorded on a laptop web cam. This was then played as the girl dumped the boy (who is lip-syncing) by text while sitting in front of the very same laptop. However, she is seemingly oblivious to what is going on before her.

During the mental breakdown scene with the female character, we used high-angle shots to show the vulnerability and weakness of the girl's mental state. The shots of the church were taken as a 'dutch tilt' angle. This was to emphasize the disorientation of the whole video, where the girl is later seen on her knees praying in desperation through her emotional meltdown.

Nearer the end of the video, just before the girl is seen about to walk in front of the oncoming car, there is two shots of the girl spinning around in her room. This was completed by using the technique of hand-held, so I held the camera as I spun around my room. We decided to use this shot to further emphasize the portrayal of the girl's emotional meltdown and going crazy.

Our themes portrayed in our video include mirroring and reflection. This is another reason to why we use the web cam in the opening scenes. The web cam also shows the reflection of the hand picking up the phone left on the bed, later to be seen laying on the stairs where the boy was sitting. We wanted to use it to question whether what we think we see is real, or just a figment of our imagination (as it is with the girl, and at the end with Ryan in the subway scene).



Lighting and Colour : -


The video's setting is very light, however the sky is quite grey. The light setting is a definite contrast to the mood of the song and the events which later take place within the video. We wanted this contrast due the fact of the whole video built on confusion and appearance versus reality. The reoccurring themes of instability and contradictions are reflected in the sky as it is bright yet also grey. Everything is not as it always seems.

During the editing stages, we decided to change the colour of the mental breakdown scene to have a blue haze. The blue haze is a connotation for depression and sadness. We decided that this would be the best colour to use to represent the girl's state of mind. The haziness also reflects the psychological condition, as generally, in hazy weather conditions, it is hard to see clearly and can make everything seem dream-like.

For the past scenes, where the relationship is seemingly happy and care-free between the girl and boy, we came up with the decision that it would be best to use a sepia effect. This emphasized that it took place in the past, a long time and view from the more recent scenes. It also exaggerates the distance between the happy times in the past and the melancholy, unstable times of the present.

Mise-En-Scene : -

During the planning stage of constructing our coursework, we thought long and hard on what detail we would use as part of the mise-en-scene. The mise-en-scene is an extremely important aspect of the video to consider; especially as we wanted to follow the theme of a typical thriller through the video.

Both characters are wearing black clothes. The colour black denotes death, depression and darkness. The girl is also seen the majority of the time wearing a red coat. Like the colour black, we also chose the red coat for a reason. Red denotes, blood, danger but also passion and love. All of this is included in our video, it is their broken love that sends her spiralling into an uncontrollable meltdown.

In this meltdown, the girl is seen crying, distressed and shaking. Her hands are usually holding her head in despair. Her facial expressions heighten her portrayal of distress. The use of facial expressions are also used throughout; especially in the subway where the boy walks past the girl, and he becomes extremely confused when he turns around and she is not there - only a missing poster of her. Again the same is seen when the girl believes she is being followed, but when she turns around to see, no one is there.

Make-up played a big part in filming the mental breakdown scene. The girl is just wearing eye-liner and mascara, but as the meltdown progresses, her make-up becomes smudged around her eyes.

Throughout the whole video, props are extremely important in telling the story of the song. The laptop web cam is used to show a lip-syncing scene and the boy taking the phone the girl had left behind. This phone is later seen laying on the stairs after the girl turns around to see where the boy was previously sitting. These props are the little clues used by us to develop the thriller aspect of the video we desired to have. However, we believe the most important prop is the missing poster. The missing poster pushes the story line further into a more complex manner. The time of 'last seen' is around the time which is continuously shown in shots of the church clock.

The church is an important setting for our video. Since the video is built upon contradictions, the peacefulness and faith of the church contradicts the instability, depressive and uncontrollable nature of the girl. Considering the fact that people have faith in something no one cannot see, it relates to the theme of appearance versus reality throughout our promotional video.
Also, the fact that a subway is underground further relates again to themes of the video as it is a mental breakdown the girl suffers - under the surface.



Editing : -


The whole video is built upon the idea of confusion and 'paranoia'. Developing this theme which also runs through the song, we had created a number of sequences where the girl believes she is being followed by Ryan (her ex-boyfriend). We used jump cuts to show the girl walking down the street with Ryan behind her; then transferring the shot to her turning around and no one being there. Jump cuts were the most popular editing techniques to use, as we felt it matched our fast-paced song. However, dissolve transitions were also used. These were especially used in the mental breakdown scene. It was used to emphasize the length of time in which the breakdown had occurred. It was also used to show the disappearance of the girl from her swing.

Other different editing techniques were also used to show elapsed time, including 'push' transitions. These were visually 'pushing time aside/away'. Editing techniques were also used to match events happening in the video. The flashing editing technique was used to increase the mental trauma the girl was going through when crying. Scenes were edited and cut into a fast-paced matter to match beat and timing of music.



Genre : -

We filmed our music video with the plan to base it upon the thriller genre. We tried to follow as many thriller conventions as we could within the video. These included: a complex narrative structure and a scene at the end where the protagonist is in peril (however, we have not solved this danger). Also, we developed the story line so that the title of the song reflects the psychological state of the protagonists with as many unexpected twists in the narrative as we could fit. A typical editing technique of the thriller genre that we had included are jump cuts and straight cuts to emphasize the action.



Comparing our video to Narrative Theories.

Out of the three narrative theories by Todorov, Propp and Levi-Strauss; our video can be likened more to the theory proposed by Levi-Strauss about binary oppositions. The opposition suggested by Levi-Strauss which can be related to our video is the gender stereotypes. The main stereotype constructed through our video is of how the 'typical female' is presented. The view of how women are extremely emotional is reflected in the emotional breakdown of the female character. It is the girl who is seen continuously melancholy and weak, not the male character.

DIGIPAK

Today we have finally finished our digipak.

To start, we downloaded a plain 6-panel template from the below website :

http://ultradisc.com/templates/.


We then opened up the template onto Adobe Photoshop, where we began to brainstorm ideas of what we needed to include in our digipak. By taking previous research made earlier on in the A2 course on actual band digipaks, we have come to the conclusion that we needed to include the following:



- Band name

- Band album title

- Eye - catching, relevant panel covers

- Bar code

- Album price

- Song listings

- Band website



For the front, back and outside fold panel; we decided that a relevant image would be our location shots of the church. For the inside left and right panels; we decided to use the mirror-swap images that were used as the basis for our magazine advert. To have these images used on both, it helps recognise the link with the band and their song 'Paranoia'.
For the back outside panel, we used a still-frame of our actual music video of the empty, moving swing. Again, these overlapping images help link all of the promotional material with the band and the song.

The song listings were taken from the actual song titles of the band we are creating these promotional products for.

Here are pictures of our printed digipak (due to printing issues, we could not get the correct constraints to work, so above are scaled down versions).













Panel 1 -


Here, we used two screen shots of from scenes filmed for our music video. To create this effect, we split the two screen shots into two pieces.
For this panel image, we used Ryan in the mirror and me looking into the mirror.
It was difficult to try and match up the images. First there was the brightness of the image to match, and then there was the contrast of image to amend.





Panel 2 -

Since this would be the first panel the consumers would see when opening up the digipak product, we wanted to make sure that the design flowed and followed the theme of all products. With the secondary tag line 'Do You Dare To Go Further...?', we hoped this would enhance the thriller theme portrayed in our video and poster. The blood red font colour and 'Chiller' font type further exaggerates our theme.




Panel 3 -

This is the panel where the CD will be held. The white circle (the constraints have have changed since changing the format to a JPEG file), demonstrates where the CD holder will be. In the background, we have used a location shot of the front view from the church we had filmed outside. The picture of the church still follows through with the continuous theme held in all of our products.





Panel 4 -

This is the back panel to our digipak. Again, we have used our music video to our advantage, and included a screen dump of the empty swing.
Other factors included in this panel are a track-listing of songs on the album; these are actual song titles from the band 'My Future Lies' themselves. We decided to involve the song titles which all link in some way to our on-going theme. Also, we added the usual bar code necessity and price, alongside a further promotion of the band through their actual website for further information.

Panel 5 -

This is just switch on the image used for panel 1. The difference here is that I am in the mirror reflection, and Ryan is the one looking into the mirror. We thought this would be a good idea to show how both are searching for the other but can never seem to find each other.
It was extremely challenging to keep in line the objects (shower) on both sides of the two images.

Panel 6 -

Here is the front cover of the digipak. Like panel 2, we used the same slanted image of the church. The 'Chiller' font reflects the thriller aspect, alongside the blood-red tag line "Try Not To Lose Yourself..."

Theories of Narrative (3).

Levi-Strauss and Binary Oppositions.

- Levi-Strauss argued that a structure of narratives was a dependence on binary oppositions, which means a conflict between two qualities or terms.
- These binary oppositions can form the basis of narratives.

E.g.
Young <-> Old,
Male <-> Female

Narratives can be organised through binary oppositions of gender stereotypes:

Gender Stereotypes : Masculine =

Professional

Rational

Strong

Competitive

Independent

Aggressive

Ruthless

Gender Stereotypes : Feminine =
Domesticated
Emotional
Communal
Weak
Co-operative
Passive
Sensitive
Supportive


Binary Oppositions
- Constructions of gender roles in narratives lead to a series of binary oppositions.
- Dominant vs. Subordinate.

Dominant
- Male, white, middle class, middle-aged, hetrosexual, able-bodied.

Subordinate
- Female, other ethnic groups, working class, the young, old, homosexual, bisexual.


Example - The Western
- Homesteaders <-> Native Americans
- Christian <-> Pagan
- Domestic <-> Savage
- Weak <-> Strong
- Feminine <-> Masculine
- Garden <-> Wilderness
- Inside society <-> Outside society.

Example : The Wars in Iraq + Afghanistan
- East <-> West
- Barbarism <-> Civilisation
- Feudal <-> Modern
- Despotism <-> Democracy
- Fundamentalism <-> Freedom
- Backward 'dirty' weapons <-> Modern 'clean' weapons.

Theories of Narrative. (2).

Propp.



Propp, however, believed that the narrative structure of a text/film is constructed around 8 key character roles.



These are : -



1 - The Hero (Protagonist)

2 - The Villian (Antagnist)

3 - The Donor (Provider - gives hero a magic item - E.g, in 'James Bond', Q gives James Bond gadgets to complete his mission).

4 - The Helper (Helps the hero/sidekick - E.g, in 'Harry Potter', Ron and Hermoine are Harry's sidekicks).

5 - The Father (Gives advice - E.g, in 'James Bond', the advisor is M).

6 - The Dispatcher (Sends the hero on their mission - again M in 'James Bond' is an example).

7 - The Princess (The girl of the film, typically the damsel in distress, who, unlike the protagonist, doesn't have agency).

8 - The False Hero.

Theories of Narrative. (1).

Todorov.

Todorov believed that there were four main stages to every film/text : -

- Equilibrium - Everything is normal until ...
- Disruption - This creates enigmas and drama
- Resolution - This sets out to solve all enigmas created in the disruption stage
- Equilibrium - The resolution of all previous enigmas leads to a new equilibrium.

However, the last stage is not the same as the first equilibrium stage; as now characters have usually learnt something or developed/grown in some way or another.
The disruption stage leaves questions to be answered in the film/text. For example, the typical questions involve - who, what next and why?

Narrative Theory.

A 'narrative'? -
Narrative is the way the story is organised, which usually involves the sequence of events and the plot.

Elements of Narrative? -
- Time - E.g '24' is created in real time (the length of the programme in our time, is how long the programme covers in the characters life). However, in most films, the time covered could be many years, etc.
- Closure - This means that all the loose ends created by the text are tied up and everything is resolved, most satisfying for the audience. In the case of a possible sequel, there usually is one loose end left open to develop later.
- Enigma - This is a problem. It allows the text to be more interesting, which without an enigma; would be boring and no drama. For a text to reach closure, problems have to be solved.


Classical Hollywood Narratives:
- Linear - Meaning that one thing follows another; with the exception of Quentin Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction'. This film jumps back and forth in time, like many other Hollywood films, such as Eric Bress' and J. Mackye Gruber's 'The Butterfly Effect'.
- Few, if any, sub-plots - Again with the exception of 'Pulp Fiction'.
- Tendency towards closure - Again excluding films such as 'Pulp Fiction'.