Creativity

How creative have you been in your AS and A2 productions?

At AS the task was to design a music magazine cover, contents page and double page spread. I created a music magazine that was targeted at people aged 16-25. The magazine had an indie/electro genre that is known to be popular with young people. I chose to have a three piece girl band on the cover that were styled and photographed by myself.

 Some constraints were applied to this task. For example, we had no budget for photographing the band/artist and time constraints applied when we had deadlines to meet. These constraints hindered me slightly when carrying out the magazine construction and editing, however without these rules (such as deadlines) my work would have been disorganised.

I was told the task had to be a music magazine but I was able to be creative and independent when choosing the genre. I stuck to the genre of electro/indie music magazine all the way through the task in order to sustain a cohesive end product. As this task was the first task set (apart from a preliminary task), my skills using photoshop when editing really improved and I was able to show my creativity with the placement of the text on the magazine, the article subject, colours used and who was actually on the cover.

In my opinion, I worked more creatively at A2 when making a music video, digipak and advert. This might be due to that fact my skills and knowledge of the subject have become more advance therefore I could allow myself to think more creatively.

Similarly to the AS I had some constraints, one being that I had no budget and strict timings for filming depending on who was available and when. This was difficult but did not necessarily hinder my opportunities for creativeness or to do well on the task. Because I still managed to chose the genre of the song, style of the band, placing of and layout of text and pictures on digipak/advert and colour scheme. Another constraint was that we specifically had to make a music video and the band or artist had to lipsync. Again, this was not a problem because I worked collaboratively with a partner and we chose to have a dance genre song with a lot of singing.

Some aspects of being creative involved challenging our ideas or being challenged. Sometimes when working collaboratively there are clashes of ideas, especially when it came to editing the music video. However, once these ideas were shared and adressed we could come up with creative solutions.  Using our imagination and coming up with something interesting and original was important for our music video. We challenged ourselves by having a simplistic/minimal theme for a dance genre song which actually worked well. 

Kramar Music Theory & Sampling

Aphex Twin/Kanye West

 

 

 

1. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles. Kanye has sampled a piano/synth style of music for his R&B genre song.

2. The peice of music is that copying doesn't respect the boundaries/conventions of the time it was written.

 

3. Includes quoatations of references to music of many traditions and cultures.

4. Music not as autonomous but relevent to social, political and cultural context

Beyonce has sampled 'Pon De Floor' by Major Lazer for her song 'Run The World/girls'

Coolio's song ' C U when i get there' relates to Kramar's theory that music often 'challenges high and low styles' - for example the song has a classical start and then enter's and R&B genre.

Grimes - alternative music style 'includes fragments and discontinuities'

Applying Narrative

I will apply narrative to the piece of work I enjoyed doing most, which was creating a music video for my advance portfolio. This included the song ‘Heads will roll’ by the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s. We began by looking at dance video’s that matched the genre of our band/song and tried to apply a narrative to the videos. However most videos of this genre don’t really have a strong narrative due to their , therefore it was hard to represent this genre and still consider a narrative in our video.

Our music video falls into Andrew Goodwin’s theory of ‘amplification’ – where we simply enhanced or exaggerated certain lines such as ‘Oh no’ which was repeated. It has a linear structure, meaning it is chronological (no flashbacks) and doesn’t confuse the audience between time and space. During the research stages of the advance portfolio we looked at Rita Ora’s ‘party and party’ video, this was helpful to us as it included the house party setting and didn’t represent a strong narrative. Therefore we knew it would be possible to create something similar.

The main theme in our video was ‘fun’ as well as trying to create a house party feel. We felt the idea of having a ‘fun’ video was important in relation to our young target audience of 16-25 year olds and could result in the video acting as a form of escapism. We created the theme of fun through various elements of media language. The video featured a very energetic teenage girl who is seen dancing and lipsyncing through the use of mid-shots and close-ups on her face. We also used jump-cuts to match the generic convention of a dance video’s speed. The speed of the video and wild dancing of the girl fits a ‘loose’ narrative, which makes it easy for viewers to watch repeatedly due to the video not having a strong narrative that could get monotonous if the viewer was to watch it more than once. John Stewarts theory of music video’s displaying an ‘aspirational lifestyle’ could be applicable to our video as the video emanates fun and a carefree lifestyle, which is something teenager’s aspire to have, or already have.

The mise-en scene in the video had a studio feel to it, as we used a white background for most of the filming and a projector screen that projected colourful backgrounds of green and pink. The colourful (pink and green) backgrounds gave the video continuity and matched the house party theme. We used props in our video such as the DJ’s mixer. This added authenticity to the video as it made the sound seem synchronous. We also used this prop to amplify some lyrics such as ‘off, off, off…’. We did this by repeating a shot of the dj’s hand on one of the controls, this looked really effective as the dj’s hand jumped in time with the music and added a sense of realism.

Although the video feature’s a teenage boy and a teenage girl, there is no sexual element in our video. However voyeuristic qualities could be applied to the girl as she is very active in the video and around the male character. I would agree with Laura maulvey’s theory of ‘the art of looking’ as the female knows she Is being watched. This is displayed through the use of close-up’s as she sings and gives direct eye-contact to the camera. (This is something the male in the video does not do).

Levis Straus’ theory of ‘binary opposites’ could be applied to our video as we had an active member (the female protagonist)and a passive member (DJ). Andrew Goodwin has also suggested that ‘music video’s are an extension of lyrics’, which fits with our ‘amplification video’ as we simply focused on key lyrics such as the chorus ‘heads will roll’. Goodwin’s theory also match’s Steve archer’s theory that ‘video’s tend to only suggest a story line and focus more on fragmentations of lyrics’. We displayed this in our video by having a slightly quirky band yet a dance genre with specific key lyrics exaggerated. This suggests a slight storyline even though a strong clear narrative isn’t really present. 

Postmodern media break the rules of representation. Discuss.

There are a number of elements that can be seen in postmodern media texts which set it aside from modernism. Postmodern texts often break the rules/codes generic conventions which an audience expects to see.

The Nicholas Winding film ‘Drive’ confuses representations regarding genre. The film has a gangster genre due to the grotesque violence, such as in the elevator scene where the films protagonist Ryan Gosling kicks someone to death. On the other hand the relationship displayed between Ryan Gosling (‘The kid’) and Carey Mulligan (Irene) suggest more of a romance genre, with a stripped back narrative. Another genre that could be applied to ‘Drive’ is a fairy-tale genre. The film has all the crucial character’s needed for a fairytale, with Carey Mulligan acting as the princess in need of rescuing, the ‘bad guys’ being the gangsters, and Ryan Gosling’s character (often referered to as the unidentified ‘kid’) acts as the hero. However it could be argued that his violent actions display more of a monster, not a hero. This can be seen after he kills the man in the elevator and the close-up on his face displays the look of a psychopath.The clashing of genre’s represented in the movie ‘Drive’ can be considered postmodern as normally movie producers would stick to one genre in order for the audience to identify with. However in  ‘Drive’ the rules of representation are broken because the audience cannot identify the film with one specific genre. Theorist Jacques Derrida suggests that ‘there is no genreless text’ and I agree with this theory as it applies to Drive. Drive could also be considered as a bricolage due to the these many genre’s re-worked into one movie.

Another example of a postmodern film which breaks the rules of representation in a similar way to ‘Drive’ is the 2009 Tarantino film ‘Inglorious Basterds’. The opening scene is a pastiche of the film ‘the sound of music’ and displays slight irony as ‘The sound of music’ is about freedom and everything good in the world, whereas in Tarantino’s film a Jewish family are about to be killed. This film displays the postmodern feature of parodies as the film follow’s Nazi killing soldier’s played by nearly all American actors. The self-mocking of Brad Pitt's character and extensive amount of dialogue displays Leotards suggestion of a 'micro-narrative', where the narrative is unpredicatable. Brad Pitt who plays the role of ‘Aldo Raine’ who breaks normal representations of soldiers by having a pristine uniform, neat hair and an over the top Tennessee accent. This also displays elements of hypereality as soldiers who have been scalping and fighting nazi’s would not maintain such a clean uniform. One of the scenes which includes the soldiers replicates that of scene in the older film ‘The dirty Dozen’. As a director, Tarantino replicates many scene’s in his movie’s from a spaghetti Western genre. This can be heard in the soundtrack for ‘Inglorious Basterds’ as the song ‘Slaughter’ by Billy Preston is played when Hugo Stiglitz is introduced to the audience. Another recent example of Taratino using a Western genre is in his most recent film ‘Django Unchained’ where there is a Mexican stand-off that replicates that of the one in ‘The Good The Bad And The Ugly’. The inclusion of a western style to modern films again, breaks rules of normal representation as the reader is confused by the hyppereal “war film”.

Quentin Tarantino’s 90’s film ‘Pulp Fiction’ also breaks the rules of representation due to it having a time twisting narrative. The film has been describes as a ‘delirious postmodern mix of neo-noir thrills’, this is because of it’s mix of gangster/crime genre. The film incorporates four different story lines, from the professional mob hit-men, to the crackhead wife, and the amateur criminals In an American diner. Having these chronology shifts in the film confuses an audience’s idea of a crime film representation. The time twisting narrative also displays hyperreality and reminds the audience they are watching a fictitious film. Pulp Fiction has an interesting soundtrack as it features a western style song ‘Girl you’ll be a woman soon’ – by Urge Overkill. This song is synchronous to the narrative/actionof Mia Wallace dancing around her apartment. In Tarantino’s recent film ‘Django Unchained’ a modern hip-hop song (Rick Ross- ‘Black Coffins’) is included in a postmodern film set during 1850’s. This confuses the audience and distorts time. Having this song included into a film set in 1850’s creates a new idea in relation to representation in postmodern films.

When discussing how a postmodern media breaks representations it is important to consider Winding’s film ‘Drive’ and the use of the setting. The film is supposedly set in the city of L.A, which we associate as being busy and full of glamorous people. However this representation has been broken due to the over the city night shots displaying more of a ghost town, with hardly any car’s on the road or people on the streets. The representation of a glamerous lifestyle in L.A is also broken due to ‘the kid’ living in a small apartment and dressed fairly casually. The protagonist in the film is a getaway driver and is unidentified to the audience and simply referred to as ‘The Kid’. This is another postmodern element to the film and creates a sense on mystery surrounding the protagonist.

Postmodern media doesn’t just involve film. T.v shows such as ‘flight of the concords’ and ‘The Simpsons’ can also be considered postmodern and break rules of representation through the use of parodies, such as The Simpsons having a pastiche of lady gaga in an episode.  These T.v shows can be a form of escapism for viewer's as representations of the real world are blurred between the fictional.

Music can also be considered postmodern and break rules of representation. The TU-PAC performance at Coachella in 2012 is an example of how music can be hyperreal. The hologram of TU-PAC displayed complete hypereality as many will know he was killed years before. David Bowie is another postmodern artist who began his career as an artist and then found his way in the music industry in the 70’s. All of David Bowie’s albums have a different genre of sound. This is postmodern as Bowie displays his complexity and variation by exploring nearly every genre of music. Another postmodern music artist is Beyoncé. Beyoncé has previously sampled Major Lazer – ‘pon de floor’ for her song ‘Run the World’. This can be seen as postmodern as she has taken inspiration from the past and made it relevant for a modern audience. Theorist Jonathan Kramer suggests music as ‘not as autonomous but relevant to social, political, and cultural context’. This can be applied to Beyoncé as she took inspiration from African music and choreography. This breaks rules of representation as she then uses the African influences in a hip-hop/pop song, resulting in the song not being convincing for an audience who prefer or believe the original origins/representations of this music.

Applying narrative to your chosen media text

How is the narrative organised and structured?

The narrative in the video is linear, no flashbacks and audience isn't confused between time and space

The narrative is 'loose' which makes the video easy to watch repeatedly

The narrative is closed - no sequel

Camera:
Mise-en-scene: added authenticity (realism) because we has a DJ mixer and the sound seemed synchronous.

Did the setting help establish the audience?

The setting had a studio appearence, with plain white walls and coloured flashingbackgrounds used as an element or continuity. We didn't use any landmarks or recognisable settings. However we did create the idea of a house party with the addition of a few character's.

the importance of sound, mise-en-scene, iconography (props) or editing, technical features?


is there a set theme in your video?

The set theme of our video is fun. we have represented normal teenagers in a carefree way

Does the video portray an aspirational lifestyle? (John Swewart)

i would say our video is aspirational and a form of escapism as it simply displays fun. This is something we felt was important in a music video and would help it to be watched repeatidly.

Theorist - voyeristic (the art of looking), does the mise-en-scene have sexual suggestions?
Laura Maulvey - the male gaze

Levis Srauss

Mixtape

1. Get lucky (remix)- Daft Punk
2. Steve Wynn- Action Bronson
3. That's my Bitch - Kanye West & Jay-z
4. Creepers - Kid Cudi
5. Adorn - Migue
6. Latch - Disclosure
7. Run The World (girls) - Beyoncé
8. Swimming Pools - Kenrick lamar ft. Drake

9. Deep web - Death Grips
10. Sin City - John Legend
11. The recipe - Kendrick Lamar ft. Dr.dre
12. The Zone - The Weeknd ft. Drake 

My Mixtape carries a strong theme of hip-hop. I used Kendrick lamar's album 'Good Kid M.A.A.D city' for inspiration due to the whole album having a tight narrative, this was something i thought could be applied to postmodernism due to the heavily intertexual references. I have used fairly new songs such as the remix of 'get lucky' by Daft Punk. Even though the song is a brand new release it has taken inspiration from a 70's early 80's sound, which could be considered postmodern. I used creativity when putting the mix-tape together and remastering the songs into an appropriate order.

Meme

Definition: A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena.It can be an image, hyperlink or hashtag or a video, etc. that is passed electronically from one Internet user to another.