A music video is often made with a particular audience in mind. Maffesoli argues that there are particular “urban tribes” with each having their own conventions and consumer culture. Within our own product we deliberately selected symbols and signs that the audience could recognise and relate for example in the hall scene where the artist is performing alone for the entire video the lights are deliberately low and the daylight through curtains highlights his facial expressions and piano both are which are expected by the audience who would have seen similar artists use this convention. By identifying these, the audience gain the ‘pleasure of recognition’ suggested by Burton.
It can also be argued that interaction with the audience is a vital part of music video as music videos often serve as “tv commercials”(Stewart) for the artist to promote their artist images. For example within the performance scene we focused deliberately on the artist’s, especially for the lyrics that were in the second person in order to establish an emotional connection with the audience. We also used Final Cut to enhance the artist’s performance with the orange filter, glow effect and slow motion to firstly differentiate from the narrative but also to make our artist seem more professional less and real as Dyer argues that stars are not real, they are constructed and within the pop genre this is a common feature.
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Full Mark Genre Essay
The media production I am going to write about in relation to genre is my favourite piece from the whole course which is my horror teaser trailer.
The genre of the trailer is obviously ‘horror’ and this in itself allowed us to be creative with narrative etc but limited us because we had to stick to a certain amount of generic conventions in order for it to be recognised by it’s existing target audience. Steve Neal said that ‘genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations’ which meant certain generic features had to be included and repeated which in my case was the use of a creepy location of the woods as well as hand held camera and restricted narration to cause disorientation and suspense within our trailer. However, the pattern of variation Neal describes also links to my horror teaser trailer because we were able to creatively push the boundaries by twisting some generic features in order to make the trailer interesting and therefore cause the audience to want to watch the full movie. For this my group chose use a female psycho killer I order to subvert the stereotypical male dominated role. This female identification through point of view shots etc captured our female audience because were providing them with power and this is unusual for the horror genre although it is known for its forward thinking approach as it often attempts to focus on subcultural views instead of targeting the mainstream. Genre encompasses many parts and the trailer links to it in more ways than one. Its use of enclosed location and the fact the woods attempts to reinforce our society’s fear of loneliness and isolation which the woods creates when the three friends get lost. In these sections of the trailer we used a lot of heavy cross cutting between the female victim who is running anxiously through the woods in order to find her friends and get home safely. We also used the Kuleshove and collision cutting methods as the pace began slow as the friends head our in the car unaware of the danger before them and once they are in the woods we deliberately quickened the pace of editing to cause tension and to show that something is not right, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.
Editing and mise-en-scene is really important to genre and reflects very quickly certain moods and atmospheres. Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes argued that the horror genre like many others used ‘binary oppositions’ in order to show the contrast between good and evil in order to force the audience to be constantly questioning the trailer for example; in my trailer I used light and dark to connote their happiness and carefree attitude in the daytime and the darkness to emphasise their fear and reliance on their senses. This is particularly important to the horror genre as characters are often shown in high angle shots to appear vulnerable and therefore under threat.
Gore or ‘body horror’ is also a common generic convention used by most horror films that we studied including Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero who used it to make the audience feel sick by forcing them to see extreme violence. In my own trailer we were inspired to use gore differently by showing a hanging scene in slow motion to create tension and the centoring in on the face and neck which had been broken and this was shown by the rope burn we had made from latex and the blood pouring down her chest. This shot moves clockwise and slowly zooms in to force the audience to see what the hang (woman) has done. In our final two shots we finish the trailer with the male anti hero being lifted off the ground with blood pouring out of his mouth which causes the audience to assume no one survives because the final girl is stabbed by her friend accidentally which quickens the pace and adds tension but she is the survivor who as Carol Clover suggests will be terrorised throughout the film and finally overcome the monster. This plays with the audiences emotions and links back to the horror genre well by creating our own style of horror. Andrew Sarris argues because it encompasses so much and is key to explaining a film. Genre is the ideas that collectively make a particular recognisable style that draws in its existing target audience. My horror trailer had expressionist camera angles as the female victim desperately trips over the camera and we see her running above it as well as close ups of her facial expression that causes us to identify with her fear and therefore makes us scared. This meant the audience also were forced to objectify the female victim from the high angle camera shot down her top in which we can see her breasts slightly after watching other Hitchcock movies which use the male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey to force us to take a male’s viewpoint.
In my trailer we also used an iconic symbol of the noose because obviously as a hangwoman she needed the prop but also as a female the circular shape suggested female power and this is something the horror genre often does but for male characters using guns etc as phallic symbols which we also used as the male anti hero takes out a knife and stabs his friend frantically when she walks up behind him. The horror trailer was made much darker in Final Cut Pro using the brightness and contrast menu and also dragged the saturated colours towards the blue in order to create a dark, dusky night time atmosphere a generic convention of horror trailers.
The generic conventions we chose to use were all important to the success of our product and since distributing it on YouTube we have over 4000 which I am really pleased with and gives me the confidence that we obviously stuck to the genre enough to capture our intended target audience but were creative enough to make people want to keep watching the trailer and virally sharing it with others.
Genre places a media text into a grouping giving it an identity which can be recognised by the mainstream society and I believe my product is successfully fitted to the horror genre using the narrative that todorov argued was important to the horror genre by following an equilibrium at the beginning then a problem which in our case was the male anti hero playing a joke on the soon to be female victim making jump running after him causing their separation then a pathway to resolution – as they attempt to find each other and then a new equilibrium at the end which we deliberately left as an open ending to capture our audience effectively.
EAA 10
EG 10
Term 5
The genre of the trailer is obviously ‘horror’ and this in itself allowed us to be creative with narrative etc but limited us because we had to stick to a certain amount of generic conventions in order for it to be recognised by it’s existing target audience. Steve Neal said that ‘genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations’ which meant certain generic features had to be included and repeated which in my case was the use of a creepy location of the woods as well as hand held camera and restricted narration to cause disorientation and suspense within our trailer. However, the pattern of variation Neal describes also links to my horror teaser trailer because we were able to creatively push the boundaries by twisting some generic features in order to make the trailer interesting and therefore cause the audience to want to watch the full movie. For this my group chose use a female psycho killer I order to subvert the stereotypical male dominated role. This female identification through point of view shots etc captured our female audience because were providing them with power and this is unusual for the horror genre although it is known for its forward thinking approach as it often attempts to focus on subcultural views instead of targeting the mainstream. Genre encompasses many parts and the trailer links to it in more ways than one. Its use of enclosed location and the fact the woods attempts to reinforce our society’s fear of loneliness and isolation which the woods creates when the three friends get lost. In these sections of the trailer we used a lot of heavy cross cutting between the female victim who is running anxiously through the woods in order to find her friends and get home safely. We also used the Kuleshove and collision cutting methods as the pace began slow as the friends head our in the car unaware of the danger before them and once they are in the woods we deliberately quickened the pace of editing to cause tension and to show that something is not right, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.
Editing and mise-en-scene is really important to genre and reflects very quickly certain moods and atmospheres. Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes argued that the horror genre like many others used ‘binary oppositions’ in order to show the contrast between good and evil in order to force the audience to be constantly questioning the trailer for example; in my trailer I used light and dark to connote their happiness and carefree attitude in the daytime and the darkness to emphasise their fear and reliance on their senses. This is particularly important to the horror genre as characters are often shown in high angle shots to appear vulnerable and therefore under threat.
Gore or ‘body horror’ is also a common generic convention used by most horror films that we studied including Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero who used it to make the audience feel sick by forcing them to see extreme violence. In my own trailer we were inspired to use gore differently by showing a hanging scene in slow motion to create tension and the centoring in on the face and neck which had been broken and this was shown by the rope burn we had made from latex and the blood pouring down her chest. This shot moves clockwise and slowly zooms in to force the audience to see what the hang (woman) has done. In our final two shots we finish the trailer with the male anti hero being lifted off the ground with blood pouring out of his mouth which causes the audience to assume no one survives because the final girl is stabbed by her friend accidentally which quickens the pace and adds tension but she is the survivor who as Carol Clover suggests will be terrorised throughout the film and finally overcome the monster. This plays with the audiences emotions and links back to the horror genre well by creating our own style of horror. Andrew Sarris argues because it encompasses so much and is key to explaining a film. Genre is the ideas that collectively make a particular recognisable style that draws in its existing target audience. My horror trailer had expressionist camera angles as the female victim desperately trips over the camera and we see her running above it as well as close ups of her facial expression that causes us to identify with her fear and therefore makes us scared. This meant the audience also were forced to objectify the female victim from the high angle camera shot down her top in which we can see her breasts slightly after watching other Hitchcock movies which use the male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey to force us to take a male’s viewpoint.
In my trailer we also used an iconic symbol of the noose because obviously as a hangwoman she needed the prop but also as a female the circular shape suggested female power and this is something the horror genre often does but for male characters using guns etc as phallic symbols which we also used as the male anti hero takes out a knife and stabs his friend frantically when she walks up behind him. The horror trailer was made much darker in Final Cut Pro using the brightness and contrast menu and also dragged the saturated colours towards the blue in order to create a dark, dusky night time atmosphere a generic convention of horror trailers.
The generic conventions we chose to use were all important to the success of our product and since distributing it on YouTube we have over 4000 which I am really pleased with and gives me the confidence that we obviously stuck to the genre enough to capture our intended target audience but were creative enough to make people want to keep watching the trailer and virally sharing it with others.
Genre places a media text into a grouping giving it an identity which can be recognised by the mainstream society and I believe my product is successfully fitted to the horror genre using the narrative that todorov argued was important to the horror genre by following an equilibrium at the beginning then a problem which in our case was the male anti hero playing a joke on the soon to be female victim making jump running after him causing their separation then a pathway to resolution – as they attempt to find each other and then a new equilibrium at the end which we deliberately left as an open ending to capture our audience effectively.
EAA 10
EG 10
Term 5
Narrative Theories
Propp – Studied the narrative patterns of myths. Characters are ‘spheres of action’ within different functions within a narrative. These characters are the villain, the hero (seeking something), the donor (providing an object with magical property), the helper, the princess (reward for the hero), her father (rewards the hero), the dispatcher (sends the hero in his way), the false hero.
Todorov – A story begins with an ‘equilibrium’ where opposing forces are in balance. This is disrupted by an event, which sets in train a series of other events, until it reaches another equilibrium.
Barthes – Narrative works with five different codes which activate the reader to make sense of it. These codes are read by means of a number of details e.g. looks, significant words, which make us remember conventional ‘scripts’ of actions like ‘falling in love’ or ‘being tempted into robbery’. For example, an ‘enigma code’ works to set up little puzzles to be solved to delay the ending of the story.
Levi-Strauss – Narratives are based on binary oppositions, or a conflict between two qualities or terms. For example, Good vs. Evil, Humans vs. Aliens, City vs. Countryside. He was less interested in syntagmatic relations (how events were arranged in the plot) and more about paradigmatic relations (how things are arranged according to themes).
Archer - Music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band to show ‘real connection’ with the music. A carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor
Davis - Musical Synaesthesia only requires the musical or lyrical ‘mood’ to latch onto to develop a narrative concept
Todorov – A story begins with an ‘equilibrium’ where opposing forces are in balance. This is disrupted by an event, which sets in train a series of other events, until it reaches another equilibrium.
Barthes – Narrative works with five different codes which activate the reader to make sense of it. These codes are read by means of a number of details e.g. looks, significant words, which make us remember conventional ‘scripts’ of actions like ‘falling in love’ or ‘being tempted into robbery’. For example, an ‘enigma code’ works to set up little puzzles to be solved to delay the ending of the story.
Levi-Strauss – Narratives are based on binary oppositions, or a conflict between two qualities or terms. For example, Good vs. Evil, Humans vs. Aliens, City vs. Countryside. He was less interested in syntagmatic relations (how events were arranged in the plot) and more about paradigmatic relations (how things are arranged according to themes).
Archer - Music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band to show ‘real connection’ with the music. A carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor
Davis - Musical Synaesthesia only requires the musical or lyrical ‘mood’ to latch onto to develop a narrative concept
Narrative Structure Question
Look carefully at your video at how the story is structured and how the audience is positioned (i.e. who are we led to identify with?)
Consider the following:
Consider the following:
- How the narrative is organised and structured.
- How the conflict is established and how it is resolved
- The construction of the characters in the text and how we are led to relate to them (Propp)
- How heroes and villains are created within the text
- The importance of sound, music, iconography, mise-en-scene, editing and other technical features in telling the story.
- How the themes and ideas are put forward in the story.
Representation
Topics to talk about in representation
Representation of genre
There are certain codes and conventions associated with your genre - how did you represent them?
Representation of artist
- Your artist uses their music video to represent themselves - how do they do it? What messages are contained therein?
Representation of Social groups
- Are there certain messages about genre, class or age in your work? For example is there a masculine influence (are you trying to portray yourselves as manly?)
Representation of Culture
- Are there certain audience beliefs and cultural values that are represented in your video (for example the endorsement of an aspirational lifestyle in RnB, possible violence in rap)
Representation of the Song
- How is the song represented - are there certain messages and moods in your piece that you are creating
Representation of genre
There are certain codes and conventions associated with your genre - how did you represent them?
Representation of artist
- Your artist uses their music video to represent themselves - how do they do it? What messages are contained therein?
Representation of Social groups
- Are there certain messages about genre, class or age in your work? For example is there a masculine influence (are you trying to portray yourselves as manly?)
Representation of Culture
- Are there certain audience beliefs and cultural values that are represented in your video (for example the endorsement of an aspirational lifestyle in RnB, possible violence in rap)
Representation of the Song
- How is the song represented - are there certain messages and moods in your piece that you are creating
Questions from A2 Lesson
What is Media Language?
Media Language is basically how you communicated – so it is a textual analysis of your own product – basically what are the codes and conventions of music video and how does your video apply to it – theories that will come in useful are anyone who talks about signs and symbols and anyone that talks about the codes of music video (Archer etc)
What’s a good example?
One where you can explain What How Why – which is what you did, How you did it and Why you did it.
How can I make my examples longer?
By describing the scene your example appears in your video so instead of "we used close-ups" it becomes "during the guitar solo scene there is a close up of the guitarist taken from the neck of the guitar which enables the audience to see the vibrating of the strings ..."
How many paragraphs should I realistically write?
No including your introduction or conclusion 3-5 is a good amount. The exam board recommend 3-5 theorists.
Media Language is basically how you communicated – so it is a textual analysis of your own product – basically what are the codes and conventions of music video and how does your video apply to it – theories that will come in useful are anyone who talks about signs and symbols and anyone that talks about the codes of music video (Archer etc)
What’s a good example?
One where you can explain What How Why – which is what you did, How you did it and Why you did it.
How can I make my examples longer?
By describing the scene your example appears in your video so instead of "we used close-ups" it becomes "during the guitar solo scene there is a close up of the guitarist taken from the neck of the guitar which enables the audience to see the vibrating of the strings ..."
How many paragraphs should I realistically write?
No including your introduction or conclusion 3-5 is a good amount. The exam board recommend 3-5 theorists.
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