Flight of the Conchords

Self-reflexivity
- Bret and Jermaine
- Direct address to camera in performance sequences
- Quirky style graphics

Inter textual References

Bricolage
- Genre/form hybrid
- Sitcom/musical/music video/reality tv

Semi Episodic Structure
- Days of week, parody, 5 minutes later

Parody and Pastiche
- Musical Genre
- Conventions
- Romantic comedy
- New Zealand
- NZ tourism

Cult of Celebrity
- Character of Mel

Using conventions from Real Media texts

Micro Elements:
What choices did i make in terms of the following to communicate my meaning to the audience?
- Mise en Scene
- Camerawork
- Editing
- Sound

Macro: Meanings and Messages across AS and A2 coursework
(1) What was the purpose of my texts at AS and A2?
(2) What was i trying to communicate to the audience? Was there a theme? What was the discourse (point of view/agenda debated) in my texts?
(3) Who was my target audience and what was the main mode of address?

Macro: Post Modernism, Genre, Narrative
(1) How did i pastiche or parody and other media texts? (Includes bricolage and intertextuality)
(2) In relation to the above, can i be more specific in terms of generic conventions of my medium?
(3) In relation to the above, can i be more specific in terms of narrative theory of my medium?

Look back at the research into generic conventions i did at AS, What are the generic conventions of the media text i created? Which real texts did i research and adopt the same conventions as? Can i apply any of the editing theories to my work at AS? Now do the same for A2.

The IT Crowd - S2E1: Moss and The German

Make notes on the post modern aspects in this episode

8 bit style intro and music (Old game consoles) (DJ Scotch Egg) (Tubeway Army-Are friends electric, Fine Young Cannibals-She Drives me Crazy)
Link to The Pink Windmill Kids (Emu Puppet) "Somebody at the Door"
Morecombe and Wise - Bromance, men acting as a couple

Parody of video Piracy advert - Exaggerate, funnier
Tarantino
Bromance break up, old married couple. (Eastenders conventions, storming out, 2 onlookers, street, dark)
Dramatization on non smoking, smoking like Russian war films, revolution, soviet, Slavic - Change of mise en scene, orange glow inside, bleak outside. Changes Jen's appearance and accent to match. 'The Ballet in Prague....' spy movie reference, code word sentences, 2 spies meeting
"Marriage counseling"
Russian Smokers
picture of blood on wall
doorbell jingle
police interrogation
break 4th wall, musical performance at end
Cannibal guy is very polite and lets him go, breaks generics stereotype of cannibals. Normally if we enter their homes we would end up as dinner. Hannibal Lector is closest to this guy. Urbane, polite and neat. Had a sense of humor. Over exaggerated evil laugh, advertised rather than hunt
The boss seems ridiculous, childlike, called Bruce Wayne (Batman), inherited his wealth/company, stupid.

Memento Presentation

Memento on Prezi

Digital Technology

Software at AS:
In AS media, the software that i used in my preliminary coursework was Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop allowed me to edit, change and manipulate the images i used, as well as create images and fonts of my own for my magazine.
The tools like Lassos allowed me to cut around an image and move that piece around and edit it seperately. This was useful for cutting out the image of the person that i wanted on my front cover, as well as creating the logo. The zoom in and out tools made this much easier as well as i could zoom in around difficult parts and follow the line much easier. I used this to create and place the text boxes, as well as create copies of logos that i wanted repeated around the front cover. I could also create copies of the text boxes and fonts so that i could use them elsewhere so all the magazine fitted the house style. Another tool that i used to help with this was the colour dropper as it allowed me to always use the same colours.
Photoshop allows a lot of different editing effects on images as well, such as adjust contrast, brightness, black and white point levels and colour filters. Because of this, it allowed me to change my image and make it look better and more effective for my preliminary work.
Unfortunately, when we started the prelim, i had only ever used Photoshop once before, and i found it hard to learn how to use it effectively. However, now that i have started getting into photography, i find Photoshop a lot easier to understand and i can make images even better than i did in my Prelim.
Using Blogger for my work made some parts easier and some harder. Because all my work was online, it was hard to access and finish my work outside of school, but it made it easier for me to find all my work as it would be on my blog. It also helped when it came to audience feedback as students in my class could look at my work and give me audience feedback which i could then use to improve my work. I could also send links to my blog to others not in my class and ask their opinion, or embed a link on social networks sites and ask for feedback.
During my work at AS i used a variety of software, and each taught me new skills to use on work later. Photoshop was used with my Prelim, and taught me the skills that i've talked about before. During my actual AS coursework, i used a few different video and audio editing software. The first one i used was Windows Movie Maker. Movie maker basically established the basics of video editing, such as cutting, deleting, re arranging, transitions and effects. I used movie maker to edit my AS draft video, but it was not powerful enough for the video that i had recorded.
After movie maker, i used Adobe Premiere Elements. Premiere Elements started to teach me more advanced visual effects and title animations. I also used YouTube to find out how to create other effects, such as the "Invisibility Cloak effect" and the "Cloning Effect". I also started to use effects like Green/Blue screening and Luma key. I then used these effects in my final movie and because Premiere Elements is more powerful than movie maker, it could handle the video clips i used.

Hardware at AS:

Inglorious Basterds Essay

Bit late, due to missing school, no internet at home, and school internet problems as well. I was going to print it of, but school network isn't letting me at the moment.


In What ways can Inglorious Basterds be considered Post Modern?

Inglorious Basterds is full of lots of different elements and filming techniques that can allow the film to be considered as a post modernistic film. Inglorious Basterds also applies many different postmodern theories during the film that support the idea that it is a postmodern film.
Right from the very start of the film, postmodern elements are immediately used. Taratino uses lots of inter textual links throughout the start which is common with most postmodern films. The opening titles uses a western type font, as well as yellow text, which is a very basic simplistic colour used in numerous films. The music that Is used is also western like, raising the suspense behind the first part, but it also mixes this western music with classical music. The first chapter also uses a very well-known scene from the western film, ‘The Searchers’ where the camera is looking through an open door way as someone moves through and away from it. In the suspense of the conversation between the Nazi character, Hans Lander, and the French farmer over the missing Jews, there’s a lot of eye level views like the ones used in famous western film ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’.
Another postmodern element used in this chapter is breaking the fourth wall. The camera moves overhead of the characters and you actually can see the beams of the props and scenery. By breaking the fourth wall, Taratino is establishing that the film is just a film and is not real. He also does this at the start by starting with ‘Once upon a time…’ making the film seem like a fairy-tale, and the opening scene of the hills is very similar to the opening scene from ‘The Sound of Music’, which is also a WW2 film, as well as the scene of a girl running towards the alps. Taratino also uses other methods to make the film seem less realistic with Hans Lander. Hans is a very different type of character to the stereotypical way viewers see Nazi’s in the Second World War. He seems to be a very amusing character, who uses an extremely over large pipe to smoke from, and asks for a drink of milk instead of an alcoholic beverage. He also seems to be to business like to be a Nazi who is called the ‘Jew Hunter’ as he is very organised with his forms and speaks in a business like tone throughout the entire chapter. Unlike most characters in a World War film, you actually get to know Hans as a character, not just as a Nazi who gets shot in a fire fight.
Chapter 2 also uses humorous elements that make it seem less of a war film. Most notably is Brad Pitts accent as the American leader of the Basterds. The accent is really overdone and causing people to find it as amusement, where they’d normally expect a really strong, deep rough voice for someone who is leading a secret troop against the enemy. Hitler also seems a lot more amusing in Inglorious Basterds than people would expect. During the scene where the Nazi soldier is reporting to him about the Basterds, Hitler seems idiotic, nervous and forgetful, not the idea most people would expect from a Nazi leader during a war. Chapter 4 has a similar feel with the meeting with the British. Each character in the scene has a over exaggerated British accent, which a very common tool used in comedy, so it’s something most viewers pick up and respond to. The General type character that is explaining the plan is played by Mike Myers, who is famous for comedic role in Austin powers, which is what most people will think of when the see him in any other film. IN this scene, the room itself also seems comical. The room is over sized and everything is so far away from each other, which is not ordinary décor for a room.
Chapter 2 also contains inter textuality from westerns, just like chapter 1 did. The scene in the forest is very similar to scene from western movies with everyone all standing in different places watching. The Basterds also attack the Nazis like a group of Indians by scalping their victims, and Indians are very common in western type films. Spaghetti western music is also used often as well, but this scene also starts including elements of Blaxploitation, such as music and voice overs. Hugo Stiglitz gets an introduction that is often used to introduce a main character in a Blaxploitation film, and is voiced over by Samuel L Jackson, a very famous black actor. In chapter 3, Taratino goes to great effort and starts using pop culture references by name famous actors and directors and people, such as Leni Riefenstahl, G W Pabst  Sergeant York and Van Johnson.
Inglorious Basterds also applies a couple of post-modern theories. One of these for example is Fiske’s theory. Fiske’s theory is that we make sense of something by applying it to elements that we’ve seen in previous media texts, such as during the 9/11 attacks, numerous people felt like it was something out of a film because it was the only way for them to describe it as they would’ve only seen it in a movie before. In Inglorious Basterds, we instantly recognize the film to be a war film, as it includes elements from other war films and documentaries that we have watched, such as the obvious conflict between Nazi’s and Americans, as well as characters like Hitler and Churchill. But Inglorious Basterds also seems to conflict with this theory. Even though there are elements that make it a war film, it uses a lot of different elements throughout the film that are never used during most war films. For example the use of Blaxploitation and spaghetti western music, as well as scenes from famous films that aren’t necessarily a war film. One major scene where everything is almost is completely opposite to what most audiences would be expecting is the projection box scene.
With the projection box scene, it starts with Frederick walking up the stairs towards the projection box, with war music playing. This type of music would normally build up to someone’s death, where instead, the music stops when Shoshanna opens the door, which is completely unexpected. Another thing is the outfits of the characters. Frederick, who you’d expect to be a bad guy, is wearing a clean white outfit. White would normally represent a good, pure and honest character, which is not the stereotypical thought on a Nazi’s personality. And Shoshanna, who is meant to be a hero, is wearing all red, and red usually represents evil and danger, as well as romance and sex. When Shoshanna is shot by Fredrick, the way the scene is set out is almost the complete opposite to how most shooting scenes go. The music is the main thing that is different from most shooting scenes. The scene uses romantic music, which does not fit with the scene or even the rest of the film. After Shoshanna’s death, her recording starts to play, and is projected onto the smoke produced by the burning film reels. This effect of her face in the smoke, along with her evil laugh, seems very similar to an evil with in a fairytale film, which again reminds the audience that this is not real, that it is just a film.
Another Post-modern that is applied to this movie is Levi Strauss’s theory. Levi Strauss’s theory developed the concept of Bricolage, which is very similar to how a collage works. With Bricolage, producers use elements, or ‘Debris’ from other films, and add, remove, substitute or transform them for their film. For example, Inglorious Basterds add debris from many western films, like ‘The Good, The Bad, The Ugly’ and ‘The Magnificent Seven’ such as music, scenes and storyline ideas, but deletes many of the war elements the audiences expect with a war film, such as huge battles.
Taratino uses all of these different post-modern elements and theories to create a really effective and enjoyable film, which also allow many people to see it as a post modern film.

...Falling behind with some work (not good)...

I've unfortunately had some problems since near the end of January with work. Because exams are over, the work from my other subjects is increasing with having to resume with ICT coursework and Maths. Plus i've been stuck with a cold for around 2 weeks, which has led to me missing a couple of days.
I also got snowed in at work last weekend so lost out on 2 days to do my work, plus i've been having problems with both my laptop and internet lately so i've got lots to catch up on....

Applying Theory to Inglorious Basterds

Fiske
Experiences from media. (Twin towers, Cruise ship, Car Chase. Like a movie) Comparing things to films.
We recognise Inglorious Basterds as a war film, even though we've never experienced war itself, because we recognise elements from other war films. Using what we've learnt from other films.
(Inglorious Basterds isn't really a war film)
We make sense of something by making it into a text (back to 9/11 example)
Cultural Knowledge (Uniforms, characters, countries, weapons, a daring mission)
Whenever we watch films, we based what we know about that film from what we've seen in other texts. (I.e. our knowledge of WW2 on WW2 films)
Our knowledge of war films, comes from other war films we see

Levi Strauss
Developed concept of Bricolage (Collage)
'Debris' from other texts
   1)-Battleship Potekim
   2)-Bowie
   3)-Sound of music
   4)-Spaghetti Western (music, framing)
   5)-The Searchers
   6)-Fairytale
   7)-German Directors
   8)-Blaxploitation
   9)-Tarantino's own style (Yellow Text)
   10)-Mexican Stand off
   11)-Western
   12)-Dirty Dozen, Magnificent Seven
   13)-Other War Films
Saw that directors constructs texts from other texts using;
   -Addition, (1) (2) (3) (7) (8) (10) (11) (12)
   -Deletion, (13) (War film elements [No major battles, emotions, hardly any shooting, journey], taken the fear from the shooting scene making it romantic, historical facts [Hitler, way the war ends]
   -Substitution, (9)
   -Transposition (Transformation) (6) (2) (5) (8)

- Genette
- Derrida

Creativity Worksheet

Creativity

Task 4: Final Task for Creativity

Concluding Task
Complete the following table

Creativity	Research into genre/inspiration from other texts	Mood boards	Music	Actors	Filming e.g. camera work, locations	Mise en scene e.g. colours, setting, costume, lighting	Editing
AS Coursework	Resident Evil Games Resident Evil Movies DOOM Halo	Evaluation	Halo Soundtrack Royalty Free music	Vin Diesel Oded Fehr Karl Urbun	First Person Scenes Action Shots	Wooded Area Black and White Dark, high contrast	Special effects Short rapid cuts
A2 Coursework	Lazy Song music Video Lazy Song cover Blame Halo 3		Bruno Mars Lazy Song Alex Goot Cover		Panning Shot 90 degree angle turn	House Typical teen style High contrast colour

 Write up A 750 word response outlining the extent to which you were creative in your AS and A2 coursework tasks.

You might wish to consider the following:

o   Did the technology enhance your creativity or not?

o   Which theories support your views

o   Which theories you could challenge

o   Research/planning and inspiration from other texts

o   Music

o   Stylistic techniques such as camera work, use of mise en scene, editing

o   Restrictions placed on you by the course/your social environment

o   Originality

o   Creative skills you might take into future projects

Task 2: Ideas and Theories

Ideas and theories to help you


"A process needed for problem solving...not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people" (Jones 1993)


"The making of the new and the re arranging of the old" (Bentley 1997)


"Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognise and validate the innovation." (Csikszentmihalyi 1996)


"There is no absolute judgement [on creativity] All judgements are comparisons of one thing with another." (Donald Larning) 
‘‘Technology has taken all the creativity out of media production’’
‘‘A project that is too well planned lacks opportunities for spontaneity and creativity.’’
‘‘Media producers can learn nothing from studying the conventions of old texts,’’
The creation of bringing something new into existence – “this particular understanding of creativity involves the physical making of something, leading to some form of communication, expression or revelation”. (David Gauntlett)


“If creativity is not inherent in human mental powers and is, in fact, social and situational, then technological developments may well be linked to advances in the creativity of individual users” (Banaji, Burn and Buckingham, 2006).


Task:
·        Explain in your own words what you think each quote means. Comment on whether you agree/disagree with it.
·        Choose 2 quotes you agree with and apply them to any of your own pieces of coursework.
Choose 2 quotes you disagree with and explain why, using your own coursework to support your views.

Task 3: Rube Goldberg

How do Rube Goldberg's ideas fit in with what you have learnt about creativity? To what extent are they demonstrating creativity?

Which theories could be applied to Goldberg's ideas?

Explain why.

Which theories conflict with his ideas?

Explain why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w 

http://mousetrapcontraptions.com/tips-9.html

Creating a CD cover with rules and limitations

A great shared site for creative random art with some effort is on Flickr with the shared CD meme pool. This is a game where you create a CD cover for an imaginary band and upload it to Flickr; the trick is you have to create it from 'found' materials, again following a set of rules.
1. Generate a name for your band by using WikiPedia's random page selector tool, and using the first article title on whichever page pops up. No matter how weird or lame that band name sounds.
2. Generate an album title by cutting and pasting the last four words of the final quote on whichever page appears when you click on the quotationspage's random quote selector tool. No matter what those four words turn out to be.
3. Finally, visit Flickr's Most Interesting page -- a random selection of some of the interesting things discovered on Flickr within the last 7 days -- and download the third picture on that page. (Even better: Click on this link to get a Flickr photo that's licensed under Creative Commons.) Again -- no cheating! You must use the photo, no matter how you feel about it.
4. Using Photoshop (or whatever method you prefer), put all of these elements together and create your very own CD cover, then upload it to the CD memepool
To conclude, analyse the extent to which you think you have been creative. What decisions were made for you? What decisions did you make yourself? How did this exercise compare with creating your own coursework pieces?



In this task, i've only been able to use a small amount of creativity as most things, such as the name, artist and picture, were decided for you by random selectors, and you had no say as to whether you wanted to use them (unless you cheated of course).

Some notes on Inglorious Basterds

First shots in Inglorious Basterds are very similar to Sound of Music hill scene. Inter textuality.
Scene from end of The Searchers regularly used in multiple texts.
Starts with 'Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France'. Making it seem like a fairytale.Hyper real war film.
Mike Myers appears because his family is from a military background.
Rod Taylor came out of retirement to play a character.

Starts with spaghetti western music with western type font.
Has very simple intro titles, just appearing in the middle and disappearing.
Mix of Beethoven and spaghetti western in first scene.
Breaking fourth wall, see beams of the set, roof taken off and replaced
Eye level scene from The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Scene from The Searchers
Brad Pitt's character has a scar all away along his neck. Rope burn/Attempted neck slice?
Spaghetti western music in forest

Chapter 1 Once upon a time ... in Nazi occupied France
Post modern elements including as many inter textual links as you can think of.
Yellow text is used in the title sequence. This is an inter textual link to Tarantino's other films. He likes the colour yellow. The simplicity of the rest of the title sequence is consistant with his other films
- Once upon a time (Fairy tale) (And they all lived happily ever after, finish in woods or a castle usually)
- The scenery - painted backdrop viewed through some of the windows. If backdrop is real, made to look like it isn't (Hyper Reality)
- Scenery links to sound of music
- Self Reflexive (where a film reveals itself to be a film) ;Birds eye shot of the roof beams (part of set)
- Western music mixed with classic music
Hans Lander
- Amusing character in some respects (Large Pipe)
- Drinks milk
- Form Filling
- Not a stereotypical Nazi
- Austrian (Vienna)
- Called 'The Jew Hunter', looks more like a business man than a killer
- Parody
- You actually get to know the character, whereas most the time Nazis all seem the same
- Doorway Shot from Searchers (1956)
- When girl is running away, towards the Alps. Inter textual of Julie Andrews in Sound of Music
- (Sound of Music is also a Nazi film, WW2)

Chapter 2 Inglorious Basterds
Brad Pitt's acting is over the top, accent is a bit ridiculous, sounds forced
Hugo Stiglitz section has a voice over from Samuel L Jackson
Blaxplotation and Spaghetti western music
Scalping of Germans (American Indians used to scalp their enemies, the Basterds attack like a group of Indians)
Hilter seems idiotic, nervous, forgetful
Western music

Chapter 3 German night in Paris
The British - What do you think?
Girl from Chapter 1, 4 years later
Blaxplotation music
Hitler's number 2 man Joseph Goebbels
Lander returns
Milk, Focus on the cream
More samuel l jackson
plan to burn down cinema
References to:
Leni Riefenstahl (German documentary director) - brilliant film maker and friends with hitler
G W Pabst (German Director)
Max Linder (Comic Actor silent era) - A contempary of Charles Chaplin
Sergeant York (Directed by Howard Hawks [1941]) Based on WWI exploits of Alvin York
Van Johnson (American film star of the 40's/50's)
Taratino makes a great effort to include pop cultural references, normally based on the time period of the film.
British publication video

Chapter 4 Operation Kino
British Accent exaggerated, seems comical
Mike Myers
Rod Taylor
Why is the room is so big?
Churchill sat by piano
Words written on blade

The projection box scene
Frederick and Shoshanna
Pay attention to the finer detail (i.e. - Costume, Music, Effects)
Is the ending of the film a satisfactory one?
Is it what you expected? Are you at all disappointed? If so, why?
War film music as fredrick walks up stairs (sounds building up to something, death, hanging, action about to happen)
Music normally stops when someone dies, when she opens door
Shoshanna is wearing red dress and makeup. Red= bad/romance/blood/danger/sex
Frederick in white uniform. White= good/pure/innocent
Contrasts to how they actually feel
Shoshanna shoots him
Mix of different music in shooting scenes (romantic, should be other way around, contrapuntal music, doesn't fit film)
Slow motion as shoshanna shot, emphasises scene, main character, thought she'd survive to see revenge
Her face in the smoke seems like wicked witch from fairytales
Fredrick?
Nice man
Up himself
a bit of a lothario
Nazi (by association angry/ bit of temper)
Compose himself a bit
Split personality
Sociopath
Powerful
Shocked when he barges in, (finally showing true character)

Hidden weapons
Bullet time with cigarette
Cackling laugh
Machiene guns blazing
Place burns down
Giant explosive
The Ending
Back to forest
Brad pitt in white suit, perfectly clean, hair back in place
Carves Nazi symbol again
end credits use simple yellow text again
Brad's Appearance is perfect (Hyper real)

God damn i hate "Scene it"

So i was at work on Saturday night with Taz and George and we all decided to play "Scene it" for the Xbox. For those who don't know what Scene it is, its a trivial game about films, including questions on props and music. But most questions are based on a 2 minute clip that they showed you.
Well, with me and Taz both being media students, we immediately found ourselves analysing everything in the clip, trying to find what may be representing something, or trying to find problems with the clip. If we had been asked any type of media exam question, we would've known what to answer. What did they ask?

"Which actor plays the main character?" "When was this film released?"

We were so annoyed. We spent the first half of the game being beaten by an 8 year old because we didn't have a clue what the films were.

Task 1: Creativity Definitions

Thesaurus Definition:
- Originality, (Unique, Like no other)
- imagination,
- inspiration, (Inspired by others)
- ingenuity, (Flair)
- inventiveness, (Created from scratch)
- resourcefulness, (Used different resources)
- creativeness,
- vision and (See the project from start to finish) 
- innovation (Created good Idea)

Task: Create a mind map for each Coursework piece, justifying how you have demonstrated any of them.



AS Coursework:
Originality:
- Storyline
Inspiration:
- First person scenes (Jaws, Doom)
- Resident Evil
- Halo Combat Evolved
- Horror Conventions
- Title of film came from Fable 3 (Darkness Incarnate)
- Camera Techniques
- Font
Imagination:
- Coming up with new ideas to resolve problems with casting/locations
- Invisibility Effect
Resourcefulness:
- Royalty free music website


A2 Coursework
Inspiration:
- Original Music video for song
- Music video for Cover version
- Main Characters personality
- Use of Wall-E in multiple shots
Originality and Imagination:
- Random shots of Taz just enjoying himself, more natural feel
- Intro with alarm and panning shot
- All morph scenes
- Random hat/costume changes
Vision:
- Had a idea as soon as I decided a song and based the entire video on that idea with little change. Started thinking of video ideas during the summer

The Fourth Wall

I had a look on YouTube and found a video that i assume someone else had made for school that sort of explains what breaking the fourth wall is. It shows multiple scene's from the TV series Scrubs and provides an explanation on how the fourth wall is broken in each scene.

Other Pieces of work...

This is just a brief collection of some other pieces of work i've done, including both Preliminary tasks from media, as well as project i've done just for fun.

The Chase:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ThisAlternateReality?feature=watch


This short chase sequence was one of the first proper videos that me and my friend Taz did. It was a complete spur of the moment video idea that we came up with during the summer. We spent an hour planning the entire scene by walking along all the different locations and thinking of effective camera angles, as well as ideas on what to do at certain points, such as the scene where Taz uses a pole to try and kick me.
After we had the entire video planned out, we ran a few practice shots to ensure that we could do it safely, especially the kick scene as it wasn't the most safest plan. we did the entire thing around 4 times and the kick scene we ran around 20 practices to get it right.
When we recorded this scene, the only editing software we had was windows movie maker, so we couldn't add proper effects the guns and we had to get a gun sound effect from YouTube. However we had planned to re-make this video now that we have new software and better equipment, but at the moment its finding the time. Plus its cold...

Inviso-Suit:



This is another video that we came up with on just one day. The idea came to mind because i had recently learnt how to create the 'Invisble Cloak' effect and we wanted to put it to action.



Taz had also just got a Morph suit so we thought that maybe we could turn the morph suit invisible as was the similar sort of idea. We wanted to try and make Taz look like some crazy scientist who was researching a variety of material and chemicals trying to find a way to create an invisibility suit. Of course we didn't have all the appropriate props that we would need to make it look really effective, but we managed to improvise with some white boards we had. During this video, i had a play around with some other effects, like the scene where there's 3 videos on top of the main one.
There's numerous problems with this video that i didn't pick up on straight away. In most scenes the cameras really unsteady because we did most of it handheld, then in the last shot, we used a tripod, plus the room was darker at that scene compared to the rest of the video.
The main problem that i've noticed (That seems to keep popping up in most video's that me and taz have done, like how pixar have Wall-e in every film) is in the scene where the scientist runs into the 'Invisio-Chamber'. As he dances towards it, you can see a tripod sat on the side. The tripod has also appeared in my Draft AS film, My final A2 video (Twice) and in my Final AS film. Somehow, no matter what we do, we always seem have the tripod in a shot.

Draft AS:



This is my draft film from AS media. Numerous things went wrong during my AS coursework, such as people not turning up to shooting and forgetting equipment. Plus we were not allowed to use the original location idea i had planned on. So in a desperate attempt to finish my draft on time, i had to use the school as the location and ask 2 friends that luckily didn't have lessons at the time to star in the film for me.
The mise en scene just does not work for the effect i was trying to create as it was meant to be a horror film, and the characters just don't look the part. Plus for some unknown reason, video is really jumpy throughtout the entire video.
The one thing i do like about this video is the titles and credits, because they seemed really effective, as they were an idea i got from another horror film that i had watched.

Brief Description of my Coursework

For Homework:
Write down a brief description of your AS and A2 production pieces of work
Should Include:
- What you were asked to produce
- The Target audience
- How you evaluated your product


AS Project: Film Opening
http://leonmarshalllcascw1011.blogspot.com/



This is my AS media project. We had a choice between creating a Magazine or a short Film opening. I chose the film as i had a bit more experience with creating videos than i had using software like photoshop, which i would've needed to create a magazine.


A2 Project: Music Video
http://leona2lcmedia.blogspot.com/



This is my music video project for my A2 media coursework.

Exam Question 1a

Put the requirements of this question into your own words
"Describe and Evaluate your Skills development over the course of your production work"


Describe: Identify your skills
Evaluate: Good points and bad points of skills. How good are your skills, how well have they developed?
Skills: Technology (Camera, Software, Editing), Creativity, Researching
Development: How you've got better, Progress
Over the course: AS and A2!
Production Work: Projects (Music Video, Prelim, Digi-pak, Magazine, Film Intro) and Personal Projects (YouTube)


There are some cross over between the 5 different area's
- Digital Technology (Equipment such as camera's and computers, Editing software, using sites such as YouTube, Blogger, Prezi, Tumblr etc.)
- Creativity (Coming up with designs, Creating and developing your own conventions, Showing your work in a variety of ways like videos, powerpoints and posters. Coming up with new ways to find ideas for your project, editing your project, using effects on work)
- Research and Planning (Researching ideas for your project, looking at other texts, planning out how to create your project and when, blogger, was it a vital part? I should of done a lot more research and planning)
- Post Production (Editing, Feedback, Evaluation, Re-Edits)
- Using conventions from real media texts (Using ideas from over video's/Magazine's, such as colours, camera angles and techniques, famous scenes from films, what works in the real world)

Quentin Taratino

Inglorious Bastards
The Dirty Dozen
Where Eagles Dare
Battleship Potekin (Odessa Step scene)
Blaxploitation – Shaft trailer
Spaghetti Western – The good, the bad and the ugly (Finale)

First lesson back, computer problems and definitions...

Off to a slow start but...

Modernism- A definition
In the field of art the broad movement in Western art, architecture and design which self-consciously rejected the past as a model for the art of the present. Hence the term modernist or modern art. Modernism gathered pace from about 1850. Modernism proposes new forms of art on the grounds that these are more appropriate to the present time. It is thus characterised by constant innovation. But modern art has often been driven too by various social and political agendas. These were often utopian, and modernism was in general associated with ideal visions of human life and society and a belief in progress. The terms modernism and modern art are generally used to describe the succession of art movements that critics and historians have identified since the Realism of Courbet, culminating in abstract art and its developments up to the 1960s. By that time modernism had become a dominant idea of art, and a particularly narrow theory of modernist painting had been formulated by the highly influential American critic Clement Greenberg. A reaction then took place which was quickly identified as Postmodernism.
(Mr Ford’s Blog)
Modernism relates more to art and architecture than film. It was theorised in the 1850’s alongside the industrial revolution, with the idea of Innovation.
Post Modernism


any of a number of trends ormovements in the arts and literature developing in the 1970s inreaction to or rejection of the dogma, principles, or practices ofestablished modernism,  especially a movement in architecture andthe decorative arts running counter to the practice and influenceof the International Style and encouraging the use of elementsfrom historical vernacular styles and often playful illusion,decoration, and complexity.
(Dictionary.com)


Postmodernist film describes the articulation of ideas of postmodernism through the cinematic medium. Postmodernist film upsets the mainstream conventions of narrative structure and characterization and destroys (or, at least, toys with) the audience's suspension of disbelief to create a work in which a less-recognizable internal logic forms the film's means of expression.


Postmodernism-a definition







Postmodern texts deliberately play with meaning. They are designed to be read by a literate (ie experienced in other texts) audience and will exhibit many traits of intertextuality. Many texts openly acknowledge that, given the diversity in today's audiences, they can have no preferred reading (check out your Reception Theory) and present a whole range of oppositional readings simultaneously. Many of the sophisticated visual puns used by advertising can be described as postmodern. Postmodern texts will employ a range of referential techniques such as bricolage, and will use images and ideas in a way that is entirely alien to their original function (eg using footage of Nazi war crimes in a pop video).


HyperReality


The Blurring of the line between reality and fantasy


Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures. Hyperreality is a means to characterize the way consciousness defines what is actually "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter an original event or experience. Some famous theorists of hyperreality include Jean Baudrillard, Albert Borgmann, Daniel Boorstin, and Umberto Eco.


Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as "reality by proxy." Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite.[1]


Baudrillard in particular suggests that the world we live in has been replaced by a copy world, where we seek simulated stimuli and nothing more. Baudrillard borrows, from Jorge Luis Borges (who already borrowed from Lewis Carroll), the example of a society whose cartographers create a map so detailed that it covers the very things it was designed to represent. When the empire declines, the map fades into the landscape and there is neither the representation nor the real remaining – just the hyperreal. Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality was heavily influenced by phenomenology, semiotics, and Marshall McLuhan.




Postmodern Theories


Jacques Derrida proposed that a text cannot belong to no genre, it cannot be without... a genre. Every text participates in one or several genres, there is no genreless text




(Derrida 1981, 61).


Levi Strauss and his theory of 'binary opposites', he also however developed the theory of 'bricolage'.


Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality was heavily influenced by phenomenology, semiotics, and Marshall McLuhan who coined the phrase 'the medium is the message'. By this he means that the manner in which the message is shown becomes more important than the meaning of the message itself.
Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite.


Frederic Jameson sees postmodernism as vacuous and trapped in circular references. Nothing more that a series of self referential 'jokes' which have no deeper meaning or purpose.


Jean-François Lyotard


rejected what he called the “grand narratives” or universal “meta-narratives.”


Grand narratives refer to the great theories of history, science, religion, politics. For example, Lyotard rejects the ideas that everything is knowable by science or that as history moves forward in time, humanity makes progress. He would reject universal political ‘solutions’ such as communism or capitalism. He also rejects the idea of absolute freedom.


In studying media texts it is possible also to apply this thinking to a rejection of the Western moralistic narratives of Hollywood film where good triumphs over evil, or where violence and exploitation are suppressed for the sake of public decency.


Lyotard favours ‘micronarratives’ that can go in any direction, that reflect diversity, that are unpredictable. 


Rosenau (1993)
1. Its anti-theoretical position is essentially a theoretical stand.
2. While Postmodernism stresses the irrational, instruments of reason are freely employed to advance its perspective.
3. The Postmodern prescription to focus on the marginal is itself an evaluative emphasis of precisely the sort that it otherwise attacks.
4. Postmodernism stress intertextuality but often treats text in isolation.
5. By adamently rejecting modern criteria for assessing theory, Postmodernists cannot argue that there are no valid criteria for judgment.
6. Postmodernism criticizes the inconsistency of modernism, but refuses to be held to norms of consistency itself.
7. Postmodernists contradict themselves by relinquishing truth claims in their own writings.


Hyperreality examples




1.A magazine photo of a model that has been touched up with a computer.


2.Films in which characters and settings are either digitally enhanced or created entirely from CGI(e.g.: 300, where the entire film was shot in front of a blue/green screen, with all settings super-imposed).




3.A well manicured garden (nature as hyperreal).


4.Any massively promoted versions of historical or present "facts" (e.g. "General Ignorance" from QI, where the questions have seemingly obvious answers, which are actually wrong).




5.Professional sports athletes as super, invincible versions of the human beings.


6.Many world cities and places which did not evolve as functional places with some basis in reality, as if they were creatio ex nihilo (literally 'creation out of nothing'): Disney World; Dubai; Celebration, Florida; and Las Vegas.




7.TV and film in general (especially "reality" TV), due to its creation of a world of fantasy and its dependence that the viewer will engage with these fantasy worlds. The current trend is to glamorize the mundane using histrionics.


8.A retail store that looks completely stocked and perfect due to facing, creating a world of endless identical products.




9.A life which cannot be (e.g. the perfect facsimile of a celebrity's invented persona).


10.A high end sex doll used as a simulacrum of a bodily or psychologically unattainable partner.




11.A newly made building or item designed to look old, or to recreate or reproduce an older artifact, by simulating the feel of age or aging.


12.Constructed languages (such as E-Prime) or "reconstructed" extinct dialects.




13.Second Life The distinction becomes blurred when it becomes the platform for RL (Real Life) courses and conferences, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or leads to real world interactions behind the scenes.


14.Weak virtual reality which is greater than any possible simulation of physical reality.




The fourth wall


3 walls around the actor and the fourth wall is the camera, with the viewer behind the character. When actors look down the camera and interact with the audience, this is breaking the fourth wall.
Michael Cain – Alfie. Famous for breaking off to look down the camera at audience and talk to them.
By showing the walls of the set reminds the audience that this is just a film.




Bricolage


Combining 2 elemnets that shouldn’t go together to create something new (Such as the Queen with a safety pin through her nose)