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.