Postmodern Artist

The Joy Formidable. on Prezi

Postmodern Music Theory

6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxXrTRFVUkQ

The lyrics of the song portray the artists opinions on 'the good book' and the religion that the Bible teaches. Christianity is widely accepted within most countries and most people don't like to criticise any religion for it is considered a social taboo. People in society believe that those of higher class support religion and most people are tolerable of religion, so having the artist relaying the negative points about religion and highlighting the elements he finds ridiculous questions the mutual values of the elitist and populist members in society.

11. embraces contradictions - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5_H-4JokzA

The music is classified as rock due to the lyrics and the instruments played, as well as the artists voice, but there is elements of the classical genre too, such as the violin at the beginning of the song. The classical genre and rock genre are almost considered to be at the opposite ends of the spectrum as the sounds are so different from one another, along with the image and fans, but here the two genres are being used together to create a new sound, so the music is embracing contradictions because it is made from two completely different genres.

Digital Technology.

Adobe Photoshop
The image manipulation program (Photoshop) allowed me to manipulated my magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread for my AS coursework and my magazine advert and digipak, as well as the still shots used in the music video for my A2 coursework. I relied heavily on the magic lasso tool to gain the important pieces from a photo that I wanted to change or use. The colour variations were also used a lot to make my images more brighter and eye catching, as well as to make certain elements stand out against the rest of the image.

To gain the same colours for my text in AS I used the eyedropper tool to make sure that all my colours linked in with one another and I didn't have varying shades of a certain colour, which would have made my magazine look unprofessional. The shape tool was also useful for my AS coursework as it allowed me to create shapes that would attract my target audiences attention. I lightened all of the photos I used for both my AS and A2 coursework pieces because it made them look more inviting and colourful, I also changed the contrast for some of my images to make the photos look slightly surreal or more attractive. The use of layers was especially important for my front page of my magazine as I had to make sure that all of my information could be seen and look inviting.


Desk Top Publishing
My double page spread was quite simple, only using an image for the background with text over the top. As my background was black and white I had to create semi-transparent text boxes so that my text could be seen and therefore easily read. I had to make sure that the image I used for my background didn't have the artist I used in the middle of the page as otherwise they'd be unable to be seen as they'd be in the join of the magazine and therefore I couldn't have any of my text in the middle of the page either so that it could still be read. I made sure that the layout was the same throughout my coursework by making duplicate copies of some of my work so if I wanted to change something I would still have the original design to look back on and use as a reference. For my texts I used fonts off a website that gave me more choice than the software I was using to edit my work on, meaning I could find text that I thought worked well with my genre and look. By only using three fonts it also meant that my work didn't look too busy, as well as linking all my pages together to have a similar look.

Weblogs
The blogs we had for our coursework were useful to gain audience feedback from, as our audience could look at our designs/work which we had uploaded onto the blog and then comment directly on that post with their opinions and suggestions. The software we used to edit our film footage is iMovie, which was easy to use and introduced us to the speed effects, as well as the audio editing that we could do to both the song and the audio on the visuals. For my AS images needed for my magazine, I used a Nikon D40 and a Samsung ES15 and uploaded my images using a USB lead. For the music video because we edited our footage on iMovie it allowed our knowledge of layering to develop through practise. Some of the edits we used for our footage were: cutting, speed up, slow motion, increase length, colour variations and the crop tool. We made sure our work was precise by getting other people to check our work to see if everything came together correctly and by looking through our storyboard to see if our footage was correctly placed. We ensured that our audio matched our visuals by watching the video repeatedly and by getting others to watch it to make sure that the lip syncing was correct. We used a lot of slow motion or speeding up for our visuals, but they were the only effects.

Post Production

AS

• Adobe Photoshop Elements: magic eraser, magnetic lasso tool, saturation alteration, contrast alteration, grey scale alteration, blur tool, text tool, eraser, rectangular marquee tool, crop tool, eyedropper tool, brush tool and paint bucket tool.

Improvements to skills: gained more knowledge on the tool uses, found it easier to manipulate images to look how I wanted them to, better at using the tools effectively and overall created a better magazine.
Strengths: looked professional, easy to use and wide variety of manipulation offered.
Weaknesses: time consuming, difficult to use for more intricate things and I didn't have the software at home.


A2

• iMovie: cut clips and audio, colour and light alteration, speed adjustment, removing audio from the filming, cropping of visuals, ken burns of images and syncing of song.
• Adobe Photosop Elements: saturation alteration, contrast alteration, text tool, colour alteration, blur tool, spot healing brush, crop tool, eyedropper tool, brush tool and paint bucket tool.

Improvements to skills: more effective at using Photoshop, better at filming, better at editing, found it easier to sync the song and the visuals together, easier to manipulate the clips and created a better video.
Strengths: easy to use, quick and efficient, good quality and looks professional.
Weaknesses: I never used it before so it took a while to figure out how to work everything correctly.


Evaluation
For both pieces of my coursework I used similar technologies such as Scribd, Slideshare and Prezi which I believe I used more effectively for my A2 because they looked better and there was more information given. A new technology that I used in A2 was youtube, which worked effectively as it put across our information easily and professionally.

The filming of the conversation wasn't as difficult as the filming of the 3 minute music video and the Busted prelim video because more footage was needed in order to film the work we did at A2, as both the A2 pieces where longer in length and more detailed. The conversation work also didn't include any extra audio that wasn't from the footage, whereas both the Busted and music video needed to have the song included. This made it more difficult to film the music videos because we had to make sure that the visuals would match the audio in order for it to look professional. Therefore, the work that we did for our A2 filming was obviously more advanced than the filming we did at AS, indicating a progression in skills.
The Photoshop skills we needed for the coursework pieces my magazine for AS and the digipak and magazine advert for A2. I think after using Photoshop throughout the entire coursework in AS improved my skills, meaning that it was easier for me to use Photoshop quickly and effectively during my A2 coursework pieces.

Postproduction choices:

1. genre
2. target audience
3. the narrative for the video
4. representation of the artist
5. repeated elements to interlink everything
6. the media language

Research and Planning.

Primary Research

• Ancillary task - analysis of album covers, back covers, album artwork, other album names and magazine adverts, target audience feedback and class feedback.
• Music video - analysis of other music videos and genres, research into artists of our chosen genre, analysis of editing and filming techniques.
• Music magazine - analysis of music magazines, research into music magazines, research into music interviews and articles, target audience feedback, class feedback and research into magazine photo shoots.

Secondary Research

• Ancillary task - class notes, music magazines, music websites and a book containing album covers.
• Music video - class notes, music magazines, music websites, youtube and other blogs.
• Music magazine - class notes, music magazines,  and music websites.

Pros: inspirational, helpful in making decisions, allowed us to gather ideas, let us see what elements needed to be included for both the music genre and the conventions of a music video.

Cons: time consuming, restricted some of the ideas that we may have used because it didn't fit the conventions.

For both my AS and A2 coursework I believe I spent a lot of time researching relevant information in order to make my work seem as professional as I could. I do think that I did a lot more research for my A2 coursework as the task was something I had never done before, whereas I had done some work on magazines before so knew some of the elements that needed to be included.

Organisation of time, personnel and equipment:

• I met all the deadlines for both of my coursework pieces and completed everything on time.
• It was difficult to get the people needed for the coursework to all meet up because of busy schedules, but when everyone had gotten together the work was completed much faster and better.
• I've learnt that when you need to get everyone together, for either filming or a photos, it's best to plan it way in advance because it's unlikely that you'll be able to meet up if you leave it to the last minute.
• My knowledge of production schedules did increase as I didn't use one for my AS coursework meaning that some of my tasks were done at the last minute, but the use of the schedules in my A2 coursework meant that everything was completed on time.
• I believe that for our A2 music video we could have planned our filming even further in advance because we did have set backs as we were forced to change our artist and therefore our draft video was filmed in a hurry.
• Strength - still manage to complete the work on time even when under pressure.
• Weakness - to put myself under pressure by leaving some tasks too late.

Working individually or part of a group:

• When you work in a group the work load lightens as you can evenly distribute it, but it means that you have to rely upon other people to work hard otherwise it will affect your work. When you work on your own you have a lot of work to do and it's was to become stressed, but your work will be exactly how you want it without someone else's input.
• I think it's slightly harder to plan when in a group because people's ideas will clash and therefore there needs to be a compromise. It's also quite difficult to get work done together as you have to find time when you're all free.

Organisation of planning materials:

• Most of our planning material was posted straight onto our blog as soon as we'd decided what we were going to do, but some of our ideas were jotted down on paper.
• I think I used my blog at A2 a lot more than I did in AS because there were more ideas and changes as I was working in a group.
• We mainly followed our storyboard exactly, except for one action of the artist when he changed the hat he was wearing instead of his jacket because at the time of filming we didn't have another jacket available, so we deviated from the storyboard on the spot.
• Every time we progressed in our coursework we added a post to mention how we'd moved along and it was important because it showed all the work we had been doing for our coursework and it showed that we were meeting the deadlines.
• I used the research and planning skills for my ancillary tasks as well as the music video.

Presentation of research and planning:

• Most of the primary and secondary research was posted on our blog in writing, though we also used prezi presentations, scribd, slideshare, youtube, tubechop and animoto to present our research.
• The presentation of our research did get more creative as throughout our coursework we used as many different digital technologies that we could.

1. The research into our chosen genre helped us with our production work because it showed us what professional music videos within that genre tend to be like and what kind of theme they have, so that we could include it in our own music video to make it look professional and let our chosen genre be obvious.
2. The research into our target audience contributed to our production work because it gave us an idea of what our audience liked and we could then include it in our coursework and aim our work at our audience.
3. The research into institutions and the regulation of media influence effected our production work because it told us what we could and couldn't include and what needed to be present.
4. We used storyboards and shot lists to plan our music video, which helped us to complete our filming and editing efficently and on time.
5. We found that it was easier for us to film our music video in chronological order because otherwise the shots were different and jumpy, whereas when we filmed it in the same order as the storyboard the shots flowed better, so we needed to change our shot list.
6. The audience feedback helped us to decide how to film and edit our work to gain the best look, it told us whether the elements we had included worked and what things we should maybe consider changing, like the framing of our shots.

Detail how your understanding of the importance of good research and planning skills developed throughout the pre-production of your AS and A2 coursework.

The importance of good research and planning skills increased for my A2 coursework because the research was crucial to our work, as neither of us had made an music video before and therefore didn't know where to begin. The research taught us what we needed in order to create the video, whereas the research in my AS coursework just gave me ideas for my own music magazine, as I already had an idea of what I would need to include to create the magazine. For both pieces of coursework it was essential that research was carried out into the likes and dislikes of the target audience, as this allowed me to design the magazine and video to be interesting to the audience I was aiming for. It was important to look into the institutions and the regulation of media influence, because the research affected the production work as it informed me what I could and couldn't include within my coursework pieces in order to fit in with what needs to be included within a music magazine and video. The planning of the coursework pieces meant that the draft was based on the information I had collected through my research and therefore the audience feedback I received for my draft allowed me to improve my work and planning so that it would appeal to my target audience. Looking into the importance of primary and secondary research helped me to create my coursework through analysing media conventions that needed to be a key part of my work. I think this held more importance for my A2 work as I had never filmed a music video before and therefore didn't know anything about it.

Scream, 1996

In what ways can Inglourious Basterds be considered postmodern?

In what ways can Inglourious Basterds be considered postmodern?

Within Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino incorporates many features that could be considered as postmodern, all interlinking together and making it hard to place the film within a specific genre. Tarantino also takes measures to ensure that the film doesn’t look realistic; this is supported by the use of ‘Once upon a time…’ at the very beginning of the film because it links in with fairy tales, which are stereotypically known for beginning with that phrase. The theme of fairy tales is continued throughout the film, such as when Hans Landa slips the shoe onto Bridget von Hammersmark’s foot, an action lifted from the fairy tale Cinderella. The continued cleanliness of the characters, despite whatever happens to them like Aldo’s kidnapping, also enforces the unrealistic element showing that the film is just fiction and not a proper representation of the Second World War. This technique also enforces the feeling of hyperreality, as the characters don’t look or act like stereotypical characters in war films and the deaths that occur within the film don’t seem to have any importance to the characters, whereas in a stereotypical war film death is used heavily to make the film emotional and highlight the importance of the soldiers.

Talcott Parsons created the non-postmodernist theory through his observations of society taking a structural functionalist viewpoint, which suggests that society needs structures to keep it together, like literature and film. Therefore, postmodern texts would reject expected structures and defined roles, an aspect which is present within Inglourious Basterds, as the film is split into five chapters, a literary element that usually isn’t used in films. Each chapter within the film shows part of the characters story, switching between Shosanna and the Inglourious Basterds, but the short length of each chapter doesn’t allow any character development. Although the plot follows a linear timeline, the use of chapters’ breaks up the film and creates a disjointed sensation, rather than following the chronological order which is expected within films. Inglourious Basterds could be considered postmodern due to the chapters which break up the film, because it doesn’t follow the expected structure for films and instead uses a literary structure.

Postmodernism reassesses the roles and constructions of gender, especially through the characters of Shosanna and Bridget von Hammersmark who portray strong, independent women within a male dominated society. Shosanna breaks the convention of war-time women by owning her own business and taking action against the Nazi’s on her own, as during the Second World War women were expected to follow the orders of society to help the war effort, something Shosanna isn’t willing to do when she is asked to show the propaganda film, Nation’s Pride, for the Nazi’s. The fact that she also burns down her cinema whilst all the high ranking Nazi’s are trapped inside portrays Shosanna as a powerful figure because she is responsible for the destruction. Bridget von Hammersmark is also a powerful female character because of her position within the war, as a secret British spy she has authority over the British troops and as a well known actress in France she has secret information from the Nazi’s. She uses both of these powers to help to bring down the Reich, by smuggling in the Bear Jew and Omar to the Nation’s Pride premiere, so that they can blow up the cinema.

Tarantino includes music from other films, such as the music from ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ as well as mimicked shots that can be seen in many spaghetti western films. Using Levi-Strauss’ concept of bricolage, this element would fall under the category of addition. There are links to other films within Inglourious Basterds, such as the first couple of shots at the beginning of the film reflect the opening shots from ‘The Sound of Music’ as they both include the scenic shots of the Alps. Tarantino also uses subtle references to other films to hint at the actions that are about to occur, like when the barman in Chapter 4: Operation Kino touches his gun underneath the bar. The action relates to Mexican standoffs/shoot outs, a Western film convention, that indicates that there will be a fight within the basement, possibly in a similar style to Western films.

In the first scene of the film, when Hans Landa is looking at the floor boards from a bird’s eyes view, Tarantino uses set reflective camera shots to implement that Inglourious Basterds is just a film and not to be taken seriously. This can also be seen later on in the film when the set is shown through an over head shot, showing Shosanna running out of the room, but still including the door frame in the shot. Hans Landa is then shown to be standing in the doorway from behind at the end of the scene, an intertexual reference from ‘The Searches’.

Another element of Levi-Strauss’ theory is deletion, which could be considered present due to the deaths of the characters. The members of the basterds who are killed in the tavern scene reject the stereotypical war film death and survival rules, as it is expected that the basterds would survive because they are the ‘good guys’ but instead they die like the other characters in the scene. However, this brings a sense of realism to the film, because the fact that all the heroes within war films usually survive isn’t very realistic, so the deaths of the basterds could reflect the real deaths that happened in the war. In some ways the deaths are similar to those in films like ‘Dirty Dozen’ and ‘The Magnificent Seven’ indicating that Tarantino could have found inspiration for the character deaths from those films.

Music in Inglourious Basterds is used often by Tarantino to create certain atmospheres and emotions. The music used in the projection box scene is a good example of this, as when Fredrick is climbing the stairs to see Shosanna, there is dramatic music playing in the background. The music implies that there is going to be some sort of action taking place shortly, as it has connotations to war films, but when Shosanna opens the door to Fredrick the music stops abruptly, making it seem as though there is only going to be a conversation between the two characters. When Tarantino cuts the music it decreases the anticipation and dramatic impact, instead of letting the impact increase by continuing with the music which is a normal convention of films. However, when Shosanna and Fredrick’s conversation ends with Shosanna shooting Fredrick, music starts up again as Fredrick reveals himself to still be alive. The music has a romantic feel to it, indicating that Shosanna may be regretting her actions, which could also be supported when she goes toward Fredrick to check on him. Therefore when Fredrick rolls over and shoots Shosanna in revenge it is quite unexpected because the music doesn’t fit in with the characters actions and the slow motion shooting and death of Shosanna also indicates a romantic element. The use of the romantic music could make both the characters’ deaths seem more tragic, which is a typical element to accompany a characters’ death within a film. Fredrick doesn’t survive long enough to see his revenge finish, a factor that is usually present within typical war films, again showing how Tarantino is almost pushing the boundaries of stereotypical war films.

Overall Inglourious Basterds shows both the stereotypical elements of a war film whilst also pushing the boundaries by using hyperreality and detached characters. Tarantino also changes the actual facts of the Second World War, such as Hitler’s death by the basterds rather than showing his actual death by suicide. Because the facts of the actual war are not presented within the film also relates to the idea of hyperreality and therefore into postmodernism. Tarantino’s influences from other films, unrealistic elements and other medias from different eras all come together within Inglourious Basterds to make the film postmodern.

Creativity

AS Coursework:

• inspiration - my magazine was inspired by many other indie genre music magazines, as I used similar conventions and styles to theirs to convey my own genre.
• inventiveness - I had to invent my own artist to feature in my magazine, creating a back story and products in order to make the magazine more realistic.

A2 Coursework:

• resourcefulness - we used the resources around our location to get the props we needed for our video, meaning we could get everything we needed from one place.
• originality - our idea and artist for our video was original.

What has prevented you from being more creative?

• Task choice being made beforehand: we were given the task to complete and couldn't choose what project we wanted to undertake.
• Project deadline: we had to have certain parts of our project done for certain dates meaning we couldn't go back and improve or change parts we may have wanted to, or spent more time on tasks.
• Difficulty in gaining the preferred location: it was difficult to find the right location we wanted
• Technology used: we didn't have access to professional technologies that are used in the media industry.
• The actors used: we didn't use professional actors/models for our projects, instead using friends who weren't used to being in similar situations.

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

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

 

"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 valid ate the innovation." (Csikszentmihalyi 1996) - disagree

"There is no absolute judgement [on creativity] All judgements arecomparisons of one thing with another." (Donald Larning) - agree

"Technology has taken all the creativity out of media production" - disagree

"A project that is too well planned lacks opportunities for spontaneity and creativity." - disagree

"Media producers can learn nothing from studying the conventions of old texts." - disagree

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) - disagree

"If creativity is not inherent in human mental power and is, in fact, social and situational, the technological developments may well be linked to advances in the creativity of individual users." (Banji, Burn and Buckingham 2006) - agree


Outline to what extent you were creative in your AS and A2 coursework tasks?

Within the AS and A2 coursework task there were 5 main problems which hindered how creative I could be overall: the task choice, the deadlines, the technology, the actors and the location. As our tasks were chosen beforehand by the school, it meant that we couldn't be as created as we wanted as we couldn't choose what coursework task we wanted to do being told that we were to make a music magazine for AS coursework and a music video for A2 coursework. Although this was unavoidable, it lowered the level of creativity because it wasn't possible to do anything we wanted, within reason. During the creation of my coursework, deadlines were set to make sure that everything was up to date and that the work was actually being done. However, the deadlines sometimes caused work to be rushed in order to be finished on time and at times didn't allow changes to be made to coursework once it was handed in. This made it harder to be creative when creating my coursework because everything had to be done for a certain time meaning less time was spent on the tasks and caused some parts to be more simplistic that originally desired. For both pieces of coursework, finding the right location and actors for the artists was difficult, as they had to be aesthetically pleasing but also quite confident in order to look as much like a professional artist as possible. Obviously, using professional actors/models was not realistic, hampering the creativity because the people used in the coursework were not used to doing the tasks asked of them and weren't comfortable some of the time. It was hard to find locations that would work with the theme of the coursework and in some cases this meant improvising, which meant that the creative freedom was lowered as I had to work around the location, rather than finding one that would have fit in well with the theme. The technology used in the coursework also prevented me from being more creative because it wasn't the newest technology on offer and this obstructed the creativity because the work wasn't the best quality and some edits couldn't be applied.
However, I was also quite creative within both the coursework tasks despite the problems that occurred. In my music magazine for my AS coursework I tried to keep the theme of having black and white images relating to my created artist. My double page spread used this effectively by having a grey scale background but my artist being in colour, making her stand out on the page. This also allowed me to have brightly coloured text as it could be read against the background and fulfilled my wish to have bright colours throughout my magazine. In contrast, for the A2 coursework created by Sarah and I, we chose to have darker colours, to fit in with the sombre mood of the song we were using for our video. Having this element in our music video extended to our individual tasks of creating a digipak and magazine advert, which connected everything together. For our video we went through 3 different actors to play our artist, allowing us to try different styles and looks, which I think made our video more creative because we tried so many different ideas. The images I used for my digipak were also quite creative as the photo shoot we had focused on having a wide variety of shots and poses to create a random look and because we used each other for our images we had no images of our artist, an element which is expected within the music industry and in my opinion made both our work creative and original.
Overall, I think that I was quite creative for both of my coursework tasks by using themes and originality to create the look and idea that I wanted. I do think that my A2 coursework was more creative than my AS task, most likely because of the experience I received from creating my AS coursework and because I worked with Sarah for the task, as working together culminated in more ideas and thoughts, giving us more creative ideas to work with.

Exam Question 1A.

Describe and evaluate your skills development over the course of your production work.
 Describe - outline, list, give an account, say what they are
Evaluate - good points and bad
Skills - technology, researching, creativity, editing,
Development - how ou've improved, progressed
Over the course - AS and A2
Production work - prelims, music magazine, music video, magazine advert, digipak


Skills Evaluation
 
Digital Technology - using current technology availible, software and hardware. Own or borrowed?
Creativity - the way you've developed conventions using your own ideas. Coming up with individual and original ideas. e.g. Editing
Research and Planning - looking at other texts and conventions. Crucial to developing own product, drawing inspiration. Internet, Blogger
Post-Production - Editing, feedback, rework, improvemnet
Using convention from real media texts - drawing inspiration from otyher texts. what works in the real world