Exam Mock:
‘Discuss the ways the narrative of one of your productions enhances it’s appeal’
The brief of a2 production was to promote an unsigned band through the production of a music video. The narrative of my music video is a liner narrative which is performance based, integrated with elements of a slapstick comedic narrative. This enticed the audience, developing them as active as it engaged them into two the two-dimensional music video. This is effective as my production was influenced by the genre of ska-punk and skate-punk which are renown for this type of structural narrative. I was inspired by ‘less Than Jake- Does this Lion City Still Roar?’, which focused on intervening the bands performance with a comedic narrative. We utilised this and sot ‘Smaller Than You’ performing, cross faded and edited with a narrative of the band and various skateboarders (other cast-members), relaying drumsticks through Norwich’s urban inner city, to get them back to Jake, the drummer of the band. This was significant to the mise-en-scene as both the performance and the drumstick enhanced and conveyed the bands passion for music.
We were influenced by Todorov’s narrative theory of an equilibrium, a disruption and a new equilibrium, like the narrative of ‘High Planes Drifter’. This developed our music video into 3 equal sections; the first being Jake with his drumsticks at Sound Clash, being the equilibrium; the second the drumsticks being stolen leading to the middle section of the band endeavouring to retrieve them, of the disruption; and the last section of Jake retrieving the drumsticks for ‘Smaller Than You’s gig, being the new equilibrium, ending with closure.
This narrative developed both ska-punk through generic elements, and skate-punk and social realism. Our narrative was extremely similar to the social realist film ‘Fish Tank’, which has a clear linear narrative but on the other hand stands in complete opposition as this British art house film contends with alienation and seclusion in youth in an urban area, whereas ours deals with youth unifying in urban areas to pursue their passion of music and skateboarding, instead of crime. Our comedic based narrative developed skate-punk and ska-punk significantly as we utilised skateboarding into our narrative, dominating the mise -en-scene. This element of the mise-en-scene and narrative amplified the genre as skateboarding and comedy are both featured in the ska-punk underground genre. This is as they are both associated with urban areas, which is why we shot in Norwich’s desolate Anglia Square. Utilising a performance based narrative as well was effective as it allowed the audience to visualise the band, promoting them heavily and continuously in the video. AS the band are unsigned it was fundamental for us to promote them as much as possible for the audience to become familiar with them. Thus we used close-up shots of the bands image, which stated in the Godwin theory, should be apparent.
Other ska bands music video’s such as ‘Sum 41- In Too Deep’ and ‘Catch-22- Point The Blame’ utilise this double based narrative to reference the genre and appeal to the audience. This develops the band passion of music through the performance and signifies their humorous aspect through the comedy. We developed a post-modernist text by integrating skateboarding with slapstick humour, such as the slapstick films of ‘Keystone Kops’ and ‘Lauren and Hardy’, with humour into a ska-punk , which hasn’t been endeavoured before in a music video.
Another element of Goodwin’s theory is that there should be a relationship between the lyrics of the song and the visuals of the media text. The lyrics of ‘Who Knew’ the song we were promoting entailed movement and transition, such as “run away from the light”, “actions have consequences” and “chasing me”, which we symbolised through the use of running, skateboarding and cars. These phrases taken from the song are significant in conveying quick transition, which symbolises the bands message of the transition of becoming an adult. We developed a fast paced edit to carry the motif of transition and movement, and to also fit with the fast ska melodies, renowned in this type of optimistic music.
Our mise-en-scene and narrative with skateboarding, running, fast cats with a fast edit. This was significant in conveying a fast paced narrative, linking with the lyrics and genre. This reference of skateboarding is to entice appeal to make the audience demographic of 15-20, who are primarily males, be interested. This is effective as the genre is also associated with skateboarding, young males and urban scenes, which we utilised into our mise-en-scene. The skateboarding element to our narrative was inspired by Nike SB’s Promotional video- ‘Today Was A Good Day’, which heavily targeted young males who skateboarded in LA.
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
New Final Panels
Above- Front Panel
Above- Inner Left Panel
Above- Inside Right Panel
Above- Back Panel
I have manipulated these four panels on Adobe Photoshop and have altered them to fit the size of a 45" (7")vinyl.
These images are my final four panels for my vinyl pint production. I have manipulated them to the size that will fit my record. This production is influenced by 45” (7") singles and 33” LP’s as it has attributes of both. Although my vinyl is a single with and A and a B side, the presentation isn’t exactly the same. I wanted a proper front cover, like the appearance of an album without the generic hole in the middle of the slip. I want the slip to be much thicker and in the form of a book, like some of the LP’s (as seen below) I have researched. This means the first image shown above is the front cover of my single and the last image with the record information on, is the back. My vinyl will open up, like a book or leaflet, to show both my middle manipulations. The inside right image and the back image of the vinyl will have a slit at the top which holds the record itself.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Ska Records
For the developing of all my of my productions it was fundamental and professional for my group to develop a record label. We wanted to specifically produce a label that is renowned for underground music and the hybrids of ska. We decided on the name of 'Ska Records' as its a basic name which is easily remembered by audiences and the music industry.
On Photoshop Premiere Elements we manipulated the generic vans label from an image of a vans trainer. We then changed the writing to our record label as it will then remind the audience of a specific type of costume (Vans) reinforcing youth and the genre.
I am using this image on the inside right panel of my vinyl package.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Preperation for G325 Question A
Revision notes
Genre- Generic Conventions
Thriller
Brief was to create a short opening to a thriller with soundtrack and titles.
Characters:
The Femme Fatale- a dangerous, seductive and manipulative women who advocates female independence excluding traditional female roles.
Monica- is our deviant femme fatale and is the protagonist of the narrative, which challenges the generic conventions of thrillers as the protagonists are usually male dominated, for example, Michael in the ‘The Godfather Trilogy‘, Samuel L.Jackson and Brad Pitt in ‘Seven’ and Holly Martins in ‘The Third Man’. Monica was influenced by Jackie Brown as she is independent and free from men which is unusual in female roles in the genre, however she doesn’t she is inadequate to the genre being middle aged, middle class and black. We gave Monica this power and independence over men along with seductive attributes like Mia from ‘Pulp Fiction’, and Barbara from ‘Double Indemnity’, who were our main influences for Monica. Monica’s costume was the same as Mia‘s generic costume of red lipstick, black heels and black hair in ‘Pulp Fiction’ conveying her as seductive, her character strongly inspired our femme fatale to smoke and abuse drugs, which is a recurring motif in modern thrillers such as Scarface and Jackie Brown. Monica‘s image was distinctly feminine unlike some modern feme fataales like, Tarention‘s Bride in kill Bill. Tarentino was a great inspiration for the basis of our femme fatale and he takes a post-modernist approach and challenges the generic conventions of the genre.
Sam- is a significant character in our narrative who sparingly gets killed off, inspired by Tarentino’s looser characters, like Melanie from ‘Jackie Brown’. His character was developed in order to connote Monica’s manipulative power and control over people, especially men.
Location:
Building Site- this location was significant in order to convey the mise en scene’s danger and generic conventions of thrillers. This location is extremely unglamorous and contrasts with the sophisticated Monica. This desolate location connoted an un-secure and corrupt atmosphere similar to the vast marshes in 'Essex Boys',and developed entrapment as the site was full of cargo crates surrounding, forming a claustrophobic space, like the murder of Beaumont inside a car boot in a desolate car park. Claustrophobia is key in thrillers as it connotes a sense of fear to the audience, building up to the climax, for instance in ‘Kill Bill Vol 2’ when the Bride gets buried alive.
Soundtrack:
Richard Straus ‘Last Song’- This soundtrack steadily builds up the tension and climax of the narrative leading to an ambiguous denouement. This song influenced the title for our thriller, ‘Monica’s Last Song’, as it foreshadows Monica’s possible fate/doom, this is using the genre as usually the femme fatal or passive female character is killed of, which is an act of misogyny.
Inter-textual references:
Plug Hole Scene- We manipulated the scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s, Psycho, where Marion Crane (the passive and submissive female character) gets murdered in a bathroom, this adds to the development of claustrophobia, however voyeurism is developed when the camera zooms into the plug hole. We referenced this scene by having Monica wash her hands from the blood of a murder, whilst slowly zooming closely into the plug hole of the sink. This developed the tension felt during Psycho and linked both Monica and Marion together, reinforcing Monica’s doom further in the narrative. This scene also possibly reflects Lady Macbeth’s insanity, paranoia and obsession with washing her hands from the guilt of murder.
Lighting: we couldn’t achieve chiaroscuro or noir lighting so we shot in broad daylight like Essex boys.
Shots:
Canted- conveying a giddy and corrupt atmosphere like, ‘The third Man’
Low Angles- established the superior characters to the inferior, Monica was shot from a low angle, and Sam from a high.
Music Video
-Brief was to create a music video to promote an unsigned band- ‘Smaller Than You’.
-Was more of a challenge as we had to connote the characters/band-members emotions and personalities through actions, instead of dialogue.
-Needed to follow the Goodwin Theory of having a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
-I progressed extremely in significantly utilising genre and making the product professional.
Genre is Ska-punk, a hybrid of Ska.
Challenge the Genre-
We took a post modernist approach to the genre by featuring female skateboarders in our video, challenging the genre by altering gender power relations. As the band consisted of 6 members, one being female, we decided to promote her strongly to advocate females in the Ska industry. Ska bands are extremely male dominated, for example Spunge, Reel Big Fish, Mad Caddies and the 2 tone renowned group, The Special’s, which are all bands Smaller Than You are influenced by. The exceptions to these male dominated ska acts are No Doubt and The Raincoats, which both have female lead singers.
Skate-punk-Although the genre was Ska-punk we infused skateboarding into our narrative to deveopl a subgenre of Ska called skate-punk,which is popular amongst bands who enjoy both music and skateboarding. We were influenced by bands such as Blink 182 and Offspring who advocated the genre of skate-punk. This subgenre was created in America and is associated with American Ska, where skateboarding was growing in popularity and was a form of rebellion. This is extremely fundamental to our video as we wanted to predominantly target Ska-punk as well as Skate-punk.
Costume- As our narrative was performance based integrated with a skateboarding slapstick comedy story, the costume needed to be generic for both the genre and the democratic sport. All the cast members wore generic Vans and Etnies clothing, which are both associated with Ska-punk and skateboarding. Shoes were a significant part of the bands video as most of them were skateboarding in the second narrative, the camera was focused primarily on the stunts and tricks they did in this part of the narrative, so there brand style and genre had to be connoted through this part of their costume significantly. We needed the cast members and band to look young to appeal to their youthful audience demographic of 16-25, which was significantly carried out by the costume. The bands attire was influenced by Sum 41‘s ‘In too Deep‘, and Less Than Jakes ‘Does This Lion City Still Roar?’ Music videos. ‘Smaller Than You’ all wore Vans, Etnies, and band merchandise, for example Iron Maiden t-shirts, as worn by the guitarist of 'Sum 41'. ‘Smaller Than You’ are extremely interested in the genre and appealing to their target audience and to convey this generic appearance Jasper, the bassist of the band wore an Aquabats t-shirt who are a renowned Ska-punk band, and one of the skateboarders wore a 'Rolling Stones' t-shirt and has tattoo's, adding to the sense of youth rebellion.
Location-
Urban Landscapes- These were core to using and developing the genre as these scenes are associated with underground music, which are the roots of Ska-punk. Urban landscapes were fundamental in our music video as our narrative was primarily filmed in this location, reinforcing the nature of the music. These urban scenes such as Norwich’s run down and unglamorous Anglia Square, is significant as the location is associated with rebellion and skateboarding, but also establishes the Britishniess of the band. The filming of urban landscapes in our video references the music video of Less Than Jakes- ‘Does This Lion City Still Roar?’ and Nike SB’s promotional video- ‘Today Was A Good Day’. Both these videos were significant in targeting their audience (and genre) through costume and location, focusing on urban landscapes, like the negative portrayal of La in Nike’s skateboarding video.
SoundClash- This is a music store in Norwich which is renowned for selling underground, urban, ska, and reggae music, appealing to our band and audience immediately. We filmed outside and inside this music store as it connoted independent new music and excludes the mainstream music industry.
Props-
Skateboard- This prop was fundamental to the genre and band, as it is a favourite hobby of theirs. This is significant as it provides escapism for the audience to experience their lifestyle and how important music and skateboarding are to them.
Drumsticks-This prop represented the bands passion for music and was the main focus of the music video. These drum sticks were used to entice the audience, keeping them engaged and active, this is also apparent in ‘Less Than Jakes- Does This Lion City Still Roar?’ where this ska band’s device is a pair of sunglasses which is central to the narrative throughout. These sticks formed the comedic narrative and were used as an object to pass and create a relay with the band and skateboarders, throughout Norwich’s city.
Lighting- in order to use the genre significantly we kept the grading and lighting Ambient, shooting on bright days to add to the optimism of the genre, this is also apparent in many Ska bands music video’s, for example the video of ‘Sum 41- In too Deep’ is extremely bright and vibrant. This use of bright lighting connoted a bright atmosphere and related to the ast pace melodies of the genre.
Shots-
I was inspired by Nike SB’s promotional video. This video was fundamental towards my research as the costume utilised was extremely generic to skateboarding which is extremely similar to the costume of the genre. As the video was promoting Nike shoes, the shots were extremely focused on the skateboard and influenced the variation of shots in our video. This video inspired our filming of urban scenes and how to keep the shots varied, for example we were influenced to film underneath the skateboard to show the trick above, increasing the professionalism and effectiveness of out music video. This video also influenced ours as they were a good example of filming the different skateboarders (band members in our video), and the product (in our case the skateboard and drumsticks), with the urban landscape.
Genre- Generic Conventions
Thriller
Brief was to create a short opening to a thriller with soundtrack and titles.
Characters:
The Femme Fatale- a dangerous, seductive and manipulative women who advocates female independence excluding traditional female roles.
Monica- is our deviant femme fatale and is the protagonist of the narrative, which challenges the generic conventions of thrillers as the protagonists are usually male dominated, for example, Michael in the ‘The Godfather Trilogy‘, Samuel L.Jackson and Brad Pitt in ‘Seven’ and Holly Martins in ‘The Third Man’. Monica was influenced by Jackie Brown as she is independent and free from men which is unusual in female roles in the genre, however she doesn’t she is inadequate to the genre being middle aged, middle class and black. We gave Monica this power and independence over men along with seductive attributes like Mia from ‘Pulp Fiction’, and Barbara from ‘Double Indemnity’, who were our main influences for Monica. Monica’s costume was the same as Mia‘s generic costume of red lipstick, black heels and black hair in ‘Pulp Fiction’ conveying her as seductive, her character strongly inspired our femme fatale to smoke and abuse drugs, which is a recurring motif in modern thrillers such as Scarface and Jackie Brown. Monica‘s image was distinctly feminine unlike some modern feme fataales like, Tarention‘s Bride in kill Bill. Tarentino was a great inspiration for the basis of our femme fatale and he takes a post-modernist approach and challenges the generic conventions of the genre.
Sam- is a significant character in our narrative who sparingly gets killed off, inspired by Tarentino’s looser characters, like Melanie from ‘Jackie Brown’. His character was developed in order to connote Monica’s manipulative power and control over people, especially men.
Location:
Building Site- this location was significant in order to convey the mise en scene’s danger and generic conventions of thrillers. This location is extremely unglamorous and contrasts with the sophisticated Monica. This desolate location connoted an un-secure and corrupt atmosphere similar to the vast marshes in 'Essex Boys',and developed entrapment as the site was full of cargo crates surrounding, forming a claustrophobic space, like the murder of Beaumont inside a car boot in a desolate car park. Claustrophobia is key in thrillers as it connotes a sense of fear to the audience, building up to the climax, for instance in ‘Kill Bill Vol 2’ when the Bride gets buried alive.
Soundtrack:
Richard Straus ‘Last Song’- This soundtrack steadily builds up the tension and climax of the narrative leading to an ambiguous denouement. This song influenced the title for our thriller, ‘Monica’s Last Song’, as it foreshadows Monica’s possible fate/doom, this is using the genre as usually the femme fatal or passive female character is killed of, which is an act of misogyny.
Inter-textual references:
Plug Hole Scene- We manipulated the scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s, Psycho, where Marion Crane (the passive and submissive female character) gets murdered in a bathroom, this adds to the development of claustrophobia, however voyeurism is developed when the camera zooms into the plug hole. We referenced this scene by having Monica wash her hands from the blood of a murder, whilst slowly zooming closely into the plug hole of the sink. This developed the tension felt during Psycho and linked both Monica and Marion together, reinforcing Monica’s doom further in the narrative. This scene also possibly reflects Lady Macbeth’s insanity, paranoia and obsession with washing her hands from the guilt of murder.
Lighting: we couldn’t achieve chiaroscuro or noir lighting so we shot in broad daylight like Essex boys.
Shots:
Canted- conveying a giddy and corrupt atmosphere like, ‘The third Man’
Low Angles- established the superior characters to the inferior, Monica was shot from a low angle, and Sam from a high.
Music Video
-Brief was to create a music video to promote an unsigned band- ‘Smaller Than You’.
-Was more of a challenge as we had to connote the characters/band-members emotions and personalities through actions, instead of dialogue.
-Needed to follow the Goodwin Theory of having a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
-I progressed extremely in significantly utilising genre and making the product professional.
Genre is Ska-punk, a hybrid of Ska.
Challenge the Genre-
We took a post modernist approach to the genre by featuring female skateboarders in our video, challenging the genre by altering gender power relations. As the band consisted of 6 members, one being female, we decided to promote her strongly to advocate females in the Ska industry. Ska bands are extremely male dominated, for example Spunge, Reel Big Fish, Mad Caddies and the 2 tone renowned group, The Special’s, which are all bands Smaller Than You are influenced by. The exceptions to these male dominated ska acts are No Doubt and The Raincoats, which both have female lead singers.
Skate-punk-Although the genre was Ska-punk we infused skateboarding into our narrative to deveopl a subgenre of Ska called skate-punk,which is popular amongst bands who enjoy both music and skateboarding. We were influenced by bands such as Blink 182 and Offspring who advocated the genre of skate-punk. This subgenre was created in America and is associated with American Ska, where skateboarding was growing in popularity and was a form of rebellion. This is extremely fundamental to our video as we wanted to predominantly target Ska-punk as well as Skate-punk.
Costume- As our narrative was performance based integrated with a skateboarding slapstick comedy story, the costume needed to be generic for both the genre and the democratic sport. All the cast members wore generic Vans and Etnies clothing, which are both associated with Ska-punk and skateboarding. Shoes were a significant part of the bands video as most of them were skateboarding in the second narrative, the camera was focused primarily on the stunts and tricks they did in this part of the narrative, so there brand style and genre had to be connoted through this part of their costume significantly. We needed the cast members and band to look young to appeal to their youthful audience demographic of 16-25, which was significantly carried out by the costume. The bands attire was influenced by Sum 41‘s ‘In too Deep‘, and Less Than Jakes ‘Does This Lion City Still Roar?’ Music videos. ‘Smaller Than You’ all wore Vans, Etnies, and band merchandise, for example Iron Maiden t-shirts, as worn by the guitarist of 'Sum 41'. ‘Smaller Than You’ are extremely interested in the genre and appealing to their target audience and to convey this generic appearance Jasper, the bassist of the band wore an Aquabats t-shirt who are a renowned Ska-punk band, and one of the skateboarders wore a 'Rolling Stones' t-shirt and has tattoo's, adding to the sense of youth rebellion.
Location-
Urban Landscapes- These were core to using and developing the genre as these scenes are associated with underground music, which are the roots of Ska-punk. Urban landscapes were fundamental in our music video as our narrative was primarily filmed in this location, reinforcing the nature of the music. These urban scenes such as Norwich’s run down and unglamorous Anglia Square, is significant as the location is associated with rebellion and skateboarding, but also establishes the Britishniess of the band. The filming of urban landscapes in our video references the music video of Less Than Jakes- ‘Does This Lion City Still Roar?’ and Nike SB’s promotional video- ‘Today Was A Good Day’. Both these videos were significant in targeting their audience (and genre) through costume and location, focusing on urban landscapes, like the negative portrayal of La in Nike’s skateboarding video.
SoundClash- This is a music store in Norwich which is renowned for selling underground, urban, ska, and reggae music, appealing to our band and audience immediately. We filmed outside and inside this music store as it connoted independent new music and excludes the mainstream music industry.
Props-
Skateboard- This prop was fundamental to the genre and band, as it is a favourite hobby of theirs. This is significant as it provides escapism for the audience to experience their lifestyle and how important music and skateboarding are to them.
Drumsticks-This prop represented the bands passion for music and was the main focus of the music video. These drum sticks were used to entice the audience, keeping them engaged and active, this is also apparent in ‘Less Than Jakes- Does This Lion City Still Roar?’ where this ska band’s device is a pair of sunglasses which is central to the narrative throughout. These sticks formed the comedic narrative and were used as an object to pass and create a relay with the band and skateboarders, throughout Norwich’s city.
Lighting- in order to use the genre significantly we kept the grading and lighting Ambient, shooting on bright days to add to the optimism of the genre, this is also apparent in many Ska bands music video’s, for example the video of ‘Sum 41- In too Deep’ is extremely bright and vibrant. This use of bright lighting connoted a bright atmosphere and related to the ast pace melodies of the genre.
Shots-
I was inspired by Nike SB’s promotional video. This video was fundamental towards my research as the costume utilised was extremely generic to skateboarding which is extremely similar to the costume of the genre. As the video was promoting Nike shoes, the shots were extremely focused on the skateboard and influenced the variation of shots in our video. This video inspired our filming of urban scenes and how to keep the shots varied, for example we were influenced to film underneath the skateboard to show the trick above, increasing the professionalism and effectiveness of out music video. This video also influenced ours as they were a good example of filming the different skateboarders (band members in our video), and the product (in our case the skateboard and drumsticks), with the urban landscape.
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