The Mighty Boosh

Mighty boosh presentation

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Mighty Boosh

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Question 1B

1b – Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of audience.

The music video I wanted to create had to appeal to a certain audience. This meant that the music video had to contain certain key elements that would attract or entertain a specific group of people.

The genre of music that I used was dubstep, this is a fairly new musical genre but is very popular with young people as it is party music. The fun and youthful genre allowed me to be creative with the narrative but I had to be strict with myself and the production team when it came to certain conventions as I wanted target the right audience. Nicholas Abercrombie stated “Television producers are set out to exploit genre conventions,” this influenced me to look at similar artists that have made a music video to suit a similar audience to mine so I researched into a band called The Streets, where I saw lots of camera angles and editing styles that would appeal to category C2.

All of the characters in my video were 18 years of age and were all male; I chose this as I wanted to appeal to ‘YAKS’ which is short for ‘Young Adventurous Keen and Singe’. This would be targeting audience C2 which are young aspiring people from the ages of 17-24.  Due to me being surrounded by people within my sixth form that are within the C2 category I asked people about things that interest them when it comes to music videos, the only answers I received involved relationships or partying, so I went straight ahead and worked on that. At the start of my video I wanted an establishing shot which showed my audience a text that I have received from a girl saying “Reece its Amy, please pick up your phone x,” followed by a short conversation. This small scene was done naturalistic and was had no backing track behind it so that hopefully the awkward silence and the negative text is something my audience can relate to. I used clean cuts which were all to the beat and sometimes edited the footage to essentially speed up time as the songs climax or ‘drop’ as I call it is about to commence. My target audience would want to be entertained visually meaning that I had to keep changing my scenery and speeding up and slowing down the footage. I put the footage at 50% speed when I was filming in the night club, this meant that I could really recreate the party scene and give my audience time to take in all of the lighting and visual effects that were happening around my characters. I wanted my audience to be able to relate to the video as much as possible so I used expressionist camera angles which involved close ups of my characters faces at the clubs to show their drunken party like expression and highlighted how outstanding the party lifestyle is. One of the most important scenes that would relate to my audience would be the “Hangover scene.” This is where the camera angles slowly zoom in and are quite still showing a medium shot of my characters lying in bed. I did this to represent the common hangover and sickness that teenagers go through after a night out. This isnt usually common in dubstep narratives as the scenes usually end in the club, this is usually because of the song ending on a high, but I thought I would go against these narratives and try something new, but still targeting my audience and keeping them entertained.

Why is Glee Postmodern

In this blog and our discussion of postmodern television, the TV showGlee has come up as an example.. One of the theories we’ve learned about postmodernism is that it rejects the idea of metanarratives (stories about stories). In postmodernism there is not black and white, good vs. evil, etc. In the show Glee there is the character Puck, a football player who seems to be your typical tough-guy bully. However, even though Puck is a bully and even shoves around some of the other characters that we like, we still do not dislike him. We don’t see him as the villain even though typically the jock/bully is seen as the “bad guy.”

Plurality is another term we learned regarding postmodernism, and this is when there are multiple stories and multiple identities. This show has so many characters, each with their own personal story and all of their stories get told in one way or another. Within Season 2 episode 8 the character ‘David’ is focused on and he is being questioned about whether he is gay or not. The glee club is a dance singing club but within this is another story. This gives the program room to expand and here for example the program deals with modern day issues that are publicised in the media. Grand narratives are clearly contradicted in this episode as homosexuality is put in the limelight and is praised. One of the male characters shows very feminine attributes and in their rehearsal wears a top which says “Likes Boys.” This is done to try to numb the shock of homosexuals coming out and normalise it so that the program can move forward.

 There are different races, different personalities, different handicaps; different cliques, all represented in this show and all of their stories are being told. Nostalgia is another postmodern term represented in Glee. Many of the songs performed on this show are songs from the past for example Les Miserables – Kareoke and Born this Way. The teacher in charge of Glee Club, Mr. Schuester, loves doing songs from when he was younger and this really brings nostalgia to the show.

Convergence, the flow of media content across a range of different platforms is also part of this show. You can download the songs performed on the show, many viewers discuss the show online, and many people attempt to win parts on the show by creating videos of themselves singing and performing and posting them online. There are many forms of media involved with this show other than simply watching the show. Not to mention the fact that you can also watch the show online, just one more form of media regarding this show.

Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time

The tasks we were given were called the preliminary task, the main task, and the music video. These were all final products that had to be looked into very deeply to get the product that we wanted. It was a lot harder than I had predicted but I had to have good time management to make sure things went to plan.

The preliminary task proved to be a challenge for me as I had had no recent contact with any form of editing software whatsoever, but I had a brief understanding about what a magazine cover should look like. I looked deeper into the main aspects of a magazine and understood that the positioning of the picture and masthead can easily divert someones attention to or from your magazine. I looked into similar magazines and saw that the masthead is usually large and at the top of the magazine and the main picture is the main story. I took pictures around the school with a Canon 5d and a lense that I wasn’t familiar with. This helped me significantly as I was able to work with this structure and try different colors and sizes to make it look more attractive but I could have made it better if I had chosen a more suitable lense.

The preliminary task really helped me in gaining knowledge about magazines and what actually goes into them. Also it gave me soem hands on time to practice and play around with some of the effects. This was good, but I needed to look more into what goes into the research and planning of magazines. My style of magazine was urban and the type of music it was based around was grime/hip hop which is known to attract a young urban audience. Knowing now what style I had chosen it helped me target the correct audience which would influence my codes and conventions meaning a lot of research was needed to be done.

I looked through similar magazines such as Vibe and XXL and found that the colours that they use for the artists are usually red, black and gold. Now that I had looked at colour connotations are I understood that these represent blood/death, darkness/negativity and wealth. These were 3 colours that would be perfect for my magazine as I wanted to show how a young urban boy was living in a negative environment and is now rich. After taking the photos of my model I used the crop button which helped me remove the background, then I used adobe lightroom to make the picture seem dark behind him and at the same time really putting his face in a positive light as he is looking forward and upwards in the picture.

My magazine was progressing well but the organisation of it was slacking slightly. My teacher recommended that we use a site called www.blogger.com to keep track of what we had done and to make notes on what we had learnt. This was new to me as I was not familiar with any blogging site but it proved helpful as I started to manage my time a lot better and set myself targets. This then was used in my final project which was the music video.

The music video was a task which involved making a visual for a piece of music and to target it at a certain audience. I decided to use an urban style of music yet again and developed a clear understanding of what I should be looking to do. The camera I wanted to use was called a Canon 550d, this gave me the ability to shoot in HD and also go have a lot of frames per second. This was perfect for me as my music video consists of lots of slow motion actions such as smoke and laughing. I researched into slow motion and found that it is most effective when something is shown such as an emotion or a movement that wouldn’t be so spectacular if shown in normal time. Along with slow motion i would use close ups, i found out that these would highlight emotion and would pinpoint certain aspects of my video.

I would have to say that overall I gained a lot of experience in making magazines and music videos and have gained an understanding of what they consist of. Also I am familiar with technology such as DSLR cameras and editing software such as Adobe Premier and Adobe Photoshop where as before I had no knowledge at all.

Is Blade Runner Post Modern or Not?

Is Blade Runner Post Modern or not?

Blade runner is a film that has caused controversy between many critics in the media as the film has brought up the idea of post-modernism through the characters, Mis en scene and general storyline. It was directed by Ridley Scott in 1982 and till this day will he claim that it is probably the best film he has ever created. Film itself is set in future Los Angeles and begins by showing a 2019 sign to really set the futuristic scene.

One way pastiche is used within the film is through the supporting characters, there is one significant scene which is just before the character Zhora’s death when Deckard enters her room to ask about a snake. Deckard goes through all of her belongings and tells her he is part of some sort of human rights act, this is quite ironic as he has stormed into her dressing room and is practically perving on her in the shower. Even though he has entered without her permission she comes across as sexual and inviting even though she doesn’t want him to be there. Coming out of the shower, she makes no attempt at modesty and tosses a towel at Deckard, inviting him to dry her while she dresses in a bikini outfit. It is immediately after this sexually suggestive invitation that Zhora launches into her sudden and unexpected attack on Deckard. After the whole chase and conflict , there is a sudden, quick cut to a shot of Zhora's body lying face down on the ground, this shot is absolutely lifeless and could resemble a mannequin. This is significant as this relates to the eastern womens role as they were degraded as a human and essentially used to please the men. This suggests that the pastiche is post-modern but the use of the social hierarchy contradicts this.

Ridley Scott tries to show the audience what it would be like living in a modern world and questions the quality of lifestyle if the world carries on as it is. There is a clear class difference which can be seen in J.F Sebastians home. There are a high number of floors in which he has control over entering and his apartment is one of many and clearly can only be owned by the rich. It’s almost as if the rich and the poor are completely separate and is impossible for the poor to climb up the ladder. The poor are seen to be working in over-crowded and polluted environments, the loud and confined market places look nearly the same as modern markets which shows how the lower class have not been able to experience the new technology and the new things that have been created.

The film sprouts a lot of questions about things being created which links into the human qualities and the hyper-reality world that we live in. Is it possible for humans to be created to perfection? This is one of many of the questions that post-modernists would ask and the film highlights the ongoing problem with this idealistic Hollywood world that is presented in the media. The replicants are a representation of how the media creates such “perfect” people and these replicants are the new creation. They are young, fast, good looking and are stronger than any human, they hold all human qualities but are even better which is what the media portray some people to be. This brings up the question of who is a replicant

in the film? As a replicant is so good at being human, could it disguise itself in this postmodern world?

Blade Runner poses this question to “Is Deckard a Replicant?” and also brings up the theme of Identity crisis. While Harrison Ford said that he didn’t think that Deckard was a replicants and that him and the director agreed at the end of the film that Deckard was human. However according to interviews with Ridley Scott; Deckard is a replicant. Deckard is a replicants as in conversation with the Gaff near the end of the film the Gaff compliments Deckard and says  “You've done a man's job, sir. I guess you're through, huh?” This compares him to a human and seperates him from being a man. You  fails to show emotions throughout the film, like when he kills the replicants as well as during the rape scene with Rachel, however towards the end he develops emotions for her. It is suggested that a fault with the replicants allow them to develop emotions, they are not created with emotions.

Time plays a big part in the film and highlights on the importance of it throughout. The lifespan of the replicants is four years exactly and is done so to prevent them from learning too much in such a short amount of time. The advancement in technology and the thirst for knowledge is portrayed to be negative here as Ridley highlights that humans are trying to take on God’s role and this can only result in bad things.

There are also many key modernistic aspects of the film which is clear within the mis en scene and the people in the lower class market. Los angeles seems to be a poverty struck area and is filled with Chinese stalls and Oriental people which brings up the idea of such a multicultural society. This is also stereotypical of the future as the Chinese are known to be the fastest growing country in the world both in technology and the population, it seems that they have dispursed to America as well as many other races.

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