LO1: Film theory, narrative, genre and representation

LO1: Intertextuality

Intertextuality is when a media product cross's over another, for example when Rick and Morty cross over with the Simpsons.

Intertextuality is an aspect of post-modernism. Parody's, pastiche's, cross-overs.

Adrew Goodwin (1992) - Dancing to Distraction

1. Genre characteristics
2. Relation ship between music and the visuals
3. Relationship between lyrics and visuals
4. Voyeurism and notion of looking/screens within screens
5. Star image and brand
6. Intertextuality to films and other texts

Blockhead - The Music Scene

This video fits into Adrew Goodwin's theory because it contains voyeurism and notion of looking/screens within screens. The video contains visuals that represent oversexualised features which are seen within the media, the video also contains many screens within screens which characters are watching.

Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards

This video's visuals match the music which the video is for, the music's genre is psychedelic, and the trippy video's visuals is timed cleverly to the music, creating the impression that when you are wathcing the video you are on drugs, which is the purpose of psychedelic music.

Metallica - Enter Sandman

This video's visuals match the lyrics which are within the song. The song is about the sandman coming and giving a child nightmares. Aswell as showing the band singing, the video shows visuals which represent the sandman, and during the part where a satirical prayer is said, a visual of a little boy praying is shown. Visuals also show the boy going to sleep and falling into a dark place, representing him going into a deep sleep of nightmares.

Gorillaz - Stylo

This video links to the theory because it contains intertextuality. The reason for this is because the video contains the actor Bruce Willis and follows a Gorillaz vs Bruce Willis narrative. People are instantly going to be interested in the video because of this, since Bruce Willis can mean many different characters to many different fans.

White Stripes - Fell in Love with a Girl

 

This video links to the theory because it showcases the band's brand well with the videos constant use of the colours black and white. The band's star image Jack White is known for wearing red and being pale and having black hair, and their album covers usually feature this, so it seems fitting that in order to get the band's brand across to the audience through this video, which uses mostly white and red Lego.

Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box

                                                                
This video links to the theory because the video contains clear characteristics of the genre "grunge". This is shown through the band members costumes, which clearly fit the grunge scene during the 90s, it is also shown through the video's narrative, which is dark and slightly messed up, just like grunge music. When the band performs in the video, there are scenes when Kurt Cobain throws his guitar around, and kicks the drum kit, which was they type of thing grunge bands did when performing.

LO1: Structure of Promos (Pass)

Fever the Ghost: Source

Fever the Ghost are a band within the genre, psychedelic-rock, and this genre is made clear through the video's animated visuals, which are done in a psychedelic style.  This is also made clear through the video's narrative structure, which begins in a calm grassy where it is daytime, where two characters, a small old man and a large dragon live. The old man rides the dragon through a cave, where he finds a switch to a huge light bulb. The narrative connotes that it is this man's job everyday to switch this bulb on. This then leads on to the middle of the narrative, where suddenly the whole world is transformed from a calm peaceful daytime, to a crazy night time party world.

This is made evident through the music as well as the audio, since the music begins calm, and then changes to something with a fast beat, and funky instrumentals. The party goes on for the remainder for the music, until the old character looks at his watch, which tells the audience that the party is soon to come to an end.

The music then changes to an interesting melody which gives the impression that the music is being played backwards. This links into the music's genre Psychedelia, which experiments with music being played backwards, inspired by the pre-psychedelic rock album Revolver by the Beatles (I'm Only Sleeping is one of the first songs to feature guitar being played backwards). This links into the meaning of the entire promo, since when this music is played, the visuals revert back to the previous state of calmness and daytime, which is shown through many of the animate visuals being played backwards, and then leading to the end of the narrative structure, which is made significant through the visual of the old character switching the large light bulb off to end the story. 

In order for the audience to be able to follow the video's narrative, the video uses continuity, which combines animated shots which link visual together in a way which seems natural and convincing. The video is especially successful as a music video, because many of the animated characters move in time to the video, usually dancing to the beat. This entertains the audience, because the target audience are likely to be 17-25 year olds, who are interested in the narrative and the dancing characters because the like to party at night also.

The fact that the video's style is psychedelic is likely to appeal to that audience since people in that age range are more likely to party at night, and have more of an interest in psychedelic substances than any other age group, however the video never makes reference to drugs in order to avoid being prosecuted for promoting drugs. Non-dietetic sound is used through out the whole video since the video is a music video, and is based, if you like, within the world of the music. In order to appeal to both genders in the target audience, it isn't clear whether the characters within the video are male and female, this people with any gender can identify with the video. The titles are used in the beginning to show the audience who the music is by (Fever the Ghost) in order to promote the band successfully, and titles are also used to promote the animator (Felix Colgrave) since he created all the video's visuals. The font used used for these titles is quirky and fit's the whole video's genre.

John Lewis: Christmas Advert 2014

The structure of the promotional Christmas advert for John Lewis is as follows. It begins showing the happy companionship of a young boy and a penguin. It is clear that they are an impeccable due, since the beginning of the advert shows the young boy and the penguin having fun and being kind to each other, in a charming way which makes the target audience feel fuzzy and Christmas like inside. The audience begins to grow sentimental feelings towards the duo. The middle of the narrative structure then shows that the penguin begins to grow sad. This is shown through the penguins heartbreaking facial expression, and the boy is clearly upset about this and wants to resolve the problem. 

The narrative then progresses to reveal that the penguin yearns for something more than a best friend. The penguin wants a romantic companion, this is made clear through the visuals showing the penguin staring longingly at other couples, apparently looking for the same thing. 

The final part of the narrative then concludes the penguins want of romance, through the boy receiving another penguin for Christmas, which then couples up with his original penguin in an adorable fashion, the audience are left satisfied and feeling even more feelings of the Christmas spirit, since ideas of love and companionship have been resolved in a short narrative. The narrative then twists slightly, through showing that both are the penguins are actually just toys for the boy to play with, which makes the narrative appealing to children, since it may inspire children to want to play with penguins also. It will also appeal to parents, since watching the advert may make them appreciate and relate to the parent characters in the trailer.

Because the narrative brings out so many sentimental feelings in the audience, the promo has been successful, since now the audience are going to associate those feelings with the brand John Lewis, which means that they are likely to want to shop at John Lewis for Christmas presents for their kids, which have the same sentimental value as the toy penguin. The advert also manages to associate feelings of love and romance (which are human emotions which become amplified during Christmas) with the brand John Lewis, which is accomplished through the narratives visuals as well as the music, which contains the lyrics "It's real love", which has a very obvious meaning, which suggests to the audience that real love can be found through shopping at John Lewis. 

The audio visual's cinematography is visually appealing, since it uses techniques like the rule of thirds, which makes the image automatically more pleasing with a more balanced appearance, shots with lower depths are also used, firstly because it makes certain types of shots appear more pretty, and in some casese more Christmas like, and in other cases because it links to the meaning of the audio visual, that the penguin is feeling confused, and is focused only on one thing, romance. 

LO1: Comparison of how different promos creat their meanings (Distinction)

Music Video - Dr Dre - Still D.R.E. ft. Snoop Dogg - Genre: Hip Hop:

The most common and noticeable conventions of a hip hop music video are as follows:

-Hyper Masculinity: As the name suggests, this is when a males masculinity is in the spotlight, as if it is the most important aspect to being a human is your masculinity. Hyper Masculinity is symbolised through men who are strong, tall, handsome, and usually rich.

-Black Males: Excluding certain cases, such as Eminem and The Four Owls, Hip Hop is predominantly a black art style, meaning that they prefer to represent the people they associate with as all black, most examples of this are because of racism in America, which has led to social groups segregating themselves from each other, however in other cases, this is just because that particular artists wants to make it clear to the viewer that this is black art. Visually this is symbolised through the dancers, and acts to all be made of black actors/artists.

-Brands: Because Hip Hop is built around making yourself as an artists look bigger and richer to improve self esteem, the actors/artists in Hip Hop music videos usually feature themselves wearing expensive brands which are popular at the time. This is symbolised literally through the actors/artists wearing the brands, and in some cases showing the artist buying the brand.

-Dancers/Escorts: A very common trait in Hip Hop music videos are Dancers who are presenting themselves as sexual objects, who dance in a sexually provoking way and wear closes which are either none existent or revealing. This trait is included to make the audience aware that the hip hop artist is both rich and attractive, and links to ideas of Hyper Masculinity, since woman are considered as assets to their masculinity in this context.

-Money: Another common trait, sybolised either through the males wearing gold, driving expensive cars and imagery of them holding huge amounts of money, and in some videos throwing that money around, to connote the idea that they have enough money to not care about money. These ideas are always evident in hip hop music's lyrics, for example a quote from Snoop Dogg: "with my mind on my money and my money on my mind".

-Patriarchy: A trait which comes up often in videos, which shows that all the males in the music video are dominating and are in charge over the women in the video.

-Sub-culture: The sub-culture being shown is the hip-hop culture in America.

a culture within a culture

Create meaning

titles and graphics
use of transitions
editing techniques
narrative
peformance
diegetic and non diegetic sound

LO1: Understand the purpose of audio visual promos

Entertain: DOUBLE KING

This video is a product which was animated 2 dimensionally. It's target audience are likely to be animation enthusiasts aged 12-25 since it is animated in an incredibly elaborate and complicated style. The video is distributed through YouTube, since the creator Felix Colgrave has an online following. The visuals are animated in a psychedelic stlye, which compliments the surreal storyline, which is makes the video funny and interesting to watch, which makes the video entertaining.

Inform: THINK! Child Road Safety: Tales of the Road campaign

This video is a product which was animated using CGI, using a realistic CGI set along with CGI characters. It's target audience are children, both male and female aged 7-14 (who are therefore old enough to be in situations where they may have to cross a road by themselves). The video was distributed on TV channels during adverts, specifically on children's TV channels, in order to increase the chances of a child watching the advert, and being informed of how dangerous roads can be. The CGI visuals are used to attract the target audience and make them more interested in the video, since children engage more with audio-visuals which are animated. The CGI visuals also are created in an realistic style, in order to make the videos message more effective and frightening in order to reduce car accidents with pedestrians.

Entertain and Inform: Planet Earth 2

This video is a product which uses live action footage of wildlife, narrated by David Attenborough. It's target audience are ABC1 families because the programme is both entertaining (due to incredible cinematography) and educating (David Attenborough's commentary). The advert was distrubted on social media's such as Facebook and Youtube in order to gain the attention of the target audience, who are all likely to use social media. The length of the promo is short in order to maintain the target audience's attention until the end, since if the advert was too long, the audience would bet bored and lose interest.

Promote/advertise:

This video is a product which uses live action footage to create a music video for the artist Flying Lotus. It's target audience are males aged 16-25 since the artist is a hip-hop artist, featuring an even more popular rap-artist Kenrick Lamar, who is incredibly popular artist among that age group. The promo was distrubeted through social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, since the target audience use social media often. The visuals feature 2 children dancing to the music which the video is promoting, in order to promote that the music's purpose is to entertain.