Dan Black: 3

To what extent does the combination of video and song in Symphonies conform to Charles Jencks' view that 'Post-Modernism is fundamentally the eclectic mixture of any tradition with that of its immediate past...' ? (All AO's)


I think that Dan Black's video reflects Jencks' view very well. It is a music video but not a simple music video that has been 'originally' created, in other words it does not have any typical conventions of a music video other than music is playing and there's a motion picture to it. The video is made up of many film openings or specific clips from films to form an intertextual music video. Most of the films are not recently made, more around the 1960's - 80's. This is combined with the backing track from Rihanna's recent song Umbrella (2007) which contrasts the immediate past with older past. 


All of the elements of the video include addition, substitution, deletion, and transposition. For example sequels of films are made, they are similar to the original film (often they have the same storyline but in a different location e.g. Home Alone) but some details are changed. Home Alone is not a postmodern film, as postmodern films have to have a meaning of why they are made. 

Dan Black: 2

The Video for Symphonies is made up entirely of intertextual references, identify (40%) them all and explain their significance (40%). 


The first intertextual reference is to Universal Studios and their opening titles to films; this technique is used to make the video opening more convincing and professional. 

The opening credits of Dan Black's film are very similar to those used in Lost Highway. The opening is effective and follows on to Black's next clip where a car is being driven.

Aspects of the action film 'Tron' are also used in Dan Black's video. This gives a video game appeal of the video, which is popular among Hip-Hip style artists.

The opening credits of Catch Me If You Can are closely copied even down to the colour scheme, it is difficult to know why Black has copied this so obviously.

Symphonies includes some sounds from Starman, but also the opening scene with spaceships flying around; the only different is in the colour scheme used.

Dan Black has made another direct copy from Space 2001 here, as he wears a visor over his eyes very similarly to the character shown in the Space 2001 image. This continues the video game image but also ties in sci-fi.

Black and white effects are commonly used in music videos however not as obviously as this. The 'look' Dan Black is going for is an old fashioned French theme with the style of dress and the appearance of the street. The image below is from A Bout De Souffle.

Goldfinger is a very popular James Bond film, not one that people would usually copy from. The clip from Dan Black's video shows a motion picture of him singing as if it's being projected onto the painted girl's body.

Bonanza is a Wild West featured TV show. Black has copied this by the setting behind him, the font of the text used, as well as the Sherrif badge he is wearing.

The text used in this frame is an exact copy of the text used for the title of E.T - this font is used on all E.T products ever existing, so it is not a sly copy.

Donnie Darko is famous for the evil rabbit; Dan Black produces as exact copy of this.

Thunderbirds is an ever famous children's TV show, the obvious copy of a driver sitting in a car with text introducing the character is an obvious Thunderbirds trait.

Towards the end of the video Dan Black uses yet another action film / sci-fi intertextuality; Blade Runner.

A reference to King Kong, as well as Godzilla, is used with a man protecting a woman in the scene; this is another direct copy including the black and white effect as well as costume.

The final section of the video shows recreations of 'The End' in every style of every film used.

Quotes for Postmodernism

"The center is not the center. The concept of a centred structure is contradictorily coherent. And, as always, coherence is contradiction expresses the force of desire," - Jacques Derrida


"The center doesn't exist naturally, but rather because we need it in order to make sense of the world around us - however according to Derrida, this need for, and perception of a center doesn't necessarily mean the center exists,"- Film School Rejects


"Genres are instances of repetition and different," - Neale

Dan Black: 1

Symphonies is made up of Addition, Deletion, Substition and Transposition (20%). Find examples (40%) of this within the song (lyrically and auditory) and explain what, if any, purpose they serve (40%).


Dan Black's 'original' song of Symphonies starts with the Starman Theme song which is not of the same genre to Black's song at all, it is an instrumental song whereas Black's is more hip-hop based due to the backing track. The backing track is the same one used in Rihanna's song, 'Umbrella', Rihanna made it look as though she was original by using it first but in fact the same backing beat that can be found on Garage Band, an application for Mac computers. As Dan Black is not as well known as Rihanna it would seem that he was blamed for stealing 'Rihanna's track' rather than what he actually did - used the same track from Garage Band.
Dan Black's form of postmodernism, I think, is Pastiche, it does not pay respect to the other artists as he does not claim to have taken their backing tracks/openings/lyrics.


Virgin Media took Dan Black's song and added in the original lyrics of Madness' song but with a different voice speaking them; this was used for one of their television adverts. It showed a contrast by using a classic, old, lyric from Madness; and a new backing track taken from Dan Black's, 'Symphonies'. The question is, does Virgin Media taking Dan Black's song count as Pastiche or Homage postmodernism, as it does not exactly pay respect by stating where the original track has come from - but the way they have used it is neat and shows that they like the song, which would mean it is categorised under Homage.

Homework Task 3

I would never have known the Thomsons/Thomas Cook advert originally came from that song until hearing the two side by side; I knew I recognised the tune when I first heard the advert but had no idea where from.
It is interesting being a post-modernism student but it spoils the supposed 'originality' from certain things at times, for example - the holiday advert. Copying this tune and converting it from a rock genre of song to a quiet piano is a Homage form of copying, this means it shows respect to the original song. As opposed to Pastiche, which is taking the song and destroying it by taking the mic out of out, or not giving credit to the original writers. This can be the same with films and any other forms of media.

Dan Black's Symphonies Homework Posts

Task 1

Using the information on Dan Black's Symphonies create a blog post highlighting the following elements 

Symphonies is made up of Addition, Deletion, Substition and Transposition (20%). Find examples (40%) of this within the song (lyrically and auditory) and explain what, if any, purpose they serve (40%).

Task 2

The Video for Symphonies is made up entirely of intertextual references, identify (40%) them all and explain their significance (40%). 

Task 3

To what extent does the combination of video and song in Symphonies conform to Charles Jencks' view that'Post-Modernism is fundamentally the eclectic mixture of any tradition with that of its immediate past...' ? (All AO's)

Digital Technologies

Digital Technologies I used during coursework:


Music Video: 
YouTube
TubeChop
Twitter
Facebook
Google
Animoto
Photoshop
Sony NEX-5 camera
Sony NEX-7 camera
Cannon 1000D camera
Phone/Text/Email/Facebook communication
Premier Pro
MacBook Pro
iPod
iPhoneLogitech speakers


Ancillary Products:
YouTube
NME website
Canon 1000D camera
Photoshop

Homework Task 1

TASK : Explain the purpose of the Game. As a postmodernist why have the creators of Desert Bus intentionally set out to make a terrible yet painfully realistic (for its time) game? Write about your experience of playing it and how it fitted into the narrative of computer games


Post-modernism in itself tries to create something that looks like real life because it is real life; this prevents the viewer watching a programme such as Skins and saying 'this looks like when we did that...' etc. because, of course it looks like real life - it's a drama programme so it's made to look like real life, because real life looks like Skins, because Skins is not real.
So when the gamer plays Desert Bus they think it looks like real life, because it's in real time with realistic effects. However a real life bus looks like Desert Bus, because Desert Bus is merely an online game. As mentioned by Penn Jillette on his radio show, the game was in response to more violent, controversial video games; those types of video games generally do not look like real life - for the typical person. However to someone living in a place like 'San Andreas' they may have experienced knife crime, gun crime or stealing cars. 
Unfortunately I have not had the chance to play Desert Bus for myself as I am using a Mac and the online game does not appear to work on Macs. However I can imagine the game being tedious and extremely time consuming (as it takes 8 hours - real time - to complete one trip in the Desert Bus.)

Scream

The Scream films are of the postmodernist style. I have seen all of the Scream films but re-watched the very first one, I watched it in a different way after looking for postmodernist connections.

Horror films in general aim to frighten as well as entertain an audience through sound effects as well as visuals, in some cases it is the sound effects that take over the horror aspect of the film as it is down to the build up of tension. Scream comes under the sub genre of 'slasher' within horror, this is because of the gore special effects.

In the postmodernist view, TV and film aim to 'look like real life' however living in real life, we think that real life 'looks like TV and films'. In Scream, the characters mention multiple times in the script 'if this were a movie' or 'how to survive a horror movie' - this suggests the crews aim was to create real life within a film. The detail of making the film like real life even goes down to the types of characters, they are typical students at college living in domestic homes; and the final bloodbath takes place in a domestic home in America.

This famous quote, featured in the first Scream was originally said by Williamson, 1996: "They're all the same, some stupid killer stalking some big breasted girl who can't act who's always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door, it's insulting."This also suggests that the film is trying to be real life, as does the quiz near the start of the film, the girl in the scene has to answer questions on previously made films to save the life of her boyfriend - Friday 13th is one of the films mentioned.

Scream has been referred to as a 'parody' many times, however it is not the same as the Scary Movies in any way. Scream is in fact more of a pastiche as it shows respect to previous horror films. For example the surname of the killer in Scream 'Billy Loomis', uses the same surname for 'Dr Loomis' in Halloween.

Overall Scream is postmodern as it is making fun of horror films, but also being a horror film. At the same time that they are telling the audience the 'rules to survive a horror film' they are also breaking the rules e.g. someone says 'be right back' and comes back, another person has sex and survives, and another gets drunk and survives.

Pastiche and Homage

Homage: respect; a 'nod' to something good; e.g. The Artist (film); e.g. cover albums - Fleetwood Mac (music); Hip-Hop artists take backing tracks from other songs and remix them to create their own music.

Pastiche: imitation of something; mocking something; often takes the form of satire (irony/ridicule); e.g. Family Guy doing Star Wars (TV)

Creativity Task 1

Creativity is 'A process needed for a problem solving... not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people (Jones, 1993)

The definition of creativity is to use the imagination to create a production of an artistic piece of work.
It is difficult to outline whether this statement is true or not as there are multiple pros and cons referring to this. First of all the statement is trying to assume that everyone has a creative side and it is not a special talent that only few people have, however if everyone is creative, then no one is. An argument that makes it true is that anyone can be taught how to use Photoshop but is using Photoshop with pre-made images and text really classed as being creative? In my opinion this is is merely producing a layout rather than a piece of artistic work.

For example when producing my poster and digipak I could have used an obvious image such as a skeleton to represent our group band, The Skeleton Boys. However instead of going for the obvious I chose to stick with the alternative/quirky theme but represent that by taking an existing album cover, The Automatic - This Is A Fix, and creating an obelisk similar to the one on The Automatic's album. This is using a creative skill as I produced the photographs with my own camera and used Photoshop to create a repeat effect of the actor on my album cover, as well as the obelisk.

During the creation of our group music video I feel that we showed creativity between all of us; to tell a student who has never done a creative subject before to produce a 3 and a half minute music video would be difficult. However because we have previous knowledge of Media Studies and/or other creative subjects. We were lucky in the locations we were available to access so we took advantage of this with our creativity.

Postmodernism Intro

Traditionally: One man-One skill
Modern day: Mass production factories
- 'If everyone can do something, no one can.'
- 'The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.'

Jean-Francois Lyotard

Grand Narratives: Religion, Science, Politics

Nowadays, people choose the parts they want from each of the 3 beliefs to create their own beliefs, this is called Little Narratives; e.g. it can happen within Media and Fashion.

Creativity Questions

- What do you understand by ‘creativity’ and to what extent have you been creative?

Creativity, in my opinion, comes from the persons' own imagination. I have been creative in my inidividual work from AS as well as in my group during A2 as I have looked at existing products (magazines, ancillary products, and music videos)

- How have you tried to facilitate and encourage your own creativity?

Over the 2 years my progress in Media has improved; however I feel I worked better at A2 as I had my group at hand to judge my thoughts on the video, as well as designs for ancillary products. At AS I did not feel as though I had many peers to ask to judge my work.

- Did you experience limits/blocks on your own creativity?

When designing my AS magazine I discovered limits and in the end I changed my original idea completely; I regretted this soon after as I am now going to resubmit my AS coursework with another new idea.

- How easy/difficult was it to be creative while still working to the brief?

Sticking to the brief was not a problem for our music video project as we created a typical indie/alternative genre video which is exactly what we planned and was included within the brief.

- Did working within conventions stifle your creativity?

We were given a rough outline of the type of products we were asked to create during both AS and A2 however we definitely had more freedom at A2. The guideline for AS showed a specific style of magazine, which pages to include and roughly how to structure them; whereas at A2 we were given guidelines of '3 minute music video' and that was pretty much it.

- To what extent did you need to work with others and ‘bounce ideas’ off other people to be truly creative?

During the A2 project we all used eachothers ideas to build on our own, resulting in all of the final ideas. We all had a say in each idea and were able to give constructive criticism to each other or even abolish others' ideas entirely.

- How much of your creativity was about trying to picture things in your mind’s eye?

I find it easy to picture end products in my mind so I used this a lot, for example during our A2 music video project I would evaluate the shot on the camera and weigh up the pros and cons of filming the shot. The four of us tried our best to use our time well however it did take a matter of days to complete filming at both main locations, the barn, and Harry's house.

- How much of your creativity was about trial and error?

During AS magazine and my ancillary products I discarded previous ideas and created new designs for my final submission. However for our A2 music video project we never had errors, only trials that we pushed aside and replaced with something easier or less time consuming.

- To what extent was a lack of confidence an issue in terms of your creativity?

I think we all had enough confidence to speak out to each other during our A2 project so we were all happy that we all had ideas that made it to the final cut of our video. We all felt comfortable enough to judge each others ideas and criticise or congratulate creation ideas.

- To what extent was a lack of technical competence/confidence an obstacle to your creativity?


In my AS coursework my confidence lacked towards the end of the course, I felt as though I was going to be unable to produce the same type of magazine I had been planning from the start. As a result of my doubt, I achieved only a D grade in my coursework, which I deserved for not sticking to my original plan, but it was not a grade I was happy with.