Sunday 17 March 2013

Postmodern Essay

Why are some media products described as 'postmodern'?
'Media products' means the 3 films that you have studied. Read through the posts on my blog (especially the theory), your presentations, your Inglourious Basterds essay and any research you have completed. Remember to refer to modernism at the start of the essay and keep referring back to the words from the question.



Postmodernism was a movement used as a reaction to the previous era of modernism. Postmodern texts play with meaning and because of the great use of intertexuality these texts are made for a literate audience. Postmodern texts will also use techniques such as bricolage; creating a new piece of work from old parts, pastiche; self-conscious imitation and parody among others. Postmodernism also uses irony to express itself and challenges boundaries between genres, art forms and the class of high and low art. The constructs in society such as gender, race and sexuality are explored in postmodern texts; they are questioned and reassessed. Many postmodern texts are very self-aware, for instance in a lot of postmodern films the edges of the set will be shown, as if to say to the audience ‘this isn’t real’.

That is just one of the ways that ‘Inglourious Basterds’, a film directed by Quentin Tarantino, fits into the ‘postmodern’ label. Tarantino is known for his postmodern film making, including widely known films such as ‘Pulp Fiction’, ‘Kill Bill’ and ‘Reservoir Dogs’. ‘Inglourious Basterds’ is laced with postmodern elements and though it is predominantly a war film it encompasses features of many genres and many intertextual references.

Another reason that this film, as well as many of Tarantino’s others, can be labelled postmodern is the soundtrack. This is another example of the texts being self-aware as Tarantino deliberately chooses music that connotes a feeling of a certain genre or time period, drawing the audience to it rather than it just being washed over them. 

Hyper reality can be explored in many different ways and is another widely used postmodern element. The characters of ‘Inglourious Basterds’ are exaggerated and over played; they use stereotypical accents and unrealistic behaviour. This can often make a film seem less serious and more comical, as well as, again, being self-aware. Another hyperreal aspect included within ‘Inglourious Basterds’ is to do with costume. Even through fight scenes and such the clothes of the characters are pristine and which is completely unrealistic. The lack of realism also makes an appearance when there are any scenes of ‘gore’. The special effects for these parts aren't particularly unrealistic, which you might expect given the rest of the film but it still doesn't seem real given the lack of emotion and detachment of the characters. Within any other film this may simply say something about the characters themselves but within a postmodern setting it alters the tone of the film.

‘Drive’, a 2011 crime drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and starring Ryan Gosling also uses postmodern elements. The setting of ‘Drive’ is ambiguous as there are no obvious clues to define its supposed time period. There are 80’s elements throughout but it could just as easily be a modern setting. This is another postmodern element as it refers to the fact that the text is fictional. Another hyperreal element to this film is how the city of L.A  is portrayed. Throughout the film is seems that the main characters are almost alone, the streets are almost empty of people and cars which you wouldn’t expect. This also helps to makes the time period vague. It also means that the city itself appears to be more than just a setting; it seems lonely and reflective of the main character, ‘The Kid’.

‘Being John Malkovich’ is a film directed by Spike Jonze and uses a lot of postmodern elements within it. It’s ideas are based around postmodern techniques and it questions the constructs of social ideology. The film explores the ideas of identity extensively and uses completely fantastical situations and themes to do so. Irony is a large part of postmodern film and it seems that ‘Being John Malkovich’ was based on this idea. The main ironic theme to this film is that the main character is a puppeteer and that he happens to be the one to find a portal that leads into the head of actor, John Malkovich, making it possible for him to control him, like a puppet. Another ironic part of the film is the relationship between the main character, his wife and his new love interest. If this were a romantic comedy or a romance film then the plot involving this love triangle would be predictable but instead his wife and love interest end up together, leaving him alone. The lesbian relationship is also used as a device to question and explore constructs of sexuality. At first their relationship is only possible through the use of John Malkovich’s body and makes the audience wonder whether they can ever be together properly if Maxine is not attracted to Lotte’s physical appearance. This blurs the edges of the labels given to differing sexual orientations.

The boundaries in terms of genre of this film are very blurred. Though it is a fantasy film predominantly the postmodern elements make it hard to tell whether it is supposed to be comical, dramatic or both. A lot of the actual fantast elements of the film are created by the fact that the film is postmodern. There are also elements of romance, comedy and drama within ‘Being John Malkovich’.

The main feature of the narrative that explores the ideas of identity and the constructs that society has made is when Lotte, the wife, begins to reassess her gender.  She tells her husband that she thinks she is transsexual. He goes on to tell her that she only feels this way because of her time spent in John Malkovich’s body and that its just the excitement of seeing things through someone else’s eyes.   

Post-modernism and Music

The focus of your task will be post-modernism in relation to music. You will need to have an understanding of music that relates to the following:

The post modern sensibility that anything can be considered cool in an ironic-'I know it's bad, but it's so bad it's good'-way.
For a while after the 90's boybands were seen as cheesy and uncool but now they have made a come back, if somewhat reinvented. McFly, for example, have now donned instruments and have made their songs a little heavier. The Wanted have gone for a heavier R&B sound and an edgier look. With the 'death of uncool' and people's tastes constantly changing there isn't such a divide between what is cool and what isn't anymore, it's all down to taste and you can brush off any embarrassment by just calling it ironic.

Work that is created based (entirely or in part) on older material. This incorporates sampling and will take you from the realms of hip hop culture transporting you finally in today's modern fragmented music landscape. You will have to listen to some artists to fully appreciate them and their work.
A lot of artists use existing ideas as a basis to their work, whether it be through sampling or to gain a particular theme to connote certain things. Within hip hop the song 'Champions' by Dame Dash, Kanye West and others samples Queen's 'We Are The Champions'. Kanye's other well known song 'Gold Digger' samples three songs, Ray Charles' 'I Got a Woman', Thunder and Lightning's 'Bumpin' Bus Stop' and Mase's  'Another Story to Tell'. A lot of 'mainstream' music is known to have sampled and remixed songs, for example, The Black Eyed Peas, Britney Spears and Swedish House Mafia but other genres of music have used sampling too. Gothic rock band 'Evanescence' use a sample of from Mozart's 1791 Requiem, a very different approach but still sampling.   
Note the legal issues surrounding sampling (Led Zepplin 'borrowed' heavily from old bluesmen and it took years for the songwriters to be credited and paid royalties. The same group took a hard-line stance initially to be sampled by hip hop groups.

Audiences that are both niche and mainstream. E.g. Radio 1, 1Xtra, BBC6, XFM. 
A few years ago the mainstream music scene was mostly made up of hip hop and pop music but more recently the mainstream market seems to have branched out. There is now a wider and more eclectic sound to what we here on the radio, with folk influences of Mumford and Sons and the more experimental R&B sounds of Frank Ocean the 'mainstream' has developed meaning that itself and the more niche audiences mix as different music becomes more of a norm.  

The ways in which people engage and listen to music. E.g. iPod, DAB, mobile phones.
Part of the reason behind people's taste's expanding and mainstream music changing may be because we can listen to music practically anywhere and at any time now. If a friend wants you to listen to something it's easy enough for them to get out their iPod or phone. With DAB radio's you can instantly know what song is playing and who it's by which makes it easier to become interested in an artist or band. Also, music can be a very private thing, if you have your headphones in then you can be listening to whatever you want and nobody can judge you for it meaning you can individually enjoy music and not always be swayed by other's opinions.  


David Bowie

Your task is to research David Bowie and to collect information on his postmodern credentials. This work will be valuable both as historical context and as a current example of a postmodern musician.

Bowie was born on the 8th of January 1947 (as David Jones). He is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger and is known as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. A year after his first hit 'Space Oddity', his album 'The Man Who Sold the World'. The cover for the first UK version, Bowie is seen in a 'man's dress', an early indication of his interest in exploiting his androgynous appearance even before he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust for the album 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'. Within this album 'Ziggy' is an alien being in human form, trying to present humanity with a message of hope in the last five years of its existence. After his 1975 album, 'Young Americans' Bowie recorded the album 'Low' in 1977 with Brain Eno.

Post Modernism:
  • Hyperreality - His alter ego 'Ziggy Stardust' was a character from which Bowie could experiment. Ziggy was a definitive rock star figure, aesthetically striking and bold. He was a persona for Bowie's album and a whole story was created around him. Bowie intended for the album to serve as a 'soundtrack' for a stage show or television production about 'Ziggy Stardust'. The story being that the world was due to end in five years and the character of 'Ziggy' would use music to bring hope to the people.
  • Boundaries - Bowie allowed himself to experiment different genres and one of the reasons he was so innovative was the fact that he blended genres and blurred the edges between them. Though he is known for his rock music he also progressed to soul, jazz, funk, glam rock, folk and more.
  • Concepts of sexuality - It was said that Bowie was 'a taboo-breaker and a dabbler ... mined sexual intrigue for its ability to shock', 'his interest in homosexual and bisexual culture had been more a product of the times and the situation in which he found himself than his own feelings'.  









Saturday 16 March 2013

Jonathan Kramer Music Theory

A very interesting aspect of postmodern music theory. This will help you with your next essay.

Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices."
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":

1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.

Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.

Monday 11 March 2013

Post Production Essay

Detail how your post production skills developed throughout your AS and A2 coursework. 

At AS created a front cover, contents page and double page spread for a music magazine. To do this we used Photoshop which we imported our images to, enabling us to edit them. It also meant (especially for the double page spread) that we had a good template on which to work. For A2 we created a music video and two ancillary products; an advert and a digipak. For the music video we worked in pairs and we used Final Cut Pro and for the ancillary tasks we again used Photoshop. Through the more regular use of these programs my skills developed and I became more confident.

At AS we initially created a preliminary piece to get us started on Photoshop and this helped me to get used to the different settings, effects and tools that I could use. My lack of knowledge about Photoshop at that time meant that the preliminary magazine was very simple. I used the magnetic lasso tool to cut out the image for my front cover which took longer than it would now because I wasn't used to the technique. I also wasn't too sure about what order I should do things in to make it easier for myself but the layering part of Photoshop helped with that so it wasn't too much of a problem. I remember that I used the gradient tool and the rectangle tool to create a simple background in two colours. I used the text tool to create a heading and some strap lines for the front cover but the font I used was very simple. The preliminary task was helpful as an introduction to Photoshop but my product could have been greatly improved.

The next stage was to create a draft of each page of the magazine. I think I started with the front cover because it was what I had done for the preliminary task, so it wasn't too daunting to start with. I imported the image that I wanted on to a blank A4 page and layered it over a background I created with the rectangle tool. I then used the rectangle tool again to create a masthead at the top of the page where the title of the magazine would be and a box at the bottom where I later placed the barcode and a strap line. My layout was very simple but it was starting to take shape, in terms of style it was a lot closer to what I wanted than my preliminary task. I used a font from a website, but couldn't download it at the time, so simply print screened it and then imported it as an image. I changed the saturation on my main image to 'dull' it down a bit because I thought this would be more fitting for the rock genre I was trying to achieve.

The contents page of the draft was the thing that I changed the least because I was most happy with it. At this point I hadn't done too much research into conventions so it didn't look quite right but I was happy with the general style. I used a white background created by two rectangles and then I was able to use the layering tool to fit in a panoramic picture between the two. I was really happy with the way this looked and I wanted to use it in my final magazine contents page. I also used two vertical rectangles in black with an effect added to create the background for the text. I then used the same font as on the front cover.

The double page spread was probably the most simplistic of all the drafts because it was a very different layout and I was more hesitant with creating it. I again used the rectangle tool to create a black background and then I added another grey rectangle along the top of the page to try and fit with the convention of the header. I added another photo of my 'artist' on the right hand side of the page and I again slightly dimmed the saturation to try and fit with the genre.

On the final version of my magazine I again started with creating the front cover because it was something familiar. Instead of the black background I used a grey but I still used the rectangle tool to create it. I then added the image of my 'artist'. I used the magnetic lasso tool to do this and I was more used to using this tool by now so it didn't take as much time. I then used the spot healing brush tool to make it look more professional and I adjusted some of the effects such as the saturation again to change the brightness of the image. I was more experimantal with fonts this time and I layered a lot of the text too, to make it stand out. On the contents page I used the gradient tool that I had tried to use on my preliminary task and I was happy with how it turned out, it was definitely more succesful this time.

At the A2 post production stage most of the editing was just fitting the clips together. However, we had wanted the flashbacks sequences to look different and we had planned to use the black and white effect. We tried this initially but after looking through some more of the effects on offer we decided on using the 'cold steel' effect which had more of a blue tint. We also used the slow motion tool (which we could adjust ourselves) more one or two of the clips.

After using Photoshop a lot at AS I was more confident when making the ancillary tasks. It had been a while since I had last used it though so I had to get used to it again. The advert was quite simple to make but making the digipak was a lot different to the AS magazine task so I found it more difficult. Because of the six panels it was important to make sure everything was the right way around and that the images fit perfectly to the page. Getting everything in place was the hardest part but the layering tool definitely helped. I used most of the effects on the images because they were hand drawn and scanned in meaning that some of the colours were a little off.

I think I did improve from AS to A2 because I was able to take more risks rather than staying safe. My knowledge of conventions and the technology I was using also improved greatly so the products I created were considerably better at A2.

Sunday 10 March 2013

Digital Technology Essay

Comment on the digital technology you used for your ancillary products and how your skills have developed since AS.


  • What are the pros and cons of the software and the hardware at AS in terms of skills development?
  • What are the pros and cons of the software and the hardware at A2 in terms of skills development?
  • How did you use your AS digital technology skills to aid the construction of your ancillary task at A2?
  • What were the pros and cons of developing skills from AS print to A2 video production?
At AS we made a front page, double page spread and contents page for a music magazine. This meant using Photoshop predominantly as well as other technologies throughout the course. I wasn't very confident with using these at first because I had never created anything like this and it was all quite new. The preliminary exercise, though not very advanced, did help me to grasp the basics of Photoshop. For this task I used the schools camera but for my actual product I used my own, a Fujifilm Finepix AV camera. 

The things that I were able to achieve on Photoshop at this point were still very limited. I found Photoshop very difficult to use which initially put me off trying new things. A lot of my time was spent trying to figure out how to use the tools on offer rather than actually using them. I knew that Photoshop was good program and that it was only difficult to use because it was so detailed and there was so much you could do with it but being a beginner I wish I had had more time to build up my knowledge of the program. I think this meant that a lot of the work I did on my music magazine was very simple and I didn't take risks. I very much based my magazine on 'Kerrang!' instead of thinking more creatively and independently. I had the ideas but not the skills to carry them out. 

At A2, because we were creating a music video, we had to use another new program. I had used movie maker before (we also used it for the animatic) but it wasn't as advanced as we would have liked for the music video. At first me and Mae used a program on the PCs which was okay but we never really got to grips with it. We were recommended Final Cut Pro on the Macs which was a better program that was actually quite easy to use. 

Using blogger was a huge part of both the AS and A2 work and was very important for planning and evaluating. It was good to have chronological posts to refer back to when evaluating work and it was also useful to post initial ideas, planning and research for myself as well as teachers. For A2 it made working with Mae a lot easier because we could look on each other's blogs and it was easier to share ideas even if we weren't together. It meant that I could also embed documents from Prezi, Scribd and Animoto and videos from Youtube. All of these technologies were useful throughout AS and A2, enabling me to use a variety of different formats for my blog posts. 

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Digital Technlogy: Software AS

AS -
What did the image manipulation program allow you to manipulate?
It was useful to be able to adjust the colour and lighting of the images. This meant that the aesthetic of the photos fit with the edgy style of the rock genre because before before they were manipulated they were slightly too clean cut. I was able to easily crop and resize the images too.

Explain how using layers helped organise your work and construct your front cover.
The layering system on Photoshop meant that I could work on one part of the front cover independently without having to move all the other parts out of the way. It was a very clear way of working and it also meant that after I had edited one part I could show the layers again to see what it would look like as a whole.

Explain how you created your double page spread.
I used a double page spread from Kerrang! as a basis to make sure I had all the conventions I needed. I firstly wrote the article to get a sense of how much space I needed for the writing. Once that was done I opened a new file in Photoshop and put one of the pictures of my model on to the left side of the page. I then edited this picture, added a background and the article. I then made some slight alterations to finish off.

How did you develop an understanding of the conventions of print layout?
I looked at a lot of existing magazines and analysed them to see what conventions there were and if there were any that were particularly used within the rock genre.

How did your blog help in terms of audience feedback?
It enabled both teachers and classmates to comment on anything I posted but most of the feedback I got was actually face to face in the classroom. I don't think the feedback I got given over the blog was as helpful as it could have been.

How did you upload the photographs to the desktop computers?
We used the camera's SD card once we had taken the photographs.

A2 -
Which editing software did you use to edit your music video?
We tried a few programs but settled on Final Cut Pro on the Macs.

You edited footage on a timeline - how did this enhance your knowledge of layering various video footage and audio?
The timeline made it very easy in terms of how long the shots should be and where they should go. It meant that cutting clips and ridding the video of overlap was simple. There were two separate lines, one for audio and one for video and if you wanted to add cut fades in then you could use another separate video line.

Identify a few of the edits you used in your music video.
We used slow motion and we sped up some of the clips to create a certain effect and to make them fit with the music.

How did you ensure the audio matched the video footage?
When filming I sung along to the track and then in editing we cut the sound from the video clips and matched it up to the audio instead.

Did you use any special effects?
We used black and white for the flashback shots.