Narrative

Narrative Devices 

Omnipotent narrative - One More Night - Maroon 5

This music video has elements of the omnipotent narrative device when the mother starts packing and the father is at a boxing match and doesn't realise. Starting from 2:08,connoted is the woman coming into the room which a bunch of clothes. At first it doesn't seem bad, but later she starts putting the clothes into empty boxes and suitcases, connoting that she's leaving him. This section is omnipotent as the audience feel 'godlike' as they know what's going on where as the man doesn't. The emotional effect this has is that the audience feel sorry for the man as he's going to come home from his match and wonder where they have gone, but the audience know exactly where they are. 

2:33 - she starts packing the clothes

                                        

Plot twist - You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift

                                     

This video by Taylor Swift shows an example of two little plot twists, which change the narrative. At 2:22, you see the main male go to his girlfriend after he wins, only to see her flirting with another guy, leading to them arguing. This is a plot twist as it changes the course of their relationship, they probably broke up. This then leaves the male single for Taylor Swift. Another plot twist occurs at 3:25  when Taylor Swift ends up going to the prom and brings her 'I Love You' note with her. The male then also brings his 'I Love You' note and shows her. This plot twist changes the narrative as the audience didn't know that he loved her, it's an exciting twist. It makes the audience feel emotional and happy for Taylor Swift as she's finally with the guy she wants to be and she's happy, instead of being hidden away admiring him from afar. 

3:26 - she brings out her note.

Flashback - The One That Got Away - Katy Perry

At 0:26, the flashback starts with old Katy Perry stirring her tea, it then goes to her ex-boyfriend stirring the water with a brush. The scene then goes into them painting in their room and laughing, doing what couples do. In then goes back to old Katy Perry, then the young couple at a wedding party. This shows a flashback as the first scene is the old woman with her current husband, but the scene then goes to her reminiscing about her ex-boyfriend. This makes the audience feel sorry for the old woman as with the lyrics of the song, 'the one that got away' it becomes clear that she really loved that boyfriend, but in some way he slipped away. There's then a plot twist towards the end at 3:53 which shows the same boyfriend driving his car off a cliff. The plot twist makes the audience feel even more sorry for the woman as she didn't just lose him, he died.  

0:26

3:54

Music Video with Structure 

Taylor Swift's Blank Space video is one that shows Todrov's narrative theory well. At the start of the video, from the beginning to about 1:40, the narrative, is the state of equilibrium, the couple are getting along and they seem very happy. This fits the equilibrium as this would have been normality for the couple, they would be happy almost all the time. The disruption occurs at 1:49, when the female looks at the male texting and starts shaking her head. This connotes that the guy may be texting another girl or someone the girl doesn't like. This fits the disruption stage, as the girl goes from being happy and in love with him to being angry at him. The recognition happens at 1:59, when the female starts to argue with the male, he realises that he's doing something wrong. The arguing could also be a recognition of the girl realising the guy is cheating on her. Trying to restore the equilibrium happens at 2:29 when she slashes the picture of him and starts to cut up and set fire to his clothes.  This fits the restoration stage as she's trying to get back to normal, she's trying to drive him away so she can be happy again. The equilibrium is restored when the guy eventually leaves in his smashed up car at 3:45. The new equilibrium occurs when a second car, a red one this time comes into the house, copying the shot at the start of the video (0:04), but this time with a new driver. This is the new equilibrium as the situation is the same, but with a different male. This little cliff hanger makes the audience believe that the same thing will happen again, especially as the last shot is of the female smirking at 3:53, wearing the same costume and make up as the first shot. The whole cycle of Todorov's narrative will complete it's self again. 

0:49 - equilibrium

1:49 - disruption

1:59 - recognition

2:29 - restoration

3:49 - new equilibrium

3:53 - new equilibrium

Cause and Effect Music Video

This video, shows Barthes Narrative codes; enigma and action. The first enigma code happens when the wife starts to take her ring off at 1:15 and then starts to break down at 1:23. It's not clear to the audience why she's so unhappy as at the start of the video, she said to her husband 'give me a kiss' and sent him off to work. At 1:32, an action code then comes, it beings evident that the husband is cheating on her as he stares at another woman in a bar lovingly and touches her waist. This moves the story forward as we see why the wife is unhappy, yet however still question how she knows. Another enigma code happens at 1:56, when denote is the wife in the car, it looks like she's going to confront her husband, but will she? It's unclear where she's going, leaving a question for the audience. At 3:34, denoted is the wife burning a pile of her husbands clothes on the front garden. This is an action code, as it progresses the story. It makes the audience believe that she's going to confront him when he comes home, then leave him. The last enigma code happens right at the end (4:34), when the husband returns and greets her and she takes him in, smiling and lets him kiss her. It sets up the question of why she didn't confront him or say anything, and also the question of does he know that she knows? 

1:23 - Enigma

1:32 - Action

3:34 - Action

4:34 - Enigma

Character Music Video

The 'Black Widow' video is one that shows a few characters from Propp's narrative theory. In this video you see a hero, helper, donor and villain. At the start of this video in 'Big Wandas', it becomes evident who the villain is, the loud mouth man in the grey suit who acts rude towards the waitress. The hero is the waitress as she's taking everything from him and the helper is the girl who came in with the man as she's trying to help the waitress and be nice to her. This little scene is then foreshadowed in the waitresses imaginary 'ninja' life. It's clear that Iggy is the hero as at 2:32 she's the one being trained to kill and the one being helped by the donor. The donor is the old 'sensei' who helps her train in the room (2:39). He plays the character of the donor as he is preparing Iggy to fight and provides her with the skills to handle the weapons. The villain is again evident when Iggy recieves a piece of paper with the mans face and the word 'Destroy' at 2:52. He is also shown when the helper receives a message on her tablet at 3:30 with a picture of the same man saying 'Target'. Both of the girls have been ordered to kill him  which connotes him as the villain character. The helper character is connoted more clearly at 4:24, when she comes to help the hero when she's surrounded by the villains helpers, she rescues her from being killed. The good helper then starts to help the hero and kills all of the villains. 

Donor

Hero

Villain

Helper (left)

Reflection : Week Three

Feedback Video

Pitch Video

My Pitch

Reflection : Week Two

This week we learnt about a number of different music video styles, some that I knew and some that were new to me. We learnt about; popular genre videos, performance, abstract, interpretive, narrative, impressionist, animation and parody. The different music video styles depend heavily on the genre of the song, however you do get some artists that want to do something different. 

I had never learnt about the impressionist style of music video before, although I had watched many of them. Many of the songs with these videos are from the indie pop, indie rock genre, e.g The Neighbourhood/Coldplay. An impressionist style video is one where the images on the screen match the mood and the pace of the song, rather than the lyrics. An example of this is 'Sweater Weather' by The Neighbourhood. The video shows them in a car with different shots inbetween. There's no relation to the lyrics, but the pace of the editing matches the pace of the song and the images match the mood.  

I also learnt that with the Abstract genre, nothing makes sense. It's mainly a video that's just had one random idea and they flow with it. For example, Lil' Jon's 'Turn Down For What' video is about people going crazy and breaking floors and 'infecting' others. Abstract videos are mainly for genres such as Dubstep or Drum and Bass and the artist is rarely in them. 

Abstract is the type of style I want to use in my work as I think it will be interesting to play around with ideas, I could have almost any strange idea and it will allow me to work on my creativity as well. I also think with the Abstract style, I can have more fun with editing compared to a narrative video for example, because I could add strange effects and make it look more abstract. 

    

Music Video Genres

Thrift Shop Remake Evaluation

Skills Reflection

Research and Planning

Within the research and planning area, I think my skills developed a great deal. In GCSE Media Studies, we didn't do much research when thinking of ideas, we watched a couple of similar genre videos, like horror films or sitcoms and then though of our own. In year 12, I looked at online for real life stories that I could incorporate into my BSR opening sequence. I found a story on BBC news about a friend who launched a revenge attack on a girl she didn't like. The story was then twisted it a bit so that the two girls were friends, had an argument then the attack happened. I think researching more helped my creativity flow more as when I was reading the news stories I was thinking about how I could turn that into an opening and how it would look good cinematically.  

Vox Pops were a new thing I learnt while researching my BSR opening. In previous years we just did questionnaires on a paper, so I feel that this was a lot better. In a vox pop, people are able to speak more clearly about how they feel about the idea as it's like they're having a normal conversation, there's no pressure of having to write it down. This developed my research as I was able to get more honest feedback and choose my BSR opening idea accordingly. 

In year 12, we didn't make a story board but a shooting script instead to help with planning. I think this improved my planning, as I was able to follow each shot thoroughly as with a shooting script I had more space to write about what was going on in the shot, who was speaking and the props needed, where as with a storyboard there was more focus on the image. In  some ways it was harder as it meant I had to visualise the image instead of looking at it, but it was much more detailed which helped with the filming when the time came. 

Conventions

Within AS Media Studies, I think I developed my skill in mise-en-scene and sound the most.

 Mise-en-scene has always been something I've been good at since GCSE, but I felt while making a BSR opening, the costume and location was very important so I paid more attention to detail there. After researching mise-en-scene in the film Sket, it was clear that most BSR films, those about teenagers, dress in a certain way. Taking this on board, I made sure that my actors wore clothes that represented the typical teenager, hoodies, jogging bottoms and trainers. I feel I developed my skill as it really showed the connotation of 'estate teenagers' well. 

It was important to find the perfect location for the scenes to be shot as I wanted it to feel real. When doing the preliminary task at the beginning of year 12, we chose one of our teachers 

offices as an interview room and we also shot the outside of the school as the office building. When watching it back, the outside shot didn't look amazing as it looked like a school, so in hindsight, it would've been better to shoot an actual office building. I feel that because of this, I wanted to get my locations exactly right for the actual piece of coursework. Doing a Location reccie really helped with this as it let me think out exactly what locations would look best for all the shots. We shot in a public toilet for the rape scene, first of all, we going to shoot it in the school bathroom, but we then realised it would look too clean to a public one and wouldn't fit in with the mise-en-scene of BSR. I wanted the toilets to look dirty and lifeless, and I think that the location we used did that. The location matched with the act that was going on, so I think it was important to chose a good location. 

Sound was also a convention I feel I developed in. When finding the music for our preliminary task, we just chose the first song we could think of that would fit in with the goofy character and dipped the volume when the other character came on the screen, which wasn't the best idea and when he came on screen, he didn't fit the type of music, so it looked out of place. I paid more attention to the soundtrack this time and spent 2 lessons just finding the right song to go with the estate type of feel. We had to find copyright free music which made it harder, but in the end we got there and found a song which really connotes the themes and location of the opening. 

Creativity 

The jumpcuts

Honestly, I never been very creative in thinking of new ideas, but once someone gives me an idea, I have so many visions of how to shoot things, other things we can do with it, music, lighting and all sorts. I just need one idea to get me started then I have all these thoughts of how to make it come alive on the screen. In year 12, I developed my creativity as I found the news story about the girl who ordered the revenge rape and instantly thought it would make a good BSR storyline. We followed most of the original story, but I added the element of them being best friends beforehand and not just two strangers. I feel that this added more a shock element and showed how rough and harsh teenagers can be to do something like that to a former best friend. I think creativity was quite important in this task as although I wanted it to be identified as a BSR opening, I didn't want it to be same as every other one. So having the interesting twist made it more watch-able and creative. 

I also think I was more creative in the editing. In previous work, like the preliminary task, I wouldn't venture out into different types of editing, mainly stick to normal cuts and continuity editing. In one scene of the BSR opening, we edited one of characters walking away using jump cuts, I think this was creative as it looks really good on screen and has some connotation about how she's angry about arguing with her friend. 

When remaking a section of Macklemore's thrift shop video in an abstract style, I came up with the idea of a grown man, who was connoted as a gangster, having a tea party with teddy bears. Usually, I'm not very good with idea's, so I think I definitely developed my skill by the end of year 12 and was able to feel confident with my ideas. 

Post-Production 

Screenshot from my blog, showing the effects list

At the end of year 12, we had the task of remaking a section from Macklemore's thrift shop video. My partner and I got the abstract section and I came up with the idea of having a man have a tea party with teddy bears. As the section was abstract, after editing the video we decided to put some effects on. I added the effects on in final cut. I had used final cut before for my BSR opening, but only to add the music on. This time I edited with it and also added effects. I think by adding effects my skills developed in the video area as I was able to use strange effects such as distortion but they still looked good and added something to the video. My favourite effect was probably the fish eye effect on the teddy bear as it made the man seem like he was going mad as we could see what it looked like through his eyes. 

Live Type

My skills also developed within the graphics area when making the BSR opening. As it was an opening of a film, we had to include credits; we did this using a programme called Live Type. This was my first time using Live Type and at first it was quite difficult to grasp, but after doing practice graphics, when it was time to put on our actual graphics, I had enough skill to do so. 

Digital Technology

My year 12 blog

My skill developed within digital technology in the hardware, software and online areas. My hardware skills developed as I became confident in using a Mac. Usually when doing posts on blogger in school, I've always done them on the PC as I feel comfortable, but towards the end of the year, I decided to use the Mac more and develop my skills on there. I now feel a lot more comfortable when having to do things on the Mac. My software skills developed when I used Live Type and Final Cut for the first time while doing my BSR opening. I'd never used these software programmes before and it was quite difficult at the start, but after taking my time and understanding how to use to them properly I was able to do things I hadn't done before like increase the time graphics were on the screen and add in effects on my remake. Developing my online skills came with the introduction of blogger at the start of year 12. In GCSE Media Studies, we used powerpoint and word then printed the pages out, so blogger was different at first. In the end I found it easier to use blogger, I could easily do anything I would on word and share it with my teacher by pressing one button. 

Thrift Shop Mash Up

This is the whole mash up put together with everyone's individual sections. I think it turned out really well and everyone's ideas were really imaginative. 

Reflection : Week One

When first presented with the option of doing a short film or a music video for our advanced portfolio most of the class, including me, jumped at the idea of the short film. I wanted to do a short film at first as I thought it would be a lot more creative. In previous years, we've made trailers and openings for a film, but we've never made an actual whole film, so I thought it would be interesting to finally do a whole film. Me and my partner, Simran straight away started talking about how we wanted to do a film that was emotionally as usually our work isn't very emotional. 

However, after talking as a class to our teacher we started to move more towards the option of music video. There are a couple of key reasons for this; first of all, I've seen a lot of music videos then I have short films, so I know more of the conventions of them without having to learn it e.g; cut to the beat, different locations and lip syncing. I am yet to learn any short film conventions. Another reason being the target audience for a short film isn't usually within our age range, so it may be difficult to produce a short film with our imaginations that would appeal to an older target audience. With music videos, they're targeted to all ages as it depends on what songs people listen to. If we did a pop song, then our target audience would probably be the same age as us or lower, so we would know what they'd enjoy watching. 

So we have now decided to do a music video. Keeping the same idea as the short film, we both wanted to do a different kind of music video. We don't want it to be a typical one that has different locations and changes about a lot, we want it to have a linear structure with a narrative. However we would still put some conventions of a music video in there such as lip syncing, so it fits in with the text. If we want to do this, we need to pick a song/genre which we can base a story on and which also isn't very upbeat that the story would look odd. 

Simran and I have already agreed to work together as we feel that we make a good team and produce work of a high level. We have been working together since the start of our Media Studies course in year 10, so we've grown a strong idea of what each other likes and dislikes to do with Media. Although it would be interesting for us to work with other people and get some other ideas that we wouldn't have thought of before, I think in the last year of our course, it'd be safer to work with someone we understand and work well with. We both put in equal amounts of effort and are willing to do a lot for the sake of our end piece. 


My hopes for this project are that we can produce a great piece of coursework that we can be proud of. In past years, we've always had an idea in our head that looks really good and when it comes to end piece it's good, but not as good as we would've liked. So this year I would like to produce something I can be 100% proud of. To do that I think we would need to make sure we don't move away from our vision.

My fear for this project is that we don't stick to our schedule. In previous years we've had to change around our production schedule a lot due to people not being available when they were before and this had an affect on our work as we had to re shoot things with new people, which left less time for editing.