Vampire Weekend (Ford)

Postmodern media essay (Ford).

Why are some media prodcuts described as post modern?

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.

The three films that i looked at as post modern films were Inglorious Basterds, Drive, and scream. All of these films have post modern aspects in them. Post modern aspects within them can be the music, the costume or the way of filming.

Inglorioious Basterds has many post modern aspects in it for example at the start of the film there is a spaghetti western music used which was out before the time of the film is based. The music used is on some level ironic. This is because it works with the film and how the film is represented. Therefore this is a postmodern aspect to the film as the time periods do not mix together. This spaghetti western music is used throughout the film. Another postmodern feature to this film is the use of the chapters in that it goes through the film as though it was a book. This shows it is most modern as i shows that it is only a film and isn't real and so relate to the audience by doing this. There are many parts of inglourious basterds that are seen to be post modern like the simple bit of the uniform for the characters. This is Post modern because in normal war films the soldiers are all messy with mud and blood everywhere and their uniform is all scuffed up. However a in this media product all the soldiers uniform stays pristine even after they have been fighting. Therefore Tarrentino goes aginst what is a stereotypical war soldier look and so this is another bit of most modern that has been described in the film.

As for the film drive again the music is a type of spaghetti western music in that the soundtrack links to the name and story of the film. This is because the name of some of the songs are about cars and danger and so links to the film well even though they were set in different time periods. For example one of the songs on the track list is called 'after the chase' by Cliff Martinez who was an 80's style artist however the film drive seems to be more modern than this music so the time periods are different. Again with the use of font for 'Drive' is like a game and so people are able to react to recognising it. Another post modern aspect that is describe in drive is the lack of dialogue that the main character has. This is post modern as it links for the real life in that you are able to watch a story without hearing much dialogue but still understand it. it is post modern as we are used to have the main character talk the most but he hardly says anything, he more narrates the film rather than speaks within it. A way in which INglourios basterds connects to drive is the use of bold colours for the title of the credits. For example in Drvie a bright pink is used which is not to be expected, whereas in inglouious bastered the yellow is used throughout which is another post modern element.

The third film that i research that has post modern aspects described within it is Scream. Scream was the first horror movie to create a new type of genre of horror called 'post modern slasher flick'. This is because the directors knew what people wanted and what people were expecting from a horror movie and so he changed i up. He did this by actually have the characters within the story tell the story. For example one quote from the main character about horror movie was that 'They are all the same, some stupid killer stalking some big breasted girl who cant act, who is always running up the stairs, when she should be going out the front door, its insulting'. This show that the film is post modern  because it actually tells the audience that they know who all horror stories go and that the characters within the horror story know what normally happens. Therefor it is postmodern because the audience then know that it is only a film. Scream also took a new approach to how horror movie are shown in that instead of have a dark and scary caste like normal horror stories, Scream actually took the story closer to the audience by including the safe place of a home being the main scare place instead of the stereotypical castle. This then bring the post modern reality to the audience. This links to Inglourious Basterds in that both films use the set to show that it is only a film. The music used in scream also connects to the film drive in that the name of the songs connect to what the film is about for example the song 'Dont fear the reaper' by Gus. By using the songs to connect with the film it is expected. However inglouious basterds do not do this and so this shows the post modern element to it.

The reason that some media products are described as post modern is because they are not what you would class as a say a normal media product. this is because they differences that are post modern. For example the music that goes with the film may not seem to fit with the type of film or the time period it is set in. But for the director it fits in well and so could be used as a type of bricolage. Music within a film can have a big impact of if it is post modern or not. For example in Inglourios Basterds the spaghetti western music is used throughout the film and so seems to fit but really it doesn't and so is a form of post modernism. Media products are usually decribed as post modern because it is not what an audeince would expect or it is different to the norm of what that type of film should be like. for example in inglourious basterds, for a war film and audeince would expect more gore and dirt. Also for a war film it is quite slow. The main post modern aspect of it is that it change history and so changes what the audience expects completly. This is the same with Scream in that the horror movie stereotype is completly changed and so it is not what an audience would normally expect.

David Bowie (Ford)

David Bowie

• Born: 8th Jan 1947
• His actual name was David Robert Jones and David Bowie was just a stage/character name.
• He had a short lived Ziggy Stardust persona which was just on facet of his career.
• Renowned as an innovator for his work in the 1970's.
• Space oddity caught the public eye first and came in the top 5 UK singles chart.
• He then re-emerged in the glam rock era of 1972 with his hit single 'Starman'.
• David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day".
• David Bowie made his first major American success in the single 'fame' where he characterised as a plastic soul.

New album -The Next Day

This album is David Bowies first studio album in a decade and the album include 14 tracks with 3 bonus tracks and is the 24th album made by Bowie. The Next Day is a dense, angry, complex rock album with songs such as the song 'Where are we now'. Bowie is obsessed with timing and it's a major theme in his work, from the five years he imagined Ziggy Stardust having on Earth to the signal line from his Berlin Trilogy 'we can be heroes'. The next day is not an easy album to absorb but it easy to listen too. Postmodern features of the album is that some songs on the album are like reading the middle of a chapter in a book you just found. Other songs are more personal and it is more a like a biography of David Bowie. The album is a mixture as it also has a dance song and a love song that do not really connect to the rest of the album and this is another postmodern feature. The album acts as a narrative to the brain. David Bowie created a whole persona for his album that wasn't him and based it around a character. Although now a lot of people have copied this idea and have done it since. Bowie was the first creator of a character within an album. His new album is placed on postmodern and modern culture.

Scream.

Digital technology essay (Hammond)

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

The Digital technology i used for my ancillary products were mostly photoshop and a camera as this was what i needed to make my products work. Also as i was brand new to everything i was only introduced to one program so i did not get confused with what i was doing. My skills have massively developed since AS and i shall explain this throughout my essay.

The use of photoshop for me was quite confusing as i had never used anything like that before and to get used to how to use all the different tools and apply it to my work was hard. As i started getting the hang of it i found it very useful and it helped to make my photos and the layout of my ancillary look more professional. I also used my own camera which was easy to use as i used to it and knew what lighting and angles worked best with it.

There are both pros and cons of the software and hardware in terms of my skill development. For my software the pros would be the image manipulation on photoshop for my ancillary tasks as this helped me to fit the layout and my images to make them look good and fit in with how i wanted my music magazine to look. Another pro of the photoshop tool would be the use of the colour variations. With this it allowed me to change my pictures around to let them fit in well with my colour scheme and make the people in my photo look good so that i have a professional look to my AS work. As for the fonts on my music magazine i used google and went on to a site called 1001 fonts and this was a good site as evertime i went on to it everything was saved so i made sure i had the right font each time and that i didnt mix fonts us and so this saved me a lot of time. The cons of the software i used for my music magazine would be parts of photoshop as it would freeze if i wanted to to something big and so this became frustrating. Certain tools were hard to find and so wasted time and also because i was new to the program i thought that i could be a little more clear to help with things. As for the hardware to pro were that i was able to use my own camera and so i knew the best way to use it. The only cons of the hardware i used would be the use of a memeory stick as it was a bit time consuming to keep loading the photos on to my laptop to then put on to the school computers and it became very back and forth a lot but was the best was to do things safely.

The software that i used for A2 was both photoshop for my ancillary tasks and final cut pro for my music video. However this time with photoshop i found it much easier to use as my skills had developed on it. I was able to uderstand the tools on it a lot better and also i could apply them better to give off a more professional look. As for final cut pro, because of how used to these programs i became, i was able to get the hang of it very quickly and so i didnt waste time in finding out what different things did. The pros of the software would be that i didnt waste my time getting used to them because i was much more confident of how to use things and had more of a idea of how i wanted it to do. The software on the comuters had been improved and also the school had bought some macs and so these were very fast and made everything much better. The sons of the software would still be that i had a couple of freezing problems on the computers on photoshop but i knew more how to handle it this time. The pros of the hardware would be that because we had new macs it meant that i didnt have to mess around with a memory stick and that i could just upload the photos and videos straight away. However the cons would have to be my camera. This is because the cold really got to it and because most of our shots were outside it meant that my camera got over cold and so the battery life would just suddenly die. Therefore being on a time limit this became frustrating and we needed to get out videoing done.

The pros of developing my Skills in AS to A2 was good as i meant i could be more confident with things that i changed and also to use to software and hardware became easy to me. When i started i didnt have much experience of that kind of software and so for me to be doing most of the music video and to get on with things on my own showed how much my skills had improved. I personally dont think that there are any cons for me to have improved on my skills as it meant i was able to get on with things much better.

Post production. (Hammond)

AS- Task one

I used many tools for my AS including photoshop. I had never used this program before so getting used to the tools on it was. But after my teachers showed me what to do it worked well. The pros of this is that it helped to make my product look professional and helped with tidying things up. However the cons of Photoshop is that the program kept freezing or stopping and so this became very frustrating for me as i meant i had to do the same piece of work over and over again. Other tools i used would be cameras and computers. I used my own camera for the photos on my music magazine and my camera worked well and made my shots come out to be the best that they could be. However uploading them and using the computers was a slow process but in the end it was fine and i was able to use my photos easily. The main tools that i used for AS photoshop were tools uch as redeye. I found this tool very helpful  as it made the people in my pictures ook so much better and also they looked proffesional and you could see the emotion that i was trying to get across in the picture. The other tools i used were tools that helped to brighten up the mages and make them sharper so that they looked the best they could and so they also fit in with the look of my music magazine. As for tools that were not for my images i used a paint bucket to fill in the spaces with different colours and the pant bucket helped me to pick the specific colour hat i wanted.

A2 - task two

For A2 we created a music video and with it we did anciallary tasks which were to create a digipack and a magazind advert. The soft ware that was mainly used was final cut pro and photoshop. Final cut pro on the macs was brilliant to create our music video on. It was quick and very easy to use, everything was simple and was obvious of what i needed to do. I found i less stressful than photoshop as it automatically saved the work once something was changed. However photoshop was a weakness for the software. This is because i found it confusing a frustrating to use. It froze a lot which meant i lost bits of my work. Also the tools were not very clear to get used top but once i was used to it it was fine to use. My skills on phptoshop from AS to A2 have improved dramatically. This is because at AS i panicked and didnt know what to do if it froze and i was more scared of trying things out. However in A2 i was much more confident with it and i didnt need to the help of my teachers as much. The tools that i used within final cut pro were mainly the use of the colour for the flashbacks as for all the other shots i made surei had either got the natural lighting i wanted or i used a high end of light for the band shots. This is because i wanted my video to be as natural as possible. As for Photoshop i mainly used the same sort of tools as AS i just used some more artistic tools. For example, with the cricle on the back of my digipack, this was originally a painted circle, whereas when i used the artistic tool i made it look as though it had been messily drawn as this looked much better and fit in with the disign of my digipack much better.

Task three

Main task- The post production for my music video would be to change the lighting for where laura stood and what they day was like to weather we chose to film or not. As for the inside we had a band room anyway which was light and had many lights in it which made th videoing easier. We then uploaded the videos and changed some of the colours of some opf the videos for the flash backs as we neede them to be black and white to show that they were flashbacks.

Ancilary task- I took all of the photos myself again a plain white wall for the band and had them stand a a specific way as i wanted them to look coll but also have their personalities come across. As for the front cover i use a photo tent as this made laura stand out better and made it look more proffesional for the front. As for the other band photos inside th digipack i used the band room from the video so that the audeince could recognise them and also show what they do as a band. I them uploaded them all on the photoshop and mainly messed around with thr brightness, saturation, and the sharpness.

750 essay write up

Detail how your post production skills developed between your AS ad A2 coursework.

I learnt and used many thing for the post production of my media products in both AS and A2. This  includes both soft ware and research before actually completing my main products.

For AS the post production skills i used was photo shop. I was very new to this as i had never encountered it before and so to use a program like this was hard. As i went along my AS year in making my music magazine my skills did improve a lot as i got used to the program and i also had help of my media teacher to help me improve what i was doing on the program. As for A2 my skills on the photo shop program improved dramatically and i was able to get on with the tasks on my own. An example of a tool in which my skills improved would be the way i changed the brightness and the saturation of my pictures as before i just left them to how they were and did not experiment that much.
My post production skills improved massively on using a camera for my media work. In AS i just took some shots and didn't use a variety of angle or settings on the camera i just stuck to what i knew.

However for A2 i used many angles for the camera and i looked more deeply in to the way the image looked on the camera face and so i changed the lighting in the room of which i was taking the video or photo. This shows how my skills had developped as i was thinking about what i was doing more and was thinking of how i can make it better. Whereas in AS i would just take the shots and not be confident enough to think about anything else.  As for my skills in A2 on photoshop in A2 i managed to use my skills very well on the different tools within photo shop. For example the magnetic laso tool, for this i cut out images to make them fit better to the layout. Before i had never used this tool before and so when i did it was brand new to me but because me skills in post production had improved i was able to get the hand of the magnetic laso tool quickly and easily.

In As we made a prctive music video and this was to help get used to how we shot a music video and then to help us get used to using the video editing program for when we were to come and do our own media videos in A2. Some of the tools on the program that we used were very confusing and the program seemed to be quite slow and confusing. It also took us a long time to do but was good. It was good as it allowed me to get used to the way of how to upload the videos onto the computer and then the main bit was the lip syncing as this was hard to do. So to get used to it was the best part of doing that task. Then when it came to making our own music video in A2, we were actually given a completly new program to use for the video. However this was not a bad things as the program worked better and also i already new how to upload and do the small simple things because of the practice in AS. Therefore when it came to doing my music video in A2 it was muc easier as i got to use different kinds of tools on the program. Some of the tools i  used were tools such as slowing the speed of a video. For example on two occations in our video did we decied to have a slow motion and to be able to use this tool easily and make it work well shows how much my skills in post production have developed. Another way in which my skils have developed is that way of how quickly i adapted to the new program that i had never been on before and i used it fine. Also by being more coonfident about how to use the programs, i was able to look for more things to helps make my video better. For example, finding different colour effects to add to the emotion we were trying to give off in the video. In my AS task i did not look for any tools like this is just uploaded and synced the video as i did not feel confident enough to do much more than that. Whereas for A2 i was able to do much more because of how comfy i was with using the programs. This shows how my skills then developed from post production in AS to then my post production skilss in A2.

Digital technology (Hammond)

Software AS

The image manipulation program allowed me to manipulate and change my magazine to the way that it needed to look. It did this as it gave me graphics they were necessary for the magazine. I also used a number of crop tools for this. An example of a crop tool would be red eye, this was good for my magazine as it meant that i could make my photos look professional and make sure that the people in the pictures look good. Another example would be colour variations. This tool allowed me to change the colour of my images so that they best fit into the colour scheme of my magazine.

The tools that i used to match my fonts were websites on Google, for example 1001fonts was the one i mainly used. This was because every time i went on it, it made sure that it saved the last font that i had used so i didn't have to waste time looking for a font or picking the wrong one.

I used photo shop to house the style of my magazine by using a range of tools that were on it to help. Examples of this would be picture boxes to help outline my images when they are surrounded by text.

I used manipulation tools for my images too, this is because it helped to make them look better and also look more professional. An example of a tool that i used would be the use of brightness to make my images stand out more and make them have more light as some of them were quite dull. I also used the contrast tool to make sure different colours stood out and also to make the image clearer.

By using layers in my work it helped me to sort out the way of my magazine so that i knew the order of things and it also meant nothing messed with each other. Using layers also split my magazine into different sections so that i knew which bits did and didn't need working on and i could lock the layers that had been done.

Desk top publishing - DTP

I created my DTP by getting a range of texts and pictures to put on it so i could get a taster of what it would look like. I added frames and backgrounds to make it look more professional and stand out more. By doing all of this it helped me to understand the conventions of print layout. This meaning that i was more used to seeing how things work for example have text anchored over and image, I help me to view the type of layouts that look good with the use of columns too. I ensured that the layouts of the house style of my magazine were the same by working on each of them a bit at the time. I did this as it meant i could remember the colours i was using and also do the same layouts for each of them so that they all stayed connected. I engaged with print conventions by not using more than one font as i had picked my two fonts first so that i knew which ones i was going to use and then didn't look at the fonts again so that i stuck with those two fonts.

Weblogs

My blog helped with audience feedback as people were able to access it with ease and also it was easy to use. I also made sure i asked people to look and to use my blog was the best way to do it as i could access it from anywhere. I used movie maker to upload short videos onto my blog as it was the easiest thing for me to use. This is because my laptop already had the program installed and i had used it before and so doing it was no problem. The use of this technology introduced me to the use of effects for example fading in and out of shots which in the end we use on our real media video. Also the layering of audio and this was useful as it meant that when i came to my real music video i didn't need to worry about these little things as i knew the sort of thing to look for so that it was sorted.

Hardware AS

The camera that i used to take the images for my preliminary magazine of the school magazine was the school camera. To upload the images i used a school memory stick so that it would work quickly with the computers.

Software and Hardware A2

The editing software that i used to edit my music video was Final Cut Pro and this program was very quick and easy to use and i got on with it well. By editing my footage on a time line it helped me to layer my videos with the footage of the video and the audio. Also by doing this it made me move a couple of videos around so that it would fit the audio more. Also by having a time line it made the use of timings of the video footage much easier.

A few edits that i used in my music video were parallel editing and i also use a fade out to give an effect that the video was ending. I made sure that my work was precise by checking all the last bits i had done when i logged back on and also listening to it over and over again to make sure everything was in time. I ensured that the audio fitted the video footage by watching it over and over again and i didn’t stop editing it until it was perfectly timed. I used many special effects for my music video and these were by using a cool metal black and white colour for the flash backs to outline to the audience that they were flashbacks. I also use a slow motion effect for when Laure was spinning and also when she was confessing her sine in the flash back as i thought it added a good dramatic effect.

A2 Blogs

My skills using the blogger have improved as i have gotten more used to going on it frequently and so by being on it more i learn more things about it. When i first went on it just posting a blog seemed confusing but now i am able to change the dates and make sure it can look neat. The main things that i learnt about using the blog was uploading different programs onto it for example, uploading YouTube clips or my work from scribd and slide share. Before i would not know how to use this but by the end of A2 i was uploading things onto it quickly without a problem.

Technology

The technology that i used in A2 was better than AS because i knew more what i wanted out of it so i used my own camera and also i was better at using the different technology. Although i did not changed much of the technology i used from AS to A2 i was much better at using it be the end of A2 and i also changed things so i could use it to the best of its ability. For example with the camera on some shots we used lighting so that it showed up a better picture on the camera. I have gotten better at using the technology as i have had to use it all the time and so now i am much quick with it than i was in AS. A great example would be the use of Photoshop. This is because in AS i really struggled with Photoshop, i had never used it before and i just couldn’t get the hang of it. But then at A2 it clicked and i was able to get on with my task much quicker and i was able to sort any problem that i ad quickly.