Question 2

Historical;

Quadrophenia -

Pluralism

mods and rockers -  pop id at the time

Not made by middle class media - going against hegemony

Hebdige (1979) Youth Subcult. are a way for young people to express opp to society and challenge hegem.

Shows use of violencce, drugs, sex

However reinforces the idea of making a living - working weekdays

Controled violence

mean world - plus news 

Grange Hill -

Around the same time as Quad. mods/rockers

Reinforces the fact that the middle class adults are in charge

Hegemony - controling the children from young age drip drip

Gerbners Cult. Theory - youth following rules

Made by middle class media

Contemp;

Harry Brown;

Dominant ideology of estates - bad signifier/signified

Hooded teens are bad - reinforces pop hegemonic views in society - Cohens Moral Panic

Shows youth as bad and older people as weak

Gives middle class/middle age the power - police - Greg Philo; of you are not midle class you are a hoodie

News - London Riots 2011

Hoodie Moral panic

Focuses on negative aspects, creating dominant ideology that the hoodies are bad

Silences the youth -  most want edu help

News shows only part of the picture - BBC news cut short the man that was going agaisnt them 8 Aug rep.

Even though the news is meant to inform you - strongly mediated

Social media initially blammed

Prof. Proctor found social media used for the clear up more than organising thuggery

Self Rep;

David Gauntlet

Social media allows people to express themselves without being mediated -  you chose how you are seen ie prof pic comments etc

Youtube - vlogs

Twitter/FB - online log

With smart phones internet more accessable - social networks

Can help people rally together for a cause #nomakeupselfie BC awareness

However, can only reach like minded people

most content on youtube has few views and hasnt broke into popularity - dominated by media genreated videos ?

Future;

Becoming more xtreme -  further away from reality reps 

Jean Baudrillard - hyperreality. Simulation of reality has no basis on reality

Bluured boundaries between  reality and fiction - Guy Debords (1967) Sat of social space with mass media..

Reality cannot match unrealistic expectiations of media

CGI shows visuals becoming increasingly important over other aspects  - more spectacular

Inc. 3D

Explain the role plated by media in the construction of collective identity.

Henry Grioux states that the media representation of youth is an empty category. This is because the representation shows the views of those who are representing youth rather than the youth representing themselves. Collective identity is an individuals sense of belonging to a group with a shared set of values and ideas. The media select only a few aspects of the group they are looking at - for example youth - and decides how to represent those few ideas, not showing them exactly as they are and changing things and showing their perception. The media use this mediation to reinforce hegemonic views and maintain their dominance.

Quadrophenia (1979) represents the popular youth subcultures of the 70's,  the mods and rockers. When this came out it offered a new kind of media for the youths to enjoy and relate to, as it was created not by the typical middle class male media, but by someone central to the mods movement. This is important as it goes against hegemony and shows that pluralism exists in the media, giving something for the youth to relate to rather than be pushed towards conforming to typical middle class rules. Hebdige (1979) stated that youth subcultures are a way for young people to express their opposition to society and challenge hegemony. This view is expressed in Quadrophenia, as it shows the youth using the social groups of mods and rockers to rebel against common views and be a part of something that society does not really understand, or think is right. This was done through taking part in activities and doing things that were not - and still not - socially acceptable. This includes violence, sex and drugs frequently. This creates a collective identity that everyone in the two movements acts out and goes against the law in quite a strong way. However, although there is this negative view put forward in Quadrophenia, dominant hegemonic views are also evident. The most prominent one is that the mod youths have a weekday job and work for the weekend, reinforcing the idea of making a living and contributing positively to society. The film also shows that the middle class and authorities are still in control when it came to violence, with the police being prepared and ready at the Brighton riots between the mods and rockers. This film paired with the frequent news coverage of the riots puts forward a very negative view of the youths partaking in the mods and rockers movements, focusing on their violence. This therefore put forward the idea of a mean world, where not everything is good as this was one of the first youth subcultures to rebel against society and hegemony.

Around the same time as Quadrophenia and the mods and rockers movement, Grange Hill came out (1978). This show strongly went against the rebellious themes in Quadrophenia and reinforced the fact that the middle class adults were in charge. The program shows a range of different ages going to school and following the rules of the middle class adults. This represents the Gerbners Cultivation Theory that the children are being controlled by the dominant class from a young age at the same time as Quadrophenia, a rebellious anti middle class film came out. The drip drip theory also relates to Gerbners theory as it states that from a young age people are fed dominant ideologies through the media in order to make them conform to them.  Although there is some slight rebellion in Grange Hill from the older children, they still conform to authority by turning up for school and following the rules.

The youth shown in Harry Brown (2009) is violent and terrorises the community. This reflects the dominant ideology that London estates signify violence, gangs and attacks. This film shows the youth to be the ones in charge and running the estate through enacting fear, playing on the moral panic in British society that youths in hoodies and from certain backgrounds are bad, and show a negative role in society. Cohen states that moral panics are created by the middle class in order to retain their dominant position and reinforce hegemonic views in society. The dominant view that is put forward shows the youth to be bad, and older people to be weak and frail which is giving the middle class middle aged the power. This relates to Greg Philo's theory that if you are not middle class you must be a hoodie, which is represented in Harry Brown as all working class characters use violence at some point no matter what their age. The only middle class characters are the police in Harry Brown who try to take control of the situation. This film relates strongly to the way youths are presented in the news, showing the violent minority, and causing a moral panic. This is heightened at the end of the film when the mob of youths start a riot against the police, showing the middle class control to be weak and the youths to be powerful and strongly going against hegemonic views of the ruling class.

The 2011 London Riots were strongly reported by the news, and it focused on the negative way in which the youth was behaving, and causing disruption in cities. This added to and intensified the moral panic of hoodies as they only represented the youths in one way, which the public passively accepted and believed causing youths to be seen in that dominant way, maintaining the hegemonic values of the middle class keeping them in control. The focus was on the youths rioting for no reason, silencing the youths that were acting out as a result of education funds being cut and making it harder for the working classes to get into education. One BBC news report from 8th August 2011 showed a man expressing views that the riots were inevitable due to the way youths have been represented as a moral panic, which caused them to eventually act the way people expected due to the mediation by the dominant middle classes. Initially, social media was blamed for the riots in terms of people getting together and organising loots and attacks, which in turn caused another moral panic which even led to the discussion of popular networking app BBM being cut off to stop gang organisation. However, Professor Proctor found that this was not the case, and in fact social network was used more to clean up the disruption than it was to organise thuggery.

David Gauntlet said, Identity is complicated everybody thinks they've got one. Social media allows people to express themselves and show their identity without being mediated by the media. Instead, you self mediate creating a image of yourself exactly how you want. For example with social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter you choose you profile picture depending on the composition, lighting, makeup, what you are doing and most likely to enhance and distort it with a filter. You are more likely to use a carefully constructed image as your picture rather than one of you taken on a night out looking rough. YouTube is also a way for people to express themselves both visually and by verbal communication to a community. However, it has its limits as the majority of the videos on YouTube are barely view due to them only reaching like minded people. Due to the media companies dominating YouTube with mediated content, most everyday user generated content will not break through into popularity. Self representation through the use of social media can be used positively to help people rally together for a cause. For example, #nomakeupselfie that went around Twitter and Facebook created awareness for Breast Cancer, encouraging people to donate and take part. This contrasts to the view the media had on social networking during the London Riots. With the development of smart phones it is becoming even easier to access the internet anywhere at anytime giving people more access to self representations and more ways in order to self represent themselves.

Representations are becoming further away from reality, therefore resulting in representations in media becoming more and more extreme. This links to Jean Baudrillard theory of hyper reality and that simulation of reality has no basis on reality. Where different identities have been represented and mediated in the process. the future representations will be based on current representations, meaning they become further from the truth. Another extremity is that the more media dominates the everyday world, the more blurred the distinction between reality and fiction becomes. Guy Debords (1967) said that saturation of social space with mass media has generated a society defined by speculation rather than real relations. This paired with the increasing use of CGI in films putting the emphasis on visual aspects creates a ideal that people expect and that reality cannot match.

In conclusion, the media play a very important role the construction of collective identity as they choose what aspects of certain groups they are looking at, therefore creating a dominant view of that group - in this case youth and that they are violent and need to be controlled by the middle class. However, with the increasing access people have to the internet and ability to self represent themselves, people will become more aware of the areas the media does not show through mediation. But, with the increased use of media, the representations become further from reality, creating a new world that has a basis on previous representations, not reality.

Helpful article regarding Harry Brown and moral panic over hoodies.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/nov/05/british-hoodie-films

London Riots - August 2011

The London Riots started after Mark Duggan was shot by a police officer, as they thought he was armed. The riots initially started off as a demonstration against the killing of Mark Duggan but it turned violent and spread across London and even to other cities such as Birmingham.

The Media;
 
The representation of youth during the London Riots by the news was entirely negative in terms of how they looked down on the youth. They were represented in a violent, careless way similar to the films Sket and Ill Manors. This representation plays on stereotypes, for example the fact that they are from east London and are Working Class. What differs between the films and the coverage of the riots is that the films show gang violence and stabbings, attacks on each other etc whereas the riots focus more on the destruction of property.
Although the riots started as a reaction to Mark Duggans death, the news said that in the end the rioting was just done with no reason behind it, which was how the police and government also portrayed it to be entirely the thought of youths, hence giving them an even worse name. Although the news did show some interviews with youths and others who expressed reasons behind why they looted and took part in the riots  - such as Sky News and BBC - they did make them seem stupid and still shift the blame onto them.

This interview from Sky News with four youths involved in the riots does show them telling the reasons why they think that the riots happened, and how it can be stopped  which is nothing to do with the killing of Mark Duggan, but because the poor way the government treats youths and takes away their opourtunities. This contrasts with the views of the government and police who were saying that it was all just done for no reason at all and just a demonstration that spiralled out of control. Although they are showing their views, they are also looking down on them and still blaming them effectively. This was done strongly by using stereotypes. For example, one of the looters says how he is 16 and a dad. This gives an immediate image of what you expect from him and expect him to behave and live like. Although this is reported by Sky News, they step back from it a bit at the end where they say how the four guys interviewed will most likely get in trouble with the police as they gave a lot of information away.

1B: Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions

For my advanced portfolio I created a teaser trailer for a horror film, Get Out which shows the representation of older men and young females. Representation is the representing of an opinion or reality that the producer encodes with their own ideology. Representation carries the producers views and therefore cannot be seen as an accurate view of reality, but reality reconstructed.

My trailer has represented females in both a strong and vulnerable way. They are mainly shown as weak in terms of getting caught by the antagonist and not being physically strong enough to fight back. I also showed them as weak through their body language and emotion. For example, there is a scene towards the beginning of the trailer where May, the main character, is looking around very scared and uneasily. This relates to O'Sullivan et al's theory that ideas about gender are portrayed through language. Although this theory mainly applies to how women are seen visually in music videos, it does apply to the fact the language used in the trailer is showing the girls to be very vulnerable and naive. The fact that they chose to stay in a abandoned motel reflects on the fact they are young females, willing to take risks and not fully understand or be ready for repercussions. My trailer also shows women in a different way to how they tend to be shown in horror trailers in the way they are seen visually. Horrors tend to show women in correspondence to Laura Mulvey's (1975) theory Male Gaze that women are only to be seen as visual pleasure for men. My trailer challenges this representation with the female characters wearing casual, outdoors clothes and not being shown in a provocative manner. This more normal representation of young females will mean that the target audience can relate to them more, which relates to Blumler and Katz (1974) theory of Uses and Gratifications in relation to identity.

Similarly, my trailer also shows representations of older males as well. It shows them in a very stereotypical way that they are in charge and are the more dominating sex. This is evident through a range of different factors in the trailer. The most obvious one is the way the the camera tends to be looking up and the masked antagonist which shows him to be in a position of power. There is a scene at the end of the trailer where the antagonist finds the main character May who had escaped. This scene uses and over the shoulder shot looking down on May emphasising he is the one with the power and she is weaker. This relates to Claude Levi Strauss' Binary Opposites theory, that if you know there is a dominating male character you expect a weak female character. The fact that the antagonist is a male plays up to a range of stereotypes. First, the fact it is a male relates to stereotypes as it goes along with the vast majority of existing horrors that use a dominating male antagonist. Visually, he plays up to stereotypes in relation to Orrin E.Klapp's (1962) theory that stereotypes are people that do not belong in or fit into a social group or society. This is because he looks dirty and dangerous - not someone you would expect to see in everyday life.

Ovcrall, I think that my trailer shows gender both in correlation to existing representations and stereotypes in horrors and also goes against these slightly. In terms of representing young women as weak and stupid is an exaggeration of how the media represents girls that age, but showing them in a horror environment. The male character lives up to existing social stereotypes of the type of person that is trouble and you should stay away from. However, the fact that the girls are not represented as visual pleasure for men, makes them seem normal, thus creating a relatively believable verisimilitude.

Question 1A: Describe how your analysis of the conventions of real media texts infromed your own creative media practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

For my first foundation portfolio I created a rock music magazine called Dirt aimed at 17-30 year olds, mainly male. Then for my advanced portfolio, I created a teaser trailer for a horror film called Get Out and a poster and film magazine cover for Empire Magazine to accompany it. These were aimed at a 15-25 year old audience, equally male and female. Looking at conventions is important when creating a media product so you can give the audience what they expect and to give you a starting point when constructing you media product.

Before I started my foundation portfolio, I had no real understanding of conventions and their purpose. I quickly learnt that when creating a media text - whether it be magazine or trailer - that in order to create a product that the audience want and are expecting, you need to follow conventions. For example, when creating my magazine for my foundation portfolio I looked at existing covers for music magazines such as Classic Rock and NME in order to gain an understanding of the content and the layout that attracts fans of the genre and is what there are expecting to find in genre specific magazines. Conventions are important as they establish what genre is, grouping specific themes together and creating recognisable group, which indicates to the audience what is going to be shown. When it came to my front cover layout, I followed conventions for masthead, and colour that I saw on Classic Rock and Q in order to show my audience immediately what the genre is. One convention I followed strictly is the colour palette as it there are specific colours that relate to the rock genre that are recognisable and evident on existing magazine covers that I have looked at including Kerrang!. These are red, black and white. In order to visually attract my target audience and make indicate the genre immediately before even looking at other aspects of the colour I used these colours in cover, especially my title logo which would stick out and create a brand that reflects the rock genre and its audience. In terms of masthead, I followed ideas from NME and Q when choosing my positioning. As my title for my magazine was fairly small, and if stretched across the entire top half of the cover would look to big I decided to position it to the left corner as so it would not overpower the cover and not crowd up and constrict the main image. I also included the issue number and date as for my cover it worked out best there rather than in the right corner with the barcode and I saw examples of both positions. One convention that I challenged in terms of masthead is the fact my masthead is in the foreground of the cover rather than behind the image which is what I saw on existing magazine covers. I challenged this because my title was made to look like stencilled graffiti and therefore looked slightly more realistic placed over the top of the image rather than behind. 

When I started my advanced portfolio, I had more of an understanding of the importance of conventions and a stronger understanding of how to use and apply them to planning and construction of my work. As I had a deeper understanding of them, I could develop them and challenge them even more. When it came to looking at conventions for my advanced portfolio I had a much broader spectrum of media texts to look at due to creating a trailer, magazine cover and poster. This aided my creative decision making as it gave me the chance to look at broad conventions for the horror genre, and conventions specific to the each individual media text. I also had to look at conventions in terms of how I could effectively link together each of my products in order to create a recognisable sense of branding to help promote my film Get Out. When looking into existing teaser trailers, I looked at the teaser trailer for Hostel Part One (2005). One thing that stood out to me in this trailer was how the talking was limited to just screams and moans to emphasise the sense of pain. Instead of voice overs or clips of the characters talking, the story was told through the use of intertitles. This helped to cram in more action and get the audience hooked. Another convention I got from the Hostel trailer and other similar to it was the use of fast cut. These help to include more content and action into the small time space as well as the pace of the cuts matching the fast pace of the film itself. As I was doing a horror trailer, I knew there was certain aspects that had to be included that go with it such as lighting, and mise en scene. In terms of lighting, I knew to fit the horror genre the film had to be set at night, therefore resulting in the resultant footage being relatively dark which suited the genre and me having to use artificial light. Lighting was also thought about a lot in the shoot for the ancillary tasks. For this I looked to posters such as One Missed Call and vintage horror posters to mimic the shadowy lighting looking up at the model to create a dark image with a lot of shadow which reflects the horror genre.This technical planning was far more advanced than any technical planning such as lighting in my my foundation portfolio as I did not look into conventions as much, whereas in my advanced portfolio I spent more time looking into conventions and de constructing different trailers, posters and magazine covers. Mise en Scene was also carefully considered in relation to conventions. One area this strongly applied to was the use of location. I decided to use an abandoned Motel as it is a location that is typical to horror films, and the desolate location also made the film more believable. This also shows dramatic improvement from my foundation portfolio as for that I did not really pay much attention to choosing a location in terms of how it fit the genre and the ideas I was putting forward in the magazine.

In the advanced portfolio I also challenged some conventions as I had looked into them enough to decided how they could effectively be challenged without changing the genre or loosing the films appeal to the target audience. The main thing that I challenged was Carol J Clover's Final Girl theory. This theory states that the innocent, weak and typically blonde female character is the one who survives. I challenged this visually by having the final girl being ginger rather than blonde, and although I made her nervous and sceptical at the begining of the trailer, she immediately becomes stronger and fights back.

Overall, my analysis of conventions has greatly improved from my foundation portfolio to my advanced portfolio, with the first year me following the conventions, and also not having much understanding of them and their importance. Whereas in the second year not only did I have understanding of conventions to build upon but I got to look at the use of conventions over different media platforms which helped me understand conventions specific to each individual media text, and those which cover the genre across all platforms. I also felt confident enough with the understanding and use of conventions that I challenged some as well. 

Practice Essay's Part A and B

a)    Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.

For my foundation portfolio I created a music magazine. After research into what interested people, I found out they would prefer the classic rock genre, so that is what I centred my magazine towards. To ensure this was as realistic as possible, I planned the whole magazine in order to clearly link the cover, contents page and double page spread. I am now currently planning a horror movie trailer. This is going to be a teaser trailer in order to allow me to include faster cuts and give less of the plot away. To make sure I get the right shots and that my trailer makes sense I am planning the entire film. To go along with my trailer, I am creating a promotional poster and magazine cover.

When planning my magazine, the main research I done was primary. This was because I had to create the magazine around the audience, and therefore carried out research such as questionnaires and focus groups to get information on what they wanted such as colours, artists featured, and genre. I carried out this research finding out what the audience wanted and what ideas were most popular as there was no point in me planning and creating a magazine that is what I wanted but would not attract the audience or sell.  Although I carried out a lot of primary research, I also relied heavily on second research into existing magazines of the similar rock genre such as NME, Kerrang and Classic Rock. This was so that I could identify key conventions in the layout, colours, features and adverts of the magazines. These were vital so that I could draw in the audience and show then what they wanted and also to put in the correct content. This secondary research was on going throughout the whole process, referring to it when planning and creating. When planning, I looked at existing magazines for layout and content ideas such as where to position adverts in correspondence to features. For example; a feature on festivals then next to it a advert for tents. Then, when I was creating the magazine I looked at it more creatively in terms of colours and the features. When it came to features I analysed the content such as interviews and timelines as well as how they were written, with different magazines using different language to attract different audiences in terms of age and social class.

With my current planning for the film trailer, although I have done some primary research in the form of a questionnaire, I am mainly relying on using secondary research. This is in the form of statistics, and analysing existing film trailers for horrors. The statistics are helping me to see what is popular and what is not when it comes to horror films such as the sub genres and content like haunted houses or blood and guts, and also who to aim the trailer at such as teenagers, or adults and how to aim it towards these audience groups. The film trailer research has been very helpful, giving me ideas on my plot and, conventions and camera work. I chose the trailers specifically to suit my sub genre of slasher films in order to collect the right information, as there would be no point in me looking into documentary style horrors as they would not really benefit my work. I divided the research into trailers into different sections to make sure I spent enough time looking into each idea and understood the concepts fully in correspondence with theories. This research helped me to plan my trailer as I know from it what attracts the audience, what grips them not only in the film but in the way the trailer is edited.

In comparison, my research skills have increased from since my foundation project. For example, when it came to my primary research, the questions I asked were very broad and I did not direct them at the right audience. Whereas, with my film trailer questionnaire, I made the questions more specific and went into more detail with them. I also distributed the questions better, sending them to people aged 15-19 as they are more likely to watch a slasher film. Another way I distributed this better was through social networks and the internet meaning more people could access it. The secondary research for my current is also a lot better than previously as I knew where to look, what to look for and now have better analytical skills.

Overall, research has been a big part of both my magazine and my trailer projects as it is crucial in order for me to get a professional result that will attract the target audience. This meant considering creative and technical aspects through reference to different existing products similar to mine. Due to the importance of research, it was crucial for me to improve for this project in order to get a better understanding of the genre and film trailers as a whole. 

a)    Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions

For my advanced portfolio project I have decided to create a trailer for a horror film, as well as two ancillary tasks alongside of it being a poster and a magazine cover. Although the trailer is a horror, it more specifically fits the sub genre of slasher. To show this clearly throughout the trailer and keep it obvious in the narrative, I am going to use typical conventions such as blood, violence and torture as they are easily identifiable when it comes to slasher films.

Narrative refers to the story that is being told and the order it is being told in, and this applies to all media texts. The narrative is the presentation of the elements of the plot, and has to be in an organised way to appeal to the audience and make sure they don’t get disorientated. This does not mean the narrative has to be linear, it just has to make sense and contain the key narrative sections. This can be explained with Tvzetan Todarov’s theory that all narrative has to contain an equilibrium (start point), disruption, then a new equilibrium (end point). This can be applied to all media texts as unless there is a change in events and a climax, then the audience will no longer be interested. This can be expanded further to show; equilibrium, disruption, recognition of disruption, attempt to repair the disruption and new equilibrium. This can describe the overall layout of all narrative, but can especially relate to films. In relation to trailers, this is also relevant as you would only include the first two points of Todarov’s theory and leave out the new equilibrium. Another key theory with narration is Roland Barthe’s which states that there is different codes given to the audience in order to make the narrative work. These are; enigma codes, action codes, symbolic codes, and cultural codes. A key thing to consider with narrative is how it is put across to the audience. This means that elements such as mise en scene, camera work, lighting and sound are crucial to presenting the narrative to the audience in the intended way.

The plot I have created shows a lot of relation to various different narrative theories as I wrote it after looking at the theories to ensure I ordered and linked the events together well. Overall, my plot can be related and analysed in correspondence to most narrative theories. Although it can be related to and shows evidence of the use of theories when writing, I have not yet filmed the trailer so visual and sound elements cannot be discussed or looked at critically. One of the theories that my plot strongly relates to is Todarov’s theory. With the initial equilibrium being the three girls getting lost and finding somewhere to stay. The disruption being them getting taken and killed off, and the new equilibrium being the last girl surviving. Another theory that can be applied to how I aim on presenting my trailer is also from Barthes. This states that there are two different narrative codes in order to keep the audience hooked and wanting more. These are; Hermeneutic code that refers to a plot element that raises questions that the audience wants answers to, and the other is Proairetic code which refers to actions that lead to other actions. During my trailer there will be evidence of this theory quite a few times. For example, in relation to the Hermeneutic code, in my trailer I plan on adding the question as to whether the last girl gets out alive. In relation to the Proairetic code, the decision the girls make to stay in the abandoned building leads to them losing their lives.  Another theory that relates to my plot more generally is Claude Levi Strauss’ theory on binary opposites, stating that to every element or idea there is an opposite present. There are a few examples to this in my plot. For example, the obvious contrast between the murderer and the last girl standing, and the contrast between the last girl standing who is not sure about staying at the building and at first appears weak to the two other more confident girls who decided to stay there and get drunk.

In conclusion, I think it is fair to say that my narrative is based around and show various uses and clear examples of narrative codes throughout, which I hope will also be evident visual in my trailer. I also think that without looking at and applying narrative codes to my plot it would not be as good and not translate well into a film and be received as well by an audience.