Coursework and representation

In Week 7 Classwork I will:  Be encouraged to consider the strengths, weaknesses and viability of my pre-production coursework before going on to finalise production coursework.   Analyse a range of representations that will help in the construction of my own coursework representations.

Storyboarding techniques

Learning objective:

I will visualise my script in the form of a correctly formatted storyboard.  

Extended writing: Create a storyboard for a 10 second advertisement about a man buying a tabloid newspaper.

Formatting a script

Learning objective:

I will produce a properly formatted script which will be a development of a given synopsis.

Visualising the written word

Learning objective: In Week 6 Classwork I will:  Be guided in pre-production techniques of script writing and storyboarding and asked to describe the conventions of correctly formatted Pre-pro documents.

Representation of class

Learning objective:
Analyse Ideal ep1 with consideration given to the representation of class.

Extended writing: Create a mood board which shows negative representations of the police in the Media.

Representation - male gender

Learning objective:
Analyse Common with consideration given to the representation of the male gender.

Representation - authority

Learning objective:

In Week 5 Classwork I will: 

Analyse Life on Mars ep1 with consideration given to the representation of the police.

Texts and social issues. Luther

Learning objective:
Analyse Ideal ep1 with consideration given to the crime/comedy genre as an arena for transporting important social issues to a foreign landscape.

Extended writing: List signifiers and iconography that gives clues to genre to audiences with consideration given to the representation of setting. Common.

Texts and social issues. Common.

Learning objective:

Analyse Jimmy McGovern’s Common with consideration given to the crime/drama genre as an arena for transporting important social issues to a foreign landscape. 

Learning objectives: 

To study Common - a 2014 TV special, with consideration given to generic issues, signifiers, conventions and iconography.

Key words: Genre. Plot. Joint enterprise. JENGbA

Introduction: 

Common is a 2014 BBC One 90-minute made-for-television drama, written by Jimmy McGovern, directed by David Blair and starring Michelle Fairley, Nico Mirallegro and Michael Gambon. It seeks to question some of the issues and challenges raised by England's common purpose legal doctrine.

Plot summary

Jimmy McGovern's drama stars Nico Mirallegro as guileless 17 year old Johnjo O'Shea, who goes from innocent bystander to accessory to premeditated murder after giving a few friends a lift.

Background:

The drama focuses on England's controversial joint enterprise doctrine. It is set in North West England, and was filmed in Southport (although the town is never mentioned).First shown on 6 July 2014, the drama examines the issues surrounding a case in which the defendants were charged with murder involving joint enterprise or common purpose. 
McGovern was inspired by the real life case of 16-year-old Jordan Cunliffe, sentenced under this law for a minimum term of 12 years for the murder of Garry Newlove, despite Cunliffe not actively taking part in the attack.

'Common' trailer:

'Common' writer Jimmy McGovern:

Panorama documentary:

Task 1: Familiarise with Joint Enterprise.

Watch the three clips above then look at reaction to Jimmy McGovern's Common. You can examine comments on the you tube clips and critical reception as introduced below.

Write a paragraph on the different points of view about Joint Enterprise as highlighted by the drama.

• Describe Joint Venture in a line or two.
• Consider arguments for and against the law. 
• 10 minutes - bullet points are fine. Orange books.

Useful links:

Joint Enterprise

Is Joint Enterprise a 'lazy' law?

Critical reception

The Daily Telegraph gave it 4/5 stars, calling it "profoundly engaging", with Nico Mirallegro, "giving a fine performance of coiled vulnerability". According to The Guardian, "When Jimmy McGovern gets off his soapbox this is a brutal and devastating drama", "bleak, powerful drama thick with political intent, which occasionally robs it of its quality", and "the knockout performance belongs to Susan Lynch, who plays the victim's mother".

The Daily Mirror noted that "Common was unrelentingly depressing. It's about real tragedy, where no character you invest in wins". And "McGovern's a genius wordsmith, an engaging social commentator who deftly avoids being throat-ramming with his message, but he also understands people – as sure as he can paint the most evil potential of mankind, he equally draws out the good."

The Daily Mail was more critical in its review, "the BBC spent licence fee money on commissioning a 90-minute drama railing against what lawyers describe as a 'powerful' and useful piece of legislation designed to stop criminals getting away with it by blaming each other." They also noted that the law had been used to good effect in the murder of Stephen Lawrence case as well as that of Malakai McKenzie.

GENRE

Common includes codes and conventions relating to TV crime drama such as angry policemen, shocked suspect, interview rooms, police trying to find the criminal, close up camera shots on reaction, serious music, low key lighting and generally, law and order versus crime.

The title sequence is typical of the crime/drama genre in that it sets the scene, highlights the characters, gives pace and sets up audience expectations.

Task 2:

Watch the first 15 minutes of Common, identify the following and how the narrative has been conveyed through the use of the following technical codes, who do we feel sympathy with? How is this achieved?

• Shot types
• Editing style
• Lighting
• Music
• Sound effects

Task: (Homework)

What are the genre conventions of Television Crime Drama?

• Explain, using these words:

• genre

• conventions

• plot

• character

• setting

IMDB 

BBC

Texts and social issues. Life on Mars

Learning objective:

In Week 4 Classwork I will: 

Analyse Life on Mars ep1 with consideration given to the crime/sci-fi genre as an arena for transporting important social issues to a foreign landscape.

Narrative structure beyond the linear

Learning objective:
Deconstruct media texts with consideration given to structure, bearing in mind my own MS3 production.
Set up, conflict, resolution.

Extended writing: Design a spider diagram which represents your own MS3 production.

Levi-Strauss and audience

Learning objective:
Apply Levi-Strauss’ binary opposition theory to video clips with consideration given to my own MS3 production and my primary target audience.

Narrative Conflict

As well as Aristotle deciding that 'all drama is conflict' in the 4th century BC, 20th century theorist Claude Levi-Strauss suggested that all narratives had to be driven forward by conflict that was cause by a series of opposing forces. He called this the theory of Binary Opposition, and it is used to describe how each main force in a narrative has its equal and opposite. Analysing a narrative means identifying these opposing forces.

It means understanding how the conflict between the opposing forces will drive the narrative on until, finally, some sort of balance or resolution is achieved.

Levi-Strauss used the ‘Western’ film genre to develop his theory of Binary Oppositions.

Homesteaders                                                                           Native Americans 

Christian                                                                                    Pagan
Domestic                                                                                   Savage
Weak                                                                                        Strong

Garden                                                                                      Wilderness          
Inside society                                                                             Outside society                                                              

Task 1:

List binary oppositions that you can  think of from the texts within your own Research Investigation.

Be specific.

Post onto your own blog for feedback.

Texts- narrative Theory. Levi Strauss.

·         Key Terms: Binary opposition. Conflict.Identify. 

• Examples of Binary Opposites
  Good vs Evil,
  Black vs White,
  Boy vs Girl,
  Peace vs War,
  Civilised vs Savage,
  Democracy vs Dictatorship,
  First world vs Third world,
  Domestic vs foreign/alien,
  Articulate vs inarticulate ,
  Young vs Old,
  Man vs Nature,
  Protagonist vsantagonist,
  Action vs inaction,
  Motivator vs observer,
  Empowered vs victim ,
  Man vs Woman,
  Good looking vs Ugly,
  Strong vs weak,
  Decisive vs indecisive,
  East vs West,
  Humanity vs technology,
  Ignorance vs wisdom

Narrative - Apply Levi-Strauss theory

Learning objective:

Apply Levi-Strauss’ binary opposition theory to video clips with consideration given to my own MS3 production and my primary target audience.

Binary means composed of two pieces or two parts

Claude Levi-Strauss suggested that all narratives had to be driven forward by conflict that was caused by a series of opposing forces. He called this the theory of Binary Opposition, and it is used to describe how each main force in a narrative has its equal and opposite. 
Analysing a narrative means identifying these opposing forces.

It means understanding how the conflict between the opposing forces will drive the narrative on until, finally, some sort of balance or resolution is achieved.

Levi Strauss is less interested in the chronological plotting of a single story than in repeated elements and their systematic relationship, usually across many stories. 
He called these the paradigmatic aspect of myths. 

A Levi Straussian approach to a particular film/TV crime drama might 
place it in the binary of crime/law and order.

When analysing a crime text you should ask yourself:
How does it embody this binary through contrast of characters, settings and actions?

It can be argued that there has been a recent shift in crime drama. The progressive defence attorney crime fictions of the 60's and 70's featured compassionate fighters for the underdog. This was replaced in the 90's with texts becoming more focussed on prosecutors. Perhaps due to a shift to the right in US and UK politics but also due to the difficulty of presenting defence lawyers sympathetically after their role in such high profile cases as OJ Simpson. 
(See the jaded view of the law in Murder One (1995) and LA Law (1986) if you are using Crime drama for MS2.

We could also point to the different detection methods of characters such as Megan and Horatio in CSI, she insists on staying strictly with the evidence, he goes with a gut feeling. They are consistently opposed, a narrative that can be seen in other crime fictions such as Life on Mars.

Many of you refer to binary oppositions in very vague terms. To tighten up your answer, always refer to the original thinker behind the concept, Claude Levis-Strauss, and then explain that binary oppositions reflect contemporary ideologies and fears, with specific and named examples to show your understanding. Here are two examples of how exemplification and detail can transform a response:

1)    “…In I, Robot we see binary oppositions at work such as robots against humans…”

2)    “In I, Robot we can see Claude Levi Strauss’s binary oppositions at work such as the hero, Detective Spooner and the ‘evil’ robot Sonny, representing good humanity versus cold, evil machine. This reflects contemporary fears of the increasing power of technology…”

Task1: watch this clip of Luther and apply Barthes' and Levi Strauss' theories where you can. Consider how you will apply the use of narrative theory within your own research investigation and production.

Write in orange books.

Extended writing: Design a spider diagram which represents your own MS3 production.

Applying Barthes' narrative theory

Learning objective:
Apply Barthes’ enigma and action codes theory to video clips with consideration given to my own MS3 production and my primary target audience.

At A2 level, you need to show a decent grasp of narrative theory, this includes using correct Media terminology to describe elements of storytelling.

Key terms:
The Hermeneutic Code (or Enigma code)
The Proairetic Code (Action code)
The Cultural Code

Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes has argued that every narrative has multiple codes. Typical features are used in narrative but can have several different meanings and interpretations and these meanings are suggested by Barthes five codes.

Barthes argues that every narrative is interwoven with multiple codes. 

Any text is, in fact, marked by the multiple meanings suggested by the five codes.

Barthes theory on Media-Codes is important to us in structural terms as well as helping us to consider the positioning of audiences.

The Hermeneutic Code (or Enigma code) This refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and which creates questions that need to be answered. The purpose is typically to keep the audience guessing until the part of the text when all is revealed, loose ends are tied off and the questions are answered.

 Most stories hold back details in order to increase the effect of the final revelation.

The Proairetic Code (Action code) This builds tension; any action or event that suggests something else is about to happen. An action that prompts the reader to predict what will happen next and will result in increased interest and excitement.

For example, a gunslinger draws his gun on an adversary and we wonder what the resolution of this action will be. We wait to see if he kills his opponent or is wounded himself. Suspense is thus created by action rather than by a reader's or a viewer's wish to have mysteries explained.

The Semantic Code This code refers to connotation within the story that gives additional meaning over the basic denotative meaning of the word. 
It is by the use of extended meaning that can be applied to words that authors can paint rich pictures with relatively limited text and the way they do this is a common indication of their writing skills.

The semantic code creates tension and suspense in the thriller by the use of connotations of certain features in the narrative such as props and dialogue.

For example, an envelope posted through a door with a number code written the back of it. 
The denotations of this is just sequenced numbers , yet the connotations will fuel and develop the story into further points. For example, these numbers have connotations of such things as:

·         Phone Numbers

·         Map co-ordinates

·         Pin codes

·         Door Codes

·         Bar codes

·         Address

The hidden meanings of these things help to drive the narrative.

The Symbolic Code This is very similar to the Semantic Code, but acts at a wider level, organising semantic meanings into broader and deeper sets of meaning. 
This is typically done in the use of opposition, where a new meaning arises out of opposing ideas. Such as good/evil and light/dark. Similar to the theory of opposition. 
For example if a murderer in a film seems to have escaped justice; this goes against all our beliefs about the law, this creates tension for the audience.

The Cultural Code This code refers to anything that is founded on some kind of recognised principle that is not challenged by the audience and is always assumed to be the truth. Normally this involves either science or religion.

For example ,  in Quentin Tarantinos production of Pulp Fiction, a religious speech is quoted by Samuel.L.Jacksons hit man character Jules right before he kills another character. The quote is front he bible and is as follows:

‘and I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.’

This quote uses Barthes' cultural code as the words within such as ‘vengeance’ and ‘execute’ only have connotations of violence and death. Jules proceeds to kill the secondary character. What Barthes is trying to explain by the cultural code is that when using symbols from certain areas such as religion or science, only one connotation can be understood and is used within a production.

Task 1: 
Watch the trailer for the Crime Drama Seven and write down any of the Barthes' codes that you can identify.

Task 1: 12/11/2015

Watch the music video below and identify codes as set out by Barthes.

Music video theory Goodwin

Learning objective:

Apply narrative theory to music videos produced by Nirvana, Madness and Miley Cyrus with consideration given to my own MS3 production and my primary target audience. 

Narrative structure; linear, non-linear and circular.

We will be looking at this theory for music video, you should research this today and complete the task at the bottom of the post. Post your answers to your own blogs and send me a link.

Andrew Goodwin’s Music Video Theory/How to analyse a music video

Key Points;

1 - Relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.

- Themes, mise-en-scene and events of the video match with lyrics of the song, to help to portray the message of the song.

2 - Relationship between the music and the visuals.

- The cuts and edits of the video are in sync with the rhythm and beat of the song matching cuts or effects to specific drum beats or notes.

3 - Music videos have genre characteristics

- Certain features are expected out of a video depending on the genre of the music, for example a girl bands/artists are expected to have dancers and close ups of the singers, whilst a Indi band are expected to have performance shots ofthe band and cut to a fast beat.

4 - Often due to the demands of the record label, artists' videos will include many close ups of the artist and will often develop motifs that recur across multiple videos

Music Video Motif 

- This allows the record label to promote a set image for the band, which will help target audiences empathise with the band.

5 - Emphasis on 'looking'

- The 'male gaze' is often used to attract a male audience. The male gaze is a focus on presenting things that appeal to men. This often means a voyeuristic view of, and an objectification, of women. The emphasis on looking also includes the artist looking directly into the camera helping the audience connect with the artist.

6 - Intertexual references.

- Music videos reference other forms of media, most commonly film, but can also be television and other music videos.

How to analyse music videos;

Andrew Goodwin identifies 5 key aspects of music videos that we, the audience, should look out for;

- Thought beats – Where you ‘see’ in the sound

- Narrative and Performance

- The Star Image

- Relation of visuals to song

- Technical aspects of a music video

‘Thought Beats – ‘Seeing’ the soundStep 1. To look at the music itself. We must take into account the structure of the song.

Step 2. The voice of the song. The artists voice is extremely unique and can form indentification or trademarks that work well with the star image. 

Step 3. Goodwin points out the artists mode of address. Songs can be seen as stories and the artist the storyteller, making the music video a two communication device – them telling us a story and we listening.

Narrative & Performance
Songs fail to give us the complete narrative.

We only tend to get a gist of the meaning of the song and then tend to make up our own idea of what is being told – A negotiated view of a text. (Stuart Hall theory).

Goodwin explains that music videos should ignore common narrative. 
It is important in their role of advertising.

Music videos should include coherent repeatability. 
Narrative and performance work hand in hand its make it easier for the audience to watch over and over without loosing interest.

The artist acting as both narrator & participant helps to increase the authenticity however the lip sync and other mimed actions remains the heart of music videos. 
The audience need to believe this is real.

‘Star Image’The star image is another vital aspect of music videos. Meta narrative which is a big story that describes the development of the star over time, it has an important part to play in the music video production process.

• Andrew Goodwin stated that there were three different ways in which the music video can connect back to the song itself . These are: 
• Illustration - Amplification - Disjuncture

•  Illustration- 
• Commonly used. 
• Images illustrate the lyrics.
• • Illustration is the simplest and easiest concept to base amusic video around as it is just a literal meaning to the song’s lyrics in visual form. Owl City have used illustrative ideas in their videos before, for example inFireflies’ when the artist is singing and as he says‘fireflies’ the word fireflies comes up on the screen to alittle toy gadget.
• Amplification-
• Amplification is second. The conventions demonstrated by the music video creative director. They may use both performance and narrative, connotations of the meanings. An example of this is Kanye Wests Homecoming where it does clearly show his home but the audience can work out that the song is homecoming and it is him walking around a city that he knows.
• Disjuncture - Intentionally ignores the content of the song and genre of the music and tries to create a whole new set of meanings. These music videos dont tend to make a lot of sense and can often use abstract imagery. In fat boy slims “praise you” there is no relation from the video to the lyrics.
• 
  

Task 1: Analyse Lady Gaga's music video Judas using Andrew Goodwin's Music Theory.

 

Lady gaga judas finished 

Fragmented audiences. David Morley (Nationwide)

Learning objective:
Look at the relatively new ways of measuring the modern, sophisticated, fragmented audience. (social networking).

Fragmentation is a broad term used to describe the transition of a population from one comprised of few large audiences for any one media product to another comprised of more numerous smaller audiences. 

In general, the number of people in the population attending to products need not change. Rather, fragmentation is assumed to result from a substantial increase in the number of options from which people can choose. 

Media producers typically find such audiences desirable for the purposes of grouping people for advertisers. As a result, market segmentation is often a term used to describe media outlet strategy. 
Media outlets are able to segment the audience when (1) they specialize their products to meet the demands of the desired audience and (2) people specialize their outlet and content selection purposefully. 
Some observers have decided that successful segmentation of a populace results in polarization, the division of people into like-minded groups who share similar knowledge, opinion, or value profiles.

_________________________________________________________________

David Morley’s Study of
the Nationwide Audience (1980)

The Nationwide Project was an influential media audience research project conducted by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, England, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Its principal researchers were David Morley and Charlotte Brunsdon.

Initial stage

The Media Group at the CCCS selected the BBC television current affairs programme Nationwide to study the encoding/decoding model, a part of reception theory, developed by Stuart Hall. This study was concerned with "the programme's distinctive ideological themes and with the particular ways in which Nationwide addressed the viewer". This first part of the study was published by Brunsdon and Morley in 1978.

Stage two

Morley conducted qualitative research with various participants from different educational and occupational backgrounds. He observed different responses to a clip of its budget special to see whether they would construct dominant, oppositional or negotiated readings (the three categories of readings proposed by Hall).

Management groups produced dominant readings, while teacher training students and university arts students produced negotiated readings. Trade union groups characteristically produced oppositional or negotiated readings. Black college students, however, "fail[ed] to engage with the discourse of the programme enough to reconstruct or redefine it".

The initial conclusion was that decodings cannot be traced solely to socioeconomic position, since members of the sample occupying the same class location produced different readings. However, Sujeong Kim's statistical re-analysis of the project's findings suggests that this may be an underinterpretation: according to Kim, the results show that 'audience's social positions ... structure their understandings and evaluations of television programmes in quite consistent directions and patterns.' For example, Kim observes that middle class viewers produced negotiated readings of one particular programme, while working class viewers produced dominant or oppositional readings dependent on their gender and race.

A more thorough breakdown of Morley's findings can be found here:

http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/short/morleynw.html

Task 1: 

How might the social background of  audience members effect their interpretation of the texts within your research investigation? Orange books. Discuss:

Extended writing: 
Research the Rebecca Black story and summarise how she became a viral hit.

Audience categories and positioning

Learning objective:
Interpret how and why audiences are categorised by media producers.
Carry out a task requiring me to categorise audiences from a media producer’s POV.

Task 1: 
Explore the promotional poster for the film Kidulthood.Use the Internet to research the content of the film.
Consider:

• Visual and technical codes in use.
• Who is the film’s target audience?
• What is your own response to the film poster?
• Apply Hall’s readings

Kidulthood (2006)

Task 2:
Read the responses below from various forums and review websites - 
Discuss what position the audience members have taken with consideration given to Hall.

Audience responses to kidulthood

As should be obvious from the responses given - the strengths of the Encoding/Decoding model is not only does it realise the audience as actively engaging with a media text but it also acknowledges the importance of an audience member's personality and cultural background, even if the text has been completely misunderstood!

In the exam you may have to discuss how and why an audience may take different positions - your job is to know how to apply this theory to your own experience of the media, or even a text provided by the exam board.

Task 3:

Watch as much of this clip of Hollyoaks as you can tolerate and then write 200 words in application of each of the Encoding/Decoding model. Orange books.

______________________________________________________________________________

Audiences - active and passive

Learning objective:

Analyse the difference between mass and niche audiences and compare with passive and active audiences.

Key words: 
Encoding. How ideologies or meanings are embedded into texts.
Decoding. How an audience interprets meaning.
Polysemic: The capacity of a text to have multiple meanings. Can be read differently by different readers.

Media Audiences an Introduction 

Audience Reception: Encoding/Decoding model

As discussed we generally don't sit in front of the TV, play video games, watch movies and then copy exactly what we've seen - we won't lower our moral standards that easily and we may not even let it contribute to our outlook of the world at all....but we definitely react in some way.

     

The Encoders are those who produce the texts - in the case of a magazine this would involve:

• Editors
• Journalists
• Photographers
• Designers

Some media texts promote certain ideologies overtly - for example a newspaper will often make its political affiliations fairly obvious.

Other texts will be more subtle and ideologies may be more subtly encoded, for example many 1950s science fiction films whereby alien invaders routinely tried to take over the USA were often a metaphor for America's struggle in the Cold War and the threat of Communism.

Whether it's political or not all texts will have ideologies encoded into them. 

Let's have a look at some of the Ideologies which we can read from the Marie Claire magazine above...

• Looks and appearance are important
• Other people's opinions of you are important
• Feeling good about yourself and having self confidence is important
• Strong independent women should be celebrated - women hold positions of authority and influence
• Emotions and feelings should be discussed and reflected upon
• Celebrities are people too - with feelings and vulnerabilities
• Women need guidance to help them make the right choices
• Women are maternal
• A fashionable look is important but people (children) shouldn't be harmed in attaining this look
• Materialism

Task 1: 
Identify the coverlines and images on the front of the Marie Claire magazine which relate to the ideologies mentioned above. Discuss responses of the active audience.

Uses and Gratification theory