Props.

In any normal movie or music video you can see a high amount of props. Whereas in our short three minute video we only had the idea to use one prop, an evelope. But in our Major game change we no longer required this prop.
After the game change. We used a pair of headphones. It was to show that the kid was drowning his sorrows within music. But he felt it was just not enough.

What Is Post-Modernism?

Post Modernism is the recognition that times around us are changing, that culture is moving on. Post-Modernism accepts that all pieces of media are open to user interpretation, therefore the value of all are equal to one another. An excellent example I could use is the TV show 'Dexter' which has an incredibly Post-Modernist concept, where we see the Miami metro lab tech also being Miami's biggest serial killer. Before Post-Modernism set in that would have not been culturally accepted as it would have been to dark. Another very Post Modern example is 'The Office' which was a British Sit-Com made in the early 2000's. Its genre was being a Mockumentary. A Mockumentary is the taking of a fictitious story line and showing it as realistic to the viewer. This is a good example purely because when it originally came out it had people questioning weather it was real or not. With it's Documentary layout and realistic Q&A sessions with the Co-Workers it really sets out to be real.

Rock of the Ages. 
This is a very Post- Modern example. As normal musicals contain classical music and tend to have one women singing about something stupid on a hill top. Whereas this has taken the whole idea of the stereotypical musical and turned it on its head. While still following most genre conventions. The music in the movie is a bit different from the standard things you would hear in a musical. They are all massive rock hits from the 80's and with that it sways away from the standard family musical, and becomes a more a 21st century musical in which we realize life isn't all glamorous and cheesy songs.



Pulp Fiction.

The film is interweaving some stories of gangsters. A boxer and robbers. The film breaks down the chronological time and demonstrates a particular fascination with intertextuality. For example bringing in some texts from both traditionally 'high' and 'low' realms of art. The use of different parts of media creates 'a loose, transitory combination of media consumption choices.' Pulp Fiction fractures the time by using asynchronous time lines, and by using different styles and combining them together to form a movie. It also demonstrates the postmodern obsession with signs and subjective perspective as the exclusive location of anything resembling meaning.

Editing - A Summary

Thus the arduous task of editing is complete. Even after our major game change in which i expressed earlier in my blog.

Above is the first screen shot that we have, this was taken before the game change in which we have all our old footage in. We only really worked on half this stuff on the 1st day of editing before my partner and I really decided to change a lot.

Next we have our new idea. With all the new stuff that we filmed put into action on Movie Maker. Non of it is in order. We added the music as one of the 1st things we did, so we could move things around it and make it fit accordingly. 

And finally here is the finished version. With everything in order and all of the transition shots and tones set into it. This is what our final piece will run off.

Whilst editing, I learnt a lot. Not to say i went in totally clueless, iv had some experience before, but never with anything this large. I understood the basics on how to move the scenes around and adjust the volume. That was about it. In my 3 weeks on Movie Maker, I'v learnt about transitions between scenes and not to use a straight cut all the time. I also learnt how to add music to the background and how to drown out video volume so i can use music volume. 

Not everything starts off perfect. I ended up with 7 attempts on my laptop before i got one that i felt was right. It was actually attempt 6 that turned out the best of all 7. 

But i did enjoy my task, and i found Movie Maker comfortable simple to work with.

This is a picture of my  partner and I editing our movie.

Our Genre And Our Video.

My partner and I have chosen to do 'Ambient Rock'. I have chosen Ambient Rock as it is a more free thought genre in comparison to the rest, without the addition of lyrics the music video is open to interpretation.Without the lock in of lyrics the story can turn around however the listener feels like it should. Hence why with the video we have left a few questions unanswered. such as;

• Did he actually jump at the end?
• What suddenly went so wrong in the happy relationship?
• Was it really worth it in the end?
• Is love the meaning of life, that as people we can function without an income, yet why does that mean happiness? 

Admittedly the last one is much deeper than the rest of them, but the video leaves that entirely up to interpretation. Its the way you want to view is the story that it tells. We just set up a simple basis for the story whereas you can mentally fill in the gaps, especially what happened during the time lapse. Why it went so sour? What happened?    

Shooting Schedule (Updated)

We actually had two sets of the shooting schedule. As we had a major game change so it was necessary in order to re complete some of the stuff we did. In both we had fours days in which we set out to complete this task.

 Above is the shooting schedule prior to the 5th of December. This was the one we set out on our original idea.

 Above is the new shooting schedule it was set post-December 3rd and this time round we encountered numerous mistakes which thankfully we managed to over turn.

Talking Heads Session.

Editing!

Thus begins the long task of editing. Finely tuning each nook and cranny of our presentation to make it not only fit in time with the music, but look appealing to the consumer. We believe that with hard work it will take us around 3-4 weeks to complete this task to a standard that we see to be of great quality.
Wish us luck!

Major Game Change!

My partner and I have both discussed this in deep and we have come to the conclusion that we need to change our story. Where before we had the male character (Mitch) leaving to join the army and dying, as we follow the female character (Ellen) try to overcome the lose of her love. But we didn't feel that captured what we wanted to be expressed in the music video. We wanted to move onto touchy subjects and I personally didn't feel that death in the army was to renounced in today's society. With the rise of depression by over half a million children in the UK and the suicide rates have risen significantly over the past few years, we wanted to address this issue. Even though it is only a small music video i wanted it to have a greater cause behind it, rather than just a cash grab in which i post half naked women to get more view's. In today's society people seem to follow more of those videos, pushing this type to one side. I just didn't believe i could get the same affect with the original idea.      

 These are the storyboards to the new shots that my partner and I created.

The Target Audience of Post-Rock/Ambient Rock

The target audience of our chosen genre is aimed around 30 - 50. Given its history and its cultural boom in the 70's and then later becoming huge in the 90's with band such as 'Tortoise' and 'Bark Psychosis'.
We came to the conclusion that the youth defines the music age. For example if you watch any 80's movie with teens in, They tend to have posters of Guns N' Roses and Def Leopard sprawled across their rooms and normally have the Vinyl tracks to match. This evidence was also seen in a more Post-Modern movie released recently called 'Rock of the Ages' which places teens in the height of the rock culture which was massive in the 80's and the older people who believed Rock was the devils music.
In the 90's 'indie' and 'Underground' music was massive, was really a youth cultured based genre.
We feel that people tend to grow up with the music they love as a teen as that's when you discover yourself so now those people would be 30 - 50 years old.

Our video on the other hand, While it fits the music, We feel there is no specified age gap in which we feel it specifies to. Personally I chose this idea to fit with anyone feeling the same. Its more of a show to put on to show people they aren't alone. If for the people that feel that way.

  

Straus's Theory Of Binary Oppositions.

Straus's was an anthropologist who lived in the early 1900's. He believe that we shouldn't just look at a word in its normal definition. yet more by they way we can understand the word and its opposite, or as he called it 'Binary opposites'. An example of 'Binary opposite' is Good and evil. How in most superhero movies we have the Good guy E.G. Superman and the villain Lex Luthor. This is used in an example that Lex has always wanted superman to die so he can fulfill out his evil plan. It is the whole idea that it is good VS evil. I personally believe that Binary opposite is what makes a movie or music video is what makes it interesting. As a superman movie without Lex Luthor or any kind of evil would be boring. It would just be superman flying around for two straight long hours and i don't believe that anyone would pay £8.50 to go see that.
In my video i want to use his theory to show the binary opposite of happy and sad. Where at the start we see a man, who is in love, who is content, who is clearly happy with what he has. Then later on in the movie. After all that is taken from him we see him broken, miserable and contemplating suicide. These are the binary opposites as without that initial happiness of the woman, he never would have fallen into the spiral of miserableness and depression.