Music video revision

 

Music videos are not products, they are adverts for products. They're generally freely accessible and free in price. In America they're called promos and in Japan they're called PMV (promo music video). So the world is pretty honest about their status.

A music video is a perfect example of digital convergence.

Digital convergence - the coming together of two separate media industries thanks to digital technology

The scopitone and the birth of music videos

-A french invention 

-A kind of jukebox that combined music and video

-Popular in the 1920s

-Meant artists had to record visuals as well as music

-Performance not narrative based 

-Originally manufactured in France

-Came to America in 1963/1964

-Put in a quarter

-Big stars in France were making scopitone but in America it wasn't so A-list

-Titillation factor; girls minimally dressed, amazing colours and visuals

-uses a magnetic soundtrack rather than an optimal one

Bricolage - where a media product is constructed from a range of elements, often from completely different contexts and time periods

Hypersexualisation - literally 'beyond sexualization.' It's an extremer version of sexualization that makes it clear that it's sole purpose is to provide sexual gratification 

Star appeal - When a performer has been constructed so distinctively they generate audience adoration and their appeal goes beyond that of just being a performer

Unseen text practice

Explore how media language is used to create meaning in the Joker teaser film poster

Step one - underline key terms

Step two - knee jerk reaction

you need an opinion to present a coherent structure. For this question you need to not only evaluate but demonstrate a point of view. Never change your opinion halfway through the exam.

Hermeneutic code - encoded by producers as a way of creating meaning to draw audiences in and ensure the film is successful

Step three -plan

-the sans serif font is bold and powerful, connotes style of film and establishes genre

-the green, murky colour palette is stylistically in tune with the narrative of a antagonist being a protagonist. it's symbolic of greed and jealousy and toxicity, normally green is symbolic of life. 

-The lighting outlining the Joker's form establishes his importance as a character

-The red smear on his chin is mimicking of blood and connotes violence, a genre convention and connotes he's a villain. also functions as a hermeneutic code

-the undone collar in his costume suggests stress and discomfort, his entire costume is ragged

-the mise-en-scene of the way he leans back 

-the bullet in the graphics, is an action code for violence suggesting narrative elements

-the actor is looking up, hermeneutic code which directs the audience to look up at the title

-clown iconography is indicative of horror/thriller, anchored by the dark backgrounds. which also function as a symbolic code

-STEVE NEAL - repetition and difference of the makeup, archetype. different actor and isn't represented as intimidating 

-lack of text shows brand confidence and assumption that the audience will be aware of him. lack of elements shows how big it is as it doesnt have to be emphasised

-lack of anchorage in terms of context within the poster, hermeneutic code

-tagline - 'put on a happy face-' - ironic

-doesnt make eye contact with an ignoring gaze, suggests he is hiding something. Atypical of super-hero genre which normally have a star studded cast, in this case it's just one individual.

-Genre hybridity - drama, sci-fi, horror- atypical as it's not clear on what to expect

-mise-en-scene of his confidence pose is characterisation and contrasts with the blood on his face

-angle of his face distorts features which anchors ideas of broken identity

-because he's the only subject in the poster and is isolated audience can anchor this as the reason behind his unhappiness

-coming soon builds anticipation

-the text is faded, gritty and urban

Step four - introduction

Can be divided into 

-Definition

-Argument

-Context

context isn't as important in unseen section

Media language is formed of visual elements that are encoded by producers to communicate meaning, using media language is key to any media product in order to construct ideologies to be decoded by target audiences. The joker poster uses such language to encode its genre, which allows the producer to target specific demographics, which is overall important as a the teaser is part of a product designed to make money. This was achieved as the joker was a huge hit upon release and made plenty of profit to fuel the film industry and, more specifically, the conglomerate DC is a part of.

Step five - the paragraph structure 

Point

Evidence

Further argument

[theory]

There's a range of genre conventions in the teaser poster. The sans serif font is bold and powerful, it communicates that this is not a lighthearted film, encoding themes of violence and imperfection with the crooked style and proairetic code of a bullet - a symbol of the action genre. The tarnished additions to the text connote something that feels urban, conveying the conventional setting of a city, often associated with superhero films. The city setting, however, is set in binary opposition with the image of the joker. The city is often a place associated with life and endless amounts of people, but the one shot of the joker paired with the lowkey lighting represents him as isolated. This juxtaposition encodes themes of conflict and outcast, also establishing the hybridic nature of this films genre.

The colour palette of the poster is very murky with its use of green and black, it creates a creepy atmosphere that's commonly a staple for the horror genre. The green is also connotative of greed and jealousy, encoding toxicity that adds to the characterisation of the joker. It represents him negatively and as evil, something subversive of the superhero genre, here we can apply Steve Neal's genre theory of repetition and difference.

narratology - tzvetan todorov

 

Narratology

Todorov, like Levi-Strauss, was interested in the possibility that all stories share similar narrative features, and that if we understand and detect those features, we can better comprehend the hidden meanings that media texts present to their audiences. 

The crucial difference between Todorov and Levi-Strauss, however, lies in the former theorist's assertion that stories do not just construct opposition, but that characters and ideas are transformed by oppositional forces. More importantly, the recognition of those transformations by audiences creates moments of ideological instruction, prompting readers and viewers to transform their own real-world behaviours. 

Concept 1: the three-act ideal

the influence of Vladimir Propp

Todorov was hugely influenced by the Russian literary theorist Vladimir Propp and his highly influential 1929 book, the mythology of the folktale, in which Propp famously analysed hundreds of Russian folk stories in an attempt to uncover their underlying narrative structures. Importantly, Propp arrived at the conclusion that folk tales drew from a highly stable list of characters whose roles and narrative functions he defined as follows

The Hero

Propp identifies two significant types of hero - the seeker-hero (who relies more heavily on the donor to perform their quest) and the victim-hero (who needs to overcome weakness to complete their quest).

The Villain

fights or pursues the hero and must be defeated if the hero is to accomplish their quest

The princess and the princess' father

The princess usually represents the reward of the hero's quest, while the princess' father often sets the hero difficult tasks to prevent them from marrying the princess

The donor

provides the hero with a magical agent that allows the hero to defeat the villain

The helper 

usually accompanies the hero on their quest, saving them from the struggles encountered on their journey, helping them to overcome the difficult tasks encountered on their quest.

The dispatcher 

sends the hero on his or her quest, usually at the start of a story

the false hero

performs a largely villainous role, usurping the true hero's position in the course of the story. The false hero is usually unmarked in the last act of a narrative.

Propp suggested that stories do not necessarily have to use all the characters listed, though most are organised around the interplay of the hero, the villain and princess archetypes. Propp also discovered that the fairy stories he analysed followed a remarkably similar narrative structure, organised using a combination of just 31 closely defined plot moments that he called ' '. 

The starting point most stories (  1-7) usually introduce, he observed, the hero and other key characters. The villain, Propp tells us, usually appears at   4, prompting the hero to embark on their quest and culminating in the hero's final struggle with the villain at   26. 

Prop suggests that stories do not necessarily have to be composed of all 31   but those that are used are relayed in strict linear fashion.

Todorov's refinement of Propp's narrative theory

Todorov refined Propp's narrative theory in the 1970's, arguing that media narratives are created using moments of action, or as Todorov called them 'propositions' , and that those moments combine into narrative sequences. 

Broadly speaking, Todorov also argued that narratives tend to follow similar patterns; that the start of any story is concentrated largely, with the outlining of characters in stable worlds, while later sequences offer challenges to that stability. Like Propp, Todorov also highlighted the importance of character transformation within a story. Characters do not just experience adversity; they are transformed by those experiences. 

Todorov suggests, as a result, that an 'ideal' narrative is organised by the following story structure. 

Equilibrium: 

the story constructs a stable world at the outset of the narrative. key characters are presented as part of that stability

Disruption:

Oppositional forces - the actions of a villain, perhaps, or some kind of calamity - destabilise the story's equilibrium. Lead protagonist attempts to repair the disruption done

New  :

Disruption is repaired and stability restored. Importantly, the equilibrium achieved at the end of the story is different to that outlined at the start. The world is transformed

  three act narratives are used to structure stories across a range of media: from Hollywood film to television drama, the  /disequillibrium/transformation formula provides the narrarice backbone for a great deal of the screen based fiction we consume.

Three act narratives, too, are used in print storytelling: celebrity interviews, for instance, are structured using moments of disequilibrium and repair - alcoholism, the difficulties of producing a film and marriage break ups are used to construct moments of narrative disequilibrium. 

Three act narratives are universally present in factual programming too: the loveless subjects of Channel 4's The Undateables find true romance, criminal disruptions are repaied in 24 hours in police custody, while Netflix's Queer Eye team heal the broken lives of American singletons across the US.

In their simplest form, traditional three act narratives are typically delivered to audiences using the following features:

Stories are linear: conventionally, three act narratives move forward in time, progressing through Todorov's new equilibrium formula using successive narrative events.

Proppian character stereotypes are used: in their purest form Todorovian narratives tend to use conventional Proppian archetptes, clustering around heroes, princesses and villains.

Single character transformations are pursued: traditional Todorovian story arcs habitually place one lead hero at the centre of the story. Secondary characters, Proppian helpers, false heroes and so on are deployed to assist that dingle central hero in their narrative quest.

A more sophisticated application of Todorov 

Todorov, importantly, recognises that stories are constructed in ways that test and subvert the three act narrative structure outlined above. 

Stories, he acknowledges, can wholly omit equilibrium or disruption stages. A more sophisticated application of Todorov might also consider 

Plot and Subplot: contemporary film and tv drama is traditionally constructed using an overarching master plot accompanied by a series of subplots. Each of these narrative layers will articulate their own individual equilibrium, disequilibrium and transformation sequences.

Multiple equilibrium/disruption sequences: contemporary media products often try to produce a roller-coaster effect for the audiences by deploying several equilibrium/disequilibrim sequences before resolving in a final transformation. The alternating repose/action effect of such narratives offer audiences multiple moments of narrative calm and excitement

Flexi-narratives: long format television products deploy multiple three act structures in a similar pattern to that used by master plot subplot sequences, with some narrative resolved in a single episode and others concluded over the courses of a whole season or even longer in some instances. Theses flexible narratives offer audiences quick fix single episode resolutions, while also nurturing lomg-term viewing engagement by building season long three act arcs.

Condensed equilibrium: contemporary audiences, arguably, have a much lower boredom threshold, expecting products to deliver action or disruption quickly. Producers therefore propel narratives towards moments of immediate disruption to hook audience engagement from the outset.

Alternative story ordering devices

Audience demand for story novelty has encouraged wrieers and directors to test the three act narrative formula in ever more ingenious ways. Indeed, today's media saturated landscape means that consumers skim across products at he tap of their remote controls or the swipe of a tablet screen, compelling contemporary storytellers to create ever faster product engagement.

The accelerated, multifaceted nature of media consumption is also reflected in the construction of ever more complex narratives that are not afraid to test he linear rules of storytelling.

Stories move backwards and forwards. They skip or recap, they start at the end and end at the start.

Contemporary viewers, moreover, shift their attention, continuously: from TV screens to tablets to smartphones, watching and listening to two or more products simultaneously. And audiences do not wait for their media to appear in fixed schedule broadcasting slots. Consumption is slaked in binge watching gulps or conversely is nibbled upon in YouTube friendly 15 minute snacks. 

In short, contemporary audiences expect more of the narratives they engage with, while the complex consumption of those audiences suitably equip them to successfully decode products that bend or refashion Todorov's ideal formula.

These are some of the contemporary narrative strategies used that test or break the traditional rules of media storytelling:

Anachronic devices (flash forward/back): subvert traditional linear storytelling techniques through time bending. Flash forwards provide moments of disequilibrium before equilibrium reversing Todorov's ideal flow bt telling us the end of the story before it has begun. Flashbacks, too, are injected to disrupt the highly predictable nature of the three act structure.

In media res: contemporary stories often start mid-action, delivering immediate crisis, inverting Todorov's ideal narrative progression through the presentation of disequilibrium before equillibrium.

Multiperspective narratives: contemporary stories are often told from different character perspectives, repuposing equillibriums as disequilibrium when the story shifts from one character viewpoint to another 

Metanarratives: provide audiences with moments that draw attention to the idea that they are watching a story. Metanarration might knowingly refer to the product as a media construct or speak directly to audiences through fourth wall breaks.

Unreliable narration: deliberately deceive audiences, providing plots that deliver unexpected moments - usually be revealing that a character is not who they claim to be.

Frame stories: stories told inside of stories, testing Todorov's ideal narrative structure through the presentation of nested moments equilibrium and disequilibrium  

Concept 2: the ideological effects of story structure

Stories, Todorov suggests, invite audiences to interpret meanings - to decode the presentations of characters and narrative action as substitutes for ideas that exist beyond immediate plot presentation.

'an adventure' he writes ' is at the same time a real adventure and the symbol of another adventure'

Stories are metaphors - places where contradictory forces can do battle, where human desires can be articulated and curtailed. Stories, too, provide collisions, delineating harmony and disruption, and, in this sense, their effect upon the reader is both persuasive and ideological.

Todorov draws attention to the following ways in which narratives construct symbolic meaning

Narratives are significations: even though narratives are set within reality, the construction of that reality is symbolic - offering us a version of the world that is ordered by the ethical, moral or ideological viewpoints of a text's author.

Stories articulate desire: Todorov's 'ideal' narrative structure is often underlined by the desire of the lead characters to return to the stable world presented during the initial equilibrium stage. Moments of initial equilibrium, therefore, represent ideals for the audience watching the text

Disequilibrium and transgression: Todorov identifies the use of transgressive action as a mechanism that also enables ideological meanings to form. Characters break rules or violate social norms and to repair those transgressions they must be punished or effect a transformation. The ideological effect of these moments is to outline social ideals or modes of behaviour that audiences might also use to guide their own behaviours.

Disequilibrium and ideological villainy: narrative disequilibrium is also constructed through the presence and actions of symbolic villains. Here, the hero must battle an external foe, who Todorov argues, symbolises qualities that audiences are guided to avoid.

Structuralism - Levi-Strauss

 

Levi-Strauss painstakingly analysed the structure and narrative content of hundreds of mythic tales he collected from around the globe. From the tribal stories of the Amazonian rainforest to the ancient myths of Greece he sought to uncover the invisible rule book of storytelling in order to diagnose the essential nature of human experience; he believed that any common themes or motifs located in those myths would reveal essential truths about the way the human mind structures the world.

All stories, Levi-Strauss ultimately concluded, work through oppositional arrangements - through the construction of characters or narrative incidents that clash or jar. Moreover, stories and storytelling, in Levi Strauss's view, perform a vital societal function: oppositional presentations are resolved to outline societal taboos and socially acceptable behaviour. 

Concept 1: Binary oppositions

Levi-Strauss outlines the key academic ideas used to explore media products in his 1962 book, The Savage Mind, in which he suggests that a subliminal set of structural rules inform myth production. Individual cultures might speak different languages, he argues, but all stories told across the globe and throughout history employ a remarkably simple but stable formula. Myths, Levi Strauss infers, universally explore human experience using polarised themes: birth has to compete against death, success against failure, wisdom trades blows with innocence.

The Old Testament, for instance, suggests that the Earth was formed from a series of oppositional constructs - God separated light from darkness, the sky from the sea, the land from the water. In fairy tales, the innocence and youth of Little Red Riding Hood takes on the greed and cunning of the big bad wolf.

Levi-Strauss infers further that the universal use of these oppositional forces to organise stories is prompted by humankind's innate bias towards organising the world using binary thinking. Pre-modern man's need to distinguish poisonous from edible foodstuffs, Levi-strauss argues, embedded a cognitive blueprint that directs human beings to read the world using oppositional descriptors.

Humans do not do ambiguity, Levi-Strauss tells us. We simplify the world around us using an age-old bias towards binary thinking. Certainly, binary labels and binary thinking are evidenced aplenty in today's complex world. We continue to label ourselves as female or male, masculine or feminine, despite the multiplicity of gender choices at play in Western Society. 

Simarly, our political government is polarised as left or right wing, while human morality is packaged up in deeds that are categorised in good and evil.

Media based binary oppositions

Levi Strauss did not allude to the structure of contemporary media products directly, but if we buy into the idea that binary thinking is a universal feature of storytelling then it stands to reason that media narratives are organised using the same structural blueprints as those offered in myths.

Oppositions in media products might be inferred through the following

Character oppositions

Audiences expect villains to battle heroes. Oppositions, too, might also centre on secondary characters, with contrasts constructed in terms of youth or maturity, strength or intelligence, masculinity or femininity. Character oppositions can be found in real world products too: newspapers deploy stories in which criminals exploit victims, while documentaries depict innocent subjects who fall prey to anonymous corporations.

Narrative oppositions 

Media stories, too, are orgnasiede to construct moments of opposition. Print and television advertising, for instance, transforms failure into success through simplified binary presentations. TV narratives conventionally culminate in a grand narrative collision so that they might deliver a finale of story excitement for their audiences. 

Stylistic oppositions:

Media producers also encode products using juxtaposed stylistic presentations. Camera work might change from quiet stasis in one scene to a frenzied set of whip pans in another. Transitions of this kind can reinforce wider character-oriented oppositions or are deployed to create aesthetic interest. 

Genre driven binary oppositions

some binary oppositions are so deeply entrenched within genres that they become a convention or expectation of that genre. Sci-fi products regularly offer 'technology versus humanity' driven narratives; crime dramas routinely deploy 'law enforcer/law breaker' character stereotypes; romances resolve in romantic couplings.

The function of oppositions in media products

Media makers, moreover, deploy binary oppositions to create a range of audience-oriented effects. The potential functions of binary oppositions in contemporary storytelling are used for the following reasons:

To clearly explain ideas. binary oppositions can be used to simplify viewpoints or make complicated ideas understandable for viewers and readers. News stories, for instance, often explain complex topics by referencing interviewees with oppositional viewpoints to generate simplified overviews.

To create compelling narrative. the inclusion of binary oppositions inevitably creates conflict. Audiences are more likely to engage with a media product if they are presented with the promise of a narrative clash.

To create identifiable character types. Audiences can quickly gain a sense of the direction of a story once oppositional characters are introduced - we implicitly understand that the hero has to fight the villain or that the good guy will win over his girl. The use of clashing characters can also produce a range of other gratifications - comedy, fear and so on.

To create audience identification. Binary oppositions prompt audiences to identify with one central character or viewpoint. An advert, for instance, that contrasts humdrum reality with the sparkle of an advertised product clearly positions the audience to empathise with the brand promoted.

Concept 2: binary oppositions and ideological significance 

Myths, according to Levi-Strauss articulate a version of the world around us, generating, culturally specific cues that define acceptable or unacceptable social norms. Those cues Levi-Strauss infers are created as a result of the way that story oppositions resolve - in the way that select oppositions are disregarded in favour of their counterparts. Narratives, in this sense, provide audiences with a set of privileged behaviours or ideals that they are encouraged to copy or adopt

Levi-Strauss proposes, for instance, that a principle function of primitive myth was to describe incest taboo and the rules of marriage.

For example, Sophocles famous Oedipus myth illustrates the dangers of unnatural sexual relationships. The binary oppositions constructed in the story centre on the masculine energy of Oedipus and the femininity of Oedipus's mother. Famously, he blinds himself when he finds out he has accidentally married his own mother - his shame in transgressing natural incest taboos is so deeply felt that he can no longer bear to look upon the world. The resolution of the male/female oppositions presented convey a clear warning to the myth's readers and listeners - don't have sex with your own mother.

Likewise, cultural products - art, literature and the media - do not just present conflict in their narratives; they offer resolutions to those oppositions. In film James Bond always crushes the terrrorist plot. The Avengers inevitably destroy their seemingly undefeatable enemies, while the supernatural presence that terrorieses us in horror films is terminally exorcised in time for the end credits to roll. 

Narratives resolve oppositions, and that resolution process allows media products to play a significant role in promoting an explicit set of values and ideologies. James Bond's triumph over the forces of evil privileges a quintessential sense of Britishness. 007 not only fights bad guys, he reinstates democracy, moral decency and English tradition at the expense of totalitarianism, capitalist greed or religious fanaticism.

Oppositional resolutions in News Products

The news, too, resolves stories in a manner that privileges one set of oppositions. Newspapers teach us that criminal are caught, that corrupt politicians lose elections or that wayward celebrities have to endure rehab hell. The news does not just represent the chaos of the world, nor does it merely order the chaos into neat binaries - news stories are crafted in ways that reinforce cultural or editorial biases, and the resolutions that publications craft privilege those cultural biases to their readerships.

A news product reporting a terrorist attack, for instance, might outline the suffering and death inflicted by the incident, but those losses are often offset by coverage that emphasises the everyday acts of heroism that surround the incident. Police officers and fire crews step into the fray when bombers attack, innocent members of the public sacrifice themselves to save others and, when the terrorist dust has settled, the incdeient news cycle inevitably concludes with follow-ups that articulate the ongoing solidarity and defiance of the communities affected by the bombing.

Yes, the news articulates oppositions to create conflict and to sell more editions, yet, much like fictional media, news narratives construct resolutions to forward editorial viewpoints and to reinforce cultural norms.