Consumption/Inception ~ William Dixon

Consumption

Consumption is form of how the audience will take in a text in any form e.g. Music, T.V, Film. Consumption is when the audience will literally just take in what is given to them. For example, in the music video Let it Go by Chase and Status, if the reader just to consume the text

Inception

Inception is when the reader has to create the meaning in their own mind. This would be when a text doesn’t just have a basic storyline to follow. It’s generally in the more abstract Music Videos such as ‘Around the World’ by Daft Punk. In this video, there is no storyline only dancers and images being presented to you. This is because they want you to create your own meaning. This is what inception is, having an idea placed in your mind and then you develop the idea into your own creation.

Eletronica Genre ~ William Dixon

Electronica is the genre of music Daft Punk is based around.

Electronics’ first origins began with Electronic Dance Music which came about in the 80’s when instruments like the synthesiser were invented. Electronic Music was produced primarily for the purpose of the club scene, where distinctive beats and bass were needed for people to dance to. The first origins of Electronica Music are believed to have been with artists such as Madonna. The early 90’s is when the Electronica image began to come into mainstream music, with artists such as Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and Daft Punk. Electronica later inspired artists such as Deadmau5, The Prodigy and Skrillex. 

Consumption VS Inception ~ Luke Leadbetter

Is meaning created at Consumption of a text? Or Inception?

In my own opinion this can be argued either way, of course there is a meaning that is given to you by a text, but whether or not you choose to accept that meaning is up to the reader.

Terminology involved:

Preferred reading - What the producer of a text wants you to interpret

Negotiated reading - Some aspects of meaning taken from both the texts intended meaning as well as the readers own reading

Rejected Meaning - The intended meaning of the text is completely rejected for the readers own interpretation.

In our video, the preferred reading we are going to put across for our audience to consume is that of the video representing Daft Punk's beginning. We are also going to attempt to represent Daft Punk's use of their alter ego as a puppet to keep them out of the public eye.

The Hoosiers Metanarrative ~ Jess Hitch

                   

- Jess Hitch

180-degree rule ~ Jess Hitch

180˚rule in music video

The 180˚ rule is often followed in filmmaking and entails that the camera should remain on an 180˚ axis in order for characters and objects in the shot to remain on the left or right. If the camera ‘crosses the line’ it can cause confusion to the audience as it appears that the characters or objects have ‘switched places’ on the screen.

In the example below, the man in blue should always be facing left and the man in orange should always be facing right. If this rule is broken, then the men in orange appear to have swapped places, which would ruin the flow of the scene.

It is said that the closer the camera is to the axis, the more involved the audience is with the goings on in the scene as they will see it from a different perspective (for example, looking at the man in blue from over the man in orange’s right shoulder.)

Some filmmakers choose not to obey this rule in order to purposely create a sense of jerkiness and disorientation for the audience.

 

In music video, this rule is often broken especially in videos with aspects of performance such as if the band if performing the song onstage. This is because, by breaking the 180˚ rule, the audience can feel like they are closer to the performance. For example; having a close-up of the lead singer then jumping to looking over the drummer’s shoulder would make the audience feel as if they are walking around the stage with the band.

Music videos with a narrative tend to stick to the 180˚ rule because they tell more of a story and are more closely related to films and TV dramas and breaking this rule would have the same effect on the audience as it would in a TV drama/film. Disorientation.

- Jess Hitch

Moodboard and Visual Aesthetic ~ Jess Hitch

Top left - Love, teenage romance, internet romance

Bottom left - Toys, games, coloured lights

Right - network, futuristic, technology, music, social networking, instant messenger.

Visual Aesthetics

• Love and teenage romance isn't a theme that is prominent in daft punk so we decided to go by the name of the song 'Digital love' and narrate a love story surrounded by technological elements. This would appeal to the few girls in our target audience because its sweet and women love fantasy lover-stories. On this moodboard, there are many pictures of boy-girl images to suggest love and affection for one another. There are also the words 'I love you' to suggest fondness and endearment. There are also images of people on phones or laptops which ties the futuristic and modern feel in with the romantic feel. It also suggests a relationship that isn't physical and can't be touched
• The toys, games a coloured lights suggest a childish, whimsical and nonchalant theme which would appear to the younger range of our target audience because they are a little less mature and respond to bright colours and moving objects. The coloured and flashing lights as well as the remote control toys would also blend the futuristic in with the other themes.
• The technological side of the moodboard would appeal to mostly males across the entire range of our target audience because it is on the advanced scale of computing and eletronics however, the social networking side like facebook and instant messenger would appeal to the entire audience because it is something that is used daily and by everyone.

Overall, the kind of aesthetic we are trying to create with our video is a futuristic teenage romance set in a fantasy dreamland of coloured lights, objects moving on their own and bright colours which would suggest something up to date, youthful and in touch with the times, similar to many digital natives today.

- Jess Hitch

Timeline ~ Jess Hitch

Timeline

15^th Sept. – 27^th Oct. = Research and planning blogs.

-       Define music videos - To help us understand what goes into a music video and what makes it different from other texts.

-       Types of music videos and examples - To better understand the types of music video within the genre and help us decide what path our video will follow.

-       History of music videos - To help us understand how the music video was born and how it has improved to the present day. This will aid us with creating a video that will better fit in with the current climate.

-       Narrative structures in music videos and effectiveness (Propp, Todorov, Levi-Strauss) - Will help us to know and understand the different narrative structures used in music videos and what and how big an impact they make on an audience.

-       Star image - To grasp how everything about an actor can affect the audience and the video so we can better choose our actors according to our direction.

-       Semiotics - To comprehend the signs and motifs hidden in music videos designed to create meaning so that we can use signs and signifiers effectively in our own production.

-       180-degree rule - To understand how this rule was formed and why and also how in certain cases it can be broken.

-       Auteur Theory - To be aware of what kind of images can be created within a text and how we can apply these to our own effectively.

-       Is meaning created at inception or consumption phase? - 

-       Audience issues - Target audience, metanarrative, reception theory, uses and gratification theory. Knowing who are audience is and what their interests are will help us create a successful video that will appeal to them.

-       Intertextuality - References to other texts within a text. This will help us include a wider rage of techniques to include in our video and appeal to our audience.

-       Historical Context (zeitgeist) - 

-       Grain of voice - Voice has evocative powers, able to create associations, especially with fans. This will help us understand what affect a recognizable voice can have on the audience and a text.

-       Mise-en-scene - To help us understand placing within the frame and how this can affect the way the audience views a text.

-       Synesthesia - To help us understand what happens when something else occurs and how we can include this fluidity in our production.

-       Editing - 

-       History of stop-motion - Since we will be including stop-motion elements in our production, we needed to better understand the history of stop-motion animation and how it has evolved over the  years so that we can make use of it effectively and create the situation we want to create.

-       Electronica - Genre, aesthetics, metanarrative, mise-en-scene. This will help us understand more about our genre and what kind of things make it unique from other  music genres so we can portray the genre as it appears in mainstream music.

27^th Oct – 5^th November = Storyboarding and decorating set

-       Flashing lights - Gathering lights, flashing objects and glow-in-the-dark objects to scatter around the room to create an electronic and disorganized feel.

-       Various electronic objects - phones, laptops, ipods, keyboards to further support the futuristic and modern day feel.

-       Gathering filters -Using cellophane to create a desired filter on the camera can drastically change the atmosphere of a shot. We will mostly be using cool coloured filters like blues and greens to reflect the coldness of technology.

-       Making light reflectors - Light reflectors can make a good alternative to expensive lighting equipment as it can be made of tin foil and cardboard.

5^th Nov – 21^st Nov = Filming and animating

-       Maximum time to spend on stop motion aspects: 7 days

-       Software: Boinx TV – istopmotion - We are using this software to capture the stop motion aspects in our video because it is specially designed for stop-motion animation.

21^st Nov – 9^th Dec = Editing

-       Software: Final cut studio

-       Can also work on it at home, during free periods and lunch-breaks if necessary.

-       Make sure of timings, syncing, lighting, colours and effects so that it looks as professional and effective as possible.

3^rd Dec – 17^th Dec = Evaluation blogs and general blog tidying.

-       If desperately needed: Redo some stop-motion/takes in between blogging (editing for these must be done too).

18^th Dec = Final deadline for everything.


Setting: Will's bedroom because it is fairly plain and we can decorate it easily to suit our needs without causing too much damage. The objects we place in the room will also show up better against the plain walls, making it easier for the audience to see our purposely placed motifs. The plain setting will also appeal to a wider target audience as a plain bedroom would appear to have no obvious gender since it doesn't have any gender specific colours (ie. blue, pink).

Instruments: 

• x2 light up-keyboards that can play the melodies on their own whilst showing which keys should be played with red lights.
• Online music player (ie. itunes, spotify) so that we can 'play' the song from the list, adding to the technological feel.

Actors: Our main actors will be Will as the room we are using belongs to him. He is also a good actor with a very natural atmosphere about him. We also have a puppet that looks similar to him which we intend to have them 'transform' into each-other to create a sense of fantasy and surrealism. The puppet and Will will also provide breaks in between the stop-motion shots with some fluidity to vary the texture of the production.

Props: These will either be turned on and off to the beat of the music, used to decorate the setting or used in the stop-motion sequences.

• Coloured lights
• Rotating disco-balls
• Bright desk-lamps
• Laptops
• Phones
• Ipods
• Computer mice
• keyboards
• Computer monitors
• Puppets

-Jess Hitch