Discuss Two or More Media texts that you would describe as post modern and explain why you would give them this label?

Discuss Two or More Media texts that you would describe as post modern and explain why you would give them this label?

Post modern films are described as films that go against normal conventions, they are films which can have aspects of reality in them but they also include a lot of scenes and scenarios which can be seen as unrealistic. “The French New Wave” period of time was where post modern media texts really started to become popular this was in the 50s going into the 60s.

The first post modern film I’m going to discuss is “Fight Club” produced in 1999 Fight Club is a very good example of a post modern text, the main example of post modernism in this film is the structure, it isn’t in chronological order the fact that the first and last scenes are the same shows us the post modern structure. The scenes between the first and last show how the characters get to the final scene. From an audience’s point of view, when they originally see the first scene it doesn’t give the impression that the text is post modern until later on when the film starts going forward and back in time.

Another post modern aspect of the film is the character Tyler Durden; we see images of him before we actually meet him as an audience, so when we are formally introduced the audience believe they have already see him; this gives an unrealistic feel to the film in general.
This film will only appeal to a certain audience because how it is layed out and the language and images shown, the post modernism in this film is quite difficult to understand as the character Tyler Durden doesn’t actually exist but this is not clear throughout the film and we just see him as an ordinary character.

Post modernism occurs in different films in different ways, one of my favourite films and a perfect example of a post modern text is Quentin Tarentinos 1994 Crime film “Pulp Fiction”. A very important aspect of post modernism is the scenarios characters find themselves in and how they as people deal with situations, for example when Jules (Samuel L Jackson) and Vince (John Travolta) walk in to a man’s flat with guns out with the intention of intimidating him and maybe killing him, whilst in there although they are still shouting and threatening him, they are doing this whilst discussing McDonalds as there is a bag on the table, Jules then goes on to talk about sprite. This scene is just one of many examples of post modern scenarios, it can be seen as post modern because although it’s meant to be an angry and maybe a violent scene it includes comedy because of how unrealistic the conversation they have actually is.

Similarly to Fight Club the structure is set out non chronologically, the first scene is the end and also there is a scene where Jules shoots a man in the head, in this scene they are dressed in suits and carry brief cases but in the next scene they are in coloured shorts and summer T-Shits but are still carrying the briefcase. This can be seen as a postmodern structure because as an audience we don’t know until later what happened to the dead body or how they got them clothes.

As an audience we notice a pattern throughout the film and that is that the majority of scenes are stopped at a vital moment or half way through a conversation this adds confusion to the audience which makes them want to watch more it adds tension which makes Quentin Tarentinos method effective and successful.

Personally I think that Jules’s bible passage that he speaks from memory adds a postmodern element to the film, I think this because he is a “Gangster” who does dodgy deals and has killed people as an audience we wouldn’t expect him to be a religious man.
Postmodernism in Pulp Fiction is shown through many ways but the structure and the characters in general are the main source of postmodernism. It is how Quentin Tarentinos makes his film and makes them different to others.

I think that both films are very similar in how they use postmodernism but there storylines are completely different, their structure is similar if not the same and they are both films that you need to watch carefully the first time or watch it twice before fully understanding.

Teaser Trailer

After my first attempt being very disapointing I had to re-film my trailer and all my different shots, therefore I decided to rethink my shot list and my storyline.
On this attempt my shots were a lot higher quality and was a lot easier to edit. I kept the majority of my shots short made them cut quickly into one another.
I included text to split some shots up and introduce my trailer and character, this way it makes it asier to understand and gives me the oppertunity to add a few more effects. On garage band I creaed a simple soundtrack to put over the top, I didnt want to make it too over complicated but wanted it to sound eerie.

I think the order I put my shots and the kind of editing i did represented my characters schizophrenia and the whole idea of my trailer/character in general.

feedback

After showing people my trailer they said they really liked how fast paced it was and my choice of music, they said I had some good shots in there and the Text i included was effective.
They also said it could have done with being a little bit longer but it still works well

handing in coursework

After doing my final editing on my trailer by putting a sound track onto it, I burned my trailer onto a DVD and printed off my poster and magazine. I put it all together in an envelope and sign it off.

I was happy to get it all in and i feel that the quality of my work to a good standard, my evaluation covers all apspects of my media coursework and explains how I did it and what problems i had along the way

Evaluation Question Four

In my planning I used a lot of influential pictures on schizophrenia and got a lot of background information on it.

I found information on schizophrenia which I put on my blog; this was a good starting point because it helped me with the characteristics of my character.


I did a post on my blog about target audience because this is something I will have to consider, what will teenagers and young adults want to see in a horror?

I found that www.blogspot.com helped a lot with not only my coursework grade but kept me organised, I knew what I was doing more because I put in on my blog for others and myself to see

Youtube played a big part in my coursework preparation because I was able to watch trailers that were very inspirational and made me think about how I wanted mine to look like.

Photoshop is very important in my coursework as a managed to get a good quality poster and magazine, it is easy enough to use and can be used to create many different effects.

The apple macs are also easy to use, with access to them we are able to create film trailers to the best of our ability because there are many effects to put in as well as putting in music.

We had the access to both still and video cameras which obviously play a massive part in our coursework, without them we wouldn’t be able to film or take the pictures of our ancillary tasks and people would have to find cameras outside of school for their projects and not everyone has access to them.

It is really good and helpful how the school also supply us with tripods for our filming because it really makes it better quality

It makes all the difference having access to photo shop and a good editing suite because it means students can work on their tasks in their own time on top of class time.

Another programme that i found very helpfull was garage band because i was able to create a small soundtrack to go with my trailer, without garage band my trailer wouldnt be as effective because the music plays a big part in setting the atmosphere for my "film". I find garage band easy to use and effective because I am able to use different instruments over eachother to create which ever mood/genre of music i want to.

Teachers helped with our research by giving us advice about researching about our target audience and also teaching us they key points such as Diegetic and Non-Diegetic sound.

I think the A2 media coursework went well overall with a few problems but they were overcome.

Evaluation Question Three

3)
My initial feedback didn’t help me at all because I got this feedback shortly after trying to edit the first filming attempt where the tape had broke and there was hardly anything to work with. I managed to put a very small something together but it was very short and didn’t make sense so there was only negative feedback on my trailer which I expected because I knew I had to redo the whole thing.

I have had good feedback on my poster and magazine, I was told that in my poster my editing skills are really shown as I’ve rotated and image and put it behind another using different layers and texts, my magazine cover looks effective because of the lighting and what I have done with my picture.

I originally didn’t have an age sign on my poster (18) so I put one of them in the bottom left corner to make it look like a proper poster.

All my effort was now to be put into creating my trailer and making it as effective as possible to get across to the audience what I want to. To put it right I looked back on trailers that inspired me and made a detailed shot list and planned ahead to get the best possible chance of having a good film.

Evaluation Question Two

2) I decided to do a teaser trailer, magazine cover and a poster because I think that they would all link in well together and I can create a good link, whether it is by a picture or a quote. I chose my storyline very quickly because it was something I was interested in, I also had a friend (Jack) who is very good at playing that kind of character. My story line was to have my main character a schizophrenic be in love and then part of him wants his partner dead and the other doesn’t, when he is his normal self he is unaware of his other side so he doesn’t know whilst proposing to her and loving her he is also planning to kill her. Before I started I got some back ground information on schizophrenia, there are hardly any cases of schizophrenia causing death but it has been known to happen and that is what happens in this storyline, people seek counselling and help if they are aware of their condition but not everyone is aware.

This picture lists a few side affects of schizophrenia, this is a good part of my research because it enables me to underastand my character.






I looked a lot at films that helped inspire me for my ideas and wanted to see how they made their posters look like, I wanted to make mine similar, from looking at these posters it gave me a clear understanding of what my poster should be like, dark and include the main character. I think it was a good idea to look at other films for inspiration because I can see what films are highly rated.
Hide and Seek was a big inspiration the whole way through my project because I know the film and also the idea is similar to mine, this poster is dark and I like the black and red combination. I would like my poster to be a little bit lighter and show some of my film. I had a clear idea what I wanted but it was very helpful to look at others. I decided I wanted the poster to show my character clearly as schizophrenic, I wanted to get a picture of him behind a tree and the other side of the tree him doing something else, I wanted him to be doing something weird. After going out with a camera and taking a variety of photos I found a very effective photo of jack pushing a swing by himself. He is pushing it away and is watching it and although it’s a still image you can sense that he is crazy because of his face and the fact that he pushing a swing by himself.












This is the image of Jack standing behind a tree by himself, the whole space behind him is deserted which makes him look alone and the look on his face gives off an eerie vibe.

I think this picture is effective because it shows Jack by himself pushing a swing which looks creepy and shows that something could be wrong with him.

As explained in my editing section of my blog I took the picture with the swing and rotated it so it was the other way round and then over the top put the picture of Jack behind the tree, these both worked well together, even though they were taken in two completely different places but the colours matched so they were able to be put together, I made the pictures look darker and creepier by using photoshop. I put text over the top and rated the film an 18, I think that text is very important and I included quoted from the film in my text and came up with this for my final poster.

I am very happy with my poster because I had to edit both pictures a lot to get them how I wanted to, I think that the colours work well together because it shows an eerie atmosphere, the weather being dull and dark adds to the effect. I darkened one side of the tree and Jack because I wanted to symbolise in more ways than one his schizophrenia, his face is half dark and half normal which shows he is split in two and I think this is effective. I am proud of how I managed to show schizophrenia in two ways along with the half dark, half normal face the obvious one is the fact that he is in two places at once, this shows that he has two minds and that the one closer to us is the more dominating of the two minds. Overall I think the poster shows off the mood of my trailer really well, the colours work together and I chose to have white text because it stands out and contrasts with the dark and dull background.

My magazine cover was more difficult than my poster was; I did some research on film magazines and found out what they should consist of, this is what a film magazine should include: • A main topic (usually a certain film) in my case “The Schizophrenic” • Big Font • Big picture • Price and Barcode • Offers e.g. “get your free poster today” • What is included in this issue “read why Jack Gamble enjoyed playing this role”

I wanted to get the theme of my film across in my magazine cover, I also wanted to use my poster and say “Get you free poster” this way I could put my poster to more use and make them both work together and link them. The title of my magazine is “FirstChoice Films” my idea for this magazine would be that all the top films and their reviews would be in this magazine, it isn’t an error putting FirstChoice without a space, I thought it looked more effective and the sort of style you would see on a magazine. I included a price and also edited the lighting and the effects of it. I used the picture of Jack behind the tree but to show a different atmosphere I changed the whole thing to night time and the whole picture under moonlight.



I think both my poster and magazine work off each other well and effectively, I’m very happy with how I went from the two normal pictures to my final products and I feel that i really improved my editing skills by doing these two tasks. My first attempt of a teaser trailer was a disaster, the film quality was poor, the tape was broken and I was unable to edit, I had to do it again but was finding it difficult because my main character and the person I needed to film (Jack), we only had one day where he could make it so spent the day filming it all, the filming went well and I felt good about it. I had a few inspirations of trailers to start with and they were hide and seek, the grudge and the ring.




I think that my trailer works well by itself but is a bit of a letdown after my poster and magazine cover, I got footage and I like what I have done with it but would really like to have had some more and made it longer. It is short and straight to the point and I think it is definitely a teaser trailer but could have been made into more, my shots are there and so is the story.
I think that when it comes to the storyline and my character the three tasks link in very well together, they are all dark, they all show the character and they all give a dark and eerie feel from them, they all have the same settings and all keep to the story line, as individual pieces they all have good editing and they all look sharp just like a horror should do.