Wednesday, 31 August 2011
1st to complete summer homework is... [worth visiting for tips]
Already onto SIXTEEN, not stopping at 15, this is a great example not of quantity but of quality: great incorporation of multimedia already, with quotes clearly laid out, sources acknowledged, a range of hyperlinks embedded, stills from the relevant vids, and strong analysis drawing upon knowledge of other vids and making links to other media texts, with each analysis nicely set out with year, audience, director etc etc clearly identified.
We had several blogs receiving 20/20 for both R+P and Eval last year (I'll share with you the exam board's praise soon), and this is a perfect example of how to go about repeating that!!! Stellar work Rob and Rich (and many others - I've been keeping a close eye on everyone's posting - or lack of - over the summer: very, very promising for the upcoming year on the whole!).
Indeed, last year's A2 averaged 79% (thats 1% off an A!!!), including our 1st A* for Media and two 99% marks (think about it - that gave those students 25% of their entire A-Level, which is marked out of 400 [100 for each unit]). You can look at their blogs on http://asmediablogs.blogspot.com/2011/07/summer-2012-a2-media-g324.html
Brilliant as they are, I'll be shaking things up as ever, and looking to achieve an average mark of 80%+ this year...
(Final Media A-Level results have been consistently outstanding, despite the subject awarding a low percentage of A/Bs compared to many other subjects, but were truly exceptional for 2010-11: 73.3% achieved A*-B, twice the national average. We'll look to at least equal that this year, with the same diligence shown by your A2 predecessors!)
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Female pop vids - issues and challenges
[There are further pertinent points in the post: http://musividz.blogspot.com/2011/07/3-summer-2011-vids-examplebadriddimnics.html]
I dare say some of you will be thinking of female pop artists to use as your track, so a few quick points to start thinking about...
Jess has blogged on Rhianna's Umbrella and Katy Perry's California Gurls (which you may recall was featured in the quiz...) [plus Spice Girls, Village People, Eminem, and Iron Maiden!]
 |
| Perry's vid targets the crucial female tween market through cutesiness, but with sassiness and sexuality it also targets older females AND males (gaze). Taken overall, it is part of an environment that teaches us what to expect of women, what the correct or desirable appearance is, and of the differentiated gender roles (with Snoop Dogg, in pimp mode, literally playing with the females here) |
Every female pop performer also has to consider appealing to a male audience, and sex is bluntly used by most. This is clearly a delicate issue to think through if you were working on just such a vid yourselves - the example of The Vixens from Latymer school is a good one to look at: provocative poses and attire, but nothing explicit.
 |
| These A2 Media students went beyond blogging: they also worked up detailed MySpace and other social media sites. They had to consider the balance between provocative poses or 'sassiness' - helping to convince, or achieve verisimilitude - and overt sexuality which wouldn't fit well within a school context (and which would arguably undermine any intended positive element to their representation of gender). Again, don't get trapped into over-emphasizing male gaze: are males their core audience? |
Rhianna, reflecting her Jamaican heritage she might argue, is noted for being scantily clad and sexually provocative dancing. The umbrella arguably takes on a phallic signification, and her whole performance could easily be transplanted to a strip bar! The dancers surrounding Jay Z aren't as near-nude as with a typical male rapper's vid, but their bodies nonetheless are very clearly the key element. The contrast with the male dancers who surround Rhianna towards the end of the vid is clear: they're fully clothed, seemingly 'buff' but they're not required to display their bodies.
The Perry vid is clearly a high-budget effort, tho typifies the absurdity of any claims she ever makes about positively representing women - in my view at least! The Rhianna vid is actually the more interesting. The SFX are expensive - the detail of the water hitting her and bouncing off is impressive.
 |
| Rhianna also deploys sexuality - but is it too simplistic to see this as playing to the male audience? Does this not also help her appeal to a heterosexual female audience? To support such an argument we could make reference to theories such as the Uses and Gratifications model of audience, which looks at the psychological role media texts can play in the lives of audiences, or Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. You'll need to explore ideas such as these for Q1a+1b of your exam, as well as your Evaluations. |
But I also really like the use of her gesture to push away water to create a transition; a wave leads us from LS into CU with water rippling out and revealing the CU.
The variety of shots for even the most mundance passages is also a key factor in making the vid work - look at the sheer number of different shots used from around 1:41 as she dances in a great hall. The cuts are often timed to match the beat too. We also get frequent use of focus pull simultaneous with a judder or shake effect, nicely signifying bass, as if the screen was a speaker, but also with sexual connotations.
The Spice Girls, btw, launched the girl band notion back in '96, when 'girl power' became a buzz word, and they saw their status as role models as important - compare their early vids for a comparative lack of plain sexuality.
So, if YOU were thinking of making a vid along these lines, what would you have to consider?
- SEXUALITY: can't be ignored, but clearly there is a line of acceptability - and you should carefully consider how you want to represent gender.
- again, The Vixens' vid is a good reference point: heavy make-up, somewhat provocative clothing, movements and gestures, but nothing explicit
- confident performers are rather important - you'll see a lot of direct address through looking into the lens, and the next point could be a key factor in casting...
- CLOTHING/COSTUME: a key ingredient: a shared look for a group for example? If you're thinking skimpy, where should you draw the line - and are you confident your choices will be agreeable to your cast? Costume changes - most vids feature multiple costume changes, and...
- LOCATIONS: Megan/Emmie's 2011 Backstreet Boys vid is a good example of how multiple locations can render a vid a success. For many pop vids tho, you'll be thinking of interiors you can set dress, even something as simple as all white.
- DANCERS + CHOREOGRAPHY: Again, Megan/Emmie did a pretty good job getting their boy band to pull off some convincing dance moves (even Jem!). How ambitious do you want to be with the dancing? Do you want opposite sex performers to dance around your singer/s?
Rhianna... [Umbrella]
The always atrocious Perry... [California Gurls]
Spice Girls (zig-a-zag oh ... very deep stuff!) [Wannabe]
Latymer School's Vixens - good shot variation + strong performers cast
This a great example of a student-produced female pop vid. There's no question that there are sexually provocative elements - some of the dancing, costume choices, heavy make-up and elements of the direct address to camera - BUT nothing explicit, and nothing that would break watershed guidelines. The use of FX, the coherent concept and the all-important choice of set/location, but most of all the fantastic shot variation and tight editing, all make this a very strong vid. The absence of male performers is an interesting choice too.
I still think they missed a trick though: they could have made more of the concept, with the 'voddoo child' line offering opportunities to intercut clips of someone manipulating the comparatively innocent protagonist. Any thoughts?
It later struck me that Xtina would indeed be a good reference point here: controversially explicit BUT many of her lyrics do directly tackle gender issues, as reflected in this battle of the sexes vid...
[Christina Aguilera - Can't Hold Us Down]
Of course, they all learned from the pioneering example of Madonna, once a credible and compelling artist long before she hooked up with the Mockney king and reinvented herself as English rose. Here she is in a narrative vid, with some performance shots intercut, taking on the always controversial topic of teen pregnancy:
[Madonna - Papa Don't Preach]
There is a great Wiki entry on this, as with many music vids (and directors):
For the music video Madonna sported a complete image makeover. She changed the heavy jewelry and make-up, and adopted the gamine look, which is notably applied to describe the style and appearance that Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn used during the 1950s.[38][39] In the video Madonna played a tomboy, dressed in jeans, a black leather jacket, and a slogan T-shirt with the caption "Italians do it Better". The video alternated between tomboy shots and those of a sexier Madonna with a more toned and muscular body, cropped platinum blonde hair, and figure-revealing clothing, consisting of a 1960s-style black bustier top and capri pants.[40] It was directed by James Foley, who worked with Madonna in her video for "Live to Tell",[41] produced by David Naylor and Sharon Oreck, and Michael Ballhaus was in charge of the photography.[42] Actor Alex McArthur was signed to play Madonna's boyfriend and the father of her child in the video. Madonna had spotted McArthur in a small role as a naive youth in the 1985 film Desert Hearts, and she thought he was a natural to play her mechanic boyfriend.[43] "I was out in the garage working on my Harley," said McArthur, "I answered the phone and a voice said, 'Hi, this is Madonna. I would like you to be in my next video.'"[43]And here she is again with the gloriously ironic track that helped make her a household name, and cemented her appeal to a broad male and female audience:
The music video starts with shots of the New York skyline, the Staten Island Ferry, and character close-ups.[44] Madonna plays a teenager, who is seen walking along a lane. Then it shows her thinking about her father, played by Danny Aiello,[40] and how much he loves her. She then sees her boyfriend, played by actor Alex McArthur,[43] coming along. The images are juxtaposed with shots of Madonna dancing and singing in a small, darkened studio. Madonna then moves away from her friends, who warn her from her boyfriend. She and her boyfriend spend a romantic evening together on a barge where they reflect upon their lives after watching an elderly couple. Then Madonna finds out that she is pregnant and after much hesitation tells her father. They have a few days of tension between them. Her father eventually accepts the pregnancy, and the final scene is a reconciliatory embrace between father and daughter.[44]
Georges-Claude Guilbert, author of Madonna As Postmodern Myth, compared her look in the video as a "combination of Marilyn Monroe, Jean Seberg and Kim Novak." He added that it was hard for him to believe that "[Madonna] did not know that she was going to cause a huge controversy with the video.... With such a song and video, she was throwing in America's face the image of a country ravaged by the abortion debate, which is far from being resolved."[45] Lynda Hart, one of the authors of Acting Out: Feminist Performances, felt that the video "alternated between two competing representations of Madonna... Charging coercion, both sides make the video as an invitation to a certain way of life, in the process denying it the stylistic invocation of a rhetoric of self-authorization."[46] At the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, the "Papa Don't Preach" video won the Best Female Video award, and was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Overall Performance.[47]
[Madonna - Like a Virgin]
Again, the wiki entry on this is superb:
The music video, directed by Mary Lambert, who worked with Madonna in her video for "Borderline", was shot in Venice, Italy and partly in New York City in July 1984. Madonna was portrayed as a knowing virgin, a figment of the pornographic mind, as she walked through marble rooms, wearing a wedding gown. It alternated with scenes of a slutty-looking Madonna on-board a gondola.[44] She commented, "[Mary] wanted me to be the modern-day, worldly-wise girl that I am. But then we wanted to go back in time and use myself as an actual virgin."[45] The video starts with Madonna boarding on a boat from the Brooklyn Bridge and travels to Venice. As she steps down into the city, she moves like a stripper and undulated sinuously. She wears a black dress and blue pants with a number of Christian symbol embedded jewellery around her neck.[46] She sings the song at full volume as she watches a lion walking between the columns of the Piazza San Marco of Venice and along the statute of Saint Mark.[46] A number of game-playing involving carnival masks, men, lions, werelions are portrayed with allusions to eighteenth-century practices and Saint Mark.[47] Sheila Whiteley, author of Women and popular music: sexuality, identity, and subjectivity, felt that Madonna's image signified a denial of sexual knowledge, but also portrayed her in simulated writhing on a gondola, thus underpinning the simulation of deceit. The intrusion of a male lion, confirmed the underlying bestial discourse of both mythological fairytale and pornographic sex. Whiteley observed that in the video, Madonna's lover wears the lion's mask and while cavorting with him, Madonna sheds the veneer of innocence and shows her propensity for wild animal passions. Having instilled desire, metaphorically she turns her lover into a Beast.[48] Madonna commented about shooting with the lion:
"The lion didn't do anything he was supposed to do, and I ended up leaning against this pillar with his head in my crotch... I thought he was going to take a bite out of me so I lifted the veil I was wearing and had a stare-down with him and he opened his mouth and let out this huge roar. I got so frightened my heart fell in my shoe. When he finally walked away, the director yelled 'Cut' and I had to take a long breather. But I could really relate to the lion. I feel like in a past life I was a lion or a cat or something."[45]
With the video, scholars noted the expression of Venetian vitality in it. Margaret Plant (2002) commented: "With the lion of Saint Mark and the virginal city to the forefront, old sacrosanct Venice was propelled into a pop world of high-energy gyration, and endless circulation."[49] She also noted that Saint Mark was a symbol of a time when sexual crime was punished severely in Venice and acts of rape, homosexuality and fornication incurred the loss of a nose, a hand or sometimes life itself. Madonna appeared to challenge such brutality and stretch the boundaries of tolerance in the video. As the lion-man carried Madonna to the Venetian palace, it symbolized an instance of the Saint taking the simulated Virgin, where Madonna became a symbol for La Serenissima, the Republic itself.[50] Plant also noted that Madonna, in the video, restored the energy and eroticism of Venice, which had its name taken from Venus in familiar elision. As she exchanged her blue top for a black one during the video, Madonna demonstrated her mastery and bravery of the city, which had a reputation of turning out its visitors as victims.[46] Carol Clerk (2002) commented that with the video, "Madonna's days as a cheap and cheerful video star were over. She was moving into serious spectacle."[6]
In 1985, a live music video of "Like a Virgin" from The Virgin Tour filmed in Detroit, was used to promote Live – The Virgin Tour video release. This version was nominated for Best Choreography at the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards.[51] The live performance of "Like a Virgin" from the Blond Ambition World Tour in Paris, France was released as a music video on May 9, 1991 to promote the documentary film Truth or Dare. This version was nominated for two awards at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards in the categories of Best Female Video and Best Choreography.[52] This video was ranked at position sixty-one on VH1's 100 Greatest Videos.[53]
Streets anti-vid
LINKED POSTS: http://musividz.blogspot.com/2010/11/artist1-pixies.htmlhttp://musividz.blogspot.com/2011/06/greatest-single-take-video-ever.html http://musividz.blogspot.com/2012/02/one-shot-vids.html
What I mean by anti-vid (NOT a technical term!) is a vid that rejects the noisy stylings of the vid format, full of fast-paced edits/SFX; Kyle picked this one, and found the following quote from Mike Skinner on it:
"During a great period of intense mixing we decided that it might be nice to shoot a video. This isn't the way the record industry works and so it was under the radar of the label and done totally for us by us on a shoe string. It was totally different from any other promo that I've made in that it was something real that we just filmed rather than trying to create something real looking using lots of people and lots of angles. I feel like it's more than a video in that sense. Aswell as looking quite odd without all the singing and quick cuts" (Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2c6g6eG1mQ)
You couldn't really do something like this as coursework - how would you evidence your technical skills? - BUT I am considering the idea of each group producing at least one alternative vid, an increasingly common approach seen even with major artists such as U2 (One), and somewhat inspired by the protest vid The Pixies produced in annoyance at having to have a vid out to get on Top of the Pops. (I've blogged on these...)
You may even wish to shoot some footage for an alternative vid during the summer if inspiration strikes!
Friday, 12 August 2011
The 90s the new 80s? (nostalgia+culture)
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/07/25/tween_nostalgia
[this links well into Simon Reynolds' 'retromania' book/concept]
I hadn't seen my usually laconic, eye-rolling 22-year-old sister as excited this summer as when she told be me that Nickelodeon was bringing back "All That."
"You mean that kid sketch show from when you were like, 8?"
"Yeah," she said, getting a wistful look in her eyes, "and 'Clarissa Explains It All,' too. Man, I loved those shows."
TeenNick is calling its new late-night schedule "The '90s Are All That," but recently, you might just say the '90s are everywhere, in all its many guises. There's Clarissa, sure, but also Nirvana, as September's 20th anniversary of "Nevermind" approaches. Richard Linklater has been taking a 20th anniversary victory lap with "Slacker." And last week at ComicCon, Mike Judge talked about the return of the decade's ultimate slackers, "Beavis and Butt-Head," to MTV.
Those who find nostalgia harmless fun might need reminding that the word itself comes from a Greek compound of nóstos (to come home again) and álgos, which translates to an ache; it's the linguistic daughter of sorrow and longing personified. I'm four years older than my sister, and don't feel any aching pain to go back to those of years of middle school when I would stay up late Saturday night and watch SNICK.
Yet the same week, I found myself wishing that if they were going to bring back Clinton-era TV shows, why couldn't it be "My So-Called Life," "Daria" or " Mystery Science Theater 3000" -- all of which ended before I made it to high school.
Of course, every decade takes its turn on the nostalgia wheel eventually, and usually more than once. But nostalgia was usually targeted to an older demographic -- after all, the audience for elaborate reissues of "Nevermind" and "Slacker" are different from those who pine for "All That."
But if nostalgia used to be a bittersweet memory of a long time ago, now it's the commercialization and repackaging of the last 10 years of your life. Thanks to us children of the '80s, nostalgia can now be branded, bottled and sold to you less than a decade after you experience it, creating a feedback loop of fond -- if somewhat false -- feelings of attachment. As a culture, we've shrunk the time between the experiencing of a culture and its inevitable comeback from a generation to a decade to a couple of years ... and why stop there? Call it faux-stalgia.
Why do I blame the '80s for cranking up this process to lightning speed? I spoke to Susannah Gora, author of "You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes and Their Impact on a Generation," who sees the nostalgia factor not in how much time has passed, but how an era was defined: "There is a big difference between the culture of the 1980s and the '90s. Teen movies from the '80s really affected how Generation X saw the world: Everything from love and sex and friendship to politics, sex, and fashion ... you name it. And I think the lesson of '80s pop culture was optimism. You had John Hughes, the idea that the geek could get the girl ... music with power ballads that made you think you could take on the world. You really can't underestimate that kind of power.
"The moment Nirvana came on the scene, everything fun and over-the-top became passé. A lot of '90s culture had to do with grunge, irony and a darker worldview, although ironically, looking back we actually had it pretty good. So it's interesting that there are movies now like 'Take Me Home Tonight' and 'Hot Tub Time Machine,' that celebrate the '80s. We have music that emulates that era, like Neon Trees, the Killers, Lady Gaga as Madonna. People would rather revisit the 80s than the '90s. Like the 1950s, it was a very fun, upbeat time in culture."
It does seem like '80s mania affected kids born during that time period as much as the adults who lived through it. When Hot Topic started selling "vintage" T-shirts of films like "E.T." and "The Goonies," I remembered wondering why anybody my age would proudly display their love for a kids movie. Same with "Take Me Home Tonight." How much of Topher Grace's teen audience actually remembers when "Risky Business" or "Sixteen Candles" came out? (The movie's official music video asked its audience to "spot" all the iconic '80s movie scenes being re-created by the cast while Atomic Tom covered Human League's "Don't You Want Me.")
The one thing the children of the '90s nostalgia wave do have going for them? The Internet. And everyone I talked to agreed that the Web is the No. 1 factor in the closing of the nostalgia gap. Whereas older generations could only reminisce about the artifacts of when they were young, sites like YouTube upload shows immediately after they are canceled. Retrojunk.com lovingly archives all the ephemera from the '80s and '90s and gives readers open forums to discuss how much they loved Tommy the Gold/White Power Ranger more than Zach Morris.
Add the Internet to Gora's theory, and faux-stalgia becomes a product of growing up in the "ironic" '90s, when advertisers, retailers and even artists were busy selling children on the idea of retro-mediacy. Is there even harm in it? After all, what does it matter if we remember "Risky Business" when it came out in theaters, or just by watching its famous scenes parodied in advertisements? Even if "Gremlins" came out in 1984, it's the 19-year-olds today who will be able to beat you in the trivia question for the name of Gizmo's original owner (Mr. Wing, though you only find that out in the sequel).
Why spoil the fun: Isn't that like telling people under 25 that they can't be obsessed with old movies or Led Zeppelin? As it turns out, there's a good reason why nostalgia is usually reserved for adults.
Joseph LeDoux is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University, with a focus on the biology of memories and emotion. When asked via email why nostalgia culture prevails through every generation, he replied: "We know that adolescence is a time of hormonal exuberance and that hormones play a key role in strengthening memory (we remember emotional situations strongly in part because of the hormonal upheaval). Adolescence is just a continuous emotional outburst so we remember it strongly. There's something called the reminiscence bump, where it's been shown that memories from teen years and early 20s account for disproportionate amounts of one's memories."
Talking about music, Daniel J. Levitin comes to a similar conclusion: "Fourteen is a sort of magic age for the development of musical tastes ... Pubertal growth hormones make everything we're experiencing, including music, seem very important. We're just reaching a point in our cognitive development when we're developing our own tastes. And musical tastes become a badge of identity."
If we extend Levitin's point to include not just music, but all influential media -- TV, movies, fashion -- we begin to see why marketing nostalgia to people in their formative years might be a problem. If we are closing the age gap between how long it takes us to start looking backward, then these 14-year-olds are going to be glorifying pre-adolescence, instead of being influenced, and eventually influencing, the culture that they are growing up in.
Not convinced? Let's go back to that push for TeenNick's new-old lineup, "The 90s Are All That," which will be replaying "classic" shows like "Clarissa Explains It All," "Kenan & Kel" and the cartoon show "Doug." By Nick's own demographic of their audience -- kids 7 through 17 -- no one who fit into its original target audience remains young enough to still be enticed to watch TeenNick. And yet Viacom says it is just responding to the overwhelming surge of popularity in these shows' Facebook groups.
Brian Stelter of the Times writes:
But while bringing back "Pop-Up Video" and "Beavis and Butt-Head" (the former of which stopped airing new episodes in 2002, the latter in 1997) may trigger some of those nascent adolescent feelings in adults, there's another issue that keeps these shows from being truly nostalgic: They simply haven't given us enough time to miss them. VH11 aired "I Love the '90s" in 2004, when the era being described longingly wasn't even half a decade gone. "The '90s Are All That" has a little more of a gap, but not much. So what is the message that we're sending these hormonal, emotional and impressionable young adults, who are supposed to be out there creating the memories to last a lifetime?
Why, that the best years are already behind them.
[this links well into Simon Reynolds' 'retromania' book/concept]
Tween nostalgia: Closing the time gap of pop longing
Is the ever-faster speed of retro culture hindering the creativity of new generations?
Nickelodeon
Please God, it's too soon to bring back the fashion of "Clarissa"
"You mean that kid sketch show from when you were like, 8?"
"Yeah," she said, getting a wistful look in her eyes, "and 'Clarissa Explains It All,' too. Man, I loved those shows."
TeenNick is calling its new late-night schedule "The '90s Are All That," but recently, you might just say the '90s are everywhere, in all its many guises. There's Clarissa, sure, but also Nirvana, as September's 20th anniversary of "Nevermind" approaches. Richard Linklater has been taking a 20th anniversary victory lap with "Slacker." And last week at ComicCon, Mike Judge talked about the return of the decade's ultimate slackers, "Beavis and Butt-Head," to MTV.
Those who find nostalgia harmless fun might need reminding that the word itself comes from a Greek compound of nóstos (to come home again) and álgos, which translates to an ache; it's the linguistic daughter of sorrow and longing personified. I'm four years older than my sister, and don't feel any aching pain to go back to those of years of middle school when I would stay up late Saturday night and watch SNICK.
Yet the same week, I found myself wishing that if they were going to bring back Clinton-era TV shows, why couldn't it be "My So-Called Life," "Daria" or " Mystery Science Theater 3000" -- all of which ended before I made it to high school.
Of course, every decade takes its turn on the nostalgia wheel eventually, and usually more than once. But nostalgia was usually targeted to an older demographic -- after all, the audience for elaborate reissues of "Nevermind" and "Slacker" are different from those who pine for "All That."
But if nostalgia used to be a bittersweet memory of a long time ago, now it's the commercialization and repackaging of the last 10 years of your life. Thanks to us children of the '80s, nostalgia can now be branded, bottled and sold to you less than a decade after you experience it, creating a feedback loop of fond -- if somewhat false -- feelings of attachment. As a culture, we've shrunk the time between the experiencing of a culture and its inevitable comeback from a generation to a decade to a couple of years ... and why stop there? Call it faux-stalgia.
Why do I blame the '80s for cranking up this process to lightning speed? I spoke to Susannah Gora, author of "You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes and Their Impact on a Generation," who sees the nostalgia factor not in how much time has passed, but how an era was defined: "There is a big difference between the culture of the 1980s and the '90s. Teen movies from the '80s really affected how Generation X saw the world: Everything from love and sex and friendship to politics, sex, and fashion ... you name it. And I think the lesson of '80s pop culture was optimism. You had John Hughes, the idea that the geek could get the girl ... music with power ballads that made you think you could take on the world. You really can't underestimate that kind of power.
"The moment Nirvana came on the scene, everything fun and over-the-top became passé. A lot of '90s culture had to do with grunge, irony and a darker worldview, although ironically, looking back we actually had it pretty good. So it's interesting that there are movies now like 'Take Me Home Tonight' and 'Hot Tub Time Machine,' that celebrate the '80s. We have music that emulates that era, like Neon Trees, the Killers, Lady Gaga as Madonna. People would rather revisit the 80s than the '90s. Like the 1950s, it was a very fun, upbeat time in culture."
It does seem like '80s mania affected kids born during that time period as much as the adults who lived through it. When Hot Topic started selling "vintage" T-shirts of films like "E.T." and "The Goonies," I remembered wondering why anybody my age would proudly display their love for a kids movie. Same with "Take Me Home Tonight." How much of Topher Grace's teen audience actually remembers when "Risky Business" or "Sixteen Candles" came out? (The movie's official music video asked its audience to "spot" all the iconic '80s movie scenes being re-created by the cast while Atomic Tom covered Human League's "Don't You Want Me.")
The one thing the children of the '90s nostalgia wave do have going for them? The Internet. And everyone I talked to agreed that the Web is the No. 1 factor in the closing of the nostalgia gap. Whereas older generations could only reminisce about the artifacts of when they were young, sites like YouTube upload shows immediately after they are canceled. Retrojunk.com lovingly archives all the ephemera from the '80s and '90s and gives readers open forums to discuss how much they loved Tommy the Gold/White Power Ranger more than Zach Morris.
Add the Internet to Gora's theory, and faux-stalgia becomes a product of growing up in the "ironic" '90s, when advertisers, retailers and even artists were busy selling children on the idea of retro-mediacy. Is there even harm in it? After all, what does it matter if we remember "Risky Business" when it came out in theaters, or just by watching its famous scenes parodied in advertisements? Even if "Gremlins" came out in 1984, it's the 19-year-olds today who will be able to beat you in the trivia question for the name of Gizmo's original owner (Mr. Wing, though you only find that out in the sequel).
Why spoil the fun: Isn't that like telling people under 25 that they can't be obsessed with old movies or Led Zeppelin? As it turns out, there's a good reason why nostalgia is usually reserved for adults.
Joseph LeDoux is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University, with a focus on the biology of memories and emotion. When asked via email why nostalgia culture prevails through every generation, he replied: "We know that adolescence is a time of hormonal exuberance and that hormones play a key role in strengthening memory (we remember emotional situations strongly in part because of the hormonal upheaval). Adolescence is just a continuous emotional outburst so we remember it strongly. There's something called the reminiscence bump, where it's been shown that memories from teen years and early 20s account for disproportionate amounts of one's memories."
Talking about music, Daniel J. Levitin comes to a similar conclusion: "Fourteen is a sort of magic age for the development of musical tastes ... Pubertal growth hormones make everything we're experiencing, including music, seem very important. We're just reaching a point in our cognitive development when we're developing our own tastes. And musical tastes become a badge of identity."
If we extend Levitin's point to include not just music, but all influential media -- TV, movies, fashion -- we begin to see why marketing nostalgia to people in their formative years might be a problem. If we are closing the age gap between how long it takes us to start looking backward, then these 14-year-olds are going to be glorifying pre-adolescence, instead of being influenced, and eventually influencing, the culture that they are growing up in.
Not convinced? Let's go back to that push for TeenNick's new-old lineup, "The 90s Are All That," which will be replaying "classic" shows like "Clarissa Explains It All," "Kenan & Kel" and the cartoon show "Doug." By Nick's own demographic of their audience -- kids 7 through 17 -- no one who fit into its original target audience remains young enough to still be enticed to watch TeenNick. And yet Viacom says it is just responding to the overwhelming surge of popularity in these shows' Facebook groups.
Brian Stelter of the Times writes:
Research has convinced Nickelodeon executives that the Web -- a repository of cherished childhood memories -- 'is allowing young people to be nostalgic, probably sooner than other generations,' said Cyma Zarghami, the channel's president.But maybe allowing kids to be nostalgic isn't what they need. Viacom's strategy of bringing back "classic" shows on its music channels MTV and VH1 makes a little more sense, since they were always marketed to older teenagers and 20-somethings. In 2005 the median age of an MTV viewer was 21.6 years, though originally MTV was created to appeal to the 12-18 demographic. So while MTV started to grow up with people, Nickelodeon dropped you off as soon as you graduated. Until now, when there's money to be made off of young 20-somethings talking about "Are You Afraid of the Dark" the way that people in their 40s talk about "Charlie's Angels."
But while bringing back "Pop-Up Video" and "Beavis and Butt-Head" (the former of which stopped airing new episodes in 2002, the latter in 1997) may trigger some of those nascent adolescent feelings in adults, there's another issue that keeps these shows from being truly nostalgic: They simply haven't given us enough time to miss them. VH11 aired "I Love the '90s" in 2004, when the era being described longingly wasn't even half a decade gone. "The '90s Are All That" has a little more of a gap, but not much. So what is the message that we're sending these hormonal, emotional and impressionable young adults, who are supposed to be out there creating the memories to last a lifetime?
Why, that the best years are already behind them.
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Using TV set for live footage: Iron Maiden vid
Another vid picked out by Rob, Iron Maiden's Can I Play With Madness. A few brief comments, perhaps the key being the use of a TV set to bring in live footage rather than simple crosscutting:
I think the key to grasping this vid is the use of teens. Maiden were a mature band with a decade of growing success behind them, but needed to ensure they appealed to teens to continue selling.
Notable too that the teens are both M+F.
From an international perspective, we get a trad cliche of England: rural, castles...
But this was also a band at the peak of their commercial success: the SFX denote a high-budget vid - taking in elements of sci-fi, fantasy, horror (traditionally male genres, matching with the music genre)
The TVs to provide live footage is a nice touch; a postmodern element (Guns n Roses would use this approach in Welcome to the Jungle and other vids too).
[Iron Maiden - Can I Play With Madness]
I think the key to grasping this vid is the use of teens. Maiden were a mature band with a decade of growing success behind them, but needed to ensure they appealed to teens to continue selling.
Notable too that the teens are both M+F.
From an international perspective, we get a trad cliche of England: rural, castles...
But this was also a band at the peak of their commercial success: the SFX denote a high-budget vid - taking in elements of sci-fi, fantasy, horror (traditionally male genres, matching with the music genre)
The TVs to provide live footage is a nice touch; a postmodern element (Guns n Roses would use this approach in Welcome to the Jungle and other vids too).
[Iron Maiden - Can I Play With Madness]
Feeder's vid from fans' footage + Weezer
I'll let this - and Rob's post, where I came across it! - speak for itself:
[Feeder - Just a Day]
This is another one with a clear postmodern slant, from a band of limited musical ability or appeal who maximised their commercial success with a series of inventive, memorable vids (and getting some tracks used in movie soundtracks) - another I was unfamiliar with, but discovered via, you guessed it, Rob's blog! I won't add much to what Rob has already posted, but simply flag up the features which might provide some ideas: recycling viral memes (reenactments - and even sweding - being a hallmark of our pomo age), performance footage with a twist (highly un-rock lab scientist costumes, absurd use of hoses, alternative location to a fake studio set up), simple diegetic FX (comparable to the diegetic titles employed in films such as Napoleon Dynamite), in this case the writing slowly revealed over the fingers, plus t-shirts.
Its a messy vid but would repay frequent viewings to pick up on all the references/faces contained.
If you want to look at more of their vids, look too at those of Wheatus, a comparable band with one big hit and some memorable, inventive vids (and soundtrack placings) to their name (they've also worked with some of the great music vid directors - look for their names on the F6/Lib director compilations DVDs).
[Weezer - Pork and Beans]
[Feeder - Just a Day]
This is another one with a clear postmodern slant, from a band of limited musical ability or appeal who maximised their commercial success with a series of inventive, memorable vids (and getting some tracks used in movie soundtracks) - another I was unfamiliar with, but discovered via, you guessed it, Rob's blog! I won't add much to what Rob has already posted, but simply flag up the features which might provide some ideas: recycling viral memes (reenactments - and even sweding - being a hallmark of our pomo age), performance footage with a twist (highly un-rock lab scientist costumes, absurd use of hoses, alternative location to a fake studio set up), simple diegetic FX (comparable to the diegetic titles employed in films such as Napoleon Dynamite), in this case the writing slowly revealed over the fingers, plus t-shirts.
Its a messy vid but would repay frequent viewings to pick up on all the references/faces contained.
If you want to look at more of their vids, look too at those of Wheatus, a comparable band with one big hit and some memorable, inventive vids (and soundtrack placings) to their name (they've also worked with some of the great music vid directors - look for their names on the F6/Lib director compilations DVDs).
[Weezer - Pork and Beans]
Tapeheads
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Perf vid: Avenged Sevenfold
Kyle posted on this one.
Another good eg of a perf vid, with some fairly simple additional material thrown in. The 3 shots from 0:24-0:27 are a good example to remember: CU of singer to MS with 2 band members in frame to CU again. Camera movement is frequently seen, again this helps create a sense of realism, as if its a genuine live performance, and dynamism. Cutting into a camera movement (eg 0:41, cut from drummer to CU of singer, cam tilting down as part of tracking the singer in CU) reinforces this.
The warehouse setting is suitably 'metal' but seen as not quite enough to keep people reviewing this over and over, so we get some nice SFX and a switch to a white backdrop (with added ghosting effect) at around 1:06. A costume change has also taken place (all still very metal, with tattoos and black slothing much in evidence!), and simple shots of one of the band releasing a bird are very effectively crosscut through this section. When we return to the warehouse setting, shots of a tarantula on a band member's hand help avoid this being a case of just repeating the earlier footage, and provides a neat bridge between the two settings.
Indeed, at 1:35 we see a great example of one of the simplest FX you can pull off IF YOU TAKE ENOUGH COVERAGE: a jump effect by cutting 3 shots, each a little more zoomed out than the last.
Its simple, but the little trick of introducing the tarantula really does render the two sections of warehouse performance quite distinct.
After about 2 mins we get a section of continually cross-cutting between the 2 locations, often applying a revolving wipe effect. A lyric on 'dancing' is used to bring in a 3rd vignette, of another band member dancing - each band member gets their own little scenario, nothing complicated, but these simnple shots make a huge difference to the vid in terms of its entertainment and variety, and its potential for remaining an enjoyable view once seen a few times!
Lovely use of multiple layering from this point. At 2:47/8 we see a neat editing trick: using two shots of the singer in ECU on the mouth, shot from left and right so that each shot leaves half the frame empty - they are briefly combined in one shot.
Just in case there was any risk of avoiding cliche, we get a 4th vignette, featuring a skull and an array of candles!
I also rather enjoyed seeing the drummer's enthusiastic drumstick twirling, something that Motley Crue's Tommy Lee, copying many others before him, made into a cliche nearly 25 years ago with the Wild Side video!
You can see a making of vid here (part 1 of 3).
ACT: Avenged Sevenfold
TRACK: Afterlife
YEAR: 2008
DIRECTOR: Wayne Isham
GENRE: metalcore, heavy metal
MAIN AUDIENCE: male 15-24
Another good eg of a perf vid, with some fairly simple additional material thrown in. The 3 shots from 0:24-0:27 are a good example to remember: CU of singer to MS with 2 band members in frame to CU again. Camera movement is frequently seen, again this helps create a sense of realism, as if its a genuine live performance, and dynamism. Cutting into a camera movement (eg 0:41, cut from drummer to CU of singer, cam tilting down as part of tracking the singer in CU) reinforces this.
The warehouse setting is suitably 'metal' but seen as not quite enough to keep people reviewing this over and over, so we get some nice SFX and a switch to a white backdrop (with added ghosting effect) at around 1:06. A costume change has also taken place (all still very metal, with tattoos and black slothing much in evidence!), and simple shots of one of the band releasing a bird are very effectively crosscut through this section. When we return to the warehouse setting, shots of a tarantula on a band member's hand help avoid this being a case of just repeating the earlier footage, and provides a neat bridge between the two settings.
Indeed, at 1:35 we see a great example of one of the simplest FX you can pull off IF YOU TAKE ENOUGH COVERAGE: a jump effect by cutting 3 shots, each a little more zoomed out than the last.
Its simple, but the little trick of introducing the tarantula really does render the two sections of warehouse performance quite distinct.
After about 2 mins we get a section of continually cross-cutting between the 2 locations, often applying a revolving wipe effect. A lyric on 'dancing' is used to bring in a 3rd vignette, of another band member dancing - each band member gets their own little scenario, nothing complicated, but these simnple shots make a huge difference to the vid in terms of its entertainment and variety, and its potential for remaining an enjoyable view once seen a few times!
Lovely use of multiple layering from this point. At 2:47/8 we see a neat editing trick: using two shots of the singer in ECU on the mouth, shot from left and right so that each shot leaves half the frame empty - they are briefly combined in one shot.
Just in case there was any risk of avoiding cliche, we get a 4th vignette, featuring a skull and an array of candles!
I also rather enjoyed seeing the drummer's enthusiastic drumstick twirling, something that Motley Crue's Tommy Lee, copying many others before him, made into a cliche nearly 25 years ago with the Wild Side video!
You can see a making of vid here (part 1 of 3).
Prog metal performance vid: Periphery
This one was posted on by ConorO.
Its cliched - and useful for it!
Smoke machine; black, white, blue predominant colours; fairly basic lighting, with side light at times appearing as moon-like; great variety of shots to keep vid moving; use of slo-mo to dramatise performance.
What really caught my eye was the disconnect between the singer's stylings and the actual vocals: he was prancing about like a thrash metal (eg Slayer) singer, not the soft-rock, Evanescence-like singer he is!
Frequent movement on the shots helps create that sense of dyamism, and subtly connotes live performance/gives the staged performance a vital touch of realism (or verisimilitude).
The additional footage is simple but effective: a graveyard at nighttime. All very gothic!
ACT: Periphery
TRACK: Jet Packs Was Yes!
YEAR: 2010
DIRECTOR: Eric Haviv
GENRE: Prog metal
MAIN AUDIENCE: male 15-24; significant female 15-24 appeal?
Its cliched - and useful for it!
Smoke machine; black, white, blue predominant colours; fairly basic lighting, with side light at times appearing as moon-like; great variety of shots to keep vid moving; use of slo-mo to dramatise performance.
What really caught my eye was the disconnect between the singer's stylings and the actual vocals: he was prancing about like a thrash metal (eg Slayer) singer, not the soft-rock, Evanescence-like singer he is!
Frequent movement on the shots helps create that sense of dyamism, and subtly connotes live performance/gives the staged performance a vital touch of realism (or verisimilitude).
The additional footage is simple but effective: a graveyard at nighttime. All very gothic!
Deathcore vid eg: Suicide Silence
A brief post - SamB posted on this one.
A performance vid with some aspects of narrative tied to the violent lyrics.
I really like some parts of the editing: cutting the singer in downwards motion to match up with the down-tuned aggressive riff works very well to generate a visual sense of kinetic energy to go with the audio.
The violence itself is of a highly postmodern nature: some standard porn-style cliches (busty blond firing a gun) mixed with Daily Mail fantasy of such antisocial folk as the tattooed-metallers of the band getting their comeuppance from decent, hard-working middle-class people, and a mix of young and old taking their turn (commutation test: if it was only young people firing the guns, would this video ever be screened?). Nice line in self-depreciating humour when the vocalist(?) takes his turn ... and falls back, in a very unmanly fashion, with the kickback of the gun.
Its also another example of the common linkage of metal and horror, with the band effectively posited as zombies in this gore-filled vid (think Rob Zombie: metal singer to Halloween-remake director)
Here's a behind-the-scenes vid:
NB: THE VIDEO IS VERY VIOLENT
ACT: SUICIDE SILENCE
TRACK: YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE
YEAR: 2011
DIRECTOR: Nathan "Karma" Cox
GENRE: DEATHCORE
MAIN AUDIENCE: Male, 15-24; extreme metal genre fansA performance vid with some aspects of narrative tied to the violent lyrics.
I really like some parts of the editing: cutting the singer in downwards motion to match up with the down-tuned aggressive riff works very well to generate a visual sense of kinetic energy to go with the audio.
The violence itself is of a highly postmodern nature: some standard porn-style cliches (busty blond firing a gun) mixed with Daily Mail fantasy of such antisocial folk as the tattooed-metallers of the band getting their comeuppance from decent, hard-working middle-class people, and a mix of young and old taking their turn (commutation test: if it was only young people firing the guns, would this video ever be screened?). Nice line in self-depreciating humour when the vocalist(?) takes his turn ... and falls back, in a very unmanly fashion, with the kickback of the gun.
Its also another example of the common linkage of metal and horror, with the band effectively posited as zombies in this gore-filled vid (think Rob Zombie: metal singer to Halloween-remake director)
Here's a behind-the-scenes vid:
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