CIE NOTE: This is formally named the CREATIVE CRITICALREFLECTION
THE CIAE BRIEF: music promotion package A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music video (major task), together with a website for the band and a digipak for the album’s release (minor tasks).
You are marked not just on answering the question, but also for:
creativity in how you do so
using critical theory and self-critiquing [exam q1a/1b!!!]
use of technology to do so
In practice, you should take 1 of 2 approaches:
Create one SUBSTANTIAL creative text for each answer, AND/OR...
Recycle a format or spread it across multiple Qs so you've got multiple creative approaches for each Q. It makes sense if you've spent any time on creating a set!
These often won't be ideal for actually answering the question, so make sure you fill in any gaps with some combination of well-illustrated:
This is a 'hub' post for BOTH the CIE version of the A2 Media Evaluation AND the UK (OCR) spec on which it's based. Use the hyperlinks below to find specific posts/guides on the 4 CIE/ OCR questions. See here for CIE blog guide.
Take 2, take 1 having been wiped by the Android app crashing...
Great article, written from a queer (American) perspective, challenging the cosy consensus that we've moved on from homophobia being culturally acceptable. The writer uses a term new to me (a neologism!), straight-washing (x-washing is an established concept though, green-washing, falsely adopting an environment-friendly image, being an example I'm more familiar with).
The Sam Smith example made me think back to the depths of BI time (Before Internet!), growing up in the 80s/90s. The first lesbian kiss in UK drama (the primetime soap Brookside) was a huge news story (Eastenders finally managed this in 2013), while Queer as Folk was shock and awe television - both, not coincidentally, Channel 4 shows. Boy George became a camp national treasure ... but only after declaring he'd rather have a cup of tea than coitus [link is to a page from Simon Napier-Bell's pop history bio] (my first ever Big Bang Theory intertextual reference there...).
You can see a Queer as Folk trailer here; NB: the series was rated 18, and the trailer features sexual references.You can find lots of analysis of the Brookside and other same-sex 'controversies' here (I was trying to find some contemporary newspaper coverage).
The Brookside kiss was headline news
Bronski Beat and the Communards had huge hits fuelled by Jimmy Somerville's extraordinary vocals, but did so with the bands' sexuality set aside in the glossy videos.
This playlist starts with The Communards' Don't Leave Me This Way, and continues with Bronski Beat's Smalltown Boy...
Annie Lennox caused much red ink to be spilt in the British tabloids by refusing to (applying Judith Butler's concept*) perform her gender like a good little girl, her shaven head, boxing gloves, trouser suits and all appalling the moral guardians in the press. [* gender as performativity; something that doesn't exist in nature but we learn to perform]
Sweet Dreams was one of many huge hits, but vocalist Lennox's counter-hegemonic behaviour, her utter refusal to play the expected (of female artists - and has this changed 30 years later?) glamour game, led to some intense tabloid flak (yes, Chomsky alert!).
Despite Madonna's Justify My Love coming along just a few years later and seemingly breaking every sexual taboo going, the bottom line is that it, like the original video for Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax (set in a gay club), was (and remains) banned.
The acceptable face of Frankie's Relax on ToTP:
Is the Hayley Kiyoko video Joseph Firago discusses in his article evidence of advancement? As Firago argues: yes and no - see his analysis on this.
From the colour tone to the specific intro/outro shots of the female protagonist on her bike, I can't help but perceive a curious intertextual relationship with the video for the Pixies' comeback single, BagBoy, which I've blogged on in depth...
If nothing else, though, this article manages to make the otherwise ultra-bland Sam Smith somewhat interesting!
A band notorious for its fraternal flare-ups (the brothers in the band were reknowned for fighting on stage), but also an obstinate attitude towards pop (they were seen as noise-smiths rather than tune-smiths) the Jesus and Mary Chain naturally didn't produce straightforward commercial videos.
Here's examples from classic J+MC tracks which exuded Indie attitude, by which I mean...
low-key, naturalistic lighting (practical as much as aesthetic: low budget!)
some strange, elliptical framing
whip pans that lead to ... nothing!
distorted footage
performance which is so wan, exuding such froideur, its the antithesis of the exciting, energising rock performance we're so used to seeing
the lipsynching in particular is reluctantly done, but shots of drumming and guitar playing also slowed down to be out of synch with the music
just like Iron Maiden on the German Top of the Pops back in the 80s (when the band swapped intruments repeatedly, making a mockery of the miming) these vids stand as an uneasy compromise: marketing and commercial returns seem like a dirty word to Indie bands and fans BUT the band's record co needs the vids to sell records and the band to raise their profile + build their fanbase
this reluctant, contrary attitude is also where the Pixies' Velouria single-shot vid arose from
neither are so surreal as to be not be recognisable as m.vids tho: we see many of the standard signifiers of performance (some focus on singer, MS/MCUs of playing instruments, reasonable pace of editing), its just that the delivery is alien to the hyped up norm
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!
