All posts by Mrs C

GOODBYE CEREMONY & GRADUATION – Media Year 13

MONDAY MAY 11 – 7PM ON THE BLOG

Well done for your amazing efforts over the last few weeks. You have done it. Nothing more you can do. So relax.

We are seriously hoping to stage The Gregsons at some point at the end of the Summer/early Autumn before you all disappear, but in the meantime we would like you join the blog at 7pm on Monday 11 May for a few final words and reflections on the last 2 years with Miss Hales and Mrs Cobb.

We promise it won’t be too tearful but we miss you and we do genuinely wish you all, lots of luck for your futures.

There should be some fun reminisces,  and some video memories of your music video mash ups.

We might even crack open the champagne and of course, if you are not over 18, we will raise a virtual glass to your good health and happiness.

 

 

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN – submission reminder

Remember:

DONE. DUSTED. CONGRATULATIONS.

All final submissions due by then. Absolute deadline – not just a Media, movable deadline. If nothing has been submitted then we will have to take the previous mark from your first draft (or worst case scenario, 0 for that essay if nothing has ever been submitted).

Suffer the pain of discipline now or the pain of regret later?

One week away – Good Luck and then you can kiss it all goodbye.

SKILLS & CONCEPTS – Final Submissions and deadline date Sunday 10 May – midnight

We combined these two sections as they are shorter essays, particularly for those of you who just want to get on with them and get them done and dusted and released them a day early, as we know some of you just want this all to be over and done and dusted!

As usual all the resources and reminders about structure, terms, examples, analysis and significance are on the classroom posts and you should take the time to revisit before you redraft.

Take advantage of the feedback from previous drafts – it is a little concerning that some of you have ignored it on occasions.

Anyway, so nearly there. Listen to the screen castifies and then you can get on and complete all the resubmission.

IMPORTANT – the deadline for all the essay submissions so that we can have the best evidence from you to recommend grades is;

MIDNIGHT SUNDAY 10TH MAY – that is 12 days away.

We have had to bring it forward as we have a submission deadline for the marks and rankings on the Monday 11 May.

Just as a head’s up – we will be streaming a ‘Goodbye Ceremony’ from Miss H and Mrs C on Monday 11 May at 7pm. Watch this space for more details!

 

CONCEPTS SCREENCASTIFY

SKILLS SCREENCASTIFY

Home School – Week 1 – This still stands regardless of the news above!

This is the new plan for this week in order for you to be ready to write the essay plans, please do the following:

  • Day 1 – Read the exemplar essays – see previous classroom post  (Janis, Ben and Grace) on Postmodern Media.
  • Day 2 – Reread and write notes on Nosedive and watch the analysis – see previous classroom post and the blog.
  • Day 3 – Reread and writes notes on Music Videos. two of the Music Videos that we looked at – see the blog
  • Day 4 – Reread notes on POMO in general (see blog) and Complete essay plan on slideshare (see classroom post) – this is what we set on Friday but feel you need to do a bit more prep.
  • Day 5 – POMO Essay will be set on classroom – one per class and you have a week to do it. More on this at the end of the week.

Clearly in amongst this you should be continuing to submit any outstanding essays and also redraft and resubmit any essays not achieving a D/C or above. Email your teachers if you want them marking and submit to classroom too.

Good luck. Virtual love.
Miss H and Mrs C

POMO – Why music videos are postmodern (usually!)

As a media art form, music videos are often conduits for various elements of postmodern culture. Sometimes they also, point a self-accusing finger at themselves for doing so and sometimes the videos and lyrics are about postmodern society too.

Andrew Goodwin, a renowned media theorist sums up the postmodernism of music videos:

  1.  Blurs high art and low art – it is media for everyone with no boundaries.
  2.  Abandons/challenges grand narratives – incomplete narratives, no sense of resolution, rejection of the overarching ideologies of society/history – love conquers all, men are the breadwinners, god is the answer etc.
  3. Intertextuality – borrows from other texts; deliberately, unknowingly, alludes to, knowing nod to – all of which fits with Jameson’s ideas on ‘nothing new, a flatness’ or as he puts it ‘blank parody’.
  4. Loss of Historical reality – pastiche and intertextuality blur history and chronology so that conventional notions of past, present and future  are lost in a melange of images, all of which appear to be contemporary.

The Rizzle Kicks – is made in a postmodern fashion but also points the finger at postmodern society.

 

We will be studying in depth some current music videos, one of which you should choose to focus on as your 2nd media text in your essay (the other one will be Nosedive, Black Mirror by Charlie Brooker).


Music Videos are often examples of postmodern media, not only because their place as a recognised art form has come about in the postmodern era but mainly because they evidence a range of ideas about what makes a text postmodern.

Intertextuality

  • Pastiche – use of a previous text as the basis for the whole music video – in the style of
  • Parody – making fun of a previous text
  • Homage and Quotation – sampling
  • Weaponised intertextuality – those deliberate Easter Eggs – we will look more closely at Ariana Grande and This is America as a detailed texts later in the term.

Bricolage

  •  a melange, mixture of styles – cartoons, animations, dance, drama, acting, documentary, other footage.

Self-referential

  • think of Katy Perry breaking the 4th wall at the end of Chained to the Rythmn – let’s draw attention to its own construction.

GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE relating to Music Videos and Postmodernism

  • They manipulate time and space – flashbacks, incomplete narratives usually present and they often challenge the grand narratives (more on this later) – there is not always a happy ending, a dominant male, success after working hard for a living.
  • Play with the relationship between audience and text – breaking the 4th wall and there is often a presumption they are culturally competent, deliberately playing with their expectations.
  • Play with the distinction between reality and representation.
  • They blur the lines between high art and what is considered low art.
  • This is a little old now but it shows a self-referentiality (this is a music video that we have constructed) but it also points the finger at a wider postmodern scope i.e. the idea that people are lost in their hypereal worlds, unaware of their real lives and surroundings.  We will look more at this later.