Bricolage

Today in lesson we were given a concept and had to work out what this concept was, i had to find out what the concept of 'Bricolage'. The term bricolage is used to describe a work that is made from combining existing materials, independent of their original purpose. The first thing i found out is how subcultural groups used other items of clothing and used them to promote their own messages. A example of this is punks using dog collars as a status symbol. It was the idea of putting a idea with another to create something new. It was about taking clothes related to jobs or just with meaning and turning them into a fashion statement. Bricolage is a french word for Jumble. 

This then moved on into music videos, a example i used was Jay Z using John holts - I will and Linkin park's numb with his encore to create a almost collage and pieced them together to create a new track. This is called sampling music with his own to create this. This was a example of bricolage. Another thing i then looked into is how the film Moulin Rouge uses bricolage. It brings references from three different original texts which are:
LaBoheme (1897), La Traviata (1853) And Orphues and Eurydice. The ideas spread from characters to songs and created the Moulin rouge text. 

I decided to research and find my own example of bricolage. I found many examples but the most obvious was Vanilla ice's sample of Queen.

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Pastiche and Parody

Pastiche And Parody 

Pastiche

Unlike a parody, which aims for a comic or satiric effect, a pastiche is often intended as a compliment (or an homage) to the original writer though it may just be a collection of borrowed words and ideas.

Pastiche is a serious version of what a parody is, it intends to pay tribute to the original text in a sense. Pastiche follows the post-modern root in saying 'Nothing is new'. Pastiche is really common in our society and has been implanted into many things typically music videos and films. Pastiche is shown in the likes of Frank Zappa' s Cruisin' With Ruben And The Jets is both a pastiche of and a homage to 1950s doowop also Quentin Tarantino's films are generally pastiches of their respective genres. 

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is a mini horror movie; a breakthrough in an era when most videos were just montages of show footage, cheesy editing, and stock footage of explosions and horses running through fog. This video doesn't just mimic another video, but a whole filmmaking style. These examples are different in the text they come from, but they can also be put into the same category for the ideas that they portray where they have taken something that is serious and made it serious in their own way. To summarize pastiche it is a text that borrows or imitates the style, words, or ideas of other writers.

Parody 

A parody is a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke some affectionate fun at the work itself, the subject of the work, the author or fictional voice of the parody, or another subject. 

Parody is a way of being able to mock and make fun of something whilst making it funny for the audience. A good example of this would be Airplane!, By the 1980s audiences had got a bit tired of being miserable watching disaster movies, and then Airplane! The film was a aircraft disaster movie. It parodied all the cliches: food poisoning, singing nuns, maudlin alcoholics, flashbacks, love lost, love regained, passengers with remorse, passengers who find repentance. It was impossible to make an aircraft disaster movie after Airplane! because no one would take it seriously. Since this Parody has became its own genre in today's cinema. A example of a music video using Parody is 



 This explains the theory that there is no longer individuality because everything that is considered to be 'new' has taken ideas from something that already exists. This also backs up the Post-Modernism theory

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Auteur's in music videos

In today's lesson we found out how directors and producers of music videos.

We looked at the music producer Chris Cunningham and were asked to find out his style and what he brings to his music videos. Analysing from Madonna, Aphex twins i have visually seen that he likes to insert a aspect of horror and unexpected elements which are disturbing. He also uses the pace of the music in sync with the video. Chris Cunningham is a very technical director as i seen this in his Bjork video, he loves to use canted angles and show off his technical skills and to connote things. The theme of horror he follows may be reflected from something that happened in his early life or maybe just his interest in horror. 

Cunningham worked for Warp Films, and had a partnership in place with them so he had funding to produce videos and films. He then left Warp Films to create his own company, this is called CC Co. This was so he could produce his films and work independently. 

                        

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Music and me (Class)

Music and me Class discussion

Today we discussed our Music and Me blog post with each other -

Today's lesson revolved around the music and me blog post we had done in the previous lesson, in the lesson we went around each person and looked at the music videos that each of us had selected and everyone had to explain why and what made us choose these songs. I found that most of the songs chosen from our childhood were due to our parents listening to the music, For example mine was Take on me - Aha I think this was since my mum loved the song which carried onto me, this was what most of us seemed to agree on. 



When it came to our favourite song/genre this was very mixed, none of us could explain why we loved the certain genre we did it was just the music we liked naturally. We all gave reasons for our holiday song since it was the song that reminds us of favourite holiday most of the time. After showing each other our Favourite song, Holiday song and Childhood song we discussed how music has influenced our lives and we all believed that it has changed our lives in a good and huge way.

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Lip Sync Task

 Lip Syncing 

In class we split ourselves up into groups of 3 and had to try our best to lip sync the song that was chosen for us. The reason for this is because it has gave us practice for when we make our own music video. The song we had to lip sync was  'Learn to Fly' by The Foo Fighters. I thought this would be easy when i first found out the song since I know most of the words as I am a Foo Fighters fan. I found out even though I knew the most of the words that the task was difficult as I had never done anything like this before. It was only difficult because I felt under pressure and only had one shot at it. It was a interesting and fun task that has helped me. It has helped me gain knowledge of  what the aim of my coursework is and how I will go about doing it. Prior to this I thought I would be able to remember the song off by heart but know i know I will have to read through the before I film my own music video to make sure there is no mistakes whatsoever. 

This is the video of me attempting Lip Syncing - 

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What Makes an effective Music Video?

What makes a music video effective?

A music video that is effective leaves the viewer feeling satisfied in what they have seen, this can be through many different ways. People enjoy seeing a narrative to the song and lyrics relating to what they are watching. Some music videos do not follow the conventional videos and decide to use a video completely different from the song. 

I have chosen Michael Jacksons - Thriller since it follows a narrative and is a interesting video to analyse.

Firstly i have chosen this music video since it is one of the most famous and well known music videos of all-time. Thriller was the first video of its kind, it became a thing people would stay up and watch. 

The instant impact of of this music video is that it starts off as a almost typical romantic movie which was unseen in music videos until thriller. The video includes a spectacular dance sequence, plenty of drama and story, and most importantly the actual song itself. 
The song has a strong sense of artist identity since Michael Jackson's classic signature dancing is implanted into this video amazingly as he turns a short horror film into a a group of zombies dancing in sync. 


The dancing goes in time with the song that is really important so that the song matches the dancing. The dancing in this music video is complex while the song is simple so it is hard to pull off but he has done well. All of the above will all draw and welcome the audience and they will continue watching. this is what makes a music video effective. 

We have shots like this in the video:












this makes you feel like you are watching a film and not a music video since its a shot reverse shot which is never used in music video since its for films, this is what makes the video effective as its known as a short film rather than a video and this is why thriller is a effective music video.

                                                        

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Music and Me

Music and me

Video one - Childhood Music Video

I heard this song first when i was around the age of 8 and fell in love with the music video shortly after and always stuck in my memory. This was the first single i ever owned, i was gifted this as a christmas present since this was my favourite song. The video for this song is also very iconic and well known. Even though it was realised in 1985 by A-ha it was stilled over-played on the music channels and still is now.

Video two - Holiday song




This song is my holiday song for many reasons. This song reminds me of my three holidays to spain as it was played in almost every club and bar. It was such a memorable song for me since i associate this song whenever i hear it with my three holidays in spain. Tiesto was also the first DJ i really liked and i still carry this love of DJ's and dance music with me.

Video three - My music taste



This song defines my music taste which is simply dance music, i picked this song since it is produced by my favourite DJ hardwell. I also have seen Hardwell live and this brings back amazing memories. 

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