Postmodernity in Movies

Jean Baudrillard

Genre Paragraph

Genre Paragraph
The music video which I'll be producing has a genre of Drama (relationship) and an element of Musical.
My music video can be characterised by one of the three broad typologies: Performance, Narrative and Conceptual (Firth, 1988).
The genre of song is Urban and Dance. With my music video, it is going to be both performance and narrative. The performance video will feature the 'artist' who will be in the studio singing to the camera as well being outdoor and performing.
A theory which can possibly be linked in with genre in my music video would be that 'Action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen. (Schwichtenberg 1992).
In my music video, it follows the same pattern. The protagonist in my music video will ensure that after a recent event of a relationship being broken. She expects something to happen in which makes her react into moving forward in life.
The content of my music video will feature a sound (a song audio) and footage of indoor and outdoor locations.
The genre of my music video reinforces particular representations in Gender. This will portray the woman hopeless after breaking out from a relationship.
There is also a sense of pathetic fallacy in my music video; it will focus more on the narrative rather the performance. As my narrative will feature rain - it will give a sense of sadness. This technique is called pathetic fallacy. I will use this as it engages the mixture of emotions that is being created through the performance and the lyrics of the song.
Genre is represented through my music video through the miro-features. The camera shots will vary in angles and shots. High and Low Angles will be the camera angles which I will consider to include especially in the studio footage of the protagonist. I will be including more close up shots to focus the actor’s emotions and ensure that they are engaging with the audience in the video.
The representation will be about a girl who overcomes her past and becomes strong. The protagonist will act out on walking away from a relationship and regretting what has been done in the past and tries to move on.
The connection the music video will have with the audience will be that the audience will be able to understand and give a sense of sympathy towards the protagonist. There will be an emotional package, where I am trying to encapsulate the emotions such as sadness, regrets, strength and confidence.

Basic Genre Information

Genre means 'the type' or 'category'. It is generally seen as a fusion of semantic and syntactic features that over time become conventional to the audience.

There are 3 approached to Genre analysis. Aesthetic approaches, Ritual Approaches, Ideological approaches.

Aesthetic approaches  - focuses on formal, stylistic features and innovations. It typically looks at narrative structures and ignores other syntactic features. It also usually provides limited insight into the genre's rhetorical force.

Ritual approaches - Focus on underlying mythic, culture-typal themes. It often use semiotic/structural analysis. Use enduring or changing features of popular generic texts to explore cultural tensions, rules, roles and efficacy of social myths.

Ideological approaches - Focuses on how ideas, roles, norms that 'naturalise' current inequitable distribution of economic, social, political power and resources are expressed in text. Use semiotic/structural and ideological critical terms and concepts. It provides insight into how genre texts question or celebrate the social , political, economic and cultural status quo of society.

Narrative

Narrative Paragraph 
My music video will be a performance and narrative based video. The performance will demonstrate the performer’s feeling through singing the song. The narrative will include a linear narrative. The performance will include her walking down the street while singing. She is walking away from her past. The lyric line ‘I push all my problems to the back of my mind’. This creates a meaning of leaving her past and moving on, this could be related to relationship or past issues. The beginning of the music video will feature a hand held shot of the road and bushes going past. Then it will go onto the performer who is singing to the lyrics in the dark with only a spotlight on her. The video will mainly be performance, and partly have shots which are narrative. The performance of the ballerina will gradually build up along with the song. The verse will consist of shots of the performer walking through the park while she is in search for a new fresh start. There will also be shots of her sitting on a sofa looking outside the window while it’s raining – the use of pathetic fallacy. The bridge will consist of reverse editing of vases going back to original state which connotes that the performer is going back to its original state of being happy rather than being upset. During the music interlude, there will be shots of the ballet dancer silhouette.  The ballet performance will build up the story in the music video. At the end the music video will end with the spotlight going out of the performer. As the song builds up the character/performer will become stronger and stronger – she is trapped somewhere in the forest and wants to get out a finds her path out into the city. Theories which will link into my music video are Andrew Goodwin. He states that there are 5 aspects of a music video. As I will be using both narrative and performance, Andrew Goodwin claims that having a performance and narrative will be a good combination as it doesn’t make the audience want to lose interest. Another theorist that I will be able to relate my music video to is Levi-Straus. There will be clear binary opposites of Strong vs. Weak as well the Past Vs. Present. There will be a strong progression of a girl overcoming her past and becoming strong for the future.
The lyrics are showing an aspect of postmodern as the structure has ideology implications, for example in the lyrics there is theme of ‘forgiveness’ hence emphasising a situation which the artist may have been. They song fully demonstrates an emotion of sadness and regrets.

Terminology

Syntax - The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language.

Protagonist - Also known as the hero; the character who drives the narrative forward through the choices they makes and the actions they take.

Antagonist - Also can be known as the villain; the character in the plot whose functions is to oppose the protagonist. They may not necessarily be bad but they stand between the protagonist and their goals.

Climax/crescendo - Where the conflict of the narrative reaches its highest.

Equilibrium - A state where things are balanced.

Disequilibrium - The disruption of the equilibrium.

Enigma code - Drives narrative by an unanswered question, creates interest for the audience.

Proairetic/action code - Drives narrative through anticipation of an action’s resolution.

Linear - The most simple and commonly used narrative structure where a story is told in a chronological order of events that happen from beginning to end; sometimes referred to as a ‘cause and effect’ narrative as the consequences of an event have an effect on something else which drives the narrative.

Non-linear - The opposite of linear, where events are not shown in a chronological order.

Circular - Describes a narrative which begins at the end e.g. Titanic.

Parallel narrative - Often involves more than one protagonist; there are several storylines.

Flashbacks/flashforwards - A scene that takes the narrative backwards/forwards in time from that current point.

Real time - The actual time during which a process or event occurs.

Reversal - A change to an opposite direction, position or course of action.

Dream sequences - The technique used to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. This may consists of a flashback, flashfoward, dream etc.

Repetition - The action of repeating something.

Ellipsis - Where the movement or action unnecessary to the telling of the story is removed by editing.

Analysis of Lyrics