Media Theorist Jonathan Kramer says "the idea that postmodernism is less a surface style or historical period than an attitude. Kramer goes on to say 16 "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices."
According to Kramer (Kramer 2002, 16–17), postmodern music":
1. is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
4. challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
5. shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
6. questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
8. considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
10. considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
11. embraces contradictions
12. distrusts binary oppositions
13. includes fragmentations and discontinuities
14. encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers
Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Connecticut – June 3, 2004, New York City), was a U.S. composer and music theorist.
Active as a music theorist, Kramer published primarily on theories of musical time and postmodernism. At the time of his death he had just completed a book on postmodern music and a cello composition for the American Holocaust Museum.
Monday, 1 March 2010
Friday, 19 February 2010
Casablanca
Clip one - Strasser Interrogating Ilsa and Laszlo.
The scene is of Strasser, Ilsa and laszo in an office, the two men are distinguished in contrasting clothing, Strasser is wearing a dark uniform, Laszo is wearing a cream/white suit which connotes a good guy, peace keeper and war hero. There are a lot of long stills which are shot close to the face while they talk, the camera doen't look down/up at the charcters showing no hierarchy. Isla is seen very little, showing lack of importance in this particualr clip. No music is played, showing the seriousness of the dialogue. "I was in a German concentraion camp for a year" this is important dialogue for the audience to get to follow his character. "If I wasn't going to tell you in a concentration camp why would I tell you here" this connates Laszlo to be a strong character.
Clip two - Ilsa and Rick in Paris.
In this clip we see iconic attractions in Paris such as the Eiffel tower, in the background you see a sterotypical French man on the boat wearing a beret and a stripey top. This instantly sets the location, with outdated sterotypes nowadays, but would have been more convincing of that time. Rick waits at the pianno for her and pours his and her drink which show he is in control romantic etc. Again still camera angles slow zoom to a close up of Ilsa's face where her eyes glisten, connotes her feeling emotion. Lighting always shines on Ilsa, showing romance love, the music played is romantic 'As time goes by' foreshadows furture events. "Kiss me as if it was the last time" shows Isla's character to be really needy, typical lady of the time 'damsel in distress'.
Clip three - The Marseillaise
The scene is set at Ricks bar, really busy, posh bar trendy of that time, again there is use of close up shots of Isla's to show emotion that she is proud of her man. Lighting is on Isla showing passion, the music is men singing the German national anthem which then he makes them sing the French one connotes him to be a strong character convincing.
Clip four - 'I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship'
The mise en scene is that of an airfield/garage, bad weather conditions adding to the gloomy situation foggy and rainy. Used a car of that time, again slow zooms, Isla is light using lighting, showing emotion, special effects are used on her eyes to make them appear watery like she is crying, throughtout the film Isla is represented as this emotion women who is confused and vulnerable. Dramatic music is played when they walk away together to the get on the plane. "We'll always have Paris" Rick persuades her into thinking that the memory is enough, "Inside we both know you belong to Victor" shows that Rick is the dominant chacacter realistc. "Last night you said I had to do the thinking for both of us" this again shows that the man is the dominant role, that she can't even make her own mind up.
The scene is of Strasser, Ilsa and laszo in an office, the two men are distinguished in contrasting clothing, Strasser is wearing a dark uniform, Laszo is wearing a cream/white suit which connotes a good guy, peace keeper and war hero. There are a lot of long stills which are shot close to the face while they talk, the camera doen't look down/up at the charcters showing no hierarchy. Isla is seen very little, showing lack of importance in this particualr clip. No music is played, showing the seriousness of the dialogue. "I was in a German concentraion camp for a year" this is important dialogue for the audience to get to follow his character. "If I wasn't going to tell you in a concentration camp why would I tell you here" this connates Laszlo to be a strong character.
Clip two - Ilsa and Rick in Paris.
In this clip we see iconic attractions in Paris such as the Eiffel tower, in the background you see a sterotypical French man on the boat wearing a beret and a stripey top. This instantly sets the location, with outdated sterotypes nowadays, but would have been more convincing of that time. Rick waits at the pianno for her and pours his and her drink which show he is in control romantic etc. Again still camera angles slow zoom to a close up of Ilsa's face where her eyes glisten, connotes her feeling emotion. Lighting always shines on Ilsa, showing romance love, the music played is romantic 'As time goes by' foreshadows furture events. "Kiss me as if it was the last time" shows Isla's character to be really needy, typical lady of the time 'damsel in distress'.
Clip three - The Marseillaise
The scene is set at Ricks bar, really busy, posh bar trendy of that time, again there is use of close up shots of Isla's to show emotion that she is proud of her man. Lighting is on Isla showing passion, the music is men singing the German national anthem which then he makes them sing the French one connotes him to be a strong character convincing.
Clip four - 'I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship'
The mise en scene is that of an airfield/garage, bad weather conditions adding to the gloomy situation foggy and rainy. Used a car of that time, again slow zooms, Isla is light using lighting, showing emotion, special effects are used on her eyes to make them appear watery like she is crying, throughtout the film Isla is represented as this emotion women who is confused and vulnerable. Dramatic music is played when they walk away together to the get on the plane. "We'll always have Paris" Rick persuades her into thinking that the memory is enough, "Inside we both know you belong to Victor" shows that Rick is the dominant chacacter realistc. "Last night you said I had to do the thinking for both of us" this again shows that the man is the dominant role, that she can't even make her own mind up.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Final draft of coursework
what were doing to the film, date filming, music, voice over, change in story etc
When you love someone,
You want to keep them safe,
And never let them go,
But life doesn't always work out the way you want.
She couldn't keep him safe,
And she had to let him go,
For Katie, that summer was a nightmare.
But time goes by and life moves on,
Friends are there for you,
And slowly the nightmare fades away.
But do you really know your friends?
For Katie the nightmare is not over,
It's only just begun.
[Scream]
Origen Music Artists - Dance of the clouds.
http://www.jamendo.com/en/search/all/background%20music
You want to keep them safe,
And never let them go,
But life doesn't always work out the way you want.
She couldn't keep him safe,
And she had to let him go,
For Katie, that summer was a nightmare.
But time goes by and life moves on,
Friends are there for you,
And slowly the nightmare fades away.
But do you really know your friends?
For Katie the nightmare is not over,
It's only just begun.
[Scream]
Origen Music Artists - Dance of the clouds.
http://www.jamendo.com/en/search/all/background%20music
Website research
One of the feedback points for our website was to research more into other film websites to get the right idea of what we need to do to make it look more proffessional.
We decided to do more detailed research into our first inspiration for the website, 'Prom Night'. Because the film is distributed by Sony Pictures the website is based within their URL of sonypictures.co.uk/movies/promnight/
The ideas we have interpreted from this page are using the poster image as the main focal point, and we've also chosen similar pages, as in other research we found most websites use these headings. Our navigation is at the top of the page however using a consistent font to the rest of the website.
The 'About the Film' page has information on the story, production notes, the making of, and the cast and crews prom stories. For our 'About the Film' page we will just have an outline of the story with some images.
On the 'Cast & Crew' page, detailed info about most of the cast and 'The Filmakers' is given. We will just write general info about the main characters/cast and about us the 'filmakers' perhaps with profile pictures also.
The trailer page obviousley just shows the trailer in the centre of the page. The theme throughout all the pages is the same, background, and text of the title and release date stay in the same place, the centre picture changes to various stills from the film with text boxes overlayed.
We decided to do more detailed research into our first inspiration for the website, 'Prom Night'. Because the film is distributed by Sony Pictures the website is based within their URL of sonypictures.co.uk/movies/promnight/
The above screen shot is of the first page of the films website. It has links to the homepage, to watch the trailer, register for email updates, and the films Bebo page. The main image is from the poster with just the film title, the tagline and release date. We are thinking of making an opening page for our film leading to the main website but aren't sure whether we have enough time. Another way of incorpreting the style of this website is to have a similar layout for our homepage, using the poster image with the title, tagline and release date and having a few links maybe to a facebook page etc.We will also have to put the institutions and rating, which we already have anyway on our website at the moment.
This is the homepage of the website: sonypictures.co.uk/movies/promnight/site/
After clicking on the 'ENTER THE SITE' link on the opening page the official site opens in a new tab. They've used the same image but enlarged to fill the page with the text in a different layout with the release date above the title. The background is moving, although it is difficult to see what the image is of, it looks like hands with light flares and is obviousley quite dark so not to draw attention away from the main image of the girl. The sites navigation is at the bottom of the image with pages such as 'About the Film', 'Cast & Crew', 'Trailer', 'Gallery', 'Downloads' and 'Soundtrack'.The ideas we have interpreted from this page are using the poster image as the main focal point, and we've also chosen similar pages, as in other research we found most websites use these headings. Our navigation is at the top of the page however using a consistent font to the rest of the website.
The 'About the Film' page has information on the story, production notes, the making of, and the cast and crews prom stories. For our 'About the Film' page we will just have an outline of the story with some images.
On the 'Cast & Crew' page, detailed info about most of the cast and 'The Filmakers' is given. We will just write general info about the main characters/cast and about us the 'filmakers' perhaps with profile pictures also.
The trailer page obviousley just shows the trailer in the centre of the page. The theme throughout all the pages is the same, background, and text of the title and release date stay in the same place, the centre picture changes to various stills from the film with text boxes overlayed.
The 'Gallery' ^^ shows important images/stills from the film of characters and crucial scenes. The images come up as thunmbnails at the top of the page, when you click on one it shows up underneath but larger for example like in the screen shot above. Our gallery page will have the pictures from the photo album and important stills from the film.
'Downloads' has downloadable backgrounds and buddy icons. Our site will have the poster and backgrounds as downloads.
The 'Soundtrack' page links to a Myspace page with the soundtrack available to listen to and other information available. We've decided not to make our soundtrack a page as we feel it isn't necessary, because the 'Prom Night' soundtrack is a well known song and ours isn't.
We also researched 'The Crazies' website: thecrazies-movie.com
HOMEPAGE HERE!
The homepage has the film title in the top left corner with the release date underneath and also in the centre of the page above the trailer. The background is obviousley a setting from the movie with a sign to the right saying 'HELP US'. The navigation is at the top of the page with pages such as; 'ABOUT', 'VIDEOS', 'GALLERY', 'DOWNLOADS', 'CAST & CREW', and 'BATTLEMAIL'. Below the trailer is the institutions, release date, a phone app link, 'register' (email updates, promos etc), Facebook and Twitter links, and 'find show times' for local cinemas.
The 'ABOUT' page just includes the storyline with the same background as the homepage. (Similar to our idea)
'VIDEOS' has a few different versions of the the films trailer,our trailer page will obviousley just have the one trailer.
The 'GALLERY' has scattered polaroids on the page and when you click on one, similar to the 'Prom Night' website, it comes up larger.
'DOWNLOADS' includes wallpapers, screensavers and buddy icons.
'CAST & CREW'
'BATTLE MAIL' is an interesting idea, at first you have no idea what it is. It is an interactive game. You type in your email and a friends email and start an email battle, obviousley linking to the idea of the films story. Your friend can email you back and so on, continuing the battle. This is a good device to interest the audience and make them more involved and attracted to the film.
We also researched 'The Crazies' website: thecrazies-movie.com
HOMEPAGE HERE!
The homepage has the film title in the top left corner with the release date underneath and also in the centre of the page above the trailer. The background is obviousley a setting from the movie with a sign to the right saying 'HELP US'. The navigation is at the top of the page with pages such as; 'ABOUT', 'VIDEOS', 'GALLERY', 'DOWNLOADS', 'CAST & CREW', and 'BATTLEMAIL'. Below the trailer is the institutions, release date, a phone app link, 'register' (email updates, promos etc), Facebook and Twitter links, and 'find show times' for local cinemas.
The 'ABOUT' page just includes the storyline with the same background as the homepage. (Similar to our idea)
'VIDEOS' has a few different versions of the the films trailer,our trailer page will obviousley just have the one trailer.
The 'GALLERY' has scattered polaroids on the page and when you click on one, similar to the 'Prom Night' website, it comes up larger.
'DOWNLOADS' includes wallpapers, screensavers and buddy icons.
'CAST & CREW'
'BATTLE MAIL' is an interesting idea, at first you have no idea what it is. It is an interactive game. You type in your email and a friends email and start an email battle, obviousley linking to the idea of the films story. Your friend can email you back and so on, continuing the battle. This is a good device to interest the audience and make them more involved and attracted to the film.
How we've changed the website
On the homepage we changed the font to fit in with the institutions at the bottom of the page (Agency FB)
We also used our research from the 'Prom Night' website, which inspired us to use our poster image with just the title and release date on the first page. We made it on Photoshop and used the same font for the release date as the website.
The 'About the film' page has the new storyline on it:
'Last year a perfect holiday turned into a disaster that would affect Katie and her friends would find hard to forget. Four friends went away, but only three came back.
Losing her boyfriend was the worst thing that could have happened to Katie, and is something she will never get over but she is slowy starting to get back to normal.
Katie is slowly getting her life back together again, he will always be in her thoughts. Time and good friends can help you forget. But not everyone can forget and go back to normal, someone thinks about it all the time, all he wants is to keep Katie safe, and by doing this the nightmare will start again.'
'Cast & Crew' page, we decided to make one because the two websites we researched both had one and it gives a bit of extra, personal information about the cast and crew for the audience. Here is an example of the kind of thing we wrote for the cast:
CHARLOTTE LOCKTON (SAMANTHA GATES) HAD HER FIRST ROLE STARRING IN ST TRINIANS IN 2007. POSSESSEDD IS THE SECOND FILM SHE HAS STARRED IN, PLAYING THE LEAD CHARACTER OF 'SAM'. KNOWN TO HER FRIENDS AS CHARLIE, SHE HAS ALSO MADE APPEARENCES ON TV, GETTING A SMALL PART IN EASTENDERS IN 2006.
CHARLIE WAS BORN IN GRAYS IN ESSEX AND MOVED TO LEICESTER TO PERSUE HER CHEERLEADING HOBBY. BY THE TIME SHE WAS 15 SHE WAS LIVING IN LONDON TO TRAIN AS A PROFFESSIONAL YOUNG ACTRESS AT LONDON'S PERFORMING ARTS COLLEGE.
Trailer
gallery
downloads.
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Feedback
Feedback from the class
Trailer
Teacher feedback
Trailer
Trailer
- Music works well
- Writing is good
- Music is good
- The flashlight looks effective
- Good begining, good end
- Just need a faster, clearer middle
- Some more shorter shots from different angles while their in the house
- Maybe a scene where they take her hostage
- Needs a bit of the male at the begining
- 1.02 does not flow with continuity, cuts from light on to a different
- Voice over maybe to make it look more like a trailer
- Male laughing maybe?
- The bedroom scene could maybe be cut out altogether
- Start and end is brilliant, middle is a little bit of a let down for the piece-perhaps leave the 3 girls out an have the bits of main girl being watched as they are good aswell
- Overall really good
- At the top in the blank space maybe put the stalker pictures across the top all jizjazzed? or a quote. Space needs filling
- Originality?
- Gallery isn't relevant-wouldn't see them sort of photos on a professional website
- Gallery is good, a very original idea
Teacher feedback
Trailer
- Less shots of girl tied up at begining and end
- Cut out shot where males identity is obvious
- Speak when tied up-'Why are you doing this?', 'I know who you are'
- See the film the girls are watching
- Leave at night
- Could be another character doing the kidnapping
- Better acting-more shots in the bedroom/angles
- More scenes-different locations
- Last scream needs to be longer
- Focus on main character when she screams at film so we know shes the main character
- We see her actually being kidnapped-quick shot
- Tagline
- Make the photo stand out more
- About the film-actors, location, detail
- Pictures-main character-stills from film, scary, more/better stalker phots (leaf photo-more zoom, rearview-see eyes)
- Pictures-male and other characters
- Do more research
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