Fight Club -The Postmodern Dilemma Of Manhood and Postmodernism and Violence

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Fight Club and the Postmodern Dilemma of Manhood


Postmodernism and Violence

Two essays that may prove helpful when writing your essay. Click on images for links.

Essay

Discuss two or more media texts that you would define as ‘postmodern’ and explain why you
would give them this label. Cover at least two media in your answer.

Use the resources that I have posted connected to Fight Club, Memento and Pulp Fiction. You don't have to refer to all the films, you can focus on one of them. Make sure that you also refer to your individual work on postmodern music. That way you will have covered two types of media.

Fight Club trailer

Fight Club is advertised as a heart-racing thrill ride. Is this different to the reality of the film itself? The voiceover describes the narrator as "tired of his job, sick of his stuff, looking for something new. But he wasn't ready for what he found." The trailer accentuates the action elements of the film. In reality the film subverts the generic conventions of an action film and is something a lot darker and more disturbing.

If Filmmakers Directed The Super Bowl

The auteur's Super Bowl. A reimagining of the Super Bowl influenced by the film style of Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Jean-Luc Godard and Werner Herzog.

Fight Club: a postmodern consumer fable

Fight Club Disinfo

Magazine covers

Click on the image to view a small selection of covers from Raygun a short lived American magazine (1992-1995).

The rest of Chris Ashworth's website is worth a look too.

Double Page Spreads

Contents page ideas

A couple of ideas to help with contents page layouts. Click on either image to view the site.

Planning and Research mark scheme

Marking Criteria for the Presentation of the Research and Planning

Rankin: covers portfolio

A gallery of Rankin's magazine covers. A great place to look for ideas. Click on image to access gallery.

Magazine layouts

Click on link above to view a really helpful blog that has posted inspriration for magazine layouts. You would be foolish not to have a look and utilise some of the ideas.

AS Foundation: coursework lesson

Today you need to ensure that you are completely up to date. Check the coursework schedule for a reminder of the work you need to have already completed.

Ideally this week you should be filming and editing if you are making the film opening and taking photos and deciding on layout if you are making the magazine cover.

On Friday 12th I am expecting a draft version of your work. Wednesday's lesson will be a theory lesson so you will need to use you own time effectively to complete the task.

Make sure that you post updates of progress and examples of your work on your blog as you go. This is extremely important. Ensure that all posts are labelled correctly and that you all have a link list and a label list.

Fight Club

Some points to consider when watching the film today:

In what ways can Fight Club be considered a postmodern text?

* Identify the postmodern aspects of the text.
* Who (audience types) would categorise this film as postmodern?
* What other readings of the text could one make?

Caught In The Web

Double Edge

This is brilliant example of a film title sequence. Everything in this piece is to a very high standard. The idea, camera work, editing, script, acting and music is all superb. This is the sort of work you need to make to achieve a top grade.

Field Music - Them That Do Nothing

AS foundation portfolio to do list

• create a label list
• make sure all posts are labelled correctly
• create a link list
• add a link to: http://fordlcmedia.blogspot.com/2009/12/g321-as-foundation-portfolio.html which is the course schedule
• read the schedule and make sure you are up to date
• access this sheet (audience profile) via scribd http://lcasmedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/audience-profiling-sheet.html and complete.
• upload your completed audience profile to scribd and embed in your blog.
• create a short term (one week) to do list and add a to be completed by date

It is really important that you don't fall behind. You all have a lot to do and a clearly defined period of time to do it in. You need to use your own time more productively to ensure all tasks are completed.

Girl Talk: Everyone Borrows Intellectual Property, Even Kings of Leon

Remix master Gregg Gillis of Girl Talk doesn't buy into the traditional notions of copyright and intellectual property and says that even Kings of Leon are recycling when they borrow their sound from Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Girl Talk-Feed The Animals

Still Here



Like This

Two remix videos to go with two of the tracks from Feed The Animals by Girl Talk.The videos themselves are visual examples of sampling (from the origianl band/artist promos) and work beautifully with the music.

AS coursework schedule

I have added the AS coursework schedule as a link. (see my link list).It would be sensible to add it to your own link lists. That way it is always on your homepage.

Who Sampled

Who Sampled is a database of sampled music and covered songs. This will be useful when researching various elements of postmodern music.

Cut Chemist

Kraftwerk-Trans Europe Express

Afrika Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force-Planet Rock

Bowie, Iggy and Egon Schiele

David Bowie-"Heroes"

David Bowie-Be My Wife

David Bowie-Golden Years

David Bowie-Fame

David Bowie-Rebel Rebel

David Bowie-Jean Genie

David Bowie 1970s discography

Studio albums:

The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
Hunky Dory (1971)
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
Aladdin Sane (1973)
Pin Ups (1973)
Diamond Dogs (1974)
Young Americans (1975)
Station to Station (1976)
Low (1977)
"Heroes" (1977)
Lodger (1979)

David Bowie album cover art

Postmodern music

Identify an artist who may be thought of as being postmodern. The theory can link to a song or songs, an album or a series of albums.

Be clear about why this artist is postmodern. Use lots of examples from the research you conduct.

I will post the examples linked to David Bowie that i talked about in Friday's lesson.

Fight Club

In what ways can Fight Club be considered a postmodern text?

• Identify the postmodern aspects of the text.
• Who (audience types) would categorise this film as postmodern?
• What other readings of the text could one make?

You Got The Love … but have you got all the mixes?

Florence And The Machine hit, recently remixed by The XX, has a long and convoluted history

The XX's terrific, chilly two-step remix of Florence And The Machine's You've Got The Love is one of the defining tracks of 2009. It's also probably the only ever example of a remix of a cover version of a refix of a mash-up of an a cappella of a song originally written for a diet video.

You Got The Love is the anthem that refuses to die. Every few years, someone finds a new way of throwing their hands up in the air and saying, Lord, they just don't care. It's now raided the UK top 40 in four different guises, been covered by everyone from Joss Stone to Kasabian, and soundtracked the series finale of Sex In The City; a far cry from its original setting, accompanying footage of a morbidly obese man waddling along a beach.

Candi Staton was one of the leading female singers of the disco era, but by the mid-1980s, her best days were reckoned to be behind her, which is probably why she agreed to lend her vocals to a song for a video about the world's fattest man trying to lose weight. Penned by a songwriting team calling themselves the Source, the original You Got The Love is a perky disco-pop track, generous with the slap bass, although Staton's gospel-tinged wail carries it. The song was released as a 12-inch on Streetwave, but an a cappella version also surfaced on Source Records, becoming a favourite tool for UK house DJs in the late-80s. Paul Simpson was first to use it, layering it over his own track Musical Freedom, although it was DJ Eren – a resident at London house night Solaris – who first twinned the You Got The Love a cappella with the instrumental version of Your Love, a Chicago house track credited to Frankie Knuckles (later discovered to be the work of a lesser-known producer, Jamie Principle).

This mash-up's potential was spotted by DJ John Truelove, who pressed it on to vinyl in 1989, retaining the name The Source Featuring Candi Staton. It was a slow-burner, but You Got The Love's status as a guaranteed floorfiller saw it stumble into the UK top five in February 1991. "They were calling saying I had a number one record in England," Staton told the Guardian in 2006. "I said, 'What song? I haven't released any.' When they told me it was You Got The Love, I said I'd never made a record called that. Then I got off the phone and realised – it was the one from the diet video! Which was never supposed to be a record."

Truelove developed a close relationship with the song, recording a more euphoric backing track in 1997, taking it back into the top five. This was the version covered by Florence (who oddly felt compelled to correct the title's charming grammatical sloppiness).

"It's cool that Florence has been able to take the song somewhere else again, in a very positive way," says Truelove, reflecting on You Got The Love's enduring power to unite crowds in end-of-the-night exaltation, "it certainly has led a charmed life."

The Guardian, Saturday 28 November 2009

Sam Richards

Postmodernism and Music research

Research

AS foundation portfolio checklist

The majority of the items on the two lists are covered in the timetable. Copy this to your blog and cross them off as you complete them.


Video

1. Juno opening titles swede
2. Analysis of film opening from Youtube
3. Analysis of student opening
4. Prelim task and evaluation
5. 25 word pitch
6. Make a company logo and Ident
7. Nine frames moodboard sheet
8. Titles timeline from art of the Title
9. Storyboard and animatic
10. Recce shots and photos on the shoot
11. Screengrabs throughout editing
12. Rough cut for feedback


Print

1. re-make a cover with your own pictures
2. analyse the relevant four pages from different magazines
3. analyse some student magazines
4. prelim task and evaluation
5. pitch your new magazine within the market
6. make your banner
7. magazine moodboard
8. breakdown of institutional features
9. flatplan and photo-flatplan
10. recce shots and rehearsal shots; photos of group in action
11. Screengrabs throughout of photoshop and DTP
12. Draft version for feedback

G321: AS foundation portfolio

G321 Course Outline Dec 2009 to March 2010

Film title sequences

A selection of film title sequences that i've compiled on YouTube to help with inspiration. They are not choices you would necessarily gravitate towards, however they should provide an enlightening alternative to the many sequences you may have already viewed. Click on image above to access the playlist(you will need to sign in to youtube - you can use your google account login details - then click on playlists and the icon on the top right)

Magazine covers-flatplans

Examples of a flatplan and other very interesting ideas to help you with the creation of a magazine cover, contents page and indeed, a double page spread. It is worth attempting to find similar sites yourselves to gain insight from the pov of other media creative types.

Brainstorming app.

Courtesy of Hannah Skidmore. A pretty decent looking app. to add some interest to those brainstorming sessions you are no doubt contemplating. Click on image above.

Magazine terms glossary

Click on the picture of Zac Efron to find a rather useful magazine terms glossary. For those of you attempting to create your own magazine covers this is essential reading.

Foundation Portfolio

As Media Coursework 1

View more presentations from fordford.

Year 12 coursework

Unit 1 G321: Foundation Portfolio in Media (worth 50% of the marks available at AS)

The Foundation Portfolio is a Coursework Unit, consisting of either 2 video productions or 2 Photoshop constructions and an online blog. The first video piece will be a short sequence produced to demonstrate basic technical ability and understanding of continuity technique. The second is a fully developed production produced to demonstrate skill development, consisting of the first 2 minutes of a fiction film, based on an original idea developed by the students. The first Photoshop element will be a cover and contents page for a school magazine. The second is a front cover, contents page and double page spread for a music magazine. All images and text must be original. The students will work in groups but will be assessed individually on their work in the following stages:

*Pre-production: research, planning, development of ideas, scripting, storyboarding, magazine mock-ups, layouts,colour schemes

*Production: shooting, lighting, working with sets, actors and scripts,photography,working with models

*Post-production: editing, special and sound effects, music,photoshop effects,applying text

Evidence for the different stages will be presented via an online blog. Students will be expected to evaluate the finished film production according to specific theoretical criteria and this will also be presented through the blog.

Assessment: Marking is out of 100 (20 marks for research + planning, 60 marks for practical work, 20 marks for the evaluation).

Interesting blogs

This is the link to the group blog.

This is the link to the individual blog.

Example AS Blog

THIS is an example of an excellent AS blog. If you look at the range of technology employed you'll notice that we are encouraging you to do more than these students have. What technology can't do however is hide any lack of effort or knowledge. Planning (aka preproduction) is essential, you cannot take short cuts or assume it will all turn out fine in the end. Nothing has been left to chance, they check weather forecasts, create animatics, analyse other film openings, recreate other film openings, describe their target audience by creating profiles, produce rough cuts of their film and get feedback from their peers which informs future decisions, spend 12 HOURS filming in one day, work in their spare time over half term. I could go on.

There is no excuse for not having an exemplary blog, this is one area where all students can achieve top grades and where time is not an issue. EVERY member of TEAM FORD is expected to have a C grade blog at worst.

Finally this blog also demonstrates how all areas of the course are intertwined, their practical is clearly based on representation issues (specifically youth) as well as some of the theory you have covered (narrative).

This post originally appeared in Mr Smith's blog.

Inspiration-Colour and Visuals

Colour Lovers is a very interesting site that will help you with colour ideas. Have a look at the palettes on display and post some in your blog as inspiration for your own colour choices. It is really important that you make informed decisions about colour, don't just leave it to chance.






Creative Review is a brilliant website that will help you with your visual ideas. It is worth taking the time to explore it fully. As i showed you with the Guinness Surfer presentation, inspiration can come from unlikely sources.

Click on logos to go to websites (also see link list).

The Flaming Lips-Do You Realize??

This song stands as one of my favourites because of the contrast between the upbeat, optimistic nature of the music and the startling lyrics that highlight how insignificant we are. To be reminded that everyone we know will one day die (which is obvious, but not something we would like to spend too much time contemplating) in such a way makes me realize how short and precious life is and reminds me to focus on the good things.



Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize - we're floating in space -
Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - Oh - Oh - Oh
Do You Realize - that everyone you know
Someday will die -

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize

The End of Music

By GLENN BRANCA

We seem to be on the edge of a paradigm shift. Orchestras are struggling to stay alive, rock has been relegated to the underground, jazz has stopped evolving and become a dead art, the music industry itself has been subsumed by corporate culture and composers are at their wit’s end trying to find something that’s hip but still appeals to an audience mired in a 19th-century sensibility.


For more than half a century we’ve seen incredible advances in sound technology but very little if any advance in the quality of music. In this case the paradigm shift may not be a shift but a dead stop. Is it that people just don’t want to hear anything new? Or is it that composers and musicians have simply swallowed the pomo line that nothing else new can be done, which ironically is really just the “old, old story.”

Certainly music itself is not dead. We’ll continue to hear something approximating it blaring in shopping malls, fast food stops, clothing stores and wherever else it will mesmerize the consumer into excitedly pulling out their credit card or debit card or whatever might be coming.

There’s no question that in music, like politics, the bigger the audience gets the more the “message” has to be watered down. Muzak’s been around for a long time now but maybe people just can’t tell the difference anymore. Maybe even the composers and songwriters can’t tell the difference either. Especially when it’s paying for a beach house in Malibu and a condo in New York.

Of course, we could all just listen to all of our old albums, CD’s and mp3’s. In fact, nowadays that’s where the industry makes most of its money. We could also just watch old movies and old TV shows. There are a lot of them now. Why bother making any new ones? Why bother doing anything new at all? Why bother having any change or progress at all as long as we’ve got “growth”? I’m just wondering if this is in fact the new paradigm. I’m just wondering if in fact the new music is just the old music again. And, if that in fact it would actually just be the end of music.

New York Times