Postmodern Music Theory Task - Tyler, The Creator

9. includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
3. does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
12. distrusts binary oppositions

Postmodern Music Theory Task - Grimes

16. locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers
2. is, on some level and in some way, ironic
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
7. avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
15. presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities

Flight Of The Conchords

Post-Modernism in 'Flight The Conchords'

Episode Name: 'Prime Minister'

South Korean Karaoke
The episode features many references to music the first of which being a reference to South Korean karaoke. The song that is referenced is 'Wang Shi Zhi Neng Hui Wei' by Taiwanese artist 'Liu Jia-Chang'. The video is meant to look as much like a real karaoke video as possible with different shots and imagery constantly changing in the background along with Korean and English lyrics across the bottom.




Demon Woman
During the episode there is also a reference to the song 'Demon Woman' by 'Cliff Richard' where the same music and video style are used however the lyrics of the song are changed to fit with the story line of the episode.



Lady Smith Black Mambazo
At the very end of the episode there is a reference to 'Paul Simon' and African choir group 'Lady Smith Black Mambazo'



The Matrix
In this episode there is also a reference to the film 'The Matrix'. At the start of the episode the prime minister is speaking about the film and how he wonders if he himself is in the matrix. This is then referenced again at the end of the episode where he jumps of a building in an attempt to free himself from the matrix.

Simon and Garfunkel

One of the biggest references in the film however is to the artists 'Simon and Garfunkel'. During the episode the two main character become a Simon and Garfunkel tribute act which then forms the story line for the episode. At the end of the episode Art Garfunkel himself makes an appearance.

Define Postmodern Media With Examples

The term 'Postmodernism' is a very broad term. Postmodernism can be anything that rejects the ideas of traditional modern media such as being original or following typical media conventions. Postmodern media is though a very popular form of media which can range from a very subtle usage to a very obvious use. Postmodern Media is used in many different forms ranging from film to music.

In the film industry postmodernism has become an increasingly popular form of film. An example of one of the biggest and most famous users of the idea of postmodernism is Hollywood director 'Quentin Tarantino'. Tarantino has produced a total of 8 films with each one of them containing elements of postmodernism. One of the biggest ways in which Tarantino does this is by referencing other films and media in his own films. This is used in almost all of his films and is not as obvious as you might think. Tarantino makes references to media that is in a completely different genre so that you don't expect it. One of the most common genres that he references is 'Spaghetti Western' this is most prominent in his recent war film 'Inglorious Basterds'. The film begins with references to the film 'The Good The Bad and The Ugly' where the same intro plot is used and there is use of almost identical camera angles and shots.

Another film that uses postmodernism is 'Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World' In this film however the postmodern references are not as subtle as they are in Tarantino's films in this film they are deliberately meant to be noticed. 'Scott Pilgrim' makes references mainly to various video games. Using conventions of a video game in a film is in itself a very postmodern idea as they are two very different types of media. The film references many retro games such as old Nintendo games this again is very postmodern as this would contrast with the majority of the film's target audience which would be teenagers and young adults, this is because the majority of the references made are to games made before the target audience was even born so they would have never had experienced these game and thus would not understand the references.

Postmodernism is also commonly used in the music industry ranging across many different genres. Rap and Hip-Hop commonly contain elements of postmodernism with artists such as 'Kanye West'. Kanye like many other artists in the Hip-Hop genre use sampling which is a form of referencing much like in the film industry. In his song 'Gold Digger' Kanye used a sample from the 1950's blues song 'I Got a Woman' by 'Ray Charles' which in itself is a sample of the 'It Must Be Jesus' by 'The Southern Tones'. This shows the possibilities that the use of postmodernism can create as though postmodernism a song that was about the power of Jesus has gradually been turned into a song about women who look for rich men. So is postmodernism a good or bad thing?

Postmodernism doesn't stop at referencing and sampling, another type of postmodernism is hyper reality. What makes this type of postmodernism so important is that it is happening in the word around us in places that you would often visit. Hyper reality is almost fooling you into believing something that probably is correct at all but you are made to think it is right. One of the main culprits for this are fast food establishments and restaurants. For example when you visit a 'McDonalds' restaurant you would look at the picture of the food and order it in the belief that what you would receive is as it on the picture, this as we know however is not true as what we receive is never as good as what is shown in the picture, so why then do we accept that? If for example you ordered an item of clothing and when you received it the item looked nothing like the picture you would send it back, which begs the question of why we accept it when it comes to food. This is all a result of hyper reality.

To conclude I have very mixed views on the idea of postmodernism as it can be used for what I feel is a good thing of re-using older media through the use of referencing however this makes me think that there would be no such thing as originality.

"Postmodern media manipulates time and space" To what extent does this definition apply to texts you have studied?

Postmodernism media is a type of media that rejects the common and 'normal' concepts of media. It is limitless and has no set rule. It can range from a text that has no depth or meaning to a text that is full of depth and requires you to dig deeper into it such as with the use of referencing. But how does postmodern media manipulate time and space?

A recent media text that would be seen as postmodern is 'Quentin Tarantino's film ' Inglorious Basterds'. The film is set during World War 2 and follows the journey of a small group of Jewish Nazi hunters who plan on wiping out the Nazis and ending the war. The use of postmodernism in this film could be seen as manipulating time, this is because the film has a completely fictional story line and plot however it is set during the real world events of World War 2. This could be seen as manipulating time as the events in the film would change the course of history and alters the events of World War 2 to make it nothing like it was in real life. The film manipulates time again as the soundtrack for the film contains pop music from the 1980's which is 40 years after the film is set meaning that the music would not have been invented yet. You would then think that this would be easily spotted and look out of place in film this however is not the case as the music fits in very well and goes almost unnoticed, this then makes the audience think the music is normal for that time period and thus changing their ideas of that time period.

The Hollywood blockbuster film 'Inception' is another film that manipulates time and space, that is almost the main theme of the film. The film revolves around the idea of entering peoples minds through there dreams. As the film progresses the idea of multiple dreams is introduced where they travel to dreams within dreams. To keep track of how many dreams they have entered the song 'Je ne regrette rien' plays in the background and gets slower depending on how many dreams within dreams they have entered. As they enter these dreams time gets slower and slower until a second in the real world can become hours in the dream world. This is an example of manipulating both time and space. During the film the main character played by 'Leonardo DiCaprio' loses track of what is a dream and what is the real world. This is shown when he is meeting with his wife and we see flashbacks of her life. His wife completely loses track of what is a dream and what is a reality and ends up killing herself. At the end of the film the main character is able to go back home to his children, when he arrives he spins his spinning top toy which he uses to keep track of dreams and reality. If it is reality the spinning top will stop spinning and fall over however when he spins it at the end the movie cuts to the credits before we see if the top stops spinning which leaves the audience whether the whole film was set in reality or whether it was a dream.

Another film that could be seen as manipulating time and space is the film 'Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World'. The main theme of the film is to combine the virtual world which is seen in video games and the real world. This is most prominent during the films fight scenes where things you would usually find in a video game are seen. This includes things such as a high score counter, coins from defeating enemies, combo counters etc. The films also uses a comic strip theme using concepts you would find in a comic book such as words appearing to describe actions and any sounds that happen. When characters are introduced in the film a stats or bio box shows up next to them giving background information on them, this is much like a character selection screen in a video game. Could all of these combined show that the film could in fact be set in a video game and not in the real world at all?

Stock Footage Music Video / Purity Ring - Fineshrine

‘Describe how your analysis of the conventions of real media texts informed your own creative media practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time’

Real media texts have helped me greatly in the creation of both my final media pieces. I was both inspired and influenced by these existing products and used elements of them in my own media piece.

For the creation of my first creative media piece which was a music magazine the first thing I did was look at and research existing magazines. To begin with I wasn't too sure on how to create a magazine so by looking at existing magazines I was able to build up an understanding on what goes into the creation of a magazine and what sorts of design elements I should include. The first magazine I looked at was 'NME'. This magazine was we're I gained most of my knowledge from and what influenced my own magazine the most. The main element of the magazine that inspired me was the colour scheme which was red, white and black. I decided I would use this colour scheme as I knew that because a successful magazine like NME used it I would be guaranteed a professional looking an d successful colour scheme. NME also covered the same genre of music I did so I knew. It would fit well with the genre. The second existing media text I looked at was 'Q' magazine. Although Q focuses more on mainstream music rather than my chosen genre I felt the layout of the magazine could work very well in my magazine so I took element of this layout and used them in both my contents page and double page spread. This included things such as where the text is laid out on the page , the placement of the images and the red banner idea at the top of the pages.

For the creation of my A2 pieces which where a music video, poster and album digipak I again began by looking a existing media texts. For this task my genre was 'heavy rock' which was something that I was fairly new to so looking at existing media prices in the genre was vital to give me an understanding in what the genre involved. To start with I looked at music videos in our chosen genre, as a group we decided our music video would be to the song 'Zzzonked' by the band 'Enter Shikari' so to start with I looked T music videos from this band. I noticed that live performances where a very common dependent in almost all of they're videos and in other bands videos so we decided we would also do this as we wanted to keep to the common element of the rock genre. By looking at existing videos I also noticed that dark/black and white effects were used on the videos to give them a lot more of a gritty feel to them. As a result of this we also opted to do the same as we wanted our video to have as many elements from existing videos as we could to make it look like a video you would expect from the heavy rock genre. One problem we did face however was making our video look like a live performance like in the real videos. We overcame this problem by coming u it's the idea of the camera constantly moving to make the environment in the video very busy and energetic to make it feel as though you were in a crowd.

To create the digipak and posted I was a lot broader with my research and looked at. Existing media products from many different genres as I wanted to combine elements to create something fairly original looking however as you will know this Ida very difficult thing to a achieve. One of the things I noticed is that minimalistic style poster and album covers where very popular and successful so I decided this would be the stating point for my own product. I then noticed that the use of a triangle shape was very common a lot of album covers this was used on album covers from bands such as: Alt-J, Bastille and Enter Shikari. To try and put my own creative spin on this I made the triangle upside down and made the cover image go inside the triangle to make the rest of the cover blank and minimalistic. For the poster I then used the same image as this was again a very popular thing to do as many real poster just used a larger version of the album cover.

To conclude I feel that real media products have helped me greatly in the creation of my products. Without them I would be very unsure on what sort of elements to use in my own products and be unaware of what makes a product successful. Existing texts helped me create what I feel are very professional looking products which would appeal to my target audiences and leave me with a successful product.

'Uncool' Playlist

1.) Phoenix - Fences
2.) Sleigh Bells - Demons
3.) Grimes - Oblivion
4.) Everything Everything - Cough Cough
5.) Friendly Fires - Hurting
6.) Crystal Castles - Intimate
7.) Purity Ring - Fineshrine
8.) SBTRKT - Wildfire
9.) Crystal Fighters - Champion Sound
10.) One Night Only - Hide

Post-Modernism in Music

Post Modernism in Music Research

Crystal Castles:
Crystal Castles are an experimental electronic duo,they are wellknown for creating experimental sounding music. To acheive this they use many different samples from other music.

Here are the samples from the first album:

Samples:

"Untrust Us" samples the Death From Above 1979 song "Dead Womb".

"Crimewave" samples the Health song "Crimewave".

"Air War" samples the reading of a passage of Luciano Berio's "Thema (Omaggio a Joyce)"

"Magic Spells" samples the Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five song "The Message" as well as a quote from the 1983 science fiction miniseries V.

"Courtship Dating" samples the Health song "Courtship".

"Good Time" samples the Drinking Electricity track "Good Times (Dance Mix)".

"Vanished" samples the Van She song "Sex City".

"Love and Caring," "Alice Practice," and "XXZXCUZX Me" sample the kick and snare from "Sunday" by Covox.

These are some of the samples from the second album:

Samples:

"Year of Silence" samples the vocal track from the Sigur Rós song entitled "Inní mér syngur vitleysingur"

Both "Violent Dreams" and "Vietnam" contain samples of the song "A Walk In The Park" by Stina Nordenstam

Band Name

The band's name is a copy of an old 80's video game called "Crystal Castles".

Merchandise & Artwork

Crystal Castles came under copyright threats at the start of their career for creating merchandise and album artwork out of an image they had copied from artist Trever Brown. The band then bought the rights to the image off of the artist so they could continue to use it.

This is the artwork they used:

"Not In Love" Single

In 2010 CC released their single "not in love" which was a remix of their own song. The difference on this version is that they had Robert Smith of the band "The Cure" to sing the lyrics, they also alter some of the music. The song itself is also a sample/cover of "Not in Love" by 80's Canadian new wave band "Platinum Blonde". This could be considored a sample more than a cover as they alter the lyrics and change the whole genre of the song giving it much more dark and electronic vibe to it. This CC version of the song was then rimixed and sample again by South Koreon actor and artist "Lee Min-Ki"  

Post-Modernism Essay

Discuss why some people are not convinced by the idea of post-modern media

Post-modern media is a very broad term used to describe a media text that goes against the usual conventions of a media text. This could be through things such as referencing existing texts, 'remixing' other texts and adding things that are generally considered different or against the normal conventions of a type of text. In theoretical terms post-modernism can never progress as it is consistently re-uses old and existing media texts.

The main and biggest reason people may not be convinced by post-modern media is because they feel it is just copying and takes away the originality from media texts meaning media texts will never progress and constantly be unoriginal but is this true? For example Hollywood film director 'Quentin Tarantino' is well known for a being a post-modernist as all of his films in some shape or form will use conventions of post-modernism. For example Tarantino's World War 2 film 'Inglorious Basterds' uses many elements of post-modernism. The film constantly references old and existing films that may not even be from the same genre of film. A good example of this would be the introduction to the film which is almost identical to the introduction of the spaghetti-western film 'The Good The Bad and The Ugly'. Many viewers of the film will not even notice the similarities between the two films and the fact that he has been able to use the same conventions of an existing film into a different context in itself could go against the claims that post-modernism is unoriginal.

'Kirby Ferguson' who created an online video series around the subject claims that “everything is a remix”. He says that almost all of today’s media is a reference to an already existing text which is then altered. Ferguson's rule is that texts are either 'copied, transformed or combined'. An example of where this rule is apparent is American rapper 'Kanye West's song 'Gold Digger'. The song features heavy references and sampling of the song 'I Got a Woman' by 'Ray Charles' which is in itself a copy of the song 'It Must Be Jesus' by 'The Southern Tones'. As you can see this is an instance of a media text being copied and transformed. The original song by 'The Southern Tones' was a song about the acts of Jesus and praising him this was then transformed into a song about a woman in 'Ray Charles' song and then transformed once again into a song about a woman who is after mens money. So again does this show the creativity of Kanye West in that he can change a songs meaning completely into something new or does it mean he has been unoriginal and not creative at all?

There are however extreme uses of post-modernism which use that many references and copies of existing texts that it becomes almost a joke. An example of this is the film 'Hobo With a Shotgun' which used so many references that it took all of the seriousness away from the film and made it a joke. The film is almost a parody of post-modernism by referencing everything that was bad about existing films changing the context of it and making it even worse. This type of film could be a reason why some people may not be convinced by post-modernism.

'Frederic Jameson' is against the idea of post-modern media and thinks that post-modernism is vacuous and trapped in circular references stating that post-modern media is “Nothing more that a series of self referential 'jokes' which have no deeper meaning or purpose.” Whilst some people will see this as a reason to not be convinced by post-modern media a post-modernist may argue that that is the whole purpose of post-modern media.

To conclude I feel that 'Frederic Jameson' has a point in what he is stating however I also feel that the idea of post-modern media is in fact a creative process as it means existing texts are constantly being re-used and transformed into something completely new.

How did the conventions of real media texts inspire you to use new media technology to create the style of product you achieved?

How did the conventions of real media texts inspire you to use new media technology to create the style of product you achieved?

For the creation of my final media product real media texts inspired and influenced me greatly. Almost all of the ideas implemented into my products were influenced by a real life media text in some way or another. The main reason for doing this was because I knew it would be successful as if real media texts are doing it then my product should also succeed like they have.

For my first media piece which was a music magazine I looked at many different types of magazine styles ranging across all different genres. Researching these magazines was very easy due to many new media technologies. This was because I could just search ‘Google’ or the magazine’s website to find examples of covers, contents pages etc. rather than buying the magazine from a shop. As my magazine was to be an indie rock and electronic magazine I began to focus more on magazine that specialise in these genres such as ‘NME’, ‘Q’, ‘The Fly’ and ‘Dazed & Confused’.  After looking at these magazines I noticed they all have a slightly minimalistic theme with a small set of colours. The main colour that I noticed were used was red, black and white. As a result of this I too decided for that colour scheme as I knew it would look good and professional plus all the colours complimented each other well. I also looked at the layout of the pages across these magazines and implemented this into my magazine such as the large masthead used in ‘The Fly’ and the double page spread layout of ‘Q’.

For my second media product which was a music video for the song ‘Zzzonked’ by ‘Enter Shikari’ I again had to look at existing products. This was easily done due to new media technology such as ‘YouTube’ which allowed me to watch many different video’s with ease. After watching various different videos we decided that we would go for the common techniques that are used in the rock genre such as performance, black and white effects and fast paced editing. This was because similar to my magazine we knew it would be successful. All of these effects combined made our video look very professional and look like a real rock video which portrayed the energy of the music which is what we hoped to do. Once we had finished our video we used new media technology such as ‘Blogger’, ‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’ and ‘YouTube’ to give and receive feedback from our peers. This worked very well as we did this for our draft video and gained a lot of feedback both positive and negative. The negative feedback we received enabled us to make appropriate changes to our video and improve it.

To conclude I think the use of new media technology has enabled me to create two media products to the best of my ability, by giving me the ability to do research with ease and receive a lot of feedback without having to round and ask individually so this saved a lot of time and ultimately enable me to create to two great products.

Inglorious Basterds Post-Modernism

Narrative Theory

Creativity Eassay

Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

For my AS and A2 projects I created a music magazine and a music video. I also had to create 2 preliminary pieces to gain some experience in making the selected products prior to the final piece.

At the start of the year at AS level I had some skill in the digital technologies that we planned on using for our music magazine however it was to a very basic level of understanding so in order to exceed in the task I would need to further my understanding. The preliminary task helped me improve my skills in media technologies dramatically especially in programs such as Photoshop. For the prelim task we had to create a magazine that would be aimed for a school environment and be aimed for people aged 15-18. This task was very much just an introduction to the software used so the final product was not too good however this was to be expected as I had little experience in the software. Without this task I would not have been able to producer my final magazine to as good of a standard.

For the main magazine I regularly looked back at my old magazine and looked at what ideas I came up with for that and how I could make that even better and look like a professional magazine. I looked at many different internet videos and tutorials online to further increase my knowledge and understanding in the software. Originally I wanted to try and make an original looking magazine however the more Iooked at real magazine the more I realised how difficult it is to create an original product. As a result of this I tried to implement many different elements of existing magazines to create a new looking style. I mainly combined elements of Q magazine and NME magazine.

At A2 level I created a music video together with my group. I was a lot more skilled in this area of media technology than at AS. This was because I had experience of both filming and editing video outside of school as a hobby. Because of this I was chosen to film the video and to help edit the video. Although I already had experience I did however further improve my skills during the filming as I had never filmed a live band performance before so this was a new experience for me and helped improve my camerawork a lot.

As well as the video I also had to create an album digipak and a poster. As I had experience in working in Photoshop from AS level I felt very confident going into this work. I also managed to improve my skills even further by looking at even more tutorials and looking at real posters and album covers. I feel that I finished this to a very good standard. As I had improved my Photoshop skills so much I was able to finish this mark to a very high standard which almost gave me full marks. This again boosted my confidence in using this type of media technology.

To conclude I feel that my I have I’m proved greatly throughout the two years. I feel I made the biggest improvement in my skills at AS level as Photoshop work was pretty new to me and as result I now feel very confident in working in Photoshop. I’m also a lot more confident in using a Photo camera and a Video camera as these were used throughout the two years.

Creativity - Randomised Album Cover