Foo fighters – Best Of You

In order to improve our skills for our music video, we are going to Swede a current video for 30 seconds. We have chosen to do Foo fighters - best of you, as we believe this will challenge our current knowledge and techniques and make us improve so we can grow and develop our skills. The 30 seconds we have chosen consist of many different shot types and angles that we are going to try and re-create.  In order to help us, I have analysed and storyboarded the 30 seconds.
This is video, from 3.05 to 3.35 seconds through.

3.05

The image of a door and frosted window, the frosted glass suggests mystery and allows the character to be uncovered. The unknown sense keeps the audience intrigued, while using Barthes ‘Proairetic’ code of leaving something un-established. The silluete of the hand is clear, showing how the character is leaning, potentially through pain or the sense of giving up. The enigma code is enforced here as there is equivocation, where the reasons are unclear. A hand evokes control or power, and seems as if the character is reaching to the audience. The image gives the impression that the character is male and is alone. The lighting coming through from the corner is naturalistic, and the blue tinge represents the icy unknown atmosphere and evokes the unfamiliarity. The slight low angle suggests that the character is superior and the lighting across half of the image shows how there are many sides to the character, with good and bad aspects to the nature of him and the story.

3.08

The image of the bed represents their vulnerability, the women and the little boy shows how they are dependent. She is wearing pyjamas which symbolises feeling defenceless and at home. The image evokes that they have been left and are alone, and not through her choice. It suggests they have been abandoned and only have each other. The lighting doesn’t show either faces and covers the boy almost completely, showing how he she is protecting him and she is the most vulnerable. This conforms to male gaze theory, as it evokes the woman as weaker and as an object to protect and look after children. The white bed sheets evoke purity, with no covers which show that they are exposed. The bird’s eye view shows the mise en scene of  the bed and how they are in the middle and allows the audience to not see her face, taking away the opportunity to feel you are getting to know the character or any synthetic personalisation. Propps narrative theory can be applied here as she is clearly the culprit and has faced issues, but must also be a hero in order to help her son.

3.12 - 3.15

The low angled show of the main singer Dave Grohl shows him to be superior and makes him appear God-like. The Rule of thirds is used to be aesthetically appealing to the audience and easy to watch. Propps narrative theory is imposed here as he appears to be the hero. The naturalistic lighting evokes him to be singing outside, showing how the band are rebelling and are more free and don’t push boundaries, breaking conventions and regulations. The sky appears to be a turquoise blue colour, suggesting it is late afternoon/evening, evoking how they lead normal everyday lives and then come out of their mould in the evening, revealing their true personalities and doing what they truly believe in and love to do. The closed eyes evoke how he is passionate and emotive and he’s putting his all into his the performance side of the video. The dark, casual clothing represents the style of music, and also shows the informality. It evokes the idea that the band is at a practice and is at ease with their audience. The camera angle pans round revealing the band and through quick editing, straight cuts to a close up of the singer. The extreme close up f his mouth demonstrates his passionate feeling that accompanies the song and how the microphone and he are almost one. It shows the closeness between the musician and the performance, how he can reveal himself through his performance. The facial hair demonstrates masculinity and evokes power. This conforms to the male gaze theory suggesting men are superior to women. The it then straight cuts between images of the band and shows how they are performing despite that there is no one there, and how they feel relaxed when performing. The use of low angles throughout evokes that they are to be admired and looked up at, and suggests that they’re dominant.

3.26

Here there is a very short clip of a young girl. She has her eyes closed suggesting she is hiding something but the expressin on her face suggest excitement or thrill. The white lighting suggests her to be angelic, and the use of a child suggest innocence and purity. The red arm strapp could evoke danger or passion and combined with her sutably red hair, it re-enforces the whiteness of her skin, evoking clarity and cleanliness, but also enforces danger or risk. Her eyes are closed which enables Barthes proairetic code to be enforces, suggesting that it is something to hide and stops personlisation with the auidence making her much harder to read. The neutral angle also confused the audience as they dont know how to read her, and the mid-close up only shows her face. The shortness of the clip makes it even harder and makes the audience question. The shot appears random, but links back to the image of the women and the little boy, and helps create the narrative. Barthes semiotic code would suggest that she represents something, like the innocence of the band or how they are young inside and waiting for a reason for living, trying to make a difference in the world. It could shoow how they still feel young inside or how they havnt reached their full potential yet. On the other hand it coluld be evoking new starts or how their lives havnt been fulfilled yet.

3.27

This is an image which evokes the power behind the song. A proposal is a once in a life time thing, and isn’t done lightly, reflecting the tone of the song. It conforms to male gaze theory suggesting that the man is of power and in control. The image also holds connotations of happiness and joy, as well as obviously love and eternity. This image also gives the impression of maturity and respect, reflecting the image the band wants to portray. This also conforms to Propps narrative theory, as the woman is the prize. This opposes the feminist theory and suggests that women are powerless and are in the hands of men. There’s binary opposition between this image and the previous image, between the connotations of youth and innocence with the mature, adult connotations of that this cause the audience to think. The lighting in this is bright with a yellow tinge. The use of Barthes code in the semiotics of yellow suggests that yellow signifies sunshine and joy and energy. It’s a warm colour to reflect the warm of the type of image. The extreme close up focuses on the hands being the main image, without seeing the characters faces. The use of the neutral angle allows the audience to focus on what is in the image and the mise-en-scene as a whole image, conveying emotion, affection and love.

3.28

Immediately after this is the image of a lion jumping up at birds. This is interesting and is binary opposition between this and the previous image, showing rage, death and panic.  The extreme long shot uses naturalistic lighting to portray the animals in their natural habitat. The use of the image portrays fury and anger as well as terror and fear. It evokes how the band has had to battle to get to where they are today and in everyday life there are disasters. The image allows the audience to see how a small mistake or misjudgement can be fatal. The use of Barthes enigma code is used here as the audience don’t find out if the birds survive and get away or are caught. It shows the circle that all animals have to go through and the battle just to live. The powerful image holds many connotations and the animals in the background show how theres always other people affected by one person or things actions. the extreme long shot allows the scene to be set and the lion to be shown in full in the centre. The rule of three has been applied vertically, in order to create points of interest and focus the audience on the lion. The chaotic wings evoke it being hectic and disorderly, and how things happen beyond your control. The image strongly evokes power and masculinity reflecting the image of the band. This is also use to regain thier mascuilinity from the previous image shown, as being in lve can be seen as a sign of weakness by other men, the powerful image here demonstrates mascuilinty and influence.

3.29

The last image before cutting back to cuts of the performance piece shows a yellow bang. This suggests fire and blaze. The use of the yellow suggests caution as it evokes a fire and therefore panic. The yellow bang seems to be a turning point in the music video as if before it had been building up to an explosion. This could reflect how the band have been building up to and explosion and hope that this song is their explosion and can really take off. It could also reflect how it’s too much and it all loses control. The crash of the yellowy orange fits in with the orange lion beforehand, which shows how the lion had power and control, ‘winning’ the situation and suggesting that he had killed the birds.

Ellie

Narrative theories in AS Thrillier

Narrative Theories – AS Thriller.

For the thriller we did for our AS, it was important that we established narrative theories. There are 4 main narrative theories, Todorov, Propp, Barthes and Levi – Strauss.

Todorov

Todorovs theory suggested that there are many parts to a story line, and that every story goes through the basic stages of Equilibrium, Dis-equilibrium, Realisation, Attempt to restore /resolve, resolution, re-equilibrium. For our thriller, we established equilibrium by him getting up in the morning and carrying out regular daily tasks, such as eating breakfast, doing his teeth etc. this quickly moved into dis-equilibrium when a strange letter came through his front door. Realisation was relatively quick to happen as he opens the letter and sees the code on the back and then ‘realises’ he’d been pulled into a scam or abnormal situation. Attempts of resolution, as our thriller was only the first 3 minutes, this would be further in the film. however because of the planning and storyboarding we know that in attempt to resolve he would take the photos into work and he tries to find a reason for the code. Resolution occurs when he then found that his boss is the villain and the hostage is saved by the wife and they get together against the boss. Re-equilibrium is then established as he can then go back to his normal life and is then promoted and so the balance is re-established, and he can go back to his normal life.

Propp

Propp’s theory gave the idea that each story has a villain, a dispatcher, a helper, a prize, a donor, a seeker hero and a false hero. In our thriller we had some clear roles, for example the use of the hostage as the villain, a dispatcher, who was the person who posted the letter, a prize – of freeing the hostage and ‘helping’ his boss, a donor, when he goes to the office his boss provides him with a way of helping.  The seeker hero is the main character who seeks to free the hostage and move up in his company and on with his life, and the false hero, who is the boss. Incidentally the helper is also the boss, often occurring when roles mix and so the false helper and heroes aid the main character but also want to cause trouble.

Barthes

He proposed 5 different codes.

            The enigma code – a narrative device used to play on the audience by hiding some information. It enforces tension and suspense. This is used by 3 techniques.

·       Snares: deliberately avoiding the truth.

·       Equivocations: partial or incomplete answers.

·       Jammings: openly acknowledge that there is no answer to a problem.

            The Proairetic code – This is also used to build tension, referring to any other event that will cause problems and indicates that something is going to happen.

            The semiotic code – This refers to connotations within the story. The use of motifs, signs and symbols influences what the audience can associate with what they see. It gives additional meaning to what they actually see in front of them.

            The symbolic code – this is a lot like the semiotic code, however incorporate the use of paradoxes and oppositions. For example the conflict between a young girl and an elderly man could show the struggle between life and death. It focuses on paradoxes and antitheses (direct opposites)

The cultural code – this is dependent upon the shared knowledge of the world or a particular culture. The audience can recognize certain things as being part of a particular culture.

In our thriller we used all of the codes, using the enigma code and the proairetic code to build tension, not telling the audience where the letter had come from or who it was from or what the code meant. The flashes of the hostage created more tension and kept the audience questioning. We used the semiotic code and symbolic code when choosing props and setting. For example we decided bran flakes would be the best cereal, the books and pens on the table etc. in order to truly show his character.

Levi Strauss

In our thriller we used binary opposition between male and female, as the main character and ‘hero’ was male and the hostage was a female or ‘villain.’ This conforms to the usual stereotypes on men being weaker than women, and the opposition is apparent. We also used binary opposition between light and dark, shooting some hostage scenes in black and white and using lighting to show characters having a ‘dark’ side or another side t their personality.

Ellie