Postmodernism example-Life In A Day

Who made it?

Life in a day is a documentary/crowd sourced film which includes a series of videos selected from a number of 80,000 videos which were submitted from YouTube users to Youtube, an internet sharing website, the clips included within the film include respective occurrences from around the world on a single day, which was the 24th July, 2010. The film debuted at the Sundance film festival and lasts for 94 minutes and 57 seconds. on the 27th of January 2011and the film has been directed by Kevin Macdonald and is produced by Ridley Scott.

How was it made?

It was made through the partnership between Youtube, Ridley Scott Associates and LG electronics. Kevin Macdonald also stated that some of the footage was gained through Youtube users, advertisements etc while, other camera footage was gained through sending camera's to developing countries. The filmmaking team attached to Youtube, were allowed to tap into a pre-existing community of people around the world. The team were also able to use Youtube's ability to collect all the material and had students go through the footage. Walker indicated that a team of roughly two dozen researchers, chosen both for a cinematic eye and proficiency with languages, watched, logged, tagged, and rated each clip on a scale of one to five stars.Walker remarked that "the vast amount of material was two stars," and that he and director Kevin Macdonald reviewed the four-star and five-star rated clips. In addition to the star rating system, the editing/selecting team also organized the 80,000 clips according to countries, themes and video quality as part of the selection process, and further had to convert from 60 different frame rates to make the results cinematic.

When was it made?

The video clips from Youtube where received by the 24th July 2010, but was released on the 27th January 2011 at the Sundance Film Festival.

Whats it about?

I would say that the narrative of the film, "Life In a Day" director Kevin Macdonald explained the narrative is about focusing on events consisting within one day because he saw it as the building block for human life. He also explained its as a film that consisted of the non conventional narrative structure but it has thematic movement and has recurring characters. I would also say that the film, is about people being able to connect with a number of people around the world. I would also say that the film, is about traditional film-making, which is shaped by the internet. It has also been used to connote how through viewing these videos, we are are able to connect with people on a virtual level but I would also say the film is also about combining traditional media with modernized digital media so in a way its about adapting to our technological world but also trying to retain some traditional pieces if media which we can benefit from and is a reflection of the traditional world coming to grips of our new technological dependent and how we as human beings are only able to communicate interactively while only being able to find some kind of existence/purpose through our virtual existence.


What are the themes that are used in Life in a Day:

• Human life
• The internet
• Immediacy
• Unexpected intimacy etc

How can it be described as a postmodernist film?

I would say that the film, can be described as postmodern as it includes many intertexual references to other pieces of life such as through the consumption of these video clips promote.It also doesn't have a traditional narrative structure, as the majority of the videos have no relevance to one another and also has a lot of narrators. The references also include references to a number of events within people lives. In the film it also includes loss of context because when we view the film, their isn't just one type of story being told or explained to the audience but it makes the audience be able to interpret the media text any way they want while also questioning their own, cultural beliefs or ideologies. Another reason why it isn't postmodern as it doesn't occur the traditional recurring/conventional characters, that people are able to appeal or connect with. Another reason, would be that the director, Kevin Macdonald uses the video clips as a way to demonstrate generic blurring such as their is a combination of genres include within the video, which is used to display how the director is using the film to almost criticise the rules and features within film and uses the videos clips as a way to connote how human beings have become situated in implosions, hyperreality and simulation as a way to convey to the audience how they need to recognise that they are only able to find a sense of purpose/existence through recognising or even becoming aware of their own reality.

Blade Runner and Postmodernism

In the first paragraph of this essay, the essay talks about how Ridley Scott's Bladerunner which was produced in 1982, talks about the postmodernist aesthetic which is included within the narrative, set design, dialogue, special effects and literary forces which have been explored by other theorists. "The cultural logic of capitalism" is a phrase which is used to portray postmodernism in a specific economic and industrialized period which has actually created/determined the character. A dialectical space is used by Jameson to discuss the postmodernist theory, as he uses Ernest Mandels Marxist theories associated with capitalist expansion, such as in 1840, we used steam power. In this paragraph it states how, this stage is ultimately congruent with the beginnings of realist thought as explored through mechanical reproduction of the photograph. The second stage, marked by the emergence of electric power, and the condensation of disparate business ventures into conglomerates, starts in the 1890’s. However here lies the first flowering of modernist philosophy. Whereas the third stage is the 1950's, is of how we are still living in a postindustrial consumerist society developed in a shadow of the atomic age. Jameson then states how we have the widest cultural examples in graphic arts, literature and cinema etc.

In the second paragraph, Jameson tries to answer the question of how we need to define a new cultural moment which actively splinters its forebears and resists continuity in the classical sense. Jameson attempt to answer the question by explicating clear constituent tropes in the typical postmodernist work. Jameson talks about the depthlessness onto original cultural elements which have been projected or duplicated. He then goes on to state how obvious this is in the work of Andy Warhol. Secondly their is the de-emphasis of linearity which is also embodied by patische and the schizophrenic state of mind and how our daily existence has been constructed through a puzzle. Whereas thirdly, Jameson points out in the essay how humans mind isn't able to grasp the growing awareness of the world. For Jameson this tripartite formulation is about the epitome of postmodernism. He also explains how he seens film scholars have taken up the challenge of applying these ideas to the media format or medium, as they have found an iconic example of this within Bladerunner. He also talks about how he will also analyse the theoretical work of Giuliana Bruno, Vivian Sobchack and Scott Bukatman. All these film scholars, concentrate on the different aspects which is associated with Jameson's postmodernity thesis, using the essay for his own intellectual ends.  While they manage to bring out subtle distinctions of his theory on application to the film, Jameson’s unaltered creations are remarkably durable.

So what is Blade Runner about?

Blade Runner is a science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott set in the dystopian city of Los Angeles in 2019 and is based on the book of Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep by Philip k. Dick, whereas pollution and nuclear waste fallout has pushed the population to off world. People which live on earth, are considered to be weak and too poor to afford transport, or are considered to be genetically inferior as they are forced to live their because of their fear of contaminating colonists. In order to facilitate exploration and Terra forming initiatives where humans are able to grow synthetic humans to compensate for their lack of work. The synthetic humans are also useful in comforting soldiers and to citizens and are used to provide protection the interest of their human masters. The replicants have also been created by the humans with a four year span of life, in which Roy Batty finds his creator, Sebastian and attempts to find the secret to a longer life span through various means. For replicants, this is a fact in which the replicants rebel against their makers. For this they are hunted down by the Harrison Fords Blade Runner character and are made to be retired to spare humanity for humanity's outcome of playing God for their indulgence in the advancement of their technology and the destruction of their world.

In the next parargraph, it states how Scott Bukatman is interested in Blade Runner and its fractal geography as we have a clear fascination with Jameson's notion of spatial deflation. It also points out that their are differences between the high modernist and the elements which are associated with postmodernism. As he points out, how he see's the first and most evident is the emergence of a new kind of flatness etc. In this paragraph he points out that during the modern phrase their were new types of surfaces in almost a fetishitic mode, which are conveyed through commodities and a fabricated desire. Their is also the affect/element of emotional attachment in Bade Runner  of a subject which is a suggested warning of effect, this is displayed between the characters of Rick Deckard and Rachel.He also states how we come to watch the film, we come apart of it and engaged in it that we actually alienated from our surroundings. It is then argued that postmodernism is actually fractuaring our relationship with the image which we find so pivotal in our lives that we aren't able to recognise the composed fragments in synchronicity which are attributed to our world. In this sentence the author goes on to say how we as a species have lost our sense of purpose and life within the world as we aren't able to contribute to elements such as we have lost the diachronic impulse which fosters education and life experience, it also points out how are modern lives are so dependent on technological advancement such as the internet and televisual landscape have come to define what we are as a species. Scott Bkatman also states how he has located a hidden profanity in the media saluted screen which associated with that of Deckards Esper machine and in the eye itself.

Bukatman goes on to decribe how he see's the fractal as a phenomen which subdivided parts of a geometric shape are identical to the whole, implying an endless depth of form and structure. Bukatman also states how the new monument is no longer the substantial spatiality of the building but the depthlessness surface of the screen. Bukatman also states how the screens conveyed in  the movie are a reflection of the mass culture of the media an example of this is is the screeen portraying a Japanese women popping pills enticements to enjoy Coca Cola, or Stalinst entreateies to begin the process of colonization and humanity reverting to discovery through exploration in the off world colonies. Bukatman then states how these projected light shows have replaced the significance, cultural marker and meanings associated with buildings. Bukatman also goes on to explain how advertisements have come to mimic the psychological characteristics which are usually associated with humans. He also see's them as having more function inits society as it sustains its mores and rythms.

Deckard uses the Esper macchine to find out where the other fugitive replicants are, through analysing a photo found in Leon's apartment. Like an entrance to our own memeories, the machine scans images, focuses on significant details and comes to important conclusions. Bukatman see's the machine as a link to determining the existenial to the replicants. In a way those the machine determines whose human and who is synthetic. The machine is also confirming to it being dialetical which is opposite of the Voight-Kampff machine, which is seen as taking humanity through the emotion of empathy, taking away the humanity from the replicants and reasserting their superficiality. The fear is obvious, on Byrants face as Deckard ponders whether the machine will work on the Nexus 6. He then goes on to state, if the humans keep on playing God through the creation artificial intelligence when will actually come to an end, and how both these mechanical contraptions work through the exengencies of the eye.
The close up of the eye reflect Hades like Los Angeles, which we are about to enter. As stated briefly before, the eye is also a vital part of the Voight-Kampff testing procedure which reads unknown gradations in ocular activity (jargonized by Tyrell as “capillary dilation of the blush response, fluctuation of the pupil, involuntary dilation of the iris”). It is Batty's declaration “If only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes” to Chew at EyeWorks and his eloquent final speech detailing those visions that, I argue, ensure his humanity. Bukatman describes the eye as a way for humanity to scrutinise its world from the Tyrell building to serial number on the artificial snake skin, seen through the microscope. He labels various elements of this space, as cinematic an impression associated with that of allegiances to Jean Epstein’s photogenie. The dimensional shifts in the film compel the audience to indulge themselves into the image. We are almost brought back to positivist rationale for photography in the nineteenth century, which claims how humanity would be able to visualize or see the world in a variety of different ways.

Bukatman doesn't go in detail about the representational of the replicants themselves. Rachel is seen by Bukatman to symbolize the ultimate stage of replicant evolution/advancement. Although she is made in man kinds image, she is incerted by her maker/s with human characteristics such as her feelings and her memories and therefore isn't able to recognise herself as a replicant but as a human. But in this story she isn't projected on to the audience in her consumerist society as a human being but as a product.  “More human than human is our motto.” This slogan by Tyrell is used by the author and director to connote how the audience is being lead into some kind of maze/puzzle, which makes the audience question Rachel's human existence. By the replicants not being able to take control of their own lives, they are to a degree being punished by humanity for their creation and existence and by humanity's guilt, which is conveyed through their enslavement and life span. They are therefore depicted as manifestations of humanity's repressed guilt coming back to humanity.

However Bukatman ignores the neon lights etc which sustain Jameson's original observations. The constant repetition of the neon dragon’s flicking tongue offers no escape from the suffocating diegesis.There's also an interplay between the horizontal flatness of the Tyrell building or the street scenes and vertical depth of the world with no bottom or top. In this film it also shown how new architectural buildings have been built on those of the old. The characters’ clothing, mode of address, and mannerisms also seem to be bred from film noir conventions of the past, with a thin veneer of futurity applied to situate them in this new world.
In Guiliana's essay of Ramble city:Postmodernism and Bladerunner, she employs Jameson's exploitation of pastiche and schrizophrenia to sustain her arguments. Jameson also discusses the postmodernist reliance on pastiche to create new artistic forms to create new artistic forms out of an amalgamation of previous historical events, as their is a copy of the original which results in a simulacrum. This ia postmodernist entity, which can no longer be distinguished from the original as the original doesn't exist. The disconnected temporarily of the replicants and pastiche city are all effects of a postmodern city. Pastiche is an aesthetic quotation, incorporates dead architectural styles (Egyptian and Roman), attempts a rellocation of the past of memory and history and eneters the life's of the replicants. Which is obvious as Rachels memories are those belonging to other human beings. As for the criminal replicants, they know what they are, as photographs are used to represent some time in the past when they existed before the present. These images allow them to retain a semblance of personality and indiuviuality, shich are considered human characteristics.
The replicants are also trying to avois schizophrenia. Jameson defines their psychosis through Lacan as a breakdown in the signifying chain, which is interlocking syntagmatic series of signifiers consistuting a utterance or meaning. The linguistic order of the signifiers allows a human to describe their temporality. Replicants have a limited lifespan as this leads to their own destruction as they aren't created naturally. Which is why they aren't able to avoid schizophrenia as they only have access to life as a series of presents. Batty is denied a future because of his meetings with Chew, J.F. Sebastian and Tyrell because he refuses to submit to language and is only able to communicate his needs through violence and is contrasted to a neglected child. Bruno emphatically concludes, “The schizophrenic temporarily of the replicants is a resistance to enter the social order, to function according to its modes. As outsiders to the order of language, replicants have to be eliminated” (Bruno, 70).

Bruno extends the Lacanian analysis by putting the replicants in a world that is imagined. Moreover, their desire, characteristic of the Imaginary, is to be human but this is impossible. Ensuing is a profound sense of loss that causes a mental rupture from which the replicants can’t recover. The symbolic order is out of their grasp because to have language they need history. Therefore the laws of man, have no place upon the attainment of the language,meaning they have no purpose/meaning within the world. Even those the replicants have been given adult bodies their emotional capacity is infantile. Bruno reveals a phenomenological link between mother, history, and photography in the narrative.All these events are events of the past such as childhood etc. Leon and Rachel who fail the Voight-Kampff test succumb to their synthetic personality when confronted with the apparation of mother-Rachel by way of a living photograph and by Leon answering through a question about his history. In a sense when Lacanian'sanalysis is used, the replicants represent morality, nurture and home but the replicants are excluded from these realms.

Bruno those doesn't discuss nostalgia for a motivation of pastiche. The design of the replicants references to a time when humans weren't hobbled by the effluence and conflicts of the industrial age. Technology in 2019 is seen as advancing but the humans have become more frail as they over rely on the replicants to do the majority of their tasks. There's a nostalgia inherent in the film noir aesthetic of the film. Deckard is seen as a reference or even a modern equivalent to that of Humphrey Bogarts rumpled dectives and Rachel is portrayed in the femme fetale role that has never mislead a dective on celluloid. Jameson's intertexuality bestows the characters with more emotional depth to the point where we align ourselves with Deckard's actions or motives. The confident egotists of the roles in Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark are a contrast to Deckards brooding anxiety.
Bruno also references the cityscape in relation to pastiche but it should also be relevant to schizophrenia as a clearly established language system. We are told that the vernacular is spoken by other inhabitants of the city. However, as an imaginary language created by Edward James Olmos just for the film, we have no way of deciphering it. Cityspeak functions as a link between  the motives of the police department and those of Gaff as related to Deckard. Consequently, we enter into a schizophrenic relationship with these authority figures and have no sense of their history as it relates to this unfamiliar world. Although we don't know why the replicants need to be retired and why they have chosen Deckard to do this but Gaff's origami figures remain enigmas(puzzles) as we have no language to descipher them. The inability to comprehend constitutes Jameson's final boundary between art and postmodernity.
Jameson name the unprecievable network the sublime. The nexus of the idea revolves around a conceptualization of the divine but thats only one application. There is an unbridled dread and incredulity which invades the human mind when confronted with a deity, a universe, a planet, or any infinitely branched system which we cannot comprehend. Jameson finds ideal literally representation of sublimity inthe cyberpunk expulsiom of William Gibson. The intangible bytes which surf through cyberspace exist in a world that the human psyche can’t quite control. This connection to electronic signals leads to paranoia as subjectivity is destroyed. In a sense, Blade Runner preceeded and influenced the cyberpunk movement.
Vivian Sobchack in her final chapter, “Postfuturism,” from Screening Space outlines the shape of the unfathomable. Vivian see's Blade Runner as being one paradigm which is used to fulfil the metaphorical space. As we are surrounded by electronic gagets and the vestiges of the sublime. A constant reminder of another existence beyond physicality as transformed humanity. Sobchack believes our mediated insertion into cyberspace has transformed human beings into being a myriad of visible and active simulacra” (Sobchack, 229). These apects of simulacra doesn't bound to the indexical and can exist autonomously from us in a world where our bodies can’t travel. In a culture where humans can be alienated from themselves, the alien or the other no longer signifies the same fear it once did,as this portrays humans as being aliens and replicants being us.

In Blade Runner, the spectator and protagonist are always re-orienting themselves to come to terms with this infinitely dense sensorium. As which is common with the human psyche, the narrative displaces society confusion into other evil.“This is space that finds its most explicit figuration in the impossible towering beauty of Blade Runner’s Tyrell Corporation Building—an awesome mega structure whose intricate façade also resembles a microchip” (Sobchack, 234). Tyrell corporation has been able to synthesize   a crushing amount of bio-engineering technology to recreate humankind. In the inter-textual world of the science-fiction film, such a mastery of the sublime is always deemed unnatural (partially by its perceived impossibility) and can only have negative consequences. We are not meant to conquer the sublime. If we do this we are personally gods.  The hyper-consciousness would render culture pointless. Postmodern logic can accommodate the sublime into our way of life.

This incomprehension is literalized in Blade Runner due to what Sobchack calls an “inflation of space,” a theory functionally identical to Jameson’s “hyperspace.” This inflation is identified by an “excess scenography” which crowds the mise-en-scéne. The fabricated space brings the spectator into contact with the sublime. Space is anthropomorphized, and like a collector classifies, gathers, preserves, and displays objects. “Trash and waste, pollution and decay, are visualized as curious and beautiful, postmodern sensibility finding aesthetic pleasure and sublimity in the accumulations and trans-formative decay of the cityscape…” (Sobchack, 263-64). In this film, Pris is seen hiding in a pile of garbage to catch Sebastian's attention, whereas Zhora is seen running through a chaotic gauntlet of cars and costumes etc. This inflation has its own consequences in the digesis.  Primary among those is a “deflation of temporal value.” Time no longer flows in a rational manner that presupposes history, language, and causal forces. Blade Runner though is ambivalent about this shift towards spatial representation. Its apparent that the inclusion of time within the narrative is pivotal to the story and the replicants four year life span, which is shown through the intercepted shots of Roy Batty hands seizing up to the deadline and through his speech on the rooftop. The spatial dominance in contemporary science fiction features a new postmodern cinematic language.

The author also talks about how they would add one element to Sobchacks inflation thesis.Cascading and ominous tones of Vangelis score simply imply a world outside the normal flow of melody and tempo. The music constantly adds expansive layers of melancholy and awe. In addition Sobchack doesn't engage Jameson's mention of derealization in her argument. This conveys how reality is represented as artificial modern forms of art.  Rachel asks Deckard early in the film whether he’s ever retired a human by mistake. There is also a question which resides on Rick Deckard of whether he is human or in fact a replicant. This question, sustains Jameson's conception of the terrifying and exhilirating as the audience try to answer this question. If Deckard is a replicant, the dissolution of boundaries theorized by the film would be complete; Homosapiens will have come to an end brought on by our own hubris.

Jameson believes the only way for us to interact with the sublime in the future will be to develop an aesthetic of cognitive mapping. This diagrammatic overlay would “enable a situational representation on the part of the individual subject to that vaster and properly representable totality which is the ensemble of society’s structures as a whole” (Jameson, 51). This system would reclaim subjectivity from the fragmenting impulses of depthlessness, pastiche, schizophrenia, and sublimity. It would create a political dynamic capable of integrating personal ideology and global awareness, all through technology. In the conclusion of the essay, Sobchack glances over “cognitive mapping” and offers Born in Flames (1982) as an idealized example of mapping put into practical use. I offer Blade Runner as a counterexample. Aren’t the replicant’s brains the beginning of this advanced cultural logic? Once they are allowed to temporally transcend, their engineered brains will be able to surpass ours. The part of their minds that is constructed will be able to hold yottabytes of information, and the part that mimics our own will have the time to craft an individualized ideology. Replicants are the perfect solution to the postmodernity crisis. They are immune to the vicissitudes of cultural logic. They will succeed despite our impotence, at least on film.

In the film, the replicants are depicted as searching for empathy and memory in a city containing memories on its walls. The humans are shown as being consistently trapped in a state of amnesia as the directions of the mind only point one way. The theorists discussed in this essay are also searching and grasping the nature of the simulacrum, as they are searching for clues in Jameson's intricate composition. Postmodernity doesn't offer answer but instead its fluid borders generate an unending cavalcade of suppostitutions. Blade Runner is interested in the decisions we make and is also a film which is invested in our contemporary moment. What counts as a human,  whether at the embryonic dawn or the “accelerated decrepitude” of dusk? Is reminiscence really a part of lived experience or more a function of the imagination? Whats the elemental spark which allows us to abstract ourselves and engage ourselves in a variety is different realities and theories. Can this ember ever be duplicated? How do we shelter emotional veracity from an increasingly coded world? Do we really want to know the answers?

Identifying the Characteristics of Postmodern Films

Playfulness and self reference:

Firstly when viewing a classical narrative, the narrative will try to hide the fact that its a fictional product, the film is usually edited in away to get viewers to forget about any editing transitions etc which has actually taken place. Compared to a classical/modern film, a postmodernist film will jump up and down to draw attention to itself and its modes of construction. Thomas Tykwer's film, Run Lola Run plays with its narrative structure, delivering a similar scenario three times with different conclusions. Its cinematic style which includes animation, both video and film stock, colour changes, whip pans(where the camera whips sideways), crash zooms which quickly focuses on experimental editing. It also never lets you forget that its a highly constructed film using a number of storytelling devices. The film also makes references to other forms of popular culture, such as music videos and computer games and also positions itself in context of other media products. The message of the film is basically not to take the film seriously which is done through the audience distancing itself from the media representations etc which are found in the film. Compared to a classical movie, a postmodernist films include texts which keep us at arms length by reminding us that its a constructed or simulated reality which we experience in order to communicate to audiences that the text being conveyed through the movie isn't real whereas a classical narrative draws the audience into the storyline of the film and attempts to create a belief in the characters and their experiences. Postmodernist film is also known to challenge the mainstream conventions of narrative structures and characterization, while also destroying the audiences suspension of disbelief in order to create a work in which a less recognizable internal logic forms the mediums means of representation and expression. For the film to convey their desired meaning, they are also known to maintain conventional elements to help orient the audience. Another example of where the film plays around with its narrative structure, is the film, The Time Travellers Wife, which plays around the narrative as Eric Bana's character goes back and forth in time, trying to reach different conclusions within his life with his family.

Postmodernist films also include concepts such as pastiche, flattening of affact, hyperreality, time bending, altered states and more human then human. Pastiche is self referential, tongue in cheek, rehashes of classic pop culture. Flattening of affect involves technology, violence, drugs and the media lead to detached, emotionless, unauthentic lives. Hyperreality is described in relation to where technology creates realities which are original or more desirable then the real world. Time bending is used to connote the importance of time travel, as it relates to how time travel provides another way to shape reality. Whereas altered states involves mental illness, drugs and technology which provide a dark gateway to internal realities. Whereas Human more human involves artifical intelligence, robotics and cybernetics, which seeks to replace or enhance humanity.

Generic blurring and intertexuality:

This is where films often cross boundaries between different genres an example of this is Pans Labyrinth, which clearly has different film genres included within the film such as it creates scenes of horror, tragedy, adventure and fantasy with elements of a fairy tale like story line combined with elements of military history when combined with the topic of the Spanish civil war and it also explores the themes of obedience, religion, politics, war and imagination.  Intertexuality is also, where the film makes reference to any other medium formats, such as Toy Story 2 refers to the shortage of Buzz Lightyear toys as an intertexual joke, which is connected to the manufacturers underestimated demand for the toy. This postmodern tendency towards generic cross reference and intertexuality creates a relationship with the audience by both playing with and complementing their knowledge of film. Another example of this is in South park, when they make intertexual references to Harry Potter, The Lords of The Rings and the Dark Knight, when Cartman dresses up as the Coon to make a mockery out of the Dark Knight. Pans Labyrinth also uses intertexual references to Del Toro's film, The Devils Backbone and Narnia etc, which Guillermo Del Toro uses to combine pieces of his favourite writers to compromise the story which is original and to explore the figure of the god, pan and its symbolic nature of the Labyrinth.

Popular and commercial media meets High Culture:
This were the film or another type of media format uses popular culture is combines with high culture, which can be done through various ways such as having parts of high culture such as literature, art forms etc combined with popular culture such as computer games etc. An example of this is Pan's Labyrinth which contains cultural styles and times which are combined with each other, as it challenges the chronological history as it includes scenes of Captain Vidal involved in fascism and while at the same time addressing Ofelia's innocence when completing Pans tasks.  These could be considered as high culture elements and the text can be perceived as postmodern as it involves this and can be considered modern because its enjoyed by the masses. The OC is also another example of where it combines the Cohens, high cultural lifestyle with that of Ryan's, whose from Chino.

Fragmentation and the death of representation:

This is were films, use a range of fragments from other texts, genres and cultural influences, this fragmentation also applies to representation. Captain Vidal representation of someone who is perceived as violent as it can be argued that there's a death of representation as his constructed to be like a monster and the audience make a connection with fairy tale monstrous characters, which Ofelia faces and see's as an uncertain threat, the same can be said about how the antagonist in The lovely Bones.

Uncertainty and the loss of context:
This can result in a sense of uncertainty and the shaking up of previously understood beliefs and roles. Postmodernist films can also make the audience feel their are no generic rules and that representations only make reference to other representations. Postmodernist filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan, Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch etc challenge aspects of life or belief systems. This can be said of Nolan's film, Inception, When the audience are made to decide if DiCaprio's character is trapped in reality or a simulated/constructed reality or The Simpsons which challenges law enforcement, science and the American Dream.

Other characteristics which are sometimes used in postmodernist films:

Postmodernist films are also known to include other key concepts when its comes to them being embedded into films. Such as postmodern films also include concepts like a pre-fabrication which is similar to how simulation is used in movies but this draws the audience closer to already existing and noticeable scenes, and these are basically reused in narratives, dialogue etc. A bricolage is also used, which is where a person such as a producer, editor or director usually builds a film like a collage of different film styles and genres. It also includes metafiction which is were someone within a film write someone writing within a film to demonstrate its fictionality and is used for shifts in narrative, impossible jumps in time or to mainatin emotional distance for the narrator. Historic metafiction is a technique refering to novels that fictionalise actual historical events and characters. Temporal distortion is the jumping of time backwards and forwards. Minimalism is a technique used to demonstrate characters that are unexceptional and events which usually occur. Postmodernist films are also known to use other characteristics such as technoculture, paranoia, maximalism, faction, participation and magical realism.

Semiotic Study of signs and how we make sense of them

The media concepts which I will be using in this blog post was the concepts of media language which is connected to media language, representations and audience. The production I will be analysing in this blog is the first production.

In my first production I use examples of signs which are connected to semiotics such as money, the safe, the boxing gloves, the lamp, cards and the boxing photos of past boxers on the wall. The money has a denotation of employement and success, whereas it has a connotation of power, empowerment, corruption and sumpremacy. Whereas the boxing gloves has been used to connote connotations of patrichal ideals and mannerisms, masculinity and its also portrayed in my films opening production as a way of remmembering his past and it has also been used to connote the archetypical characters which we usually associate with the genres of sports drama and relates to gangsterism and as a way to connote the personality of the central protagonist as someone who is obsessive and someone that can easily be manipulated.Which represents my central protagonist as someone who isn't able to find any purpose or humanity within his existence and is only able to find his purpose, identity and embrace more of his identity throught his co-existence and connection with the sport of boxing. I have also used the boxing gloves as a way to represent traditional beliefs with capitalism and to represent how my character is going to have to change his own mythology and lifestyle to adapt to societities beliefs and identities to achive some kind of existence.The denotation of the boxing gloves is the it conveys, rivalry, violence and saddism. The colour of the boxing gloves are black which has been used to convey death, masculinity, leadership etc. I have used the lamp as a way to signify how I as a director isn't just exploring the structure of our society and the characters that co-exist within it but I'm using it as a way to convey to my audience how I want my audience to make an analytical assessment of my character but I want them to make a more knowledgable and unfamilar assessment which they question their beleifs in capitalism and I use it as a way to personify the obssessive behaviour of the characterisation of my character. I have used the photos in my garage to convey how I want to convey how the character use it as away as a reminder of his progress in the world and how his moulding his personality as a way to connect with other boxers on a falled and emotional level. I have also used the cards as a denotation of power, whereas the connotation of the cards is to convey how the character has a false sense of power and he is basically a reflection of a media text, like a cog in a machine as Charlie Chaplin says and its also a reflection of how the protagonist isn't basically in control of his fate and existence and how his political society is determing his identity and existence, which represents him as a victim of capitalism and I have also used it as a way to reflect and marxist and postmodernist mythologies of the world. The Safe is basically denoting protection and secrey and signifying a simulacra of boxing, emancipation and how the characterisation of my character has loss all sense of power and reality in the world. The money is basically used to personify, how my character is being portrayed as selfish, corrupt, exploitative and I have used it as a way to convey his false sense of power and I have used it as a way to scrutinise the capitalist system from a marxist point of view.

Ferdinand Du Saussure was a swiss linguistic whose ideas  laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century.Saussure is one of the founding fathers of semiotics. His concept of the sign/signifier/signified/referent forms the core of the field. Equally crucial, although often overlooked or misapplied, is the dimension of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis of linguistic description. I would also put those concepts under linguistics as although Saussure saw the relationship between the two concepts when apllied to a figure, he wanted people to find a difference between those two when applying to them because he wanted people to connect with the figure on an analytical level, while exploring there own ideologies which are connected to the figures. Whereas Barthes went further to gain a descriptive analytical anlysis of figures through other concepts such as denotation, connotation etc.

Audiences:Reception theory

Stuart Hall:
Stuart Hall is a leading sociological thinker of the late twentieth and early 21st century's, whose writings were often encompass media perspectives. Even those he was thought as a sociologist and cultural studies theorist, he taught media in London in the sixties. Rather then just exploring how texts make meaning, as was the predominant practice of his analytical forerunners, for Hall, the meaning of the text is not inherently in the text itself. From this Hall claimed that no amount of analysis can find the texts actual one meaning because different people who encounter the text will make different interpretations.
This can be applied to other media formats such as films, TV shows etc, as we as an audience don't all like the same characters portrayed in those media texts but we are all able to see the same representations. The technical and symbolic codes which construct the representations we perceive are the same as the denotation is often the same. The thoughts that the producers or directors want us to think and what we actually think might be two different things. This reading, according to Hall depends on our social positioning an example is the level of our education and experience and what are occupations are.
Reception theory defined:
Reception theory is a version of reader response literary theory that emphasizes the reader's reception of a literary text. It is more generally called audience reception in the analysis of communications models. In literary studies, reception theory originated from the work of Hans-Robert Jauss in the late 1960s.

Reception theory is an approach to textual analysis which puts more emphasis on the audience, the meaning is made at the moment of consumption. At that moment, the individual audience member considers the representations presented to them in the context of their own values, opinions and experiences. Therefore, people with similar socio-cultural backgrounds are likely to make similar readings of the same texts. The theory also follows, that if the audiences values, opinions and experiences are similar to the producers, then they are likely to read the meaning of the text in the way it was intended, or at least which is very close to it. 

So what is an audience:

An audience is a group of people, who are targeted by producers or directors, in which they use media formats such as TV programmes, films, music etc, and these media formats are used by directors and producers to target people of specific ages, gender, ethnicity etc.

The audience targeted by me when producing the opening sequence of a film:

In relation to who were my intended audience were, I would say that the age of which my film opening sequence was aimed at was of the age of fifteen to twenty five years of age and it was aimed at both genders specifically, but I would say that it mas more specifically aimed at males because of the context displayed in the film opening sequence and as the males would be able to relate to the central protagonist more then females would. The intended audience for the films opening sequence when considering the socio-economics were of the categories of C2, C2 and D. In relation to audience I would say that the psycho graphic in relation to the audience is that its mainly aimed at people of similar values of how they perceive capitalism and how they identify with the values presented in the film, which are usually associated with movements such as Marxism and post-modernism. I would say that people would interpret the film differently because some people would say that the film interprets the film as a film which criticises liberal values and dominant ideologies as it portrays the negative representations and values which are associated with capitalism and this is portrayed through the closing of the safe door, which conveys how I perceive the protagonist as someone who is trapped in his own world as it reflects post-modernist, concepts of hypperreality, simulation and implosion. Marxists would say those that it presents an accurate view on capitalism as it conveys how working class people are being exploited by the bourgeoisie.  

Task-Stuart Halls article on "Preferred, negotiated/oppositional reading":

Description of my target audience:

An description of my intended target audience for my films opening sequence is that my target audience is aimed at people of the ages of fifteen to twenty five years of age, consisting of socio-economic groups of C1,C2 to D because  I feel that my intended target audience would be able to understand the themes employed in the film's opening sequence and would be able to understand the growing influence of Italian neorealism on the film. I would also say that even those my film is aimed at both genders, I think that it would appeal to males more then females as it would appeal to them more because of the hybridity of its genre and males would be able to relate to the central protagonist more then that of females would be able to. 

The Preferred reading of my production:

The preferred which I was trying to represent to my intended target audience when producing the opening sequence of my film was that I was trying to represent a Marxist and post-modernist perspective towards my intended target audience. The reason why I say I was trying to represent a Marxist view was because in a scene within the opening sequence of the film, I was using a boxing montage which was used as metaphor to signify the positive representations of capitalism as the scene promotes masculinity, idealism etc. In the film when I compared the montage sequence of the boxer boxing, I then compared it to another scene in which the audience are employed to be a spectator in the scene of where we see the central protagonist drinking in a darkened litten room. This scene was used as a way to representing my own ideological perspective on capitalism from a Marxist view, as I employed this scene to convey the negative representations which can be associated with capitalism as the scene and central protagonist is a reflection of my intentions of how I see the working class being exploited by capitalism and by the bourgeoisie. My preferred perspective or reading of my production is that it promotes a post-modernist view, as it exposes how we are constructed into a piece of reality of where we aren't able to find some objective truth within the world and it relates to post-modernist concepts of hyppereality, simulation and implosion, which is presented in the scene of where we see the protagonist drinking which signify's that his trying to find some kind of objective truth within life or purpose. Whereas the closing of the safe door promotes as I see humanity trapped within a fixated and false reality of where they aren't able to escape.

What negotiated and oppositional readings does my production offer?
The negotiated and oppositional reading that I would say is provided my production is that it offers the oppositional reading of presenting the working class as a someone who is easily, corrupted by greed and money. This is shown through the scene of the protagonist sorting out and counting his money. Another oppositional reading would be that it presents the working class person as someone who has no purpose within life and can be easily exploited through the political system of capitalism. Whereas I would say that the negotiated reading which is represented or even signified by the film's opening sequence is that it represents capitalism in a negative representation and a character that instead of being able to become a better person within his life and find his sense of purpose and identity, he finds out that he can become a better person if he doesn't fall to his decisive traits he will be able to find his purpose but he doesn't want to challenge capitalism because it would be an rejection of his criminality.