Working from a case study that examined an example of online video practice called online video review, which we deconstructed though the use of parody to explore its specific narrative structure, our group plans to explore how the narrative form of other genes of video are altered when the too are mixed with parody, a subset of the genre of comedy. How does the hybrid nature of this process effect the narrative/non-narrative form of the original genres of video, or how the narrative/non-narrative form of these videos are portrayed to an audience.
This is the draft of our probe for project three we came up with after presenting our base idea to the class this week. It became clear that our idea needed some clarity, and there was some confusion as to:
a) whether we were focussing on parody or genre mixing (a separate idea we thought we could mix in with parody)
b) whether parody counted as its own genre
c) what we were planning to explore by applying parody to different genres
d) what we were ultimately trying to achieve, particularly in regards to continuing on to project 4
In trying to answer these questions and areas of confusion, we came up with a more precise probe. Really, our interest lies in how a video is altered when you apply to it the conventions of parody. How a video can keep the conventions of it’s original genre (eg. horror) but not be considered exclusively a part of this genre anymore, because it has been parodied. Since it’s been parodied, it also carries with it conventions of the genre of comedy, and as a result of this kind of new hybrid genre it has found itself in, its narrative form has been altered. This is our main point of interest. In terms of what we are trying to achieve, I’m not sure it’s so much in creating something new or unimaginable (however, that’s not to say we won’t be heading in that direction for project 4), but for now it is purely to deconstruct and recontextualise existing forms of video to see what happens to its existing form when parody is added to the mix. The feedback from class was helpful in realising this, in bringing the ideas we already had down to a more exact point that we can now focus in on for our sketches.
