Tag: The Story Lab

Pitch

The pitch went quite well for out story ‘Instafame’. Mardy was discussing the theory and the transmedia reasoning behind all of our choices for this narrative, while Sarah was talking about each platform our story will be presented in and why each platform was specifically chosen. Mollie was introducing the basic outline of our story and the research and inspiration behind it, while I was informing the audience and panel on the themes that our narrative will convey.

 

The three social media platforms that our story will be present in is: Tumblr, Instagram, and Qoohme. These three have been chosen for all different reasons. I honestly had not had heard of Qoohme before beginning this project, but the idea of people being able to anonymously ask questions to someone, is an interesting way to see how someone in perceived within society, and also shows how they interact with others. Tumblr was specifically chosen because you can express and tell a story using different mediums, like text, image, video, and sound. With tumblr you can create an interesting collage into someone’s world and mind, without specifically laying everything down for the audience. Because we are specially monitoring every little detail that is going to be posted on the tumblr, we are going to get the message that we are trying to get across, but it will also allow the audience to fill in the gaps and use their brain to gain the message as well, which hopefully will allow the story to be interactive and engaging.

 

A bible has been created for our story and character Emily, detailing her likes dislikes, a weekly plan for each of the three weeks that the narrative takes place, and what needs to be posted, reblogged, what images need to be seen, and what important story points need to be covered in each week.

 

Mollie and designed the Tumblr page, which was actually harder than we expected, as we had a very clear and specific look at our character’s aesthetic and personality, and knew what we need to do to get that across, but it was hard finding the exact right options to achieve that look.

 

Each member has been equally involved and has equally participated in the creation and execution of this narrative since day one. Between each member and between the three weeks there will be a rotating roster for each member to take control of each of the different social media accounts and because there is a bible of Emily, that has the timeline and what needs to be posted what and when, and the revenant content for each media account, each member should find it quite easy to be able to take control of each social media account.

Essay Research

Miley-Cyrus-Instagram

While researching information of the essay topic to argue for against if music the purest form of storytelling, I explored this storytelling idea in any random album. I decided to explore this is Miley Cyrus’ ‘Bangerz’ album. This album has a very simple and structured narrative over the whole album, even arguable that is has little turning points in its acts.

This is noted in the original no-deluxe edition.

The album opens with the song ‘Adore You’ setting up the story of Cyrus being hopelessly in love, and devoted,  to another, saying that she will always love him more than he will. Over the next couple of songs, she talks about sex, noted in the song ‘#GetItRight’ which also has a slight martial type sound towards the conclusion of the song. Next the next couple of songs, like ‘Love Money Party’, ‘Wrecking Ball’ explores Cyrus’ lifestyle but starts to show the fractures in her relationship, first setup in ‘Adore You’.

The turning point of the album is the song ‘FU’ which is a real juxtaposition to the album’s first song, where is details Cyrus’ anger against her partner for what sounds like him cheating on her. ‘Adore You’ and ‘FU’ are both ballads on the but both lyrically and through Cyrus’ vocal range explore two different scenarios. Ironically, the song after ‘FU’ is ‘Do My Thang’ which is the only song on the original album that only really talks about Cyrus and not about a relationship. In the song she says she’ll be ok, and is gaining her independence back. This song is leading to the album’s last song, to me considered as the narrative’s climax, ‘Someone Else’.

In ‘Someone Else’ Cyrus sings about that love doesn’t live with her anymore because someone took it from her but because of it she became someone completed different; she became someone else.

The range from the song ‘Adore You’ to ‘FU’ to ‘Someone Else’ really has a cohesive narrative that shows a drastic character development.

Brainstorm

Mollie, Sarah, Mardy and I have chosen to base our transmedia project around a fictional person who is an exaggerated example of modern young people who are obsessed with internet fame and online gratification.

This person will have been featured in the background of a viral video, this triggered their obsession with their online persona. The narrative will be based through her online profiles.

We have a few important factors decided, but of course have not

Protagonist- A young person who has grown up during the online revolution and is obsessed with the idea of celebrity.

Genre- Black comedy

Themes- Obsession with internet fame/celebrity, online gratification

Mediums/platforms- Text, image and video on Tumblr. Video through Vine. Image through Instagram.

Other motifs that will be tied in- The social currency of likes, the editing of reality to portray the best version of ourselves, convoluted social interactions, jealousy, possibly death, recurring irony

Sequence of events/plot- To be determined

To remember-

There must be a reason for the audience to go beyond the Tumblr

We’re thinking that the motivation will be wanting to understand the character, so we have to make their life interesting enough to warrant investigation into their life either before or after their death

Ideas-

We are thinking that a major plot point will be the character’s death, this could be the beginning or the conclusion

Advertising Storytelling.

Through learning “The Dark Knight” viral campaign, it was interesting to learn how through several outlets, creating a transmedia concept, that artist could create hype for a film but still actual create a story to create the hype rather than have just random posters and television commercials.

It was interesting to see that little stories, like the scavenger hunt, were their own little narrative but in the big picture related the film’s overall narrative. Using the different outlets, they allowed the world of the film to become more rounded and feel like an actual place for the audience, for example “The Gotham Times” helped this.

Everything is a Remix

After discussing that everything is a remix, and that nothing is original, I decided to see if I could randomly compose a lyrics of a song using several different segments of different songs by different artists. I by random choose the lyrics and wrote them separately  on cue cards then randomly arranged them to see if they were cohesive.

The lyrics were picked up by the following songs:

“Look What They’ve Done to My Song” – Melanie Saflea

“I Lied” – Nicki Minaj

“The Crying Game” – Nicki Minaj

“Someone Else” – Miley Cyrus

“Drive” – Miley Cyrus

“Video Girl” – FKA twigs

“Pendulum” – FKA twigs

“Give Up” – FKA twigs

“National Anthem” – Lana Del Rey

“Tropico poem” – Lana Del Rey

“Tears Dry On Their Own” – Amy Winehouse

 

The final product reads as such:

 

“If you’re looking for love, know that love don’t live here anymore,

‘cause what happens if I fall in love then you cut me loose.

All I want is to love and be loved,

I know that sometimes you wish I’d go away, away

But I’d wished that you know that I’m here to stay, stay

 

I always knew I never wanted this,

I never thought it could happen.

You acted like you wanted this but you led me on.

I shouldn’t play myself again

I need somebody to hold me

Just nod your head and give up.

Overdose and dying on our drugs and our love,

You’re gonna get yourself broke one day.

 

And I’m coming undone, cause the tears don’t end,

If the people are buying tears then I’ll be rich someday.

So lonely trying to be yours,

But maybe I’ll be alright.

I’m hurting myself.

 

Hold me close,

Don’t let me go,

I hope tell me now this is not the end.

It could feel like paradise, paradise lost.”

Case Study

Nicki-Minaj-for-Anaconda

2014’s highly successful Hip-Hop single “Anaconda” by rapper Nicki Minaj is a clear-cut example of storytelling theories that a writer should present the familiar but in a new exciting way.

This song is a perfect example of the concept that Kirby Fergurson presents that ‘everything is a remix’. “Anaconda” was Minaj’s second single from her latest album, “The Pinkprint” (also another play on words, perhaps even arguably a homage to rapper Jay-Z’s successful album ‘The Blueprint’) , that was highly acclaimed at an international level, and even earned Minaj a nomination for ‘Best Rap Song’ at the Annual Grammy Awards. ‘Anaconda’ became an icon for the zeitgeist of 2014. Even through all the success of the song, it was noted that the song heavily sampled the hit 1992 song “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot.

Minaj’s hit single sampled the beat and lyrics from Mix-a-Lot’s original song. A certain lyric from Mix-a-Lot’s original single is the main chorus of Minaj’s single. This could be considered as Minaj is paying homage to a famous hip-hop song that addressed the particular female body part that Minaj has become internationally famous and recognized as: the butt. Minaj heavily sampling the 1992 classic could review the idea that was spoken about in class that creation requires influence; that no idea is truly original.

The elements of creativity discussed by Kirby Fergurson in “Everything is a Remix” says that all ideas are a copy of other ideas that are transformed, so having something else, like a new moral or spin to the original idea, then the new morals and ideals are combined with the original idea to create the new and improved idea. This theory is exhibited in Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’ in that she took a famous song that its entire basis lyrically is sexually objectifying women and their bodies and added her own spin to it, so copying the original idea and transforming it, that sexually targets the male body while also claiming back the Mix-a-Lot’s objectifying of women and empowering the female body and sexuality rather than have it express that female are sex toy for the male gaze. This also could address the theory of storytelling lectured by Pixar’s Andrew Stanton’s that rebel against the normal, that through storytelling in her verses Minaj modifies the Hip-Hop convention of sexually objectifying women and places it on males.

The interesting thing about Minaj sampling “Baby Got Back” is that the original 1992 actual sampled another song, 1986’s “Technicolor” by Channel One. Truly proving that no idea is truly original and everything is, as Ferguson suggests, a remix. Hip-Hop and Rap originated by sampling other musicians’ work, really revisiting that to create something new artists go back to the old and try to duplicate and revamp it. In the case of “Anaconda” it was a triumph as the single was more successful that Mix-a-Lot’s single.

The true question is when does paying homage to another story or idea become plagiarism? Minaj, yes took a very popular and familiar song and presented it in a new way, but does it mean that it’s ok that the beat and tempo, and lyrics of ‘Baby Got Back” was used without even subtly trying to disguise it. Not only musically does “Anaconda” pays homage to 1992 classic but through the visual storytelling in the music video of the song it still pays homage to the song, through identical chorography and phallic symbols of fruit. Is Minaj still paying homage? And when does it turn illegal to sample another’s idea?

Story Lab 1st Entry

Very interesting ideas were presented in class of what certain conventions a writer should follow in order to create a narrative. The TED talk by Pixar’s Andrew Stanton raised some unique conventions such as rebelling against the normal. For example, at the time of the making of Toy Story, Stanton and the other writer’s of the film were told by Disney to have musical numbers in the film. Animated films of this time were all musicals as it was more appealing, but Pixar rebelled against this and create a great non-musical animated film. This interested me as I believe that Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds was using this convention of rebelling against the normal standards of story telling, as the radio play used realism to tell the story.

 

Another point that Stanton spoke of was that as an audience we should feel empathy for the characters, mainly the narrative’s protagonist.   This idea works in Welles’ War of the Worlds as the success of the story comes from having empathy of the normal civilians being attacked in the radio drama, which can be considered to tie in why the radio drama caused such a mass panic in audiences, as the empathy of these civilians made the audience that this attack could happen to anyone, themselves included.

 

The last idea that Stanton spoke of was that characters’ have to have an “itch” that they want to scratch. Mainly it’s the characters’ desires and intentions. This is noticeable in all conventionally storytelling. In Frankenstein, Henry Frankenstein’s itch is to create life, bend medical rules, and play god. Where is a in class peer group discussion it was analyzed that in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ Norman Bates’ itch is too please his mother.

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