Inspirations

Genre(mixes)

Reading Log #10  

Genres are what categorises different films in different belongings. It refers to the kind or type. This mode of categories also helps describe and analyse films rather than evaluate them. Film conventions therefore shape the viewers’ expectations of what belongs to specific genres. Though, movies are like music in terms of genre which can be remixed. Just like music remixes that we’ve explored in our week 11 Lectorial, great unique movies are not of an original idea but a mixture of great inspirations that are then created into one extraordinary piece.

Would we expect that a film starring Sandra Bullock is a romantic comedy? Or those starring Bruce Willis is an action or rather a gangster film?

When we observe a shot in a film with an advanced, futuristic technology or an experiment in a laboratory, would we infer that the film we are watching is belonging to the sci-fi genre?

Consequently, each genre or subgenres has specific conventions whether it is its style, subject matter, music, or even its actors. Vampire films for example, is a subgenre of horror or a thriller category. Though, a genre may not stay that genre and evolve overtime in history. Twilight, being one of the first vampire with romantic conventions are a mixture of genres and had influence other filmmakers, such as the vampire diaries show or A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014). This movie by Ana Lily Amirpour has some similar conventions to the Indonesian horror films, with the ghost or vampire wandering alone at night and hunt for its prey being that it is Iranian with similar culture to the Indonesian Muslim culture. Rizal Mantovani’s Kuntilanak (2006) has the ghost wandering only during the night-time like the girl in Amirpour’s movie, with its arousal of shock, disgust and repel or horrify. But unlike other vampire movies, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is the first Iranian Vampire Western ever made with a mash-up of genre, archetype and iconography.

Remixes & Reproductions

Dan explains today that “There’s no such thing as an original idea”. Week 11 lectorial proposes an interesting topic on reproductions and how DJs come about from the histories of discotheque and night clubs. During the 1920s the people would dance to music on a piano or Jukebox. Where in the late 1970s, DJs would have been needed to provide music with seamless transition between songs. Even then, the birth of the Internet has allowed these artists to perform their art, downloading song whether or not there is still a matter based on copyright infringement. The question is how authentic is the reproduction and how much of the aura is captured? Because we can never capture a moment exactly as it is in reality which is different from the digital world. We can try but always have been fragments in our memory.

“This Is The Remix”

Girl Talk

 

warhol51

 

Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans

“Pop art does not describe a style; it is much rather a collective term for artistic phenomena in which the sense of being in a particular era found its concrete expressions…”

(Osterwold, pop art, p.6)

Experimental Film

Reading Log #2

Experimental films challenge normal notions. They are often independent, tell no stories and instead, poetic reveries. Fernand Léger’s Ballet Mécanique (1924) is constructed in poetic reveries. Its sequences consist machines, kitchen tools, plates, bottles, shapes such as circles and triangles and also a found footage of Charlie Chaplin’s “Charlot”. These sequences are repeated and show the movements of these machines complemented with rhythmic music. Hence, the title dancing machines. The construction and content of Ballet Mécanique is therefore like an improvised poem, correlating with the music to provoke rhythmic harmony. Continue reading →

What is Media?

Week 1 Lectorial

It surprised me how wide and broad the major of media is. It is a teamwork and community building subject. As our lecturer, Adrian has proposed, media is re-learning and we learn by repetition, metaphor, failure, practice and analogy. Furthermore, media is about the studio model and obviously learning both inside and outside of class.

Deep vs. Hyper-Attention

The reading that we did today reflected on the methods of learning with a combined deep attention and hyper attention. These two cognitive modes characterise the way we learn in lectorials and practicals. I am definitely a hyper-attention learner that I can seem to learn with noises around with groups of people rather than in silence.

Meeting new, unfamiliar goals would be demanding and forming successful products/outcomes would be challenging. But without, learning media would not be as fun. Therefore, the most challenging aspect of this course is to be not in part of the media community and trying to get back on our feet.