Is this guy for real?

Humans are defined by their need to invent, we are the 'inventing mammal' i.e. we use resources available to us to make something useful to us (or not useful in the modern world). Certain animals will use natural objects as tools, but we are the only species that use tools to make tools and it is this that separates us from the rest. Throughout time and evolution our inventions have grew in complexity and quality, now that the technology is available to us there is a huge demand for replicating the real world, whether it be in the form of action figures, video games or movies. But abstract representations are not enough, we want Realism.

Realism is the close resemblance to what is real; fidelity of representation, rendering the precise details of the real thing or scene.

The problem with achieving realism is that the closer we get to 'real' without actually reaching it; the less real it looks. If we are to create a cartoon character with exaggerated features we accept that it is a cartoon and feel comfortable watching it, but if we see something that looks like a real figure but with slight deformities we immediately think it doesn't look right. This is known as the 'Uncanny Valley.'

 A game I recently returned to after a long break (we were seeing other people) was 'Gears Of War' a very popular game that doesn’t exactly strive for realism in terms of its characters but certainly has some relative aspects that I'd like to discuss. The iconic 'Unreal Engine' body shapes are far removed from a realistic soldier but the realism lies in other areas of the game. When entering a sprint the camera lowers to the characters hip and a slight motion blur gives the player the feeling that they are actually running. This combined with camera shake when running up against a wall, realistic well cued audio and your vision being obstructed by blood when you are wounded actually makes a rather realistic experience. None of us really know how the world will look post-apocalypse but we can be sure that 'Epic Games' have come very close with their dark unsaturated  textures of buildings and streets.

For a player to get scared in a game there needs to be a considerable amount of realism, and no game makes you jump out of your skin quite like 'GOW,' which just shows it's not necessarily the look of the characters that give a realistic experience.

A disruption in the system...

We all know that no matter how good the special/visual effects are in a movie, that it is redundant without a good plot. Effects should aid a plot, not the other way round. We are effectively looking for a good story, but what is the difference between a plot and a story?

A story is what the movie is i.e. all the material available to the narrator. The plot is how the story is told, in other words a sequence of events that tells the story. I personally am a huge fan of movies that are told through the main character's (or assisting character's) narration. My personal favourite example is The Shawshank Redemption, the whole story is told by the character 'Red' played by Morgan Freeman, who we all know has a narrative voice worthy of a god. But the film that I would like to focus on in relation to this subject is 'Lord Of War' (2005) by Andrew Niccol. The opening scene is a perfect example of using effects to aid the plot. The audience is lead through a journey; a journey that a bullet makes from production through to execution, in this case the execution is the firing of the bullet to kill a child, a scene that takes the audience by surprise immediately, and effectively holds the audience's attention for the rest of the film.

The whole film is told from Yuri's perspective as he explains all of his techniques to work around 'the system' and become successful, the audience truly feels involved, as if he is teaching the audience directly.

A theory that I found very interesting (purely because it fitted so well with every film I could think of) was Todorov's theory. A theory that describes plot as a generality and describes the way that said plot works.

The theory is as follows:

1. A state of equilibrium at the outset;

2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action;

3. a recognition that there has been a disruption;

4. an attempt to repair the disruption;

5. A reinstatement of the equilibrium.

But how does this apply to 'Lord of War' exactly?

1. Yuri Orlov (Nicholas Cage) is a standard city man with not much going for him, but a lot of hidden ambition. His life is generally average.

2. A disruption to his life is caused when he witnesses first hand a mafia based shooting incident, at this point he realises he wants to become an arms dealer.

3. Yuri takes this disruption as a positive and progresses to become a successful entrepreneur in that field.

4. In the short term it appears flawless as he is so good at it, but when it starts to effect his family he attempts to revert back to a more legitimate profession.

5. This does not work because as it turns out, the equilibrium is in fact that he was destined to be an arms dealer, as he was so good at it, so good in fact that at the end of the film we realise he was in fact recruited by the government to act in his profession, a twist which truly makes the film.

In all, Lord of War is a movie that acts as a good idol in the world of narration, and is certainly very inspirational.  

Team Rocky: World Matrix...

First of all, I never thought that 'Team America: World Police' would be a film that i would use as a study in my degree work, but what do you know it seems to fit in perfectly with this weeks topic...

Intertextuality, the transposition of one or several symbols into another, or ... 'In jokes' in Layman's terms, is a technique used in most films (especially comedies) to give a deeper meaning to scenes. This is very common in childrens movies for entertaining the onlooking parents who can relate intertextual scenes back to their original sources.

Trey Parker's (the creators of southpark) Team America: World Police (2004) is a some what contraversial movie, it uses puppets to mimic and indirectly make fun of America, including some clever intertextuality along the way...

Apart from the general look and style of the movie being an intertextual reference to 'Thunderbirds,' roughly 3 quarters through the movie we see the main character Gary Johnston changing his ways and deciding to save the rest of the team, but he knows nothing of being a spy... the fastest way to learn?

ROCKY TRAINING MONTAGE

With a soundtrack that says 'Even Rocky had a Montage' they certainly weren't trying to be subtle with this Intertextuality, it is a clear stab at other movie directors that over use 'the montage' approach as if it were an original idea. Not long after the montage when Johnstone is fully trained we see him attempt to infiltrate Kim Jong-il's Palace; what better portrayal of the complete solider do you need other than a Jedi? We see him dressed in a brown cloak (almost a universal symbol of a Jedi) and to convince the guards he is authorised to enter he waves his hand casually infront of them, the classic gesture for forced convincement via use of 'The Force.'

Apologise for bad quality video!

To continue with this scene the creators of TAWP reach to another action movie (and also several others) 'The Matrix' where we see Neo conceal his weapons under his jacket and reveal them to the enemy via a rather dramatic opening of the front.

Matrix Version

 TAWP version

For me, Intertextuality presents a win-win situation, directors can use other peoples ideas but gain a deeper reaction from the audience because they can link it back to the original source. They are effectively feeding off the success of a previous film in a way that complements both movies. Theres no harm done and the audience feels a sense of achievement that they have noticed the link. Any Movie producer would be mad not to use it!

McDonalds: Shattering Childrens Dreams Since 2009.

In our most recent 'Media Histories & Culture' lecture we studied Semiotics, a.k.a. 'The study of meaning.' Which focuses on the creation and interpretation of content across any platform.

As humans, we interoperate images based on memories and our own general knowledge of a subject, the most basic example of this concept is the use of Signs and Symbols, which we most often learn from a young age and retain that information for the rest of our lives. This is also why international symbols (such as a sideways triangle representing 'play') are the most successful and efficient forms of communication. This leads me onto my chosen media for this week…

I first watched 'Logorama' (an animated short film by French animation collective: 'H5') almost 2 years ago, around about the time that I became certain I wanted a career in animation. It's definitely one of my all time favourite shorts and after receiving the topic of Semiotics I immediately knew this was a perfect piece of relevant media.

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

 

The first reaction to this video (from any audience) is the process of finding logos that you recognise, pointing them out to your peers and then feeling a sense of success soon after. For me the best part of the movie is the sound design, its completely flawless. This combined with classic action camera angles (such as the view from the hip when a character is running) makes a very realistic and eye catching scene. The whole film acts on humour, there is no character that the audience can feel sympathy or empathy for. The only character that should deserve some sympathy for being held hostage (Big Boy) is portrayed as a complete brat, therefore any feelings of sympathy are made redundant. I think the strongest feeling during this film is 'the thrill of the chase.'

Two terms discussed under the title of semiotics is 'Iconic' and 'Arbitrary.' This describes the scale of likeness of a sign to its actual form, this can be shown in this order:

Photograph > Drawing/Painting > Name (text form) > Numerical Data Representation > Graphical Data Representation.

In most cases, logos for companies are designed to be eye catching and memorable, not necessarily a representation of the companies goals or purposes, if that wasn't the case then 'H5' would be in a lot of trouble with McDonalds for making their number one mascot a murdering fugitive! For example, Coca-Cola's original logo displays a glass bottle with a dark fluid inside, which we now know to be Coca-Cola, this is an iconic logo. Pepsi, who sell an almost identical product have a very abstract logo that has no iconic features at all, yet we relate it to the product because of memories from advertising or past purchases.

 

In Semiotics we also use 3 terms to describe an interpretation of a sign...

Denotation: What the sign is, at the most basic level of understanding.

Applying this to Ronald McDonald in Logorama would be that he is a tall, slim clown with red frizzy hair, a yellow suit, white face paint and a red nose. This is the simple description of what he actually looks like.

On a slightly more psychological level, Connotation: What the sign suggests, a more subtle culturally determined reading.

This is where Logorama bases its theme; unlike most films, Logorama completely reverses our past connotations of a sign to promote humour. We would usually connote Ronald McDonald to be a happy clown that represents McDonalds' welcoming nature to all, especially children. But in this film we are instead shown that Ronald is a violent, murdering psycho, hence the audience laughs...

In very deep Semiotics we use the term Myth: An interperatation of a sign using cultural associations.

Our original view of the myth of Ronald would be that Ronald enjoys McDonalds' food and wants to share his joy with the world and promote mcdonalds. Logorama however, have managed to change it to something like: Ronald is a misunderstood clown thats had enough of his city, he's dead set on world domination and wont let anyone or anything stand in his way. Probably the biggest contrast in myths ever to be successfully portrayed.

H5 have used Signification in order to achieve this effect. When we see a sign we link two components in our brain in order to conclude what the sign is:

Sign = Signifier (physical manifestation) + Signified (Mental Concept)

Logorama makes the audience laugh by breaking this concept, our original Signified of any of the characters in Logorama is proved completely wrong, im sure that no one who watched logorama for the first time had a preconception of the Pringles' character being a stereotype pervert. If you did then you need to ask yourself why your still buying Pringles!

Müller's new wünderful ad!

The concept of communication as a model is based on the relationship between a transmitter and a receiver and how well a message can be transferred. This not only applies to telecom and data transfer but also to the communication between the media and it's audience, which I will be discussing in this post. 

Im a big fan of TV advertising especially if its CG or animation based; im not saying that if their advert impresses me then I'm bound to buying their product but it will certainly leave me inspired. I recently fell in love with the new Müller Light 'wünderful stuff' advert, which has come a long way since Müller's last twee advertising campaign of 'licking the lid of life' which was a regular cue for me to change the channel or risk death by cringe.

 

With the faces of a shropshire farming community and cheesy music completely removed; Müller have progressed to something far better... Robots and Mr. Men! The ad is a compilation of many classic cartoon characters brought together to make some kind of euphoric street scene. With an explosive opening of the 'Knight Rider's car' emerging from a cloud of smoke the viewer is instantly drawn in, but what is it that makes this ad so successful? Is it the complex and detailed CG? Partly, but not completely. More importantly I think it is the way that the advert communicates with its audience.

 

 

The advert plays heavily on luminosity, showing a very desaturated (grey scale) city that progressively turns more saturated and colourful towards the grande finale of the rainbow.

This plays on the viewers emotions and makes them feel slightly euphoric themselves, not to mention the feeling of triumph as a parking warden is swallowed by a robot (a vision we would all love to see). These elements and wide variety of characters pull together to make a rather 'random' sequence of events, which leads me onto my next point...

When communication follows a pattern the proceeding steps can start to become quite predictable, if this is over used in a story line then the whole thing can become quite dull and information can be left redundant. Fortunately for us Müller have avoided this and given us the element of surprise, no one would have guessed that Yogi Bear could appear in the same advert as Mutley, therefore this use of Entropy (a condition of disorder and chaos, which also describes the advert perfectly) is very successful.

In communication, an often annoying boundary is 'noise,' an occurrence that causes disruption in communication. The reason this advert works so well is that it uses noise to aid its entropy. The fast and complex imagery can slightly confuse the viewer at first, but isn't that the idea? This advert 'breaks the mould' (sorry VO5) therefore any confusing imagery can only add to its success!

I would say that due to this being a television advert, the final step of communication; 'Feedback' is broken, but infact this blog is feedback in itself, so if your reading this Müller... Good job!