Music Video – Letter to the Free is a product which possesses cultural and social significance. It will invite comparison with other music videos allowing for an analysis of the contexts in which they are produced and consumed.
This is a targeted CSP and needs to be studied with reference to two elements of the Theoretical Framework (Media Language and Media Representation) and all relevant contexts
Common is an Oscar and Grammy award winning hip/hop rap artist who wrote Letter to the Free as a soundtrack to The 13th – a documentary by Ava DuVernay named after the American 13th amendment (the abolition of slavery). His output is highly politicised, existing in the context of a variety of social and cultural movements aimed at raising awareness of racism and its effects in US society (e.g.: Black Lives Matter). The product can also be considered in an economic context through the consideration of if and how music videos make money (through, for example, advertising on YouTube).
What needs to be studied? Key Questions and Issues
Media Language
Detailed study of Letter to the Free should help students to develop an understanding of how music video can serve a range of functions while communicating multiple meanings. Analysis should include: • Mise-en-scene analysis • Cinematography • Semiotics: how images signify cultural meanings • Aesthetics
Narrative
• How does Letter to the Free appeal to its target audience? • How is the narrative being constructed by the song lyrics reinforced? • How does the narrative position the audience? • How can the narrative invite a range of responses? • What pleasures does the narrative offer the audience? • How is the narrative incorporating views and ideologies? • What is the role of Common in the narrative?
Genre
• Identification of the conventions of the Performative music video. • How music videos serve the needs of media producers • How music videos meet the expectations of audiences • Genre theory including Neale
Media Representations
Letter to the Free explicitly focuses on the history and contemporary experience of African Americans and allows for an exploration of the effect of social, cultural and political context on representations of ethnicity. • Representation of ethnicity, with focus on how Common is a black man exploring black culture-specific issues. • Use of specific historical and contemporary experience to construct a political narrative and argument • How representations invoke discourses and ideologies and position audiences • Representation of gender within the video and in the context of wider representations of women in the music industry • Representation of place • Common as celebrity persona
Theories
The idea of culture as a site of political struggle (re: Jodie’s presentation for Ghost Town see below)
The the theory of hegemony – Gramsci
Theories of representation including Hall
Drawing on theories of Postcolonialism (Gilroy)
Theory of the Public Sphere – Habermas
Key Concepts: ● Cultural resistance ● Cultural hegemony ● Subcultural theory
The Idea of Resistance and Political Protest: ● When we first think about political protest, what comes to mind? ○ Attempts to change to laws or legislation ○ Organised political movements ○ Public protests ○ Petitions, marches ● However, we can look at political protest in terms of: ○ Cultural resistance ○ Everyday people ● Why look at cultural resistance? ○ Overt political protest is uncommon. When it occurs, it often results in a backlash. ○ Even if overt political protest does results in changes in legislation, it won’t necessarily change public opinion. ○ Culture is what influences people’s hearts, minds and opinions. This is the site of popular change. Key idea: the political, personal and cultural are always intertwined
euphoria- the iconic sign of this poster is the characters emotions, it presents straight away there is a dramatic happening, therefore is a drama. the indexical sign could be the colour palette of the poster and use of glitter as the series is called euphoria and the signs could be seen as ‘euphoric’.
Film scene 1: John Wick Parabellum Hotel fight scene.
The scene starts with quiet, mellow opera/orchestra music that slowly ramps up over the course of the scene. This quiet mellow music is a connotation to how the scene takes place within a hotel where typically the music played in the lobby is opera/orchestra. As well as this the start focuses on the dominant signifier, John wick, picking out his preferred weapons knowing he’s being ambushed, the reason I know he’s being ambushed is the music slowly picks up in volume and Johns expression of intensity and heavy breathing is focused on. As well as this, the scene is a montage that switches between the upstairs and downstairs of the hotel, with the downstairs being John wick and his apprentice picking guns with close shots of their weapons, ammunition and faces to show their emotions, compared to the upstairs which is wide, still shots of the agents ambushing the building in full protective gear with assault rifles and flashbangs, occasionally a close up shot of the agents is shown to display to the viewers what john is going up against.
Jaws – In this poster you can clearly see what this film is going to be about due to the huge shark taking up half of the screen. Also, the title, ‘JAWS’, foreshadows the whole film by linking the title with the main antagonist. The dominant signifier in this poster is the shark. The poster is made of two key components, being the signifier (the printed poster itself) and signified (the shark). The title also acts as anchorage as it gives you insight to what the movie is about.
Iconic Signs:
Surfboard
Ocean
Shark
Black Widow – In this poster you can see the main protagonist being ‘Black Widow’ which hints a lot of action and combat during the film. The characters shown in the background acts as an anchorage to give viewers a small insight of who may be involved in this film. Indexical sign ‘MARVEL’ acts also as an anchorage to help attract viewers due to Marvel being very popular and well-known.
Iconic Signs:
The characters in the background
Weapons
Guardians of the Galaxy – In this poster you can see the main group of 5 protagonists who are all holding some sort of weapon which hints the film will involve action and combat. The title ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ acts as an anchorage to give the viewer an idea of what the film is about. The dominant signifier (being the 5 protagonists) illustrates a good idea of who are going to be the main characters throughout the movie.
Iconic Signs:
Planets
Spaceships
Zombieland Double Tap – By taking a look at this poster you can understand that the four characters shown as the dominant signifiers are going to be the main antagonists in the film. The use of the word ‘Zombie’ in the title gives the idea that the film is going to be about an apocalypse. Indexical signs of actors names acts as an anchorage as they are popular actors which could help consumers be influenced to watch the film.
Iconic Signs:
Weapons
Fire
Smoke
Spiderman Into the Spider-Verse – In this poster you can understand that this film is targeted towards children due to it being a cartoon. The dominant signifier in this poster is the main image of Spiderman in the middle. The use of the word ‘Spiderman’ in the title can help the audience easily understand that the film is about a man who has something to do with a spider which could act as an anchorage as it gives the viewers an idea of what the film is about. Indexical sign ‘Spider-verse’ connotes to science and could further hint action.
JOKER- In this film poster the joker stood dead centre is the dominant signifier therefore in my poster if like to use a human as my dominant signifier. The title of “JOKER” is a signifier within this poster as it shows what the film is going to be about. The writing underneath the title is an anchorage which is used to provide extra information about the film like release date and stars etc. The falling mask is an iconic sign due to the fact that it is a sign which looks like the object. Finally the background is an indexical sign as it has a link to the object or in this case the story.
ROCKY- In this film poster there is a signifier or resilience trying to be invoked as you can see by the iconic sign. The link can be seen as a symbol or code in the way the film has connections with the poster. There a high level of signification in the poster due to the blue background effect and the de4notation between the film and the poster.
DUNKIRK- The dark colours in the poster represent a darker way of showing war and portraying across the theme of melancholy. The main dominant signifier is the actor stood in the centre of the poster looking over the war ridden sea presenting how much war destroys.
AVATAR- In this film the dark blue contrasting with the yellow represents the idea of within the darkness there is always hope which i can use within my film poster due to the panic of not knowing what your fate will be.
THE WALK – the minimalistic image presents the films title as the dominant signifier and draws the audiences attention more to the anchorage (information underneath the title) to grasp more information about the film more than the image which also is indexical to the film and films title.
I think that the iconic sign in this film poster is the 3 stages of life, this is to suggest how it begins in a young teen life and grows into a young adult and then to a mature man (the beard makes him look older). The indexical sign is the consideration of use of colours as the title of the film is called moonlight and the background shows 3 different colours. This also links with a symbolic sign because of the colours that are being used.
The iconic sign in this film poster is to illustrate how he is a hero. This gives us the advantage of knowing what is to expect in the film. The indexical sign in this poster is the spider sign on his shirt, which links in with the title - spider man. The symbolic sign in this poster is the colour red, which could suggest that if he were a hero, then he would wear a suit and probably be the colour red.
The iconic sign in this film by vin diesel seems to be an action film as it is shown for him to be holding some sort of weapon. The indexical sign is in this poster is the white circle splatter on the word shot to suggests how their will be involved a lot of killing. The symbolic sign in the colour red to suggest blood as it is an action movie that has a lot of killing.
The iconic sign in the zombie land film is very predictable as it gives you the idea that they are running away from zombies and they must survive. This is also given away by the title as it is very obvious. The indexical sign in this poster is that it could suggest that it will contain dramatic music and they use many props to illustrate they will be fighting some zombies to survive. The symbolic sign in this poster is the use of the colour orange which could suggest the colour of blood or fire. This seems to be an action film so there could possibly be some causalities.
The iconic sign in Thor is you can predict that it is a fiction film where he must save the world. We can tell that the hero will encounter many villains, this is seen by looking at the background of the poster which makes it intriguing to the audience. The indexical sign is being referred to the title seeing as we can see that a lot will happen. The title says the dark world which suggests that the climax will be major. The symbolic sign is the use of colours to reflect on the title seeing it will involve a lot of death and destruction. This will make it interesting towards the audience as the dominant signifier is clearly shown.
Parasite – Through the denotation you see people facing the camera, but as you look longer you notice that there is a person lying on the floor
The Terminator – This film poster has anchorage to it.
Wreck it Ralph – Signification is done instantly through the angry emotion on Ralphs face. Its an index of the 8 bit art, the choice of font is old school. And the Disney logo gives anchorage to the picture
The Lorax – The dominant signifier is the Lorax. This film poster is quite reactionary.
Spectre-This moving image sequence includes a variety of camera shots, we can see an establishing shot which is where we are made aware of the location of which it is based, this is normally taken at a wide scale. An example of this would be the first shot we are shown which is a landscape view from up high of buildings in a city.
Another element we can see within this moving image is the element of action, this is the shot we can see 11 seconds into the sequence of which we can see the main character James Bond pointing a gun towards a window and then the building blowing up a few seconds later. This may be described as the rising action which means the events leading up to the climax.
Uncharted- This moving image sequence also includes a variety of shots. An example of this is a shot/reverse shot of which we can see around 39 seconds into the video, this shot runs from a wide angle master shot that is at a 90′ angle to usually two characters, in this case the two characters are Nathan and Victor.
