HOW DOES THE FILM INDUSTRY INFLUENCE MUSIC? - TRUE ROMANCE & ROBBERS.

HOW DOES THE FILM INDUSTRY INFLUENCE MUSIC

True Romance is a 1993 romantic thriller film about a man who accidentally ends up falling in love with a 'call girl.' The two then get married and end up with a suitcase full of drugs of which they take on the run and try to sell. The pair are then hunted down and killed by the person who originally owned the drugs and just happens to be part of the Sicilian Mafia.

In April 2014, The 1975 released the song 'Robbers.' This took huge influences from True Romance so much so that the entire video for the song was based solely on the film, focusing on the female character, Alabama Whitman. The video tells a similar story in the sense that it is two lovers who attempt to 'rob' a store in an effort to fuel their drug and alcohol addictions. As you follow the plot of the video, you almost see both characters experience the same fate as that of the characters in the film.

The video for Robbers was directed by a man called Tim Mattia who is a photographer and director who has seen much of work acknowledged by many of the major music companies and distributors in the world. He has worked  with artists including slipknot, Coldplay, Metallica, 30 seconds to Mars, queen and Amy Winehouse.

The above images make it obvious that the True Romance has had a huge influence on the filming of Robbers. Many of the shots, people/objects in shot are shot in similar ways and convey the same meanings.
Taking True Romance as an example, it is easy to see the ways in which film can influence music regardless of when the film and music are produced.
In this case, it's not necessarily evident in the song itself, but the video for Robbers takes many of the shots and characteristics of from True Romance to creates an incredibly similar text. 
For example, looking at characteristics, both characters in the film and in the music videos share very similar traits. Not in just the obvious sense that they're two couples but the idea that they all have a careless attitude. The characters in film seem to become so distracted by their relationship that what's surrounding them becomes almost irrelevant and this is quite obviously repeated in the Robbers video in the sense that the characters are so heavily involved with each other that, regardless of what they're doing and where they are, they're still completely in ore of each other. 
The props that appear in both films are not only the same but have significant meanings and connotations. For example, looking at the gun in both texts, it's obvious that they're the same item but they also have very similar roles in the story line. Both guns are used as a form of protection and as a weapon but not entirely with the intention to harm others. Both films show the gun as being used as a last resort which again is the director taking ideas from True Romance but using them in a flattering sense. This is done by almost objectifying the gun as a symbol of their relationship rather than making it seem like it is a weapon.

EVALUATION: Q6

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

New thechnologies are something that is considered incredibly empowering. It allows many people who may not have had any opportunity to get into the media industry, changing perceptions meaning many people understand that editing software like Premiere Pro ins't just for big companies to beneifit from. It allows anyone to create materials of a professional quality, giving power to everyday people who want to be able to create thrir own media texts.

New technologies allow for a new batch of independant film makers to have their turn at becoming big scale film producers, meaning the more the technology develops, the more the market opens up for new tallent to have their turn, no longer leaving it t all of the big 6 companies to control the film industry.  

 

EVALUATION: Q2

HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

EVALUATION: Q5

HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?


In general, audiences are drawn to films for two reasons, fears and pleasures. Pleasures is usually the way the film dwells on an audience members pleasures through means like narrative and style.  These tend to be things that are pleasing for the viewer an make it enjoyable to watch, for example, using an enigma can make the film more stimulating for the viewer therefore, it is a pleasure.
Fears tend to be where a film makes an audience member potentially face their fears on confront them with something they aren't entirely comfortable with, this tends to be a factor that draws many people in when it comes to films like thrillers and horror films and can be an attractive factor for many types of audience. 

WHAT WOULD PEOPLE ENJOY ABOUT MY FILM?

In some extreme cases, my film could be considered relatable. There is a small possibility that some of my viewers may have been in similar situations and may find my film relatable and it may help them to reminisce of past times in their lives although i don't think this would be a particularly popular outcome.  
Similarly, this could create an almost aspirational setting for certain audience members, many people may watch films of a thrilling nature and aspire to be a part of a situation like the film may display. Again, i think this may be a more unlikely circumstance but, many people do watch darker thriller films as they do show them an alternative to their daily lives even though they may be entirely fictional. 

NARRATIVE PLEASURES 

 Narrative pleasures are things like enigmas, Macguffins, foreshadowing and other plot devices that help to increase the intensity of a film. 
My audience would be one that prefers more challenging and stimulating films. This is when plot devices like this become more important. Including an enigmatic object, like the bag, in my film helps to create something that makes the audience question why it is there, what it holds and what relevance it has in general. 
In terms of using a Macguffin, we used a metal in the same way a gun may be used, once its seen in shot, it has to used. We took this idea and used the metal bar as an object that would cause a threat to one character and turned this around so it became the opposite, causing harm to the complete opposite character. In this sense it does forfill the idea that it has be used to cause harm but is just used again the character that you are led to believe would use it in the first place.
 








THEMATIC PLEASURES

 Thematic pleasures tends to refer to the use of themes to attract an audience. For example, themes like death, murder and lust may draw an audience in as they have a particular interest in these themes and may want to explore them further.
 In my opinion, my audience is more likely to want to explore much more dark, complex themes, like crime, leaving a double life and corruption. It also briefly touches on remorse and the idea of having a conscience. This is evident towards the beginning of my thriller where the character of Harley is seen to be looking over his shoulder as he leaves his house, almost as if he knows he has done something that is likely to leave him in turmoil.
The key theme my film focuses on is definitely moral corruption. This is fairly obvious as it is about 2 men fighting over stolen money. This links almost directly with the idea of my film being based on man other British gangster films. The idea of looking at other people leading morally corrupted lifestyles can be something that is hugely attractive to some audiences as again, it offers and alternative to reality. 

REPRESENTATIONAL PLEASURES 

By representing certain social groups in a film can engage different audience demographics, for example, if a film had entirely glamorous character base, this may affect the people who would be interested in the film. 
In my film, i have chose to have 2 'gritty' morally corrupt characters which may not be entirely relatable but at the same time may be in the sense that the demographic that are most likely to be watching this film are more likely to have similar traits to 2 younger characters than say 2 older, men that may be in larger scale corruptions compared to my characters who said to mid 20's, which links well with my target audience. 

Similarly, many of the locations i have used help to represent the darkness of Britain as it is seen through the eyes of a British Gangster film. Using bleak locations allow the audience to see the dark surroundings that many people are surrounded by which can allow them to gain an understanding of why many people may choose a life of crime and moral corruption.

STYLE PLEASURES 

The aesthetics are hugely important when it comes to looking a thriller. If the style of the film doesn't fit with the themes of the film, it can hugely contribute the audience liking or not liking the film itself. Sometimes challenging conventions can be successful. With this in mind, i tried to do this when I filmed the scene with the metal bar in the wasteland. I used an incredibly bright and vibrant colour pallet that was created by the graffiti on the walls surrounding the characters.
For the bleak parts of my film i used a much colder colour pallet. A perfect example of this is just before Harley's character is kidnapped. I kept the colours of the shot as cold and blue as possible, this in itself foreshadowed events to come and allowed to audience to see that there was something of a darker nature to come.

EDITED: EVALUATION: Q4

WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE OF YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

MY POTENTIAL AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHIC:
 
Thinking about the types of audience i wanted to aim my thriller at was fairly simple. 






This is Justin, he is 21. He leads a considerably average lifestyle, he has a job and 2 cats. In his spare time he likes to listen to heavy metal and drum and base music but also likes to mix it up and occasionally listen to Classic.fm. He has a varied interest in the types of TV and film, but he particularly enjoys films of a much darker, more stimulating nature.
He specifically likes films of a thriller nature. If Justin had the time, he would spend much more of it looking into the thriller genre but, while he doesn't he enjoys watching these films and films of a surrounding nature and getting his mind around the challenging plots.
Justin is likely to connect well with the male dominance that is shown by the characters in my film as it shows the men as much stronger more powerful characters. The soundtrack of my thriller is something that may also being  something that he may enjoy, especially considering his preferences. 
As he likes films that are seemingly dark, he would also enjoy my film for the bleak open spaces used which create a much more immersing experience for him. 



 

EDITED EVALUATION: Q3

THRILLER FINAL CUT

EDITED: EVALUATION : Q1

EDITED: EVALUATION: Q7

 Q7: LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

DEVELOPMENT THROUGHOUT YR 12

At the start of year 12, we were asked to do a short preliminary task.

This was a much more basic task that had a few requirements but they were much less demanding than the final product. In our preliminary, we had to make a short ‘film’ of a character walking across a room, opening a door, having a conversation and then getting up and leaving. This then had to be edited in a style that was continuous and smooth. 

As this was right at the start of year 12, this seemed quite a daunting prospect to me in the sense that this was a completely individual task that we set to show our skills and ability when it came to planning, filming and editing. To me, the edit was the thing i was most worried about. The fact that i would be left alone to explore Premiere and edit by myself was a challenging idea but become rewarding as i was able to see how far i had come in comparison to my preliminary task but, as we got into the project, it became much more easy to me and I enjoyed the filming and the editing became a challenge that i was excited to complete.

I can look back at this now and see how simple and easy it was. Comparing this to my thriller, it was so much easier to get an appropriate amount of footage that would fit into the time scale from a few angles, edit them and make it look smooth, which I assumed would be the case with our thriller but I soon saw that this was definitely not.

  
DEVELOPMENT OF EDITING

 

To me, it is fairly easy to see that the editing of both of my productions differ, hopefully in a positive sense. To me, my preliminary is slightly jumpy and isn’t as smooth as I may want it to be. I have edited it in a way that doesn’t fit very smoothly, re watching it now I can see all the small parts that parts of the edit that definitely are not right.

I used all of these small errors to help make my thriller edit seem much more professional. For example, I made sure that if I cut through dialogue, I edited it in a way that made sure there was no change or dip in sound that would make it obvious that I had cut the clip where I had.

In terms of techniques, being left to my own devices to edit my thriller alone gave me much more freedom to experiment with cuts, effects and transitions allowing me to make my own mistakes and learn what looked best in certain elements of the production.

IMPORTANCE OF RESEARCH AND PLANNING

Research and planning became a huge part of the creation of my final production. It was very clear to me that without full planning and doing research before hand I wouldn’t be able to create something that would fit with the genre, themes and requirements of the task itself.

In terms of research, it was hugely important to look at other media texts, many of which we had studied in class and some I had investigated further in my own time. Looking at other films of similar genres and styles was really helpful in the sense that it gave me pointers as to where I should and shouldn’t go with certain aspects of my own film. Looking at films like ‘Essex Boys’ and ‘Layer Cake’ helped me to gain initial ideas for my characters and look further into the way I wanted them to look and act.

Planning was essential when it came to my thriller. Without the in depth planning we did, I feel I wouldn’t have had the chance to make the mistakes I had made and been able to put all of my ideas into a 2 minute clip. Planning helped me to lay all my ideas out in one place, look back at my research and go into more depth with ideas that I thought would fit best with the genre and the requirements of the task.

HOW IS THRILLER MORE CHALLENGING? 

Many aspects of creating the opening of a thriller were much more challenging compared to that of the preliminary task. There was a fairly large amount of extra requirements for the thriller than the preliminary task and the editing of the final task was much more strenuous and time consuming than the preliminary.

There is a lot more to consider in the making of my thriller, you have to think about locations, costumes, a script, conventions and connotations. In terms of my preliminary task, there was very little planning when it came to things like this. For example, there was no research done before hand, costumes weren’t planned and decided and many of the connotations created by body language and the way it was edited weren’t considered.

This was obviously the complete opposite in the sense that I personally wanted to take many of the minor details in my thriller and make them as key as possible to create enigma and create connotations of my characters that hopefully link with many aspects of a thriller film.

Costume was a huge part of this in the sense that in my preliminary task, there was no ‘costume’ as it were, it was just what was worn on the day, whereas in the case of my thriller, I wanted to look at other media texts and get an idea of costumes used in films of similar genres to help my opening as effective and professional looking as possible.

PRODUCTION (THE SHOOT)

The shoot of our thriller was much more challenging than that of the preliminary task. We had to follow some of the rules and basics that came with the filming that we did for our preliminary but this time, we had a lot more freedom in terms of what we filmed, where and when. This of course provided challenges for us in terms of all members of our group not being free at the same time, especially as we didn't film during school hours When we knew we would all be in the same place at the same time. 
in terms of our actual shoot, as a group we got the right amount of footage in enough angles and types of shots as we needed as we had planned many of the angles and places that we wanted to film, this was mainly down to our planning and further research. this allowed us to see what would and wouldn't work so we could test ideas and choose what worked best and looked most effective.

POST-PRODUCTION (EDITING) 

Again, the editing of this task was slightly more demanding than that of the preliminary but the freedom of this allowed me to chop and change clips and edit in a way that allowed me to test out certain aspects of my footage and pick and choose what i felt looked best. This allowed me to develop my editing skills and independent learning, as i was learning new 'skills' whilst trying to make my edit continuous and seem realistic. 

COMPARING THE 2 TASKS

Looking back at both of my tasks, i can see an improvement in many aspects including the composition of the shots.  

FIGURE 1

 

FIGURE 2

Figure 1 is a still from my preliminary task, where the composition i have used has cut the back of one the character's heads off. Looking at Figure 2, i have kept both character's heads completely in shot and used a slightly more inventive angle rather than just filming straight over on of their shoulders.

FIGURE 4

FIGURE 3

Figure 3 shows my a basic angle that was used to establish character. Looking at Figure 4, it shows a more tilted angle which helps to not only establish character but also the situation and the environment in which the characters are in. Using more developed angles has helped to make my film seem much more professional and less childish than the first edit. By using shots that were seemingly more intricate and difficult to capture helped me to create a final product that was of a much higher standard than that of my preliminary task.