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THE MAGAZINE FOR STUDENTS OF FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES DECEMBER 2018 ISSUE 66 BONNIEAND CLYDE POSTMODERNISM MINECRAFT BRITISH MUSIC VIDEO THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD WATER AID HIDEO KOJIMA TOXIC FANDOM MM66cover_3Dec_final.indd 1 03/12/2018 14:02 Contents 04 Making the Most of MediaMag MediaMagazine is published by the English and Media 06 Charting the History Centre, a non-profit making of British Music Videos organisation. The Centre Think ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ publishes a wide range of was the first British classroom materials and music video? It wasn’t. runs courses for teachers. Emily Caston explains. If you’re studying English 06 10 at A Level, look out for 10 Grindelwald: Can emagazine, also published We Separate Art by the Centre. From the Artist? Fleur Feeney explains why Johnny Depp’s alleged domestic abuse means he should take a step back from the limelight. 16 16 Seeing Hitchcock in Vertigo Nick Lacey explores how far the misogyny displayed in Hitchcock’s Vertigo is a reflection of the director’s own sexual obsession. 20 Random Fandom Laurence Russell examines The English and Media Centre the dark side of fandom and 18 Compton Terrace participatory media from Rick London N1 2UN and Morty to My Little Pony. Telephone: 020 7359 8080 Fax: 020 7354 0133 26 Theory Drop: Email for subscription enquiries: Postmodernism [email protected] Giles Gough unravels the mysteries of Postmodernism, brilliantly Editor: Claire Pollard illustrated by Tom Zaino. Copy-editing: Jenny Grahame Andrew McCallum Subscriptions manager: Maria Pettersson 20 Design: Sam Sullivan Newington Design This magazine is not photocopiable. Why not subscribe to our web package Print: S&G Group which includes a downloadable and printable PDF of the current issue? Tel 020 7359 8080 for details. Cover: Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde, Moviestore collection Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo 2 MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 2 03/12/2018 16:08 Contents 30 Bonnie and Clyde 48 Twitter Wars: 280 In this article, student Characters That Can Anna White looks at Change the World auteur theory and how Trump’s Twitter activity it can be applied to has set a dangerous Arthur Penn’s 1967 film. precedent for world politics. Axel Metz examines the 34 Junk Mail? potential dangers. Is the Daily Mail just a right-wing hate-rag or a 50 From Code To Craft: paper with its finger on Why Video Games Present the pulse of the national An Intriguing Future For conversation? Andrew Artistic Storytelling McCallum investigates. Callum Williams examines the evolution of the video 38 Treasure Taken game from mind-numbing For Granted distraction to complex As audiences become and immersive artform. desensitised to images of poverty and suffering, 56 Pick Daisies 30 a new wave of positive Mark Ramey argues charity adverts is emerging. the case for this Czech Jonathan Nunns analyses experimental feminist movie. the Water Aid ‘Claudia Sings’ campaign. 60 Spectre and the Ghost of James Bond Past 42 Get Your Head While 007 once led the way in the Game for action films, it wasn’t Helen Williams, teacher long before new instalments and mother to a Minecraft began borrowing from addict, provides a other genres. With Spectre, detailed case study of the series turned that this OCR set text. ‘intertextuality’ in on itself. 42 60 Benedict Seal is on the case. 64 The Careers Download MediaMagazine interviews Benjamin Squires about his career as a composer for film, TV and video games. 66 Film Notes: High Maintenance Symon Quy explains the messages behind Philip Van’s dystopian romance High Maintenance (2006). 50 3 MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 3 03/12/2018 16:08 Making the Most of MediaMag British Music Video and Experimental Film Techniques (Jonathan Glazer and Tom Beard) In her article, Emily Caston talks about how the music video is an innovative and experimental form. Many a successful film director has either made their name as a music video director or still uses the form to experiment with editing, photography and post production effects. Watch the following two videos: ‘Street Spirit’ by Radiohead (Jonathan Glazer, 1995) ‘Tw-ache’ by FKA Twigs (Tom Beard, 2014) Despite being almost 20 years apart, these videos have much in common. Both are directed by British film directors. Jonathan Glazer, 53, directed ‘Street Spirit’ just a few years before directing his first feature, Sexy Beast (2000), starring Ben Kingsley and Ray Winston. Tom Beard, in his early thirties, is a photographer and emerging short film, 26 commercial and music video director who has made videos for Florence and the Machine, Jamie T and the Klaxons. Watch the videos and talk about them – do you like them? Postmodernism Do you find them weird? Intriguing? Who do you think the audience is? It can be useful to read the comments Take Giles Gough’s mantra, on YouTube to a get a sense of people’s reactions. written on page 27 and used for Now look at how these brilliant comedic effect in Tom videos sit with the directors’ Zaino’s illustration on page 28: other works. Glazer’s video Postmodernism is a cultural for U.N.K.L.E’s ‘Rabbit in movement that distrusts all Your Headlights’ also uses established philosophies and interesting post-production frequently experiments with and treads the line between the medium it is presented in. music video and narrative short film, incorporating Think about a postmodern text you the diegetic sound and have studied in your class. Break down dipping the track’s audio 06 this quote into two parts and find three at points to make space bits of evidence for each statement: for dialogue within the video. Jonathan Glazer’s Under • it distrusts all the Skin (2013) – a set text for A level Film Studies – established philosophies seems to draw on ideas from ‘Rabbit in Your Headlights’. • it frequently experiments with Although the subject matter is different, can you the medium it is presented in identify any similar traits between the two works? Watch the trailer for I, Tonya Tom Beard’s work can be researched via his website: and discuss as a class how far http://beardbeardbeard.com. It’s interesting to this is a postmodern text. look at how he approaches music video differently to commercials and why that might be. 4 MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 4 03/12/2018 16:08 38 Water Aid Homelessness is on the rise. According to the charity Centrepoint, 103,000 young people presented to their local council as being homeless or at risk of homelessness in 2017/18. In a 16 recent BBC documentary, Stacey Dooley – The Young and Homeless, journalist Stacey Dooley investigated the ‘hidden Cinematography in Vertigo homeless’ – young people of no fixed Both OCR and Eduqas film specifications require abode who sleep rough or sofa surf students to analyse the ‘film form’ when studying because they have nowhere else to go. Vertigo. In this article, Nick Lacey identifies moments Task: Devise an ad campaign for where the cinematography communicates ideas of homeless teens that carries a masculine power and misogyny that belong to both positive message. Come up with a Scottie in the film and Alfred Hitchcock in real life. narrative or concept that is going Consider, first, the ’vertigo’ camera shot, developed to make the audience feel good in this film by DoP Irmin Roberts (but perhaps made about making a donation rather more famous in Jaws). This shot represents Scottie’s than using emotive and upsetting vertigo – his fear of heights that, from the opening images which, according to police chase, provokes the masculine insecurity the Water Aid article on page explored throughout of the rest of the film. It is this 38, are no longer effective. weakness that prevents him from being the hero at the As a starting point have a look at start of the narrative and later from saving the girl. some of the content on CentrepointUK’s Use the screenshot images in the magazine and YouTube channel. Watch: Young, find three or four of your own. For each one, do homeless and desperate. Do you swipe a close analysis that explores the way the camera right? as an interesting starting point. communicates Scottie’s feelings towards ‘Madeleine’. Once you’ve come up with a narrative Make notes on the following: or concept, analyse the way charity • The camera shot ads are put together. Look at the types • The lighting/colour of music used, the use of statistics, • How ‘Madeleine’ is framed in the image the typical camera shots and edits. • Whose point of view is this and could Mulvey’s Storyboard or make your video. Male Gaze theory be applied in this shot? Challenge: what viral content • Whereabouts in the narrative does the shot come – could you create to raise awareness how much does the viewer know at this point and of homelessness among teenagers? what hints or suggestions about the plot are given? 5 MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 5 03/12/2018 16:08 Some say it all began with MTV, others with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. In 2015 the University of West London started a project to find out the truth. The result is a 6-disc DVD box-set that features 200 landmark British music videos going back as far as the mid- Sixties. Here we unpack the box-set, define ‘landmark’ and explain why ‘Bo-Rhap’ is not even included. irstly, about MTV. If you set out to study British labels started to commission videos well music video – and why not? – you soon before this; between 1975 and 1980, when notice that writers are fixated on MTV. European release dates were being harmonised Keith Negus (1992) is not alone in in order to prevent audiocassette piracy, proposing that ‘it was the launch of Music labels needed footage of their bands to send Television (MTV) … which provided the out to European TV stations in lieu of a live momentum for the establishment of music video TV performance.