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

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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

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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

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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.

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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?

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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. It was this shift that saw the as an integral part of the pop process’. And you commissioning of iconic videos such as Queen’s only have to read the titles of some books to get ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (1975), M’s ‘Pop Muzik’ their sense of history: MTV Ruled the World: The (1979), and the Boomtown Rats’ ‘I Don’t Like early years of music video by Greg Prato (2010), or I Mondays’ (1979). MTV Europe wasn’t launched Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music until 1987 (6 years after its American parent) Video Revolution (2012). and even then most UK households couldn’t Now that the age of MTV is past we can put it access cable/satellite services. So, in Britain we in perspective. Yes, it was a major international came up with our own answer: The Chart Show showcase for music video (kick-started, (Channel 4, 1986-8, ITV, 1989-98). It was The incidentally, by the second ‘British invasion’ of Chart Show, rather than MTV, that galvanised early 1980s synth-pop acts like Duran Duran the British music video industry with the rapid and Wham!) that normalised music video as growth of key production companies like Oil essential to promoting any new release. But Factory (set up to promote the Eurythmics),

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MGMM (behind many of the biggest names in British pop in the 80s), Black Dog (founded by director Ridley Scott), and later Warp (who traded on the 1990s popularity of electronic music). This infrastructure enabled the emergence of some notable music video directors: Brian Grant, We asked our industry panel David Mallet, Russell Mulcahy, Sophie Muller, Godley & Crème, Tim Pope, Richard Heslop, Chris about works they considered Cunningham, Garth Jennings. And directors who to be landmarks in the are now better known for their feature film work – Bernard Rose, Derek Jarman, John Maybury, development of the form of Jonathan Glazer and Julien Temple – have all music video in the UK, both made significant interventions in the field of music video. Examples of some of their work are technically and creatively. featured on the box-set. So how did we choose? The Hit List We set about asking the people who made the videos what we should include. We deliberately didn’t want to create a ‘best of British music video’ list and we weren’t interested in merely representing the changing trends in British pop The iconic fl oating heads of music over the last half-century. So, we asked ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ have been our industry panel about works they considered parodied by everyone from Wayne’s World to The Muppets to be landmarks in the development of the form of music video in the UK, both technically and creatively. And we worked with specific focus groups on the topics of dance, animation, editing and authorship. This enabled us to create a longlist. But then we had to clear the rights to use these videos with the artists and their record labels. Everyone was hugely supportive of our project for two reasons. Firstly, although music video seems to be everywhere, and we all remember a great video, its status as an artform has been undervalued; to many it’s just another form of advertising. We wanted to challenge that assumption and demonstrate what an influential and innovative form of short film music video is, and most artists and Public Domain Public

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 7 03/12/2018 16:08 bubbles. This is in the collection. And in 1972-3 Mick Rock directed David Bowie videos for ‘John, It highlights the influence of the I’m Only Dancing’, ‘The Jean Genie’ and ‘Life on art school tradition in Britain that Mars’. But Bruce Gowers’ video of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ captured the public imagination has informed ground-breaking and lodged there, because it was (unusually) a photography, editing, animation single of over six minutes’ duration, it occupied the No.1 position in the UK charts for nine and post-production effects weeks (and was thus shown weekly on Top of the Pops because the band declined to appear in person at the BBC studios), and it combined performance footage with a couple of (then) film-makers were keen to help. Secondly, the novel in-camera special effects. The prismatic lens industry was supportive of our aim to create shots of the band-members’ heads were based an educational resource that can be used by on publicity photographs and the album artwork students to inform their studies and to inspire the for A Night At The Opera (on which ‘Bohemian next generation of musicians and film-makers. Rhapsody’ featured), thus reinforcing the group’s brand image. And the colour-spectrum ‘Bo-Rhap’ vision ‘feedback’ technique appeared to mimic, visually, the layered ‘choral’ effect on Freddie But we couldn’t include everything – e.g. Mercury’s vocal arpeggio. In these respects, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. It’s ironic, but the video non-performance, conceptual elements of the that many consider to be a UK first, Queen video served both to promote the band itself, wouldn’t let us use unless we put it first on and to present a visual corollary of the music. the box-set – and we didn’t agree. How did it But if such stylistic flourishes are now widely get this status? Keith Negus calls it ‘the first familiar in the filmic vocabulary of music video, conscious use of music video to promote a pop they are also to be found in some enterprising single’ (Negus 1992: 93). But it was not the first ‘promotional clips’ made back in the 1960s. British music video. Only the year before Michael Lindsay-Hogg had directed a video of the Rolling Stones’ single ‘It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)’ Forgotten Gems in which the Stones, dressed in sailor uniforms, One of the great things this project has strut their stuff in an inflatable tent which slowly allowed us to do is to rediscover and re-present fills with foam until they’re entirely engulfed by forgotten gems. Since 1992, British music video

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 8 03/12/2018 16:08 References Power to the People: British Music Videos 1966-2016. Available to purchase from Amazon for £35.99

maestro WIZ had carefully kept the 16mm ground-breaking photography, editing, animation print of Flowered Up’s ‘Weekender’ in his loft. and post-production effects in music video that Sony Music UK and our project research grant have had a considerable impact on contemporary invested the funds to digitise the rushes so that Hollywood film-making. It also draws attention to an eye-match edit and a grade could be done, to the distinctive practices in British choreography produce a new work, presented for the first time that have made British dance videos unique. in this collection. Also, we found out that John Finally, from The Who’s ‘Happy Jack’ (1966), Crome, a director who worked in TV commericals through Queen’s ‘I Want To Break Free’ (1984), in the 1960s, had lodged a 16mm print of a to the Moonlandingz’s ‘The Strangle of Anna’ performance video he made in 1968 for Manfred (2017), it’s got a great British sense of humour. Mann’s ‘The Mighty Quinn’ at the BFI’s National Whatever your starting point, this is a Archive. Under the supervision of the director, powerful body of work and as music video is we had the print digitised and regraded. The now enjoyed by many more consumers globally, restoration, included in the box-set, shows the uncurated on mobile platforms, it’s a great time band performing on the steps of Osterley Park (an to look back in wonder at how we got here. eighteenth-century mansion in West London), but incorporates a wealth of visual ideas (including Emily Caston is Professor of Screen Industries at the a roving suitcase emblazoned with the title), University of West London. She will be appearing at uses a variety of coloured gels for psychedelic the MediaMagazine Student Conference on January effect, and features in-camera optical techniques 24th at the BFI Southbank. (fish-eye lens shots and superimposition). Crome had trained at Hydrant Films as a sound editor and, above all, knew about editing images to sound in a coherent, visually dynamic way. ‘The Mighty Quinn’ video is way ahead of its time. This collection is presented across six themed discs: performance videos, concept videos, from the MM vaults dance videos, stories, wit and portraits. It not only showcases some of the most innovative The Story of Pop Music Video – music videos made in the UK, from Joy Division’s Stephen Hill, MediaMag 19 ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (1980) to Daniel Wolfe’s The Roots of Music Television epic trilogy for Plan B (2010), and from Kate – Steve Archer, MediaMag 6 Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ (1985) to FKA Twigs’ Bowie and the Oddity of ‘Ashes to ‘Tw-ache’ (2014), it highlights the influence of the Ashes’ – Emma Calway, MediaMag 56 art school tradition in Britain that has informed

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 9 03/12/2018 16:08 Fleur Feeney explains why Johnny Depp’s alleged domestic abuse means he should take a step back from the limelight.

ike many Harry Potter fans first film in 2016, Depp was involved joint statement, after the divorce I’m anticipating the latest in a high profile scandal in the form case was settled, stated clearly that instalment of the Fantastic of serious domestic abuse allegations ‘neither party has lied nor made Beasts and Where To Find Them from his then-wife Amber Heard. Whilst false accusations for financial gain,’ series, the whimsical prequels that Depp was never actually convicted, which means, surely, that Depp and bring the wizarding world to 1920s there was compelling evidence his team are indirectly admitting New York. However, despite to support to violent behaviour in some form. an unflinching love for Harry Heard’s case, Surely, a man with such allegations Potter, there is something including witness against him cannot be allowed to holding me back, and a good statements and occupy such a powerful platform,

few others too: the casting Wikicommons photographs of especially not when that platform of Johnny Depp. The release the injuries she relates to Harry Potter. Continuing of the first Fantastic Beasts allegedly received to cast Depp in these blockbusters film in November 2016 at the hands of undermines all the recent progress cast Depp as the infamous her husband. The in regards to positive representation, villain, Grindelwald, the divorce case was women’s rights and holding men title character for the next settled in August accountable for their actions. instalment in 2018, The 2016, leaving As film fans we must ask ourselves, Crimes of Grindelwald. Whilst Heard with $7 what message does this casting send this casting would usually Amber Heard million, which she out? Whilst Depp may be a fantastic be considered a triumph, donated to two actor, whether we notice it or not, fans have threatened to boycott charities, one of which focussed on his personal life is imbued in his the film. The continued inclusion of preventing violence against women. performance. With his private life so Depp to the cast poses the problem At the beginning of the case, Depp’s highly publicised, it’s increasingly of whether we can separate his lawyers released a statement passing difficult to separate it from his work. work from his private life, or if you’d off Heard’s claims as ‘salacious false Depp’s warm welcome back to the rather, the age-old question, ‘can we stories, gossip, misinformation and film industry perpetuates a narrative separate the art from the artist?’ lies’. But despite the jump to the where victims are silenced and artists Shortly before the release of the defensive early on, the couple’s final are celebrated, regardless of their

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 10 03/12/2018 16:08 PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock / Alamy Hollywood Archive The / PictureLux writers, quidditch players and musical producers. Arguably, its influence is unparalleled, and its influence is positive. Across all parts of the story and franchise, author JK Rowling has indiscretions. Despite the couples’ written against abuse with passion statement that there was ‘never and conviction. JK Rowling’s apparent any intent of physical or emotional support of Depp undermines these The addition harm’, the messages conveyed to positive messages. What good is an of Depp to the audiences are indeed harmful: anti-abuse stance in fiction, if you casting Depp suggests that an actor’s can’t stand by those ideals in real cast poses the career supersedes a woman’s safety. life? After originally being ‘deeply problem of Casting Depp discourages victims concerned’, Rowling has stated that from coming forward. Whether we she is now ‘genuinely happy to have whether we can realise it or not, these messages Johnny playing a major character in the separate his work are there, and they’re dangerous. movies.’ She wrote that she ‘accept[s] This issue is particularly poignant that there will be those who are not from his private in regards to Harry Potter. This satisfied with our choice of actor’, and life, or if you’d franchise has a multi-platform, multi- added that ‘Within the fictional world generational, global reach. Its influence and outside it, we all have to do what rather, the age- is astonishing: a 2011 survey found we believe to be the right thing’. With old question, that 25% of Americans had seen her influence, I would suggest that every one of the films and 61% had Rowling reassess what she believes ‘can we separate seen at least one, with these numbers to be ‘the right thing’. Any Potter the art from rising for 18-34 year olds. Due to its fan knows that abuse, bullying or expansive universe and the franchise’s imbalances in power aren’t tolerated the artist?’ popularity coinciding with the rise of and you merely have to read Rowling’s web 2.0, Harry Potter has an incredibly Twitter to see she is vocal on issues active fandom, including fanfiction of equality. Yet when the principles of

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Images Courtesy of Warner Bros Depp’s warm welcome back to the film industry perpetuates a narrative where victims are silenced and artists are celebrated, regardless of their indiscretions.

the work are at stake, the creators and the fans. If these were rumours without producers have failed to deliver and substance, maybe Yates’ comments in doing so have cast a shadow over would be valid, but according to court the entire franchise. They would rather documents, Heard claimed Depp attach a big name to their production ‘grabbed the cell phone, wound up his than assess the damage their casting arm like a baseball pitcher and threw would do. With the sway that this the cell phone at [her] striking [her] franchise has, potentially dangerous cheek and eye with great force’. She messages can’t be allowed near it. continued to say ‘Johnny continued Many Potter fans agree with this screaming at me, pulling my hair, sentiment and feel uncomfortable striking me and violently grabbing my paying Depp’s wage by seeing the face.’ When confronted with the list of film in theatres – hence the boycott. violent actions that Depp allegedly Many have pointed out that Fantastic carried out, it’s hard to write off the Beasts could have been reshot with scandal as the ‘weird’ way of Hollywood. a different actor, just as Ridley Scott Of course, Depp deserves to make a did with his film All The Money In living and to have his dignity in doing The World, replacing alleged sexual so, but as one of the highest paid actors abuser Kevin Spacey with Christopher in Hollywood, he’s hardly at risk of not Plummer merely a month before being able to pay his bills. Hollywood release. Grindelwald’s director David is, for the most part, making an effort Yates has defended the initial casting to create an inclusive cinema landscape by insisting, ‘... it’s a weird old business. that doesn’t include perpetrators of You’re brilliant one week, people are violence. This shouldn’t be an attitude saying odd things the next, you go up that we can apply only when it suits us, and down. But no one takes away your and it seems to me that Yates should pure talent.’ But surely this is more than want to be a part of that change. people ‘saying odd things’, these are In the last six months, we’ve all been serious allegations of domestic abuse witness to an onslaught of headlines which are obviously discomforting for related to the hashtag ‘metoo’, Images Courtesy of Warner Bros Warner Images Courtesy of

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 13 03/12/2018 16:08 criticising men for violent behaviour, the platform Hollywood provides to naming and shaming guilty parties. be given to those who haven’t been References We are witnessing a seismic shift allowed to speak, instead of alleged https://www.jkrowling.com/ in Hollywood, and being forced to abusers. Maybe if it was a different opinions/grindelwald-casting/ re-evaluate how we see our cinema, time, maybe if we weren’t experiencing https://today.yougov.com/ our casting choices, our writers’ rooms. the overhaul we are, we could separate topics/lifestyle/articles- The powerful men who have been Depp from his talent. We could allow reports/2011/07/18/18- unaccountable for so long are now his private life to stay private. But americans-veritable-potter- experiencing the consequences of we can’t today. Harry Potter must be maniacs-76-seen-leas their actions, and no one should be separated from the artist in an entirely exempt from that. This massive shift different way, because although for https://variety.com/2016/biz/ in the power dynamic means that some it’s just a film, for others it’s real news/johnny-depp-amber-heard- many abusers are no longer escaping life magic, and I think we all need a divorce-settlement-1201837685/ scott free, and this should include little magic now more than ever. https://www.theguardian. Depp. This isn’t a call for a lynching, com/film/2016/aug/16/amber- or for him to be purged of any and Fleur Feeney is an aspiring writer studying heard-assault-allegations- all career opportunities, or even for English at the University of Exeter. johnny-depp-divorce arrest. This is a plea to save Harry Potter for those who love it, to keep https://www.independent.co.uk/ it from promoting messages that are arts-entertainment/films/news/ at odds with its core ethic. A plea for johnny-depp-amber-heard- management-group-domestic- violence-allegations-spousal-abuse- divorce-lawsuit-a7810591.html https://ew.com/movies/2017/11/28/ fantastic-beasts-director- defends-johnny-depp/

We are witnessing a seismic shift in Hollywood, and being forced to re-evaluate how we see our cinema, our casting choices, our writers’ rooms. The powerful men who have been unaccountable for so long are now experiencing the consequences of their actions, and no one should be exempt from that. Images Courtesy of Warner Bros Warner Images Courtesy of

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 16 03/12/2018 16:08 James Stewart as Scottie, in a spin over Kim Novak’s Madeleine / Judy Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo Stock / Alamy Ltd Press Pictorial

oth of the A level Film Studies specifications engage sensibly with the idea of the auteur Nick Lacey explores how far the because they ask students to study it as an misogyny displayed in Hitchcock’s ‘approach’ and not a ‘theory’. Instead of assuming Vertigo is a reflection of the that the director is the author of the film, the exam boards director’s own sexual obsession with acknowledge the collaborative nature of the medium. the ‘icy blonde’. However, when we are considering films directed by Alfred Hitchcock there’s no doubt that he is the controlling voice. Both specs have his Vertigo (1958) as a case study: for Eduqas it is to illustrate auteur characteristics; for OCR it is to be used as a case study for film form in ‘classical’ US cinema. What follows will attempt to address both those requirements by examining Hitchcock’s signature in specific scenes in the film. François Truffaut’s auteur polemic, published in 1954 by the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, was designed to get critics to consider Hollywood films seriously rather than as mere products of a ‘dream factory’. Writers for Cahiers (which included many who would become the directors that unleased the French nouvelle vague or new wave in the early 1960s), realised that some Hollywood directors were able to put a personal stamp on their work both in thematic terms and through their film style. Hitchcock was one of their favourite examples. In regard to Vertigo the following are the key features that are typical of Hitchcock: • an ‘icy blonde’ who is strong and cunning but also weak and vulnerable; she is a guilty and deviant femme fatale; • use of point-of-view shots to align the spectator with a character; • an emphasis on voyeurism and the ‘male gaze’; • a misleading narrative, the ‘MacGuffin’; • an expressionist visual style in terms of mise- en-scène and camera placement.

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 17 03/12/2018 16:08 Hitchcock had a predilection for ‘icy blondes’ in his on Madeleine in the flower shop, the mirror ‘cuts’ films and, allegedly, he mistreated some of them on set; through her head. For Scottie the mirror’s seam signifies for example Tippi Hedren in The Birds (1963) and Marnie mental disturbance; for Madeleine it suggests she is (1964). Kim Novak, a new star at the time Hitchcock split into two: she is both Madeleine and Judy. cast her in Vertigo, embodies the ‘icy blonde’ when In Ernie’s restaurant we see Madeleine in the mirror playing Madeleine; a cool, sophisticated character who is via a point-of-view shot from Scottie’s perspective, manipulative but, ultimately, found to be weak in her true facilitated by eyeline match and shot-reverse-shot editing form: Judy, the Kansas girl hired by Elster to dupe Scottie. (techniques characteristic of ‘classical Hollywood’ style She is also a femme fatale because she destroys Scottie as described in Continuity: The Hidden Art of Invisible by seducing him. Although Vertigo doesn’t have the visual Editing, MM64). Indeed many of the shots of her are from style of film noir, the genre from which the femme fatale Scottie’s perspective, most obviously when he tracks her derives, the function of the seductive woman is similar. for the first time, in a sequence that is 14 minutes long Strikingly, Hitchcock dramatises the male fantasy inherent and almost bereft of dialogue. Charles Barr states that 57 in the femme fatale character when Scottie recreates of the 160 shots of this sequence are point-of-view and: Madeleine by ‘making over’ Judy to satisfy his ‘male gaze’. Apart from a small number of shots that frame the Scottie is not in love with Madeleine, who basically does two of them together in their cars, we will never, not exist; he is in love with his idea of the perfect woman. up to the time when she jumps into San Francisco Poor Judy isn’t good enough even though she is the Bay at the end of the second tracking sequence, see person who physically embodied Madeleine. Twice in the Madeleine except through Scottie’s eyes… (2002: 40) film male control is emphasised when Madeleine/Judy is shown to be trapped by men via a reflection in a mirror: (This isn’t strictly true as the very first time we see first by Elster, as they leave Ernie’s restaurant; secondly by Madeleine the camera placement is not from Scottie’s Scottie in the department store when he insists Judy must point-of-view though it is motivated by Scottie looking). look and dress exactly like Madeleine. The reflections in the Although these editing techniques, used to create mirror make it appear there are two men with the woman cinematic space, were typical of Hollywood at the time, trapped in between them. Hitchcock’s use of them is distinctive as On two occasions, a he also draws attention to the voyeuristic seam in a mirror is framed nature of cinema. Looking at something we to cut through the head shouldn’t, often with a sexual element, is the of characters’ reflections. essence of voyeurism. Cinema is inherently In the scene mentioned voyeuristic because we are often looking above, it ‘cuts’ through at people’s/character’s private lives. In the Scottie when he is forcing scene in the flower shop, when Scottie’s Judy to change her looks tracking Madeleine, he watches her through a and, when he is spying slightly opened door. A reflection in a mirror shows both Madeleine and Scottie spying on her. As Nicholas Haeffner observes: The framing has the effect of looking in on two worlds simultaneously. First, that of the flower shop, a feminine space, which has colour, light and social activity. The other world is the dark, furtive and alienated masculine world of the private detective looking in on the first world with a keen yearning. (2014: 37) The framing of the shot draws attention to the act of looking and reminds spectators that we are looking too. Laura Mulvey’s idea of the voyeuristic ‘male gaze’, which often sexualises the female body through fragmentation, could be applied to Vertigo’s title sequence that consists of extreme close-ups of a woman’s face; the revolving spirals suggest she is mentally unstable, as do the flashes of red. Red also appears at the start of Judy’s flashback when we learn about her deception. It was particularly daring of

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 18 03/12/2018 16:08 It becomes clear that the ‘mystery of Madeleine’ is a ‘MacGuffin’: the film isn’t about whether she is haunted but rather it is an investigation into the destructiveness of male desire and sexual obsession.

Hitchcock to break with Scottie’s References perspective at this point. For the first time the audience knows more than Both Francois Truffaut’s 1954 the protagonist and it becomes clear Cahiers du Cinéma article ‘Une that the ‘mystery of Madeleine’ is a Certain Tendance du Cinema ‘MacGuffin’: the film isn’t about whether Français’ and Laura Mulvey’s she is haunted but rather it is an ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative investigation into the destructiveness Cinema’ can be found online. of male desire and sexual obsession. Charles Barr (2002) Vertigo, The flashing red light is an example of expressionist visual London: British film institute style because it is a projection of characters’ thoughts and Nicholas Haeffner (2014) feelings rather than a representation of the real world. Alfred Hitchcock, Abingdon Hitchcock spent some time at Ufa’s studios in Germany, and New York: Routledge during the 1920s, where expressionist film directors, such as Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau, were working. Hitchcock used expressionist devices throughout his career, something that mainstream Hollywood films tended to avoid (unless they Glossary were noir films). In Vertigo expressionism is most obvious Femme Fatale in Judy’s final transformation into Madeleine. Although the An attractive and seductive hotel’s sign, just outside the window, casts the green light woman, especially one who will that suffuses the scene, it is greatly exaggerated and makes ultimately cause distress to a man Madeleine appear ghostlike. She is, in a way, a ghost because who becomes involved with her. it is as if she is coming back from the dead and because she exists only as a creation of Elster and Scottie. The bed, MacGuffin where they are about to have sex, is positioned next to An object or device in a film Judy and, in the following embrace, another expressionist or a book which serves merely moment occurs when Scottie suddenly sees himself back as a trigger for the plot. at the Mission, the place where Madeleine ‘committed suicide’. Once again the mise en scene is motivated by Scottie’s state of mind; unconsciously he knows there’s something not quite right about Judy/Madeleine. from the MM vaults In Vertigo Hitchcock brilliantly uses film form to tell a disturbing tale of the destructiveness of male sexual Hitchcock’s Vertigo: A Narrative obsession. Although Hitchcock’s treatment of women is of Independence? – Elaine often misogynist, at least in Vertigo he admitted the sickness Scarratt, MediaMag 43 in the male psyche that often reduces a woman to a body. The Dizzying Appeal of Hitchcock’s While Hitchcock’s collaborators are immensely Vertigo – Caroline Birks, MediaMag 61 important in all his films, for example Bernard Herrmann’s brilliant score is integral to Vertigo’s success, there’s no Hitchcock – Auteur and Creator – doubt that the director’s vision is the one we see. Michael Massey, MediaMag 33 Continuity: The Hidden Art of Nick Lacey is a freelance media educator. His study guides on Invisible Editing – Jonathan Vertigo, Pan’s Labyrinth and Do the Right Thing are available on Nunns, MediaMag 64 Kindle.

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 19 03/12/2018 16:08 Laurence Russell examines the dark side of fandom and participatory media from Rick and Morty to My Little Pony. Photo: Tobechi Ugwumba Tobechi Photo:

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 20 03/12/2018 16:08 n Saturday the 7th of October 2017 a select few McDonalds restaurants launched a limited return of their Szechuan sauce, originally sold as a promotional item in 1998 to celebrate the release of Disney’s Mulan. This was organised in response to a joke made in an episode of Rick and Morty (season 3, episode 1) in which the protagonist, Rick Sanchez obsessively reminisces over the item. Due to the rampant popularity of the show, hundreds of fans arrived at restaurants across America and very quickly exhausted each location’s supply of sauce, which was limited to 20-80 packets per location. Many of these fans reported driving hundreds of miles, abandoning personal commitments, and queuing in surging crowds for many hours, only to be left disappointed. A surge of backlash erupted online, and the McDonalds corporate office was overwhelmed with furious phone calls from fans claiming to have been ‘scammed’. The police were dispatched to several outlets after instances of unrest, fighting and organised mobs of over a thousand people, holding signs saying ‘#giveusthesauce’ and chanting, ‘We want sauce!’ One YouTuber, Chairman Mar, filmed himself jumping the counter in an attempt to loot the sauce packets while screaming quotes from the television show, and making as much of a spectacle of himself as possible. Another The anonymity man claimed to have been stabbed while waiting in line at a Los Angeles outlet. enjoyed in online In the wake of the incident, the promotional spaces has item surfaced on Ebay at starting prices of hundreds of dollars with one listing a price of proven to foster $700 dollars for a single packet of the condiment. the deepest The event has been widely ridiculed and vilified online as a classic example of fandom extent of human turning ugly, and even the show’s creator, Dan depravity and Harmon, responded to the incident, saying he ‘wouldn’t wish [Rick and Morty’s] fans on any fast hostility. food restaurant.’ Harman previously criticised the fanbase after they collectively harassed female writers of the show in September 2017. He referred to this element as a ‘testosterone- based subculture’ with a ‘creepy agenda’ and he’s made it very clear that he loathes and distances himself from this behaviour. Commentators and bloggers spoke of the level of toxic entitlement among the fanbase that the Szechuan sauce ‘riots’ uncovered, and while few observers found fault with the show itself, many being fans themselves, they were frequently disgusted with others inside the fandom. Thomas Wick, a columnist with student newspaper The Pitt News crystallises a point

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 21 03/12/2018 16:08 The ‘Brony’ phenomenon is a deep and myopic dive, but its existence represents an undeniable truth about the digital age: the nature of fandom is evolving. Runaway followings of popular texts in modern culture are growing exponentially. Stephen Little / Flickr Stephen

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 22 03/12/2018 16:08 which is becoming increasingly common with pop culture fandoms of the modern world. After clarifying his own love for the show, he states the rioters had ‘taken the obsession too far and brought out the worst parts of their humanity’ and that he wished he could go back to enjoying the show ‘without being ashamed’. The increasing toxicity of fandom has been years in the making, and did not happen overnight. Perhaps the most seminal and prevalent divergent fan community of recent memory is that of the 2010 children’s animated television show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The show quickly fostered a wide fanbase of adult men, who popularly became known as ‘Bronys’, Felicia Day, gamer, who now have their own Wikipedia page, two blogger and documentaries, and an annual convention. campaigner for Spanning almost a decade of controversies, equality in the games indutry the Brony community has been an oddity that has attracted the curiosity and amusement of theorists and journalists for some time. The primary criticism of the Brony fandom is that some members create fan materials that associate the childrens’ TV characters with violence and pornography which is incredibly harmful to the show’s intended audience, little girls. These problems are chastised within its own community by more model fans, who channel their passion more constructively, organising charity events and reviling the worst of their community. A general consensus settled online that whilst My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was a fine, well written show, people were reluctant to

watch it, or become associated with it, because Wikicommons of the existing reputation of its fandom. The Brony phenomenon is a deep and myopic from 2009. The Star Wars Actress Kelly Marie Tran dive, but its existence represents an undeniable deleted her Instagram account after receiving truth about the digital age: the nature of fandom torrents of organised abuse on the platform. is evolving. Runaway followings of popular texts These events hearken back to the days of in modern culture are growing exponentially and Gamergate in late 2014, perhaps the most inevitably nurturing toxic elements, which sully well-known instance of the online political the content they’ve rallied around. Controversies mobilisation of fandom. Often described within these groups are happening faster, as a digital ‘culture war’, Gamergate was an lasting longer, and are doing more harm. enormous harassment campaign by a series Recently, incidents in fandom have expanded of gaming fandoms which targeted female into pseudo-political spheres, like Alt Right video game developers and journalists. personality Michael Cernovich’s smear campaign The event was characterised by the use of against James Gunn, and the racist and sexist death threats, the propagation of harmful backlash against the recent Star Wars films. misinformation, and doxing, the act of Both of these events took the form of furious stealing and broadcasting a person’s private harassment campaigns sparked by right-wing information, such as home addresses or the provocateurs hoping to outrage fan communities details of one’s family and loved ones. into targetting left-wing, or female figures in In the midst of the controversy, the webseries media, in an attempt to disempower them. creator Felicia Day made a particularly insightful The results of these controversies were that blog post entitled ‘The only thing I have to say Disney fired the director James Gunn from about Gamer gate’. The blog recounts an incident Guardians of the Galaxy 3, after he’d been in which Day felt fear upon seeing two men repeatedly associated with controversial tweets wearing video game merchandise. She recounted

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 23 03/12/2018 16:08 YouTubers Meg The toxicity of these subcultures makes us Turney and Gavin Free long for the days of 2012, when the novelty were attacked in their of hapless middle-aged men obsessing home by a crazed ‘fan’ over a show about cartoon horses while tiptoeing around pre-teen girls was largely considered the worst a fandom could get. The anonymity enjoyed in online spaces has proven to foster the deepest extent of human depravity and hostility. The notion that these dark places of human civilisation are being incubated, encouraged, unregulated and ultimately, let loose in the real world is a disquieting one, and it needs to be addressed. It’s worth returning to Felicia Day’s Gamergate post, as it isn’t intended as a message of despair, but one of hope. Day goes on to speak about the importance of fandom, and the reality that its toxicity will not ‘dissipate into the night’ as it used to in simpler times. She spoke about the importance of speaking out against the threat of fear, and that games were ‘worth fighting for, even if the atmosphere is ugly right now.’ She explained she was ashamed to have felt afraid of her own fandoms, and especially of Wikicommons distancing herself from them. She pleads that we ‘Don’t abandon games. Don’t cross the ‘my brain now suspected that those guys and I street. Gaming needs you.’ And that you should might not be comrades after all’. She explained that never let a toxic minority scare you away from the experience prompted a wave of depression, ‘something, ironically, that we both love.’ as the feelings of community she’d once enjoyed from video game fandom had been spoiled. Lawrence Russell is a media technician, freelance Several female professionals affected by the journalist and aspiring writer. controversy described living in terror for several months as millions of violent, derogatory and sexual messages circulated in their social media networks. Some were even forced to move home or relocate their families in the fear that their anonymous harassers would follow up on their threats. A precaution some might have thought an overreaction – until the reality of murderous fans breaking into the homes of internet celebrities became a new reality earlier this January, when a deranged fan-turned-gunman broke into the home of YouTube stars Gavin Free and Meg Turney. Whether it’s violent individuals, or political Read More extremists, the power of fandom’s mob mentality http://thisfeliciaday.tumblr.com/ is starting to be increasingly weaponised, post/100700417809/the-only-thing- with worryingly successful results. i-have-to-say-about-gamer-gate In the information age, the malignant corners of fandom have spread beyond the hypodermic model of audience interaction. With the lawlessness of online spaces, the from the MM vaults debate about how far media has the influence to poison consumers has developed into how I Can’t Even: Speaking Fannish – far consumers have the influence to poison Kirsty Worrow, MediaMag 55 media, and so the world around them. In many Getting Into Character: Cosplay cases, it makes people ashamed to exist in the In Some Modern Fandoms – same fandom, and perhaps any fandom. Ruth Kenyon, MediaMag 52

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Public Domain 03/12/2018 16:08 25 The Theory Drop The Theory Drop The Theory Drop The Theory Drop The Theory Drop The Theory Drop The Theory Drop The Theory Drop The Theory Drop

Postmodernism

irst, let’s look at the slightly society together. As a style, modernism If you ask an contradictory title. Post- aimed to move away from classical academic the modern-ism. How can we have and traditional forms. In literature, for question ‘what is a cultural movement that is example, it resulted in works such as F‘after now’? To understand this, you Dubliners by James Joyce, a series of postmodernism?’ need to have a brief understanding short stories that focus on characters you will most likely of its precursor, modernism. If getting their hopes up and then having come away with an postmodernism is the irreverent their dreams shattered and ending in answer you’ll only teenager, then modernism is the disappointment. In poetry, it resulted understand with the parent having the mid-life crisis. in a rejection of existing poetic forms, aid of a dictionary Modernism as a movement came such as T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, a and a reading list as to popularity in the early part of sprawling, free-wheeling epic poem long as your arm. the twentieth century and it can be that railed against the futility of This article aims characterised by a loss of belief in existence and refused to be governed to give you a basic the things where we once placed our by any of the traditional rules of poetry. understanding of trust – be it God, society, personal If modernism is beginning the concept, and relationships etc. While its inception to question authority, then give you some can’t be traced back to one particular postmodernism is making fun of event, it would not be too much of a authority to its face. Postmodernism pointers on where to stretch to assume that the First World takes this concept of questioning look if you want to War had something to do with this traditional structures, representations research it further. sense of disillusionment. It could also and expectations and pushes things be linked in with Friedrich Nietzsche’s a step further. In 1967 the French belief that ‘God is dead’ and Marx’s literary critic Roland Barthes released criticism of capitalist society becoming his essay The Death of the Author. In it, more widespread. The feelings related he challenged tradition when he said to this shift in perspective tend to that a writer’s opinions, intentions or involve disappointment and a sense interpretation of their own work are of betrayal, or even rebellion, against no more valid than anyone else’s. To many of the establishments that hold give a simple example, this means

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 26 03/12/2018 16:08 Repeat after me: ‘postmodernism is a cultural movement that distrusts TCD/Prod.DB / Alamy Stock Photo Stock / Alamy TCD/Prod.DB all established philosophies and frequently experiments with the medium it is presented in’. You will sound really smart, I promise.

Margot Robbie breaks the fourth wall in I, Tonya

that just because Ridley Scott thinks Tonya, tell the truth. There’s no such out and says, ‘alright who just said Deckard is a replicant, doesn’t mean thing as truth. Everyone has their own ‘Harold just counted brushstrokes’?’ that you, the viewer, have to think truth’. The film then goes on to show In this story, we have a character who this if you don’t want to. Readers are events as told by the different parties, breaks narrative film conventions free to interpret a work however they each of them disputing the veracity of by showing his awareness of the choose, irrespective of what the creator those events as they happen. At one omniscient narrator. The film then goes thinks. The Death of the Author is the point, Robbie’s Tonya chases a man on to follow Harold as he tries to find next step after Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’ out of a house, while firing a shot-gun the apparent ‘author’ of his life and statement and with it comes a need at him. While changing cartridges, persuade her to change the ending! It’s to test the boundaries of what a text Tonya looks straight at the camera, a film that is metatextual because it lets is. Like modernism, postmodernism breaking the 4th wall ,saying: ‘I NEVER the protagonist know he is in a story can be found in literature, architecture did this’. This is a brilliant example of and draws attention to the potential and art. But for the purposes of this metatextuality. The character in the absurdity of non-diegetic voiceover. article, we’re just going to focus on story is disagreeing with the story as As you can see, metatextuality forces postmodernism in film and its closest it happens. This links very closely with the audience to examine, and in cousin, television. It’s also no good if the ‘death of the author’ by making us some cases question the very form we don’t try to identify at least some of question the reliability of the narrator. of filmmaking and the assumptions the aspects commonly associated with We, as an audience, need to trust the it brings with it. But what happens it. Here are just two to get you started: story-tellers in films or else we run when these questions go beyond the the risk of rejecting the whole thing. style of the filmmaking, and start to Metatextuality Other examples are where texts influence the content of the narrative? play with the narrative conventions Metatextuality is where a text draws we take for granted in films. In the attention to the fact that it is a text. The Nature of Reality hugely underrated 2006 film Stranger It points to the process of its own This is a frequent preoccupation in Than Fiction, we start with Emma creation. Let’s take an example from the content of postmodern narratives. Thompson narrating the life of Will a fairly recent film, I Tonya. At various As stated earlier, postmodernism tends Ferrell’s character, Harold Crick. In a different points throughout the film, to reject most aspects of authority, shot where we see Harold brushing characters comment on the mechanics meaning, as Jean Francois Lyotard put his teeth, Thompson’s voiceover says of the film as they’re happening by it in The Postmodern Condition, ‘the ‘when other’s minds would fantasise addressing the audience directly. In grand narrative has lost its credibility’. It about their upcoming day, Harold just the trailer, Margot Robbie in the titular is easy to see how some institutions are counted brush strokes’. Harold then role explicitly rejects the idea of an being questioned. Religion, specifically stops brushing, spits the toothpaste objective truth. ‘The haters always say: ‘the church’, as an institution has lost

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Illustration by Tom Zaino Key Postmodern A (short) List of If modernism is Theorists Postmodern Films beginning to question • Jacques Derrida & TV Shows authority, then • Jean-Francois Lyotard • Atonement • Frederic Jameson • Bladerunner postmodernism • Michel Foucault • Community is making fun of • Jean Baudrillard • Deadpool • Roland Barthes • Eternal Sunshine of authority to its face. the Spotless Mind Postmodernism Key Aspects of • Family Guy Postmodernism • Fight Club takes this concept • Metatextuality • Inception of questioning • Intertextuality • The Matrix • Pastiche and parody • Memento traditional structures, • High art and low art • The Mighty Boosh representations mixing together • Run Lola Run • Self-reflexivity • Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and expectations • Loss of historical reality • Scream and pushes things • Deliberate blurring • Stranger of time periods • The Truman Show a step further. • Mixing of genres • Westworld • The Village

followers over the last few centuries. what happens when your central gets special powers, fights bad guys, Additionally, secular ideologies such as character is too attached to the and rescues the girl. You couldn’t get Marxism have been seen to fail when simulated world? What happens much more traditional a storyline if you put into practice, while capitalism in when, as Baudrillard puts it, the tried! As you can see, it’s not easy to the form of ‘The American Dream’ and simulations of reality end up becoming work out exactly what postmodernism its promise of a land of opportunity ‘more real than real’? That’s when is. Study enough of it and over time, for everyone has been shown to let we start to get texts that question you’ll know it when you see it. But until people down on countless occasions. what it means to be a ‘real’ person. then, repeat after me: ‘postmodernism What happens when this scepticism Cornerstone postmodern films like is a cultural movement that distrusts is applied to another far-reaching Bladerunner all the way through to all established philosophies and institution, such as the media? People new TV shows like Westworld start to frequently experiments with the are forced to rely on media institutions question the nature of something being medium it is presented in’. You will to give us a global picture of the world alive or life being simulated. A growing sound really smart, I promise. we live in. As media audiences have trend is to position the audience become more sophisticated over the with the artificial life forms, be they Giles Gough is a freelance education years, we realise on some level or other ‘replicants’, ‘cylons’ or ‘hosts’, allowing writer and leads filmmaking workshops at that the images we see are mediated us to empathise with characters that www.daskfilms.com. to give us only a partial version of the in earlier sci-fi would have been little story. This has led to an anxiety over more than calculators on legs. what is ‘real’ and what is not. As the key One of the great appeals of postmodern thinker Jean Baudrillard postmodernism is how much fun it put it; ‘the distinction between can be. It can be used to be ground- what is real and what is imagined is breaking and traditional at the same continually blurred and meaning is time. We have films that seem to jump from the MM vaults systematically eroded’. This anxiety between postmodern and traditional The Mighty Boosh: a Case Study over what is real and what is not starts like an aggressive game of hopscotch, in Postmodernism – Richard to get reflected in films such as The such as Deadpool, whose metatextual Smith, MediaMag 23 Matrix, The Truman Show and Inception, quips and intertextual references leave all of which feature characters trying the film practically groaning with Ha ha ha ha! Can Postmodernism to escape an imaginary world in postmodernism. And yet, the film still Make us Laugh? – Tina pursuit of an objective truth. But centres on a charismatic hero who Dixon, MediaMag 32

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 29 03/12/2018 16:08 Auteur Theory chosen films. This piece explores the In this article, contexts of the potential ‘auteurs’ of student Anna White A foundation for the French new Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, USA, 1967). looks at how Penn’s wave, or nouvelle vague, cinematic movement is the theoretical idea 1967 crime film Bonnie and Clyde of director as author, a principle was an amalgam of explored in Bazin’s Cahiers du Cinéma Based on the true story of Bonnie ‘auteur’ influences. (founded in 1951). Two of its writers Parker and Clyde Barrow, the film and theoreticians, François Truffaut follows the outlawed duo as they travel and Jean-Luc Godard, later became across 1930s central United States major directors of the French new robbing and killing when confronted. wave. The concept of the auteur Produced in 1967, the ongoing derived, mostly, from Astruc’s concept Vietnam War influenced director of caméra stylo – the idea that the Penn’s portrayal of graphic violence. director of a film is as much considered He stated that people needed to view an author of a film as a writer is a guns as terrifying instruments, and screenplay; fundamental technical accordingly, violence in the film is often and visual elements such as mise-en- highly graphic and reflective of society scène, camera placement, lighting at the time – demonstrated in the and scene length convey the message connection that can be drawn between of the film, rather than the plot line. Clyde’s sudden gunshot to the head Advocates of the auteur theory assert and the shocking 1963 assassination Wikicommons that the most cinematically successful of President John F. Kennedy. During films bear the personal stamp of the a period of declining profits and director. Critics argue that the focus of fragmented audiences, the film auteur theory is solely on individuals in targeted a ‘baby boomer’ audience who the largely collaborative film industry were more open minded to counter- and argue that stylistic and thematic culture movements and receptive to auteur signatures don’t just come experimental foreign films, resulting from the director but from other key in a huge success with younger personnel such as actors, producers, audiences. The film was marketed as writers, editors, cinematographers a gangster film and sold on its star Walker Evans’ and studios. Both the Eduqas and vehicles, Warren Beatty (Clyde) and Faye photography from OCR film studies specifications will Dunaway (Bonnie). The film received the American Great require you to develop critical debates ten Academy nominations, winning Depression regarding the relevance of auteur two – for Best Supporting Actress and theory as a critical approach in your Best Cinematography, ushering in a

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 30 03/12/2018 16:08 TCD/Prod.DB / Alamy Stock Photo Stock / Alamy TCD/Prod.DB

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde, 1967

new era of more experimental and French new wave films and a homage to the seemingly invisible editing of graphic Hollywood films. to classical Hollywood films – evident in classical Hollywood. A culmination of the cinematography which alternates 51 shots depicting Clyde’s death in French New Wave Cinema: between realistic and expressionistic slow motion to contrast the fast-paced styles. The heavy use of naturalistic high sudden death of Bonnie, in the final Newman, Benton and key lighting, wide camera shots and sequence, provides a realism to the Truffaut as Auteurs brown colour palette reflects the barren chaos and idiosyncrasy of violence Writers Newman and Benton, both farmland of Texas and the realism and crime – Penn, when describing film aficionados, wrote their first ever of the American Great Depression, the editing said ‘we wanted nervous screenplay, Bonnie and Clyde, in the inspired through photographer Walker bursts of energy, a way of showing style of French new wave films, and for Evans’ work on family and poverty. how Bonnie felt. It was a metaphoric which they would receive an Academy Penn uses a canted angle close up, visual style’. The juxtaposing long shot nomination for Best Original Screenplay through a bullet cracked windscreen of birds flying away and the jump- (Benton went on to win two Academy filter, to end the film – a contrast to cutting back and forth between close awards for his work on Kramer vs the typical long crane shots used in ups of a panicked Bonnie and Clyde Kramer in 1979). They originally classical Hollywood films, providing provide a final sense of union between approached French new wave director a new expressionist and artistic close realism and expressionism. Editor Dede Truffaut who wasn’t available to direct to a narrative. Another example of Allen, an ‘auteur’ in her pioneered use but made contributions during the expressionistic cinematography is of jump-cutting and audio bridging in writing process. Truffaut adored the the further use of a windscreen filter, film, worked in New York, where she classical Hollywood film noir Gun Crazy when Bonnie visits her family, to create was given relative freedom; her editing (Lewis, USA, 1950), which he screened a hazy dream-like state which warps techniques were often given the term to writers Newman and Benton during the realism of life, in our eyes, as we ‘New York school of editing’ as they the development of the story for see how different Bonnie’s life of crime created a new way of ‘reading’ an edit. Bonnie and Clyde – producing a direct is from the family life she could have relation between films of the classical had. Penn further expresses stylisation Production Contexts and Hollywood era and French new wave through the film’s choppy editing Setbacks and new Hollywood films. Bonnie and which deliberately draws attention to itself – constructing a harsh opposition Bonnie and Clyde faced many Clyde became a clear amalgamation of production setbacks, first with the

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PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo issue of director. Newman and Benton, ordering crew members to return to filming techniques. Penn’s thematic inspired by the unconventional the studio backlots under his control. interests in the character of the relationship between Michel and Bonnie and Clyde was originally given ‘outsider’ and genre of classic American Patricia in À bout de soufflé (Godard, a limited regional release, in small myth culture, further enriched the France, 1960), approached the areas across the USA, and was finally production, where Penn could have renowned French director, Jean-Luc given a general release (with a much the freedom to explore the myths and Godard. Critics claim that Godard didn’t larger number of screenings across character around the real-life story of trust Hollywood and refused to direct, the USA generating huge profit) after Bonnie and Clyde. Beatty’s control over however, Benton claims that Godard Beatty issued a complaint regarding production can be seen throughout his wanted to shoot the film in January the treatment of his film. He argued performance, where he characterises in New Jersey and took offense when that, despite the excellent press and the finer details of Clyde’s recorded producer Norah Wright objected to the critical success of Bonnie and Clyde, life, even creating a slight limp to his striking contrasts in location between Warner Brothers were putting their movement, evoking the real, prison- New Jersey and Texas (where the film is time and money into other projects, injured, Clyde. Beatty’s involvement set). Actor and producer Beatty further such as Reflections in a Golden Eye reflects a change in Hollywood cinema; pushed for an American director (Huston, USA, 1967) which underwent as a trend of new Hollywood star after buying the rights to the script, expensive colouration, and were auteurs became distinguished, more and an unproductive meeting with ultimately neglecting Bonnie and Clyde. Hollywood actors, such as Robert Godard, over conflicting production Redford and Jack Nicholson, became scheduling, took place – Godard finally Beatty as Auteur increasingly involved in film projects, left the project and Beatty was able to not only as actors but diverging into Beatty was also a key influence on bring in an American director, Penn. producing, writing and directorial roles. the film; responsible for hiring Newman Further setbacks in production and Benton to write the screen play, occurred due to conflict between the as well as selecting most of the key Anna White is a year 12 student at the film crew and the slipping control cast and crew members – including College of Richard Collyer, Horsham. of the studio, Warner Brothers. director Penn. When bringing Penn to Warner Brothers rejected Beatty’s the project, Beatty told the writers and proposal of a black and white film, production staff, ‘You’ve already written with hostile studio producer Jack L. a French new wave film. What you need Warner complaining that the film is a good American director’. Penn was was an unwanted throwback to early Beatty’s obvious choice of director Warner gangster films. As a result of for the project; favouring on-location the lack of studio involvement during shooting with small production production, Warner complained teams meant that the film could look about the extensive location shoot as realistic as possible, giving the and the exceeding of schedule and production team the freedom, away budget – even turning hostile and from the studios, to perfect new art

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 33 03/12/2018 16:08 Audience inequality by a think-tank led by the Archbishop of At a time when newspaper Canterbury. The language readership is falling leads the reader to question dramatically, the Daily Mail the report’s findings and has maintained a healthy recommendations. The ‘Tax circulation, selling over one Storm’ is of the Mail’s own million copies daily. The making, given readers are average age of its readers is unlikely to have known 58, the oldest for a national anything about the report paper. The majority are before coming to the front Right-wing hate-rag or a successful women, making up 52-55% page. The word ‘handouts’ paper with its finger on the pulse of of the total. It takes a right- implies that the young the national conversation? Andrew wing, pro-business, low people receiving them are McCallum investigates. taxation editorial stance, undeserving, while the and is socially conservative. quotation marks around This means, among other ‘super-tax’ casts doubt on things, that it promotes what the merits of such a policy. he Daily Mail is it perceives to be traditional The captioned heading loathed by large British values, warns against in the bottom right-hand numbers of too much immigration and corner positions the paper people. ‘Typical believes in the importance as the defender of moral Mail reader,’ critics of its of individual responsibility. values (and of traditional perceived world view often It is known as a ‘mid-range’ media) against Facebook sneer. The term is intended newspaper. This means its (new media). It encourages to produce an image of journalism lacks the depth readers to see newspapers, someone older, probably in and detail of broadsheets and the Mail in particular, the provinces, white and (The Times, The Guardian, The as ethically superior to with conservative views. By Telegraph), but it contains social media upstarts. implication they are deemed much longer pieces and Reading the whole xenophobic, homophobic, carries more serious news newspaper complicates racist and blind to the stories than tabloids like the messages given out by realities of the modern world. Sun and the Daily Mirror. the front page. Primarily, The powerful emotions The front page from this comes from a double- stirred up by the Daily Mail Wednesday 5th September, page spread written by the (its readers are passionately 2018, is in keeping with Archbishop of Canterbury loyal too) make it interesting the above. The banner at himself. This uses several for media students to the top speaks to an older, hundred words to justify examine closely. What is female readership. The tone the very report that the its audience and how is is more akin to a glossy front page questions. this audience positioned? women’s magazine than a The questioning stance is What institutional forces newspaper, the euphoric returned to on page 8 with shape it? Can a newspaper ‘Yes, yes, YES!’ referring to an opinion piece titled ‘Yes, really be homophobic an opinion piece about the Welby is right to help poor. and racist when operating first female orgasm to be But this tax grab fills me with within the terms of the shown in a BBC drama. fear’. This echoes the paper’s regulatory press authority, In contrast, the main lead editorial on page 18, IPSO (Independent Press headline covers serious ‘Will Welby’s taxes really Standards Organisation)? news, a report into wealth help the JAMs [Just About

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 34 03/12/2018 16:08 Managings]? The language here, though, is far from the extremism of which The average age of its the paper is often accused. For example, it concludes: readers is 58, the oldest ‘With the best will in the for a national paper. The world, the Mail cautions against treating Mr Welby’s majority are women, economic prescriptions making up 52-55% of the as Gospel. But certainly he deserves credit for total. It takes a right-wing, opening a national debate.’ pro-business, low taxation Institutional Forces editorial stance, and is Shaping the Daily socially conservative. Mail Institutional forces shaping the Mail might usefully be split into three categories: the Mail’s role as an institution in its own right, a significant player in the print journalism landscape; its place within the larger DMG Media publishing group, sitting alongside other publications; its position in relation to regulatory and legal frameworks acting on newspapers.

The Daily Mail as an institution

The Daily Mail might be ridiculed by opponents, but a reading of the September 5th edition shows that it takes itself seriously as a newspaper that reports and comments on hard news. Giving space to Justin Welby to justify the report into wealth inequality suggests it wants its readers to be well informed, even as it tries to guide their opinions, primarily through the use of columnists. It presumably sees itself as a publication that people buy in order to be informed, as well as to be entertained. It does not always offer different perspectives on the same story. The front page Facebook story is

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 35 03/12/2018 16:08 It is important to recognise that the Daily Mail does not publish ‘Fake News’. It cannot do so because it is subject to British libel laws, as well as being signed up to IPSO, which intervenes when its Editors’ Code of Practice is breached. Image by Gizem Kirdagli Image Gizem by

given a double-page spread DMG Media Group as an the newspaper’s owners. My on pages 10-11 which is institution hunch is that the Daily Mail highly critical of Facebook. is being firmly positioned as Nonetheless, this lengthy The Daily Mail is part of an institution embodying article is well-researched, the DMG Media group, traditional journalistic drawing on multiple which also includes the Mail values. This would include sources. It is complemented on Sunday, and MailOnline. being run by editors free by another opinion piece The relationship between to decide editorial lines on page 18: ‘Facebook’s the three is relatively without interference. In callous refusal to help police complicated. For example, appointing Greig as editor, investigate a girl’s murder during the referendum perhaps the owners are prove it is bereft of humanity’. about membership of the indicating to readers that the The space given over to this European Union (Brexit), the paper is strong enough to story is indicative of the Daily Mail came out on the accommodate a change of Mail’s institutional role as a side of Leave, while the Mail direction – not lightweight, national newspaper. Social on Sunday was on the side morally questionable, and media platforms, such as of Remain. To complicate undirected like Facebook. Facebook, have eaten hugely matters further, the then MailOnline occupies a into advertising revenue editor of the Mail on Sunday, different space entirely. While streams, and have also Geordie Greig, has just it shares stories with the becomes popular sources taken over at the Daily Mail two print publications, its for news: the Mail has an from longstanding editor, relentless focus on celebrity institutional interest in Paul Dacre. Observers are gossip has made it a global denigrating Facebook, which watching keenly as the Daily phenomenon, the most- operates under different, Mail shifts away from its visited English language less stringent, regulatory committed Brexit stance. It online newspaper site in the rules to newspapers. seems that Greig has been world, attracting over 15 given editorial freedom by million global readers daily.

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 36 03/12/2018 16:08 Like the print publications, allowing fake news to it is funded by advertising; be posted on their sites. in contrast, however, this Facebook now runs an is linked directly to clicks advertising campaign in on a particular page. the UK that declares ‘fake Consequently, it is more news is not our friend’ yet focused on getting these still allows fake news stories Mail Online occupies a clicks than on the quality to stay on its platform. It different space entirely. of its stories. Its success has simply committed not might, paradoxically, be to featuring such stories at While it shares stories the reason for the Daily the top of its news feeds. with the two print Mail maintaining its hard When faced with such facts, news focus with a degree it is perhaps time to avoid publications, its relentless of balance: the publishers knee-jerk condemnations of focus on celebrity gossip want each publication to the Daily Mail. Yes, it can be occupy different niches in offensive and inflammatory, has made it a global order to appeal to a broad but there is an argument phenomenon, the most- range of advertisers. that fake news has not taken hold in the UK as strongly visited English language Legal and regulatory as in the United States, online newspaper site frameworks precisely because we have institutions like the Daily in the world, attracting It is important to recognise Mail – legitimate, regulated, if over 15 million global that the Daily Mail does highly-opinionated voices in not publish ‘Fake News’. It opposition to a more liberal readers daily cannot do so because it is agenda. The September 5th subject to British libel laws, edition, to be honest, wasn’t as well as being signed up particularly inflammatory at to IPSO, which intervenes all – Facebook supporters when its Editors’ Code of aside. There were no stories Practice is breached. This about immigrants and deals with issues such the lead story featured as accuracy, invasion of genuine depth and balance. privacy, intrusion into grief This might have been an or shock, and harassment. aberration. It might have This isn’t to say that the been because non-Mail paper still cannot take readers are more likely to editorial lines that are remember inflammatory offensive and inflammatory headlines but not read the to many. Stop Funding rest of the paper. Or it might Hate, for example, is a even be because September group set up specifically to 5th marked the day when campaign for companies to Geordie Greig took over as withdraw adverts from the the paper’s new editor. Daily Mail (along with the Sun and the Daily Express) Andrew McCallum is the primarily because of its Director of The English and anti-immigration stance. Media Centre. It has had some success, Lego being the highest profile company to remove funding. Those opposed to the Mail, though, are taking issue with its bias rather than outright falsehoods. In contrast, social media platforms do not face legal or regulatory censure for

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 37 03/12/2018 16:08 ‘Charity begins at home’. So goes the interconnected world, we are directly saying, suggesting our responsibility is affected by events elsewhere and to care for those directly around us. The should not pretend otherwise. original meaning was that a humane outlook to those nearest would develop Sweet Charity? a humane outlook to the wider world. Non-Governmental Organisations The phrase has since been re-purposed, (NGOs) or charities for short, receive to morally justify prioritising ourselves funding from the UK government’s and to de-prioritise and ‘other’ the foreign aid budget. They rely on public needs of people in, to paraphrase, As audiences become donations for the rest of their income. ‘faraway countries of which we desensitised to The established stereotype of third know little’. In short, a justification images of poverty world charity advertising can be seen for never being charitable, ever. in the WaterAid ‘No Choice’ appeal (see and suffering, a new However the UK is, on paper at least, link at the end of the article) with its wave of positive a charitable nation. In 2016, about direct mode of address and images charity adverts are 0.7% of national income was spent on of malnourished children and adults emerging. Jonathan overseas aid, amounting to some £13 drinking stagnant water in countries Nunns analyses billion pounds that year. Some would afflicted by drought and disease. It see that as a wealthy country fulfilling this approach in the invites audiences to compare their its responsibility to share with the Water Aid ‘Claudia own circumstances to the agony poor and destitute. But it could also be Sings’ campaign. onscreen and to feel morally compelled argued that it is in the UK’s interests to to act. Such images became a staple promote wealth and stability in the rest of charity advertising after the Live- of the world. A stable world means a Aid drought relief concert in 1985 safer environment for the UK; poverty and have continued to the present and disease leads to violence, instability (see the still shocking video set to and the flight of the desperate towards The Cars’ track ‘Drive’, screened at the places with better prospects. original concert). However, even such Nevertheless, there remain many powerful images have their limitations. who argue that any aid should be These repeated images led to victim spent at home on pressing needs stereotypes in which whole continents close at hand, such as the NHS (especially Africa) came to be seen and social care. However, whilst as massive poverty-stricken refugee the UK may be surrounded by sea, camps (an image, rightly or wrongly it is not on another planet. This is entirely unseen in Black Panther’s not the nineteenth century; in an

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 38 03/12/2018 16:08 In the ad, Africa remains an undifferentiated mono-cultural mass, conforming to stereotypes about poverty and lacking technological development. The ad was actually shot in Zambia but there is nothing within it to indicate this.

African setting, Wakanda). But perhaps more significantly, these repeated emotive images of suffering arguably have a desensitising effect. Western audiences unintentionally read the texts against their intent and feeling overwhelmed, do nothing, lapsing into helplessness, demoralised by the scale of the problem. Hence the arrival of the term ‘compassion fatigue’. Starting Over It was for these reasons that WaterAid, a charity for whom the name says it all, changed course, commissioning the advertising agency Atomic in 2016 to create a campaign with a fresh perspective and approach. Claudia Sings was shot by RSA (Ridley Scott Associates), the production company owned by the Hollywood director Ridley Scott. The premise, designed by Atomic and shot by RSA, is simple but very different to the style of charity advertising that audiences have come to expect. ‘Claudia Sings’ opens with a shallow focus mid shot. Mise-en-scène establishes a middle-class home. A DAB radio plays in mid shot, screen left. Screen right, a pot plant and centre, in shallow focus, a double- glazed window, beyond which we can see the greenery of a large British garden. On the soundtrack, the patter

Images Courtesy of Atomic, London Images Courtesy of Atomic, 39

MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 39 03/12/2018 16:08 of rain and the middle class British RP accent of the weather announcer, forecasting further rain. The shot is hand held and a possible POV shot (point of view), orientating the UK middle-class demographic within relatable and familiar circumstances. A focus pull matches with the word ‘showers’ on the soundtrack and the shifting focus emphasises riverlets streaming down the glass. Having established the scenario, the advert provides a visual binary via a straight cut. The desaturated green cuts to burnt orange. On the soundtrack, rain fades to the buzz of cicadas; this setting is stereotypical Africa. In a slow motion close up the camera follows the progress of two feet walking in pink flat shoes, then cuts to the a profile close up of a young black woman’s face. She carries a bucket. On the diegetic soundtrack, she hums the opening of ‘Sunshine on a Rainy Day’, her shoes crunching on the dirt road. Having established the protagonist, Claudia, the audience can enter her world, one very different to that of the assumed reader. The colours reflect dust not damp, sun not rain. Stereotypes of ‘Britain’ and ‘Africa’ are used to shorthand effect. Standard frame rate shots alternate with Claudia’s slow motion POV of her journey, encouraging identification with her as a relatable, likable, protagonist. The water bucket is a common signifier of Africa, a sharply contrasting binary with the earlier British home where clean, safe water is literally ‘on tap’. Claudia’s close-up shows light scarring on her face, an enigma code nodding towards the toughness of her life. However, her clothes are clean and her body language projects happiness and health. As she walks, a group of similar women pass by, buckets expertly balanced on their heads. In the fields, farmers are at work, tilling the soil. These are not victims, these are people confronting the challenges of their lived environment. Other POVs feature a boy running with a windmill toy and a laughing girl, playing on a swing. This is not the Africa of the earlier ads. This community is alive, it’s people happy, well and purposeful. But why?

40 London Images Courtesy of Atomic,

MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 40 03/12/2018 16:08 The Best Medicine example) the ability to fundraise is fundamental to being able to continue As Claudia reaches her destination to bring positive change. Claudia the reveal is that she is just one Sings is not a perfect example of this amongst many young arrivals. At the message and includes some village standpipe, beautiful clean dated tropes of ads past. drinking water pours, flashing and However, to signal that Africa sparkling in the sun. The message (Zambia!) is fixable and is clear. The standpipe has brought repairable through simple, health and hope to the village, deliverable means is a step empowering Claudia and others like forward. Instead of overwhelming her to take control of their lives and audiences with images of despair, this environment, allowing them to create advert may be a point of transition a life and build for a brighter future. towards seeing foreign aid as a At the standpipe, the others join in partnership, from which all can benefit. the final hopeful chorus of Claudia’s Home should be a place which These repeated song. It is not just Claudia’s life which nurtures, allowing us to grow is being transformed by clean water, it and develop. For the human race, emotive images is that of the entire village and every that place is this planet. We are all of suffering other village to which fresh water citizens of this world, responsible delivers health and empowerment. to and for each other. To complete arguably have a The advert ends with an onscreen the quote, ‘charity begins at desensitising effect. message, ‘650 million people still home, but shouldn’t end there’. don’t have access to clean drinking Western audiences water’ and details how audiences can text donate £3.00 to the cause. Jonathan Nunns is Head of Media at unintentionally read The differences to the stereotypical Collyer’s College. the texts against style of charity advertising are obvious. Hope not helplessness, empowerment their intent and not despair. The advert shows how feeling overwhelmed, a small and affordable donation can make substantial change, giving do nothing, lapsing people power over their own lives. into helplessness, Read as intended, it leaves the audience uplifted not depressed. demoralised by the scale of the Resisting Labels problem. Hence the However, amongst the positivity, there remain some significant arrival of the term issues of representation. In the ad, ‘compassion fatigue’ Africa remains an undifferentiated mono-cultural mass, conforming to stereotypes about poverty and lacking technological development. The ad was actually shot in Zambia but there is nothing within it to indicate this. Does Claudia actually lack agency? Is her future decided from the MM vaults by the audience or by her? Reading Charity – How to Decode Making Claudia a relatable female an Advertising Campaign – protagonist plays against traditional Alan Hunt and Mark representations of Africa as a place Hansard MediaMag 2 of patriarchy. However, clear gender roles remain in place, the women do the laundry, the men till the fields. Reference At a time when NGOs have suffered negative press (Google the Oxfam No Choice: https://vimeo.com/225097594 sexual abuse scandal of 2018 for an Claudia Sings: https://vimeo.com/225099048

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Image by Hunny Alrohaif Whether or not you consider yourself a gamer, video games feature on all the A Level Specifications. Helen Williams provides a case study for the OCR Media Industries and Audiences unit on Minecraft.

We’re also witnessing a role reversal between the gaming and the film industries. Once upon a time, popular film and TV shows would be licensed for video game tie-ins. Now, Minecraft: The Movie is in production by Warner Bros, who made such a success of The Lego Movie, joining adaptations of games such as the Assassin’s Creed movie, the Castlevania Netflix series, and the Five Nights at Freddy’s novel series. Clay Shirky’s ‘End of Audience’ Gaming, unlike movie watching, is essentially interactive. Minecraft is more of a toy or a tool for the player. ‘Sandbox ou download the game. You create your account. game’ is the term often used to describe it, because you You select your attractive avatar. You start to play, play freely to create whatever you like. It’s Lego for video collecting points as you go. This is a great game games. Although it seems basic, and the entry level is low and you’re doing really well! The more you play, enough for a five-year-old, the skillcap is enormous and the more points you accrue. It’s so interactive! You’re playing you can continue learning the game for years. You can with and against all your friends; you’re making new friends build a shed. You can recreate your entire country, like by the hundreds. Before you know it, you’re at it 18 hours a Denmark was in 2014. You can build an actual working day and waking up during the night to update your status computer within the game. Best of all, you can create and check your score on the leaderboard. Welcome to your own ‘mods’ to adapt the game – and give – or sell – Snapchat. Instagram. Twitter. Facebook. them to other players. It has even helped children on the With the ‘gamification’ of our actual lives, no wonder autistic spectrum to express themselves (see Keith Stuart’s video games are now on every A Level Media Studies un-put-downable novel ‘A Boy Made of Blocks’). It’s easy, specification. And if, like most A Level students, you were it’s creative, and it’s social. Live interactive streaming on born in 2002-2003, you are a ‘digital native’, who may Amazon’s Twitch and, most recently, Microsoft’s Mixer, is struggle to imagine a world without video games. You’ve enabling viewers to participate in expert gameplay. As probably played Candy Crush or Flappy Bird on the bus theorist Clay Shirky points out, ‘every player [and now even home from school, shared a competitive few hours with every viewer] is also a producer, and everyone can talk siblings on the Wii Sports or strummed a plastic guitar in back’, so the traditional idea of a passive audience is dead. your Guitar Hero band. Maybe you’re just old enough to remember leaving one of your Sims characters to drown When All’s Said and Done… in the swimming pool. You’re also in the golden age group of 16-34s, most likely to be watching live gaming streams, That audience is the most powerful marketing tool. broadcasting them and watching Esports tournaments, Marketing experts everywhere will confirm that you turning gaming into a spectator sport and bringing cannot put a price on ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing. We in revenue from ‘merch’ to ticket sales. You’ll probably are always keen to get something that a friend tells us struggle to remember a world without Minecraft. is good. Minecraft began essentially as an ‘indie’ game

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 43 03/12/2018 16:09 BRIEF HISTORY OF MINECRAFT 2009 2010 2009 – Markus ‘Notch’ May September 2010 Persson releases Minecraft – webcomic Penny Arcade on TIGSource forums and begins a series of comics uses the profits to create and news posts about the 2011 Early 2011 – Minecraft surpasses a million purchases his company, Mojang addictiveness of the game less than a month after entering its beta phase

April 2011 – Persson estimates that Minecraft has made $33 million 2012 August 2011 – Minecraft: Pocket Edition released May 2012 – Xbox 360 version released March 2011 – Minecraft wins three awards at the June 2012 – Lego Minecraft introduced Game Developers Choice Awards for Best Debut Game, Best Downloadable Game and Innovation Award September 2012 – Block By Block project in cooperation with UN Habitat to create real-world environments in Minecraft MineCon 2011 – MinecraftEdu formed to introduce Minecraft into schools with educational activities November 2011 – already with 16 million registered users, official launch of Minecraft at the first ever MineCon 2013 2013/14 February 2013 – Raspberry December 2013 Pi version released and September 2014 respectively 2014 March 2013 – Mojang signs – PlayStation 3 and 4 27 Feb 2014 – Notch tweets‘Someone is trying leak a deal with Egmont Group, a versions released the fact that we’re working with Warner Brothers on a children’s book publisher, to create potential Minecraft Movie. I wanted to be the leak!’ Minecraft handbooks, annuals, poster books and magazines April 2014 – the Danish Geodata Agency generates 2015 all of Denmark in full-scale in Minecraft October 2015 – Minecraft: June 17 2014 – Notch tweets‘Anyone want to buy my 2016 Story Mode released share of Mojang so I can move on with my life? Getting August 2016 – hate for trying to do the right thing is not my gig.’ Microsoft launches Oculus December 2015 – Minecraft: Rift version for VR Wii U Edition released September 2014 – The British Museum announces plans to be digitally recreated in Minecraft

November 2014 – Microsoft acquires Mojang and the Minecraft intellectual property for $2.5 billion. 2017 Persson becomes one of Forbes’ World’s Billionaires May 2017 – Nintendo Switch version released

July 2017 – Better Together Update released allowing cross-platform play and introducing Minecraft Marketplace, where players can use Minecraft Coins to access skins, 2018 textures and worlds from community creators January 2018 – to date, over 144 million copies sold across all platforms. Minecraft November 2017 – MineCon rebranded as MineCon continues to be the second best-selling Earth and held on livestream rather than actually live video game of all time behind Tetris

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 44 03/12/2018 16:09 Once upon a time, popular film and TV shows would be licensed for video game tie-ins. Now, Minecraft: The Movie is in production by Warner Bros, who made such a success of The Lego Movie. Pixabay

most views for a dedicated Minecraft video channel. Parents in that Swedish programmer, Markus ‘Notch’ Persson, of his core five to 10-year-old audience appreciate his developed it in his spare time at home. Yet with hardly appropriate language and friendly tone. He’s ‘safe’, charming anything spent on publicity, Minecraft had over 16 million and fun – a bit like Minecraft itself, the source of his success. users before its official launch in November 2011. The What’s more, DanTDM turns out to be one of the best at game has such a strong community and powerful network turning his online celebrity into cold, hard cash. In 2017, that experts believe it would continue to thrive, even if Forbes Magazine named Daniel Middleton the world’s Microsoft stopped supporting it. Even now, Minecraft has an highest-paid YouTuber, earning £12.3 million that year. interesting distribution model: it’s sold through Minecraft.net, or through the websites of the Economic Context – Moneycraft individual games consoles, rather than through the usual online stores such as Steam, where In terms of economics, video games are the winners in the you can only buy Minecraft: Story Mode. world of entertainment. According to games market research company, Newzoo, there are more than 2.3 billion active Social and Participatory Media: Fandom gamers in the world. Last year, the gaming industry achieved a revenue of $121.7 billion, beating TV and TV streaming No A Level case study would be complete without a nod services’ $105 billion. That’s more than the GDP of Kuwait to the theory, and Henry Jenkins’ ideas of fandom come into and – to put it into perspective – far outstrips the movie play when you look at Minecraft and Jenkins’ key quote, ‘If it industry’s $41 billion, or music’s paltry $17 billion. The games doesn’t spread, it’s dead.’ In Minecraft, you can blend gaming market continues to grow fast, forecast to reach $137.9 with watching videos, celebrity culture with entrepreneurial billion in 2018, with digital revenues making up 91% of the activity, 3D construction with advertising. Nowhere is the rise market. Factors of last year’s success include the takeoff of of the social media celebrity more apparent. When British Fortnite, and its lucrative micro transaction model, where Minecraft YouTuber DanTDM reached 20 million subscribers you download the free-to-play game and then purchase in August this year, he quipped: ‘I’m going to go and apply V-Bucks to enhance the gaming experience (You can do for a country to fit all 20 million of you guys in.’ This put this in Minecraft, too, with Minecoins). Then there was the DanTDM at number 38 in the most subscribed channels, standout release of Grand Theft Auto V, selling more than 90 although he has a way to go to catch up with Swedish million units and grossing over $6 billion, making it the most PewDiePie’s 65 million (more than the population of France). profitable entertainment release of all time in any medium. For DanTDM, online celebrity seamlessly spread to offline To date, Minecraft has sold 144 million copies, with 75 fame. His sell-out live tour in 2017 included four shows million monthly players, according to Business Insider in Sydney Opera House. Not bad for an Aldershot-born magazine. As @Minecraft tweeted during the month it hit 26-year-old who started making YouTube videos about the 55 million monthly players, in one conga line that number Pokemon trading cards game while at university. His second of gamers would circle the globe. It’s now overtaken YouTube channel, The Diamond Minecart, all about his new the UK population (66.6 million). In terms of ownership, favourite game, Minecraft, gained 100,000 subscribers over Minecraft is up with Russia, the ninth largest country in the the first seven months in 2012. That’s when he quit his day world. And need we even mention the merchandise? job. DanTDM also holds the Guinness World Record for the

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 45 03/12/2018 16:09 According to games market research Pixabay company, Newzoo, there are more than 2.3 billion active gamers in the world. Last year, the gaming industry achieved a revenue of $121.7 Glossary billion, beating TV and TV streaming services’ $105 billion.

Mods (short for modifications) are anything that The gaming climate is also changing. For the first time changes Minecraft’s game content from what this year, mobile gaming will contribute more than half of it originally was. Most mods add content to the all revenues, with smartphone and tablet gaming growing game to alter gameplay, change the creative +25.5% year on year. This ties in perfectly with the launch of feel, or give the player more options in how Minecraft’s Better Together Update, launching cross-platform they interact with the Minecraft world. Most play. While consoles have been in decline, new products people who create mods for Minecraft (known like the portable Nintendo Switch, which has sold almost as modders) use Minecraft Coder Pack and 20 million copies to date, enable you to carry many of the either ModLoader or Minecraft Forge to do so. games you play on PC or other consoles, alongside Switch exclusive games, in a case that you can pop in your pocket Beta version – a version of software for as you stroll over to your friend’s. Minecraft on Switch is testing, typically by a limited number judged by YouTuber AntVenom (2.6M subscribers) as ‘one of users, before its general release. of the smoothest Minecraft playing experiences available Cross-platform game is one where the and hands-down the best portable version of the game.’ same version of a game can be used And the future? After a slow start, virtual reality devices on different types of computers or with will become more common and more affordable. Smart different software packages – so you TVs already come with games that you can play without can play Minecraft on your iphone with a console. Game streaming services will mean those who someone else who is using their PC. can’t afford high-end equipment can play any game they want on demand for a monthly subscription fee, just like DDoS Attack – when someone attempts watching Netflix. As DanTDM pointed out in the documentary to make an online service unavailable by ‘The Story of Minecraft’, ‘Gamers have gone from geeks to overwhelming it with traffic from other sources. greats.’ It’s definitely time to get your head in the game. It can just be annoying, but in 2016 three US hackers pleaded guilty to creating the Mirai Helen Williams is a former magazine journalist, now Assistant botnet, which took out critical parts of the Head of Sixth Form and Head of Media Studies at St Mary’s internet. They had reportedly hoped to take School in Gerrards Cross. Lawrence is her son, who was lost to out rival Minecraft servers, but they published her during many of his school years before he emerged from their source code online and variants of Minecraft only recently to actually leave for university. Mirai took out some of the internet’s biggest sites, including Reddit, Spotify and Twitter. Skins – an image that determines what from the MM vaults your character looks like in the game. Texture Packs – files that changed the Games in the Classroom – Whatever Next? in-game look of blocks and other items. They – Julian McDougall, MediaMag 6 were replaced by resource packs, which allow The Great(est) Escape: Why Audiences Really Play players to alter different items such as textures, Video Games – Steve Kennedy, MediaMag 40 models, music, sounds, languages and fonts.

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 46 03/12/2018 16:09 19-year-old Lawrence Williams gives his take on the Minecraft community When did you first play When did you become really were up to a really high standard. We Minecraft? serious about the game? began advertising this to other players and servers through talking to them I played ‘Call of Duty’ all through Me and a secondary school friend and publishing YouTube videos. We primary school. It was in 2012 when decided to create our own PVP server created a website. People would pay I was 12 that I downloaded Minecraft and spent months planning it, buying up to £300-£400 for us to build them on to my laptop because I’d heard the server, which cost us £10 a month, a PVP map. We reinvested most of about it from my school friends. I was creating the rules, creating the kits, the the money on advertising through so excited. I played single player for gameplay, the map, and everything big YouTubers or on the server. We ages. Then I started playing Minecraft else you need for a server. I was in probably ended up spending more with those friends using Himachi charge of the server management, than we made, because we were servers, which allowed us to use our being able to add features on to running it for ages. It was pretty computers as servers to connect with the server called plugins and then stressful because you had to be on other players. I started playing some troubleshooting and customising it 24/7– there was always something popular servers online. My first was the plugins. My friend was in charge to fix or something to make better. Trollcraft with another school friend. of building the map, getting players on the server, advertising, creating What happened next? How much time did you ideas for the server because he had I kind of lost interest in the server a lot of experience playing these spend on Minecraft? and started playing mods with my servers. By the end of Year 11, this original two friends. I’d watch hours All the time! My friends and I would turned into a creative server, which we and hours of videos, starting with play Pocket Edition Minecraft at school hosted for builders who could build Yogscast, just to learn the game and then go home and play faction servers on a free world map with specific compete with my friends in advancing and minigames on hub servers. Then building plugins such as Worldedit further on to it. I left Minecraft for a I started on PVP [Player vs Player] and Voxelsniper. They made building while, before I went back to it again servers as I got better at clicking. a lot faster and allowed you to create about nine months ago and created You need to know the game really terrain, which took building to a another PVP server. We spent hours well for this. We used Skype to talk new level that you couldn’t achieve making everything perfect before to each other and I met hundreds of easily in the original Minecraft. other players on Skype. Occasionally we launched it. We set up all our people got DDoSed through Skype When did you turn advertising, created a website, our because you were able to obtain donating page. This time we did things someone’s IP address through a Skype professional? a lot more professionally. Now I’m resolver and people used DDoSing When I came home from school, going to university to study sound software to send millions of packets I spent all my time working on technology and I don’t have time for to a router and crash it – which was the server and playing Minecraft. it any more. But I learnt a lot about the most common way of attacking Sometimes random players would running a business from Minecraft! someone through Minecraft. It was come on to our server and wanted essentially harmless – just annoying. us to build stuff for their own servers. So we began recruiting builders who

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 47 03/12/2018 16:09 280 Characters That

Can Change the World Kirdagli Image Gizem by

President Trump’s Twitter activity has set a dangerous precedent for world politics. The theatre of debate and international relations has become digitalised like never before, and others following the President’s trigger-happy example could make the 11th largest social media platform the world’s most important one.

witter’s financial credentials the verbal over the visual. While this in his election. Attempting to dispel any are dwarfed by the likes of doesn’t make for an immediately notions that he is anything like ‘crooked Instagram and Facebook. In profitable business, Twitter trades Hilary’, and ensuring he is distinct from fact, it was only recently that in unfiltered opinions. The result is a any smokescreen President that came Twitter turned over the first quarterly melting pot of perspectives that are before him, Trump will do anything profit in its 12-year history. Most of accessible to all its users, including to prove he is the man of the people today’s social media platforms are publicised communications between and his Twitter activity is an important commercial money-spinners whose the world’s most famous individuals. part of that justification. But for all gargantuan profits come from the What this used to mean for many the candid honesty that his tweets monetisation of advertising. Twitter users was that the platform would provide, there seems to be a second won’t ever become as lucrative as its bear witness to feuds between pop interpretation that such incessant counterparts primarily due to its focus stars and celebrities, controversial online activity works to the detriment on verbal communication rather than comments made by TV personalities of his credibility. The embarrassing user-based visual promotion, as well its and remarks of societal wisdom by downside of such public expression reluctance to increase its ad exposure – pseudo-political commentators. becomes clear when observing the and because of this, analysts predict its Most of that which filled our virtual President’s online relationships with impending demise. timelines was inconsequential Twitter’s usual celebrity clientele. Trump But Twitter’s distinction from garbage – but more recently, has engaged, one way or another, with other sites is both its appeal and its Twitter has changed irrevocably. titans of the entertainment industry. power. The absence of numerical President Trump’s prolific use of the He took on Hollywood when he follower-counts on Facebook and platform can be interpreted in two called Meryl Streep ‘overrated’, then Snapchat makes for the absence of distinct ways: one could consider his he angered fans of the two biggest social hierarchy, while the influence commitment to expressing his opinions sports in America when he criticized of Instagram and Twitter users is over Twitter – be it those concerning both LeBron James and the entirety determined solely by such values. his I.Q. or national security – as, at least, of the NFL. He found solace in Kanye Twitter is distinct from Instagram, in keeping with his commitment to West, at least, owing to the ‘dragon then, in its aforementioned focus on public transparency, a significant factor energy’ they both possess, according

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 48 03/12/2018 16:09 Pixabay

to tweets by the American superstar be used as a political battleground. term consequences for their respective in April this year. If Kennedy started Russia enjoyed the same treatment, economies. Riyadh considered the a race war with The Temptations, or being warned by Trump via Twitter tweets ‘against basic international Reagan decided to get cosy with Lionel to ‘get ready’ for missile attacks. So norms and all international protocols’ – Richie, the world may question the too Iran, being told to ‘NEVER, EVER and they are right to think so. Countries integrity of the Presidential position THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN’. wishing to condemn the actions of – but not so with Trump. Instead, the But while many countries have another would usually do so in a public world is questioning the integrity accepted Trump’s behaviour as isolated statement, an international summit of his character. The President’s and unrepresentative of the U.S. as or through private correspondence, stream-of-consciousness approach a whole, the more volatile nations but it appears the boundaries of to tweets has also proven to have may not be so accommodating. politics have extended into the very serious repercussions on his staff. public world of social media. Twitter- Former White House official David founder Jack Dorsey has seen his Shulkin was warned that Trump would lowly, unprofitable social platform announce his firing over Twitter, while transformed into a genuinely influential ex-secretary of state Rex Tillerson vessel of political communication, was caught unawares by the public and one that risks further enabling announcement of his sacking via the international tensions – or worse. social media platform. Whether this It would be untrue to suggest that is proof of his unsuitability or further Trump is the first political influencer evidence of his attempts to engage to utilise social media in the way that with society remains open to debate. Clearly, Trump is at the helm of the he has, but he is certainly the first Despite being the subject of ridicule online revolution for actual internet President of the United States to do over childish outbursts of aggression politics, and it wouldn’t be concerning so to this extent. His behaviour is towards fellow nuclear button-masher if his behaviour was anomalous, but proof that 280 characters can, indeed, Kim Jong-un, Trump has made, what elsewhere on the twitter-sphere change the world. Twitter is so-called seems to be, admirable progress national representatives are following for the casual, bird-like ‘tweeting’ of with North Korea and its slow crawl suit and taking to the keyboard to vent its users, though America’s national towards denuclearisation. How a their political opinions. Most recently, eagle has found himself squawking. relationship between the two leaders Saudi Arabia placed Canada on its has formed after one called the other ‘blacklist’ after the Canadian Foreign Axel Metz is studying English Literature at a ‘short and fat’ ‘rocket man’ perhaps Affairs Minister tweeted her criticism The University of Warwick. speaks volumes of the credibility of of human-rights violations in the the North Korean leader rather than country. Trade deals between the two the effectiveness of Trump’s unique nations have been frozen, meaning tactics, but their frequent and publicly such initially trivial action will have hostile exchanges have nevertheless genuine, lasting implications on their cemented a precedent that Twitter can relationship, not to mention short-

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 49 03/12/2018 16:09 Why Video Games Present an Intriguing Future For Artistic Storytelling

Callum Williams examines the evolution of the video game from a mind-numbing distraction to a complex and immersive artform.

Swansea, Wales, 1989. Children gathered round an Atari ST playing Enduro Racer

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Ian Hubball / Alamy Stock Photo Whilst we’re often made to feel immature for

Pixabay becoming engrossed in our favourite videogame, what’s invisible to the uninitiated is that it’s a rapidly evolving form of storytelling, one that follows in the same footsteps as movies, television and literature

ike most kids, I’m sure when you were to provide an experience younger your parents told you to stop unachievable in any other playing video games. ‘They rot your brain!’ ‘They’re a waste of time!’ ‘Why format. If your mum don’t you read a book instead?’ It’s the knew all that then she’d classic assumption that gaming is still no more engaging than balls being paddled pointlessly definitely stop telling back and forth from opposite sides of the screen. you, for the fiftieth time, As a consequence, videogames are often perceived as elaborate toys, simplistic forms of to read that book. interactive entertainment meant only for children. But can’t we all agree that gaming is much more than that? Whilst we’re often made to feel immature for becoming engrossed in our favourite videogame, what’s invisible to the uninitiated is that it’s a rapidly evolving form of storytelling, one that follows in the same footsteps as movies, television and literature to provide an experience unachievable in any other format. If your mum knew all that then she’d definitely stop telling you, for the fiftieth time, to read that book. So, why are games such a unique method of storytelling? To answer that question, it’s first worth exploring what I mean when I say they’re ‘rapidly evolving’ as a medium. In 1972 Atari unveiled to the world a brand-new experience, a visual form of entertainment that consisted of two white blocks playing virtual air hockey against one another from opposing sides of a screen. This was known as Pong, the first videogame ever to grace the screens of the masses and the dawn of a bright future for one of the biggest industries in the modern era. As times passed, we’ve seen the two white paddles evolve into athletic red plumbers, fantasy warriors clad in green, and blue hedgehogs with a tendency to run really fast. But as quickly as gaming has evolved, it’s only in the last two decades that we’ve seen the potential for the medium to exist as more than a simple time-wasting exercise. Copyright Kojima Productions Copyright

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 52 03/12/2018 16:09 Copyright Kojima Productions Copyright

In only a matter of years we’ve leapt from through detailed environments you, the firing dots at organised lines of blocky aliens, player, are given to explore. Its dark corridors to captivating experiences that envelop you in tell their own visceral narrative; the graffitied expansive, open worlds. While we used to take walls, desolate surroundings and maddened control of a mundane character partaking in inhabitants all construct a world that resembles menial challenges such as delivering newspapers a living, breathing city. For all the world- or plumbing, we now take control of inhabitants building within novels and films, they don’t of different realms entirely, we’re allowed to allow you to roam around their environments see vast landscapes that we would never have freely; to become so immersed in the narrative imagined or profoundly feel a wide range of that you can see elements of the plot in every emotions that we may or may not experience nook and cranny of their vivid setting. in our everyday lives. Every naysaying parent In most other creative mediums, you’re innately and critical onlooker is missing the evolution aware that you’re a bystander. Leave the room of a new artform occurring right beneath and Darth Vader is still going to sever Luke’s hand; their nose: a storytelling medium that’s driven Harry Potter’s parents will still fall to Voldemort’s by a concept that cannot be replicated in wand and Steve will, without fail, remain the best literature, film or television. To boil it down as character in Stranger Things. Your actions have no simply as possible: games are immersive. impact on the events on screen. Within a game Whilst other creative industries generally tell that’s not the case. The moment you pick up that linear stories, video games are unrestricted. controller, you’re in the driver’s seat. Everything They allow you to dictate your own pace, that happens, happens to you. When a terrifying absorbing information through atmosphere monster stalks you down the passages of an and surroundings rather than the constrictions abandoned asylum at night, that’s happening of a camera over which you have no control. to you; when you’re fighting a colossal robot Take 2007’s iconic horror RPG Bioshock for that’s attempting to squash you like a bug, that’s example. Whilst a film could only use what’s in happening to you. No matter if you’re fully aware the frame to tell its complex story of a sunken, that you’re sat in front of the TV with a plastic underwater metropolis driven to ruin by the remote lodged between your palms or not, the sinful desires of humanity, Bioshock’s format game’s going nowhere without the player being allows it to create a nightmarish odyssey immersed in the situation. It’s an interactive

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 53 03/12/2018 16:09 experience unlike anything else, and with the games have auteurs of their own? Kojima, in recent advancements in virtual reality technology, many ways, resembles the core principles of the this is growing more powerful every year. theory perfectly. He’s a legendary figure who has Yet, how can there be a story without a designed some of the most individual games storyteller? A piece of art, without an artist? in the history of the business. From Metal Gear This has been the biggest criticism of games as Solid to the upcoming, and mystically cryptic, an industry. Legendary film critic, Roger Ebert, Death Stranding, Kojima’s games explode with infamously stated that ‘video games can never an eerie ambiguity that’s monumentally ‘him’ be art’. However, there’s several flourishing game to their very core. Booting his games up, you’ll designers that loom over these criticisms. One see the words ‘A GAME BY HIDEO KOJIMA’ flash such example is industry veteran Hideo Kojima. above the title card, boldly announcing that this It’s here that games begin to share some of the is not just a studio developed game. It’s a work defining theories that make other mediums such of storytelling from the imagination of an artist. definitive works of art, for example the auteur But he’s not alone. Many of the biggest theory. The basic idea is that certain directors game directors in the world exhibit qualities have signature traits and styles that label a movie mimicking that of the classic film auteur. Neil as their own. Tarantino loves his violence, the Druckmann is synonymous with the morally Coen Brothers enjoy pitch-black humour and ambiguous character studies of The Last Of Us David Lynch adores making everyone’s head and Uncharted 4, Sid Meier is regarded as the hurt a little bit. But what if I was to say that pioneer of the strategy game after his work on

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 54 03/12/2018 16:09 ‘Auteur’ games designer, Hideo Kojima’s Kojima games explode with an eerie ambiguity that’s monumentally ‘him’ to their very core. Nikita/Flikr

the Civilization franchise and the iconic Shigeru Miyamoto is hailed for his genre defining invention of a certain Italian-American plumber. But despite the industry’s countless innovations, many still fail to see videogames as the revolutionary cultural product they truly are. Comparing the status of novels and videogames in the media, Professor Julian McDougall states that ‘The reason why novels are never condemned for their contribution to either obese or antisocial youth is simple – novels are considered culturally more ‘valuable’ and (rightly or wrongly) the reader is assumed to be active’, a point that, in truth, nails down the exact issue with cultural rejection of videogames. The differences between the negatives of both mediums are virtually non-existent, many clearly assume that games aren’t of value as a cultural specimen – a fact

Pexels that, as I’ve shown above, is simply not true. In many ways, games are only just emerging from the cocoon, their progression into a fully- fledged artistic industry merely beginning to take shape. Whilst they will always have critics, In most other creative it’s easy to see that what began as a game of mediums, you’re innately virtual tennis between two white sticks has spun into a form of entertainment unlike any other aware that you’re a on the market. There’s plenty of room left to bystander. Leave the room grow, but that’s what makes being a gamer so exciting. After all, if we can achieve this much and Darth Vader is still when the industry’s only at a ripe age of forty going to sever Luke’s hand; years old, how much can we achieve when it Harry Potter’s parents will has an additional forty years under its belt?

still fall to Voldemort’s wand Callum Williams is an aspiring film and games and Steve will, without fail, journalist studying at Oxford Brookes University. remain the best character in Stranger Things.

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 55 03/12/2018 16:09 Mark Ramey argues the case for this experimental feminist movie.

Jitka Cerhova and Ivana Karbanova as Marie and Marie in United Archives GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo Stock GmbH / Alamy Archives United Daisies (1966)

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 56 03/12/2018 16:09 he film Daisies (Věra Chytilová, 1966, by the bucket load. For example, in terms of Czechoslovakia) is a riot. It’s off-the-wall narrative the spectator is never given any idea and round-the-bend. It’s hilarious. It’s what the film’s two female protagonists want provocative. It’s engaging and utterly alienating. to achieve nor indeed who they are – they are It’s playful, absurdist and bonkers. It’s given no backstory and are merely referred to psychedelic man! interchangeably as Marie. There is little linearity It is then no wonder that it has turned up on the in the plot and little evidence of cause and effect new Eduqas A level specification for Film Studies within scenes. Dialogue is stilted and artificial in a section titled ‘Film Movements – Experimental as are the performances in general, in particular Film (1960-2000)’. Few people, however, will know of the two Maries, who begin the film moving the film, despite its broad critical acclaim and the like puppets. There is no naturalism at work popular assertion that it is Chytilová’s best work. in this film and little psychological motivation This is partly because it is an experimental foreign driving characters in terms of arcs and goals. film made over 50 years ago, and also because Film form is also challenged in virtually it delights in breaking all the rules. The Eduqas every scene: numerous garish colour filters are awarding body’s decision to include the film in used, often in the same scene; editing is wildly its specification is a bold one not least because discontinuous and jump-cutting frequent; of the presence in the same part of the exam there are fourth-wall breaks; motion is sped up; as the student-friendly ‘experimental’ film, Pulp imagery is psychedelically blurred and sound is Fiction. A further complication concerns having often contrapuntal or plainly non-naturalistic. to study Daisies alongside a short film by Chantal Clearly Chytilová is exuberantly experimenting Akerman, Saute ma Ville (Belgium, 1968). The with her medium. At times her mise-en-scene is reasoning is that Daisies, at 74 minutes, was too symbolic, such as the Garden of Eden reference short to satisfy Ofqual (the Government body that at the start of the film. At other times she enjoys approves exams). The films do, however, have a the absurd juxtapositions and non-sequitors lot in common: both share a feminist ideology; favoured by surrealism. ‘I was daring enough both are made by and star women and both to want absolute freedom,’ she noted, adding originate from the European avant-garde of the portentously, ‘even though it was a mistake.’ 1960s. So, despite what looks like more work Daisies is, then, undoubtedly experimental (studying two films rather than one) and despite but is it part of a movement and if so which the inevitable popularity of Tarantino’s ground- one? In fact, a number of cultural and artistic breaking cinematic essay on post-modernity, movements find their paths crossing in this film. try and find time for Daisies. Here’s why... An experimental film challenges conventions Cultural Context of film narrative and form. Daisies does this The first obvious context within which to situate Daisies is that of 1960s European Art Cinema. In the late 50s and early 60s the French nouvelle vague (or new wave) showed that film rules An experimental could be broken and that successful films did not always need the gloss and narrative formality film challenges of studio pictures. Cinematic experimentation conventions of film became synonymous with 1960s politicised youth culture and new forms of artistic expression. Art, narrative and form. youth culture and politics began to intertwine, Daisies does this by part of the social and cultural impulses that led to various high-profile radical protests in the the bucket load. late 1960s against established centres of power. Daisies is then a child of 1960s revolutionary art and politics, not least within Czechoslovakia, where like-minded artists and film makers were dubbed the Czech new wave (Milos Forman the director of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus is perhaps the most famous of these filmmakers). Daisies can also be situated in the absurdist and surrealist art movements which predate the 60s by some 30 years, as well as the philosophical movement of existentialism which peaked in France in the 1950s.

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 57 03/12/2018 16:09 Film form is also Social and Political Context challenged in Such influences on Daisies are then broadly philosophical and aesthetic. But what about virtually every scene: more localised cultural influences? Chytilová lived numerous garish and worked in what was then called the Eastern Bloc. Czechoslovakia was part of a set of Central colour filters are used, and Eastern European nations which had been often in the same nominally occupied by the Russians after World War Two and whose governments had all turned scene; editing is wildly to communism. The Eastern Bloc consisted of discontinuous and Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia. Russia had jump cutting frequent; overall control of the Bloc, with each state there are fourth-wall imposing totalitarian rule that limited personal freedom and political liberty. Post-1989 and the breaks; motion is collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Bloc ceased to sped up; imagery is exist as did a number of its countries, including Czechoslovakia, which in 1993 peacefully split psychedelically blurred into two smaller nations, the Czech Republic and and sound is often Slovakia. However, in the 1960s, when Chytilová was starting her film career, Czechoslovakia contrapuntal or plainly adhered to a strict, hard-line, communist ideology. non-naturalistic. It discouraged freedom of expression that involved criticism of the ruling elite. Film form Clearly Chytilová was also encouraged to follow party principles; is exuberantly aesthetic experimentation was frowned upon in favour of Stalinist formalism, a formulaic experimenting with realism heavily supportive of Soviet ideology. her medium. This changed in 1968 during a nine-month period referred to as the Prague Spring. Newly elected Czech leader, Alexander Dubček, initiated United Archives GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo Stock GmbH / Alamy Archives United

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 58 03/12/2018 16:09 a series of reforms that relaxed the censorship of artists and the media. Russia, unhappy with such dissent, sent troops and tanks into Prague to quash the uprising. Daisies, predating the uprising by two years, can be seen in some ways as a forerunner of its spirit. Chytilová comes across as an artist trying to express herself freely and critically in a controlling culture to which she was ideologically opposed. Once the Prague Spring had been crushed her work was heavily censored and she found finding work increasingly difficult. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Chytilová’s feminism is also a key part of the film, with Daisies undoubtedly a challenge to patriarchy. For starters, there are many unsubtle images of symbolic castration (see the scene with sausages, bananas and scissors…ouch!) and there are many representations of a redundant, pathetic and corrupt patriarchy. In particular the two Maries spend a lot of their time being wined and dined by aging men who indulge the girl’s monumental appetites for food, presumably Photo 12 / Alamy Stock Photo United Archives GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo Stock GmbH / Alamy Archives United Photo Stock 12 / Alamy Photo in the expectation of sexual favours. Another fawning lover, a butterfly collector, idealises one of the Maries to such an extent that he wishes an attack on patriarchy can to some extent to preserve her like a butterfly – an object of be taken for granted she [Chytilová] was also beauty immobilised and pinned down in a display intensely interested in film form and aesthetics.’ case. It is unsurprising then that the bubbly Chytilová in an interview in The Guardian in girls find all the men they meet ridiculous. 2000 further supports this view: ‘If there’s The girls are gremlins in a broken system but something you don’t like, don’t keep to the rules they lack the political insight to change things – break them. I’m an enemy of stupidity and for the better. They just want to have fun and simple-mindedness in both men and women...’ eat. At the beginning of the film they realise that Chytilová is then, foremost, a radical artist keen everything has gone bad so they will be bad too: to experiment with form and theme. For her such defeatism in their hands is joyously handled thinking is the act that makes us human so no as they giggle their way to the scaffold but it is wonder she regarded Daisies as a ‘philosophical still sad that they are eventually wrapped up like documentary in the form of a farce’. So, start meat in newspaper and served up for a banquet. thinking and laughing and ... pick Daisies! Their counter-revolution is nothing more than their own exuberance; they are vibrant examples Mark Ramey is Head of Film Studies at Collyers of a naïve youthful innocence (what is a daisy after College, Horsham. all?) which is eventually sacrificed to the machines and images of war that bookend the film. The film is then an expression of the ongoing feminist battle with patriarchy (not least because it is written and directed by a woman). In 1967 Chytilová noted: ‘We are still living as guests in See also a man’s world.’ In 2017, Christina Newland in the film journal Little White Lies further noted that: • BFI: Věra Chytilová for beginners https:// ‘If this is so, the two women of Daisies are the www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/ world’s worst guests. They jump on the furniture features/vera-chytilova-beginners and swing from the chandeliers. A half-century • Little White Lies: Daisies analysis https://lwlies.com/ later, it’s still invigorating to see them do so.’ articles/daisies-vera-chytilova-mubi-ica-light-show/ For me though the feminism of the film is but one aspect of its interest and power. Peter • The Criterion Collection: Pearls of the Czech New Wave Hames in his excellent booklet that accompanies https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2269- the 2009 DVD rerelease comments: ‘...while eclipse-series-32-pearls-of-the-czech-new-wave

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 59 03/12/2018 16:09 While 007 once led the way for action films, it wasn’t long before new instalments began borrowing from other genres. With Spectre, the series turned that ‘intertextuality’ in on itself. Benedict Seal is on the case.

Daniel Craig styling it like Roger Moore in Entertainment Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo Stock / Alamy Entertainment Pictures Spectre (2015)

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 60 03/12/2018 16:09 he first James Bond film, 1962’s Dr. (2012) acted as a culmination of everything great No, established so much for the about Bond. It mixed the grounded tone of Daniel modern action blockbuster. The film Craig’s first two films, Casino Royale (2006) and belied its modest budget with a Quantum of Solace (2008), with the flashy excess globetrotting adventure complete with suave of the earlier films, complete with a campy villain, heroes, dastardly villains and thrilling action. It beautiful scenery and proud patriotism. The result wasn’t long until the British spy became one of was far and away the highest-grossing Bond film the industry’s biggest franchises. The series ever (unadjusted for inflation), making $1.1bn developed a reputation for being on the cutting worldwide (Box Office Mojo). This left 2015’s edge of fashion, introducing the world to new Spectre with huge shoes to fill and no choice styles, technology and locations. But staying fresh but to look back and embrace the series’ past. across so many films is no easy task and new Spectre quickly announces its return to classic instalments soon began to borrow from other Bond. It’s the first Craig film to open with the film trends. Bond brought underground action iconic gun barrel sequence, in which Bond walks subgenres, such as blaxploitation and kung fu across the screen, framed by a circular gun films, into the mainstream with the likes of Live barrel, before he turns, shoots and the screen and Let Die (1973). drips with blood. Along with the recognisable In the 21st century, a number of modern orchestral theme song, this intro is the film’s first action series have stolen 007’s thunder. The major moment of intertextuality. Intertextuality Mission: Impossible (1996) franchise has the is when one text (a film or book, for example) gadgets, The Fast and the Furious (2001) the references another. It is increasingly important globetrotting excess and The Bourne Identity currency in Hollywood, as sequels, reboots and (2002) the frantic action. Bond may be the fourth- remakes have come to dominate the industry. highest-grossing film franchise of all time but However, Spectre and other recent sequels it’s a struggle to be the best at any one of those do more than just passingly acknowledge important action elements. Let alone all of them. previous films in the series. Instead, they So, to mark the series’ 50th anniversary, Skyfall aim to manipulate the audience and their

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 61 03/12/2018 16:09 familiarity with the franchise’s iconic symbols. This is what YouTube video essayist, Nerdwriter, would call ‘weaponised intertextuality’ (2016). Spectre’s references began in the film’s marketing. An early teaser poster featured Craig wearing black trousers and a dark grey turtleneck top, complete with a brown leather shoulder holster and his trusty Walther PPK pistol. It’s a stylish image, but one that relies on connections with classic Bond – Roger Moore wore that exact same outfit in Live and Let Die (1973). It’s telling that the first official look at Spectre’s Bond was one of recognition rather than newness. Even earlier than the costume tease came a poster picturing a bullet hole in reinforced glass. Bond fans will have recognised the pattern of cracks as the classic S.P.E.C.T.R.E. octopus logo. S.P.E.C.T.R.E. – which stands for (deep breath) SPecial Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion – is the evil organisation behind many of Bond’s early missions. The series dropped the big bad after Diamonds Are Forever (1971) due to a copyright dispute. However, the issue was settled weaponised intertextuality does not always in 2013, allowing the organisation to return with manipulate an audience as planned. The a bang in Spectre. The poster’s relative subtlety promotional materials referred to the character makes for an evocative image, but its yet more as Franz Oberhauser. Many fans speculated that promotional material tied firmly to pre-existing that could be a cover for the return of Blofeld, iconography. Even the film’s title is intertextual! but the producers refused to acknowledge it. The most iconic returning element of all is However, when Bond is strapped to a torture Blofeld, S.P.E.C.T.R.E.’s bald, cat-stroking leader. device, Oberhauser reveals his true name and There are efforts made to update the character their convoluted history together. A similar but he still comes across as a cartoonish villain, identity reveal occurred in Star Trek Into Darkness primarily because of the film’s attempts to connect (2013). On that occasion, fans had guessed that the character with the franchise’s past. S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Khan, a fan was a hidden orchestrator in the early films, but favourite antagonist from Star Trek II: The Wrath of director Sam Mendes’ second Bond film adds a Khan (1982), but the filmmakers stayed quiet. mythological element to the organisation. This As in Spectre, the big reveal came midway is in keeping with a new Hollywood trend. In a through the film, when Cumberbatch’s character Star Wars-dominated industry, producers often has been captured. It’s then that he declares turn to family connections as a source of tension emphatically: ‘my name is… Khan.’ The problem (on the other hand, consider how Star Wars: The with this moment is that the name ‘Khan’ means Last Jedi (2017) subverts Rey’s heritage). Unlike nothing to the modern versions of Captain Kirk and Blofeld of old, this version of the character is Spock, played by Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto revealed to be James’ adoptive brother. Not only respectively. They exist in an alternate timeline to that, but Craig’s Bond discovers that Blofeld was the original Star Trek crew (William Shatner and secretly behind every villain he’s faced: as Blofeld Leonard Nimoy etc.) and this is their first encounter says to him, I am ‘the author of all of your pain.’ with Khan. This means that the twist is purely This is an example of retroactive continuity (aka for the audience. These ‘fan service payoffs,’ as ‘retconning’), as previously established elements, Nerdwriter refers to them, thrill in the recognisable, particularly related to story or character, are sometimes at the expense of narrative logic. altered to fit a new narrative. Quantum, the secret With budgets at such astronomical levels and organisation featured in the first two Craig films, only the very biggest films breaking out at the box had acted as a replacement for S.P.E.C.T.R.E. But office, producers turn to recognisable elements to Spectre presents Quantum as a division of new sell their films. For an original film, that might be a Spectre (they do without the clumsy acronym this popular star or director whose face and/or name time around). The film reframes the franchise’s can be used in trailers and on posters. For franchise new elements (Quantum) to be old (S.P.E.C.T.R.E.). films, it’s easy: return to the elements that audiences The character reveal of Blofeld suggests that loved about the films in the first place. It’s telling,

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 62 03/12/2018 16:09 though, that so many of the biggest and most surprising box office success stories in recent years

have been films that genuinely offer something Photo Stock / Alamy Hollywood Archive The / PictureLux new. Wonder Woman (2017) had no choice but to create its own imagery, as there are no previous film incarnations of the character to reference or even that many female superheroes. The same can be said for Black Panther (2018) with its black heroes. While Spectre made a lot of money, many fans and general audiences were left unimpressed with the film’s slavish references to Bond past. The producers are taking a different approach for the next 007 film, due out in late 2019. Well-known British director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) came to them with an idea for a self-contained final outing for Daniel Craig’s Bond suggesting that Boyle might have wanted to move away from the intertextuality of Spectre to instead tell a more original one-off mission – sadly, he is no longer on board to direct so it remains to be seen whether this trend will continue. As genuinely original ideas are so hard to come by, it seems that the Bond franchise, and Hollywood more widely, are destined to keep looking to their rose-tinted pasts for inspiration.

Benedict Seal is an entertainment journalist and recent Film Studies graduate from Oxford Brookes University. Follow him on Twitter @benedictseal

Roger Moore as

James Bond in Live Photo Stock / Alamy AF archive and Let Die (1973)

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 63 03/12/2018 16:09 Earlier this year the department for Culture, Media and Sports announced statistics showing strong international growth in the creative and media industries. Exports by UK firms grew more than 27% between 2015 and 2016 and they are worth more than £27 billion. You are the future of these industries. In this segment, MediaMagazine interviews different people working in careers you may not even know existed. We hope to inspire you. This week: Benjamin Squires, Composer.

What is your job title? design and concept art, and after a year of studying it at college and meeting Composer for film, TV and video a good friend in the process, I decided games (or just composer for short!). that he was significantly better at it than me and I decided to try something What does that mean? else (he’s actually gone on to work I write music for whatever sort of for huge video game companies and project I’m involved in, which can I’ve composed music for a few of his be anything from a student film to a personal projects). I eventually studied Hollywood movie trailer (and everything A Level Music Technology and Media What right now in between, usually all at the same time!). Studies, which is where I properly The process varies hugely depending started to appreciate and understand is stopping you on the project and the person in charge the marriage of picture and music. from picking but, generally, the bigger the budget, College ended, and my decision was the more people I have to please; short made… I wanted to be a film director! up a pen and films will typically be a very personal I figured I finally understood that I just writing, a one on one experience with the director loved and wanted to make movies. My where I have the opportunity to talk Media Studies tutor got in touch a few camera and to them for hours about what they’re months later and suggested I apply for shooting, a trying to make. At the opposite end of the BFI Film Academy, a residential course the scale, providing music for movie that took place at the National Film & keyboard and trailers is playing a small part in a Television School for two weeks (see composing? huge and (usually) well-oiled machine end of article) with 53 other likeminded in which many other composers are aspiring filmmakers. Somehow, with the pitching for the same opportunity. very limited experience I had, I managed to secure a place on the course, and What was your route into the it will forever be one of the defining media industry? periods in my life. But much in line with my experience studying game design, Long and arduous! It took a long time I met so many amazingly talented to really figure out what I wanted to do. directors and producers my age, all I was initially very interested in game considerably better at their craft than I

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 64 03/12/2018 16:09 To say that I’ve written music for the marketing campaigns of films like The Shape of Water, Mary Poppins Returns, Star Trek… I definitely have to pinch myself every so often; it’s so immensely gratifying

Pexels to see and hear my music alongside was. At this point I’d been dabbling in so immensely gratifying to see and hear making film music at home and thought my music alongside this calibre of film. this calibre of film. this was the ideal place to spread my The hours are obviously very flexible name. At the end of the course we too, being freelance, (unless a deadline What advice would you give presented the films we’d made at the has you working a 16 hour day) and young people wanting to BFI Southbank and were supposed to my location has never lost me a job. I’m network with people from the industry based just a tad north of Sheffield, and work in the media industry? who had been invited, but I spent the Skype is my best friend. Location just What are you waiting for? What right entire time selling myself to the other isn’t that important in post-production now is stopping you from picking filmmakers my age, making sure they anymore, and I say that as someone who up a pen and writing, a camera and knew I wanted to write music for them! was very worried they’d have to move to shooting, a keyboard and composing? Over the next few years, the other London to survive in the film industry. Do your very best to fix that and then Film Academy students were making get on with it! Find and throw yourself short films of their own, and many were What’s the worst thing about into the right circle of people, and studying at uni where stuff was being your job? make what you want to make. It’s going made all the time. My name would get to take a long time to make this stuff Writing music for trailers in particular passed around after I’d worked on bits happen and it’s going to take an even can be exhausting and disheartening (to and bobs and before I knew it I was longer time to start making money put it lightly). I write music for a publisher working on loads of short films. A couple from it, get ready for the long haul! of those students went on to intern at that specifically works in trailers; we companies that made commercials, get briefs in all the time from the trailer What’s next? and both of them ended up getting me houses/editors with what they’re working work on online promos to TV adverts on and what sort of music they want. To be honest I’d love to spend an (finally, I was working on projects with They’re always written briefs and you unhealthy amount of time watching a budget!). After five years of working will only on a rare occasion get to see the great TV and games I’ve missed out at a hotel from 6am-12pm and doing the trailer you’re working on. There are on but my schedule says otherwise! music the rest of the day, I finally quit usually quite a few people pitching It’s Academy season so there’s a lot the day job and went freelance. demos for the same trailer as you, so of prestige films that are looking for you have to really impress people, and trailer music and I have a few short What’s the best thing about fast. Even then, after you’ve ticked all films on the go as well as a long form the right boxes and are only getting documentary that needs finishing up. the job you do? great feedback from the editors, client I’m an inherently creative person and and studio, the rug can be pulled right the job gives me so much opportunity to from your feet; the studio has decided Follow it up be exactly that. I’ve worked on projects to license a different edit of the trailer Applications for the BFI Film that I wouldn’t have even dreamt of, from a different trailer house, your Academy – Craft Skills residential and made great friends in so many of months of hard work were for nothing programme close on January 21st. my collaborators. To say that I’ve written (particularly if the music you wrote For more info, go to: https://www. music for the marketing campaigns used themes from the franchise you bfi.org.uk/education-research/5-19- of films like The Shape of Water, Mary were working on, in other cases you film-education-scheme-2013-2017/ Poppins Returns, Star Trek… I definitely might be able to use your music for bfi-film-academy-scheme have to pinch myself every so often; it’s another pitch further down the line).

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 65 03/12/2018 16:09 Title: High Maintenance (Dir. Phillip Van, Germany, 2006)

Production context: Berlin Film Festival Talent Campus – an intensive, one-week fi lm production programme. This initiative provides a platform for young fi lmmakers and is funded by MEDIA – the training programme of the European Union, Skillset and the UK Film Council, with corporate sponsorship from Audi-Volkswagen cars.

So, the exam board chose this short film because it’s got a limited cast, right, and that’s probably a good idea when it comes to making our short films? That’s certainly right, but it’s also a film that picks up on to be funny and not all heavy and political. After a range of anxieties about life in the twenty-first century. all, doesn’t it poke fun at gender stereotypes and How do you mean? the nature of contemporary relationships? Well, there’s the film’s depiction of a dystopian future where Certainly. The film has a wry, postmodern take on the idea human beings have been replaced by robots designed that women truly desire active, macho men (with a sensitive to meet our emotional and physical needs. This anxiety side, of course) while men are only interested in sports and about the growth of machines is a key convention of the watching football. But different viewers will bring their own science-fiction genre, like in the classic movie Blade Runner ideas to the film and take away a variety of meanings. (Dir. Ridley Scott, US, 1982) or Black Mirror on Netflix. But it’s definitely about the nature of technology. I can see that. But I think the film’s more of a That’s why it was set in Germany, right? And it was comment about the nature of modern romance. funded by VW-Audi, the corporate sponsor of the Sure, it makes points about serial monogamy Talent Campus initiative. Their slogan is Vorsprung and the social conventions of seduction, such durch Technic (progress through technology)! as small-talk and ‘wining and dining’. True enough. But note that the film is an international And it’s well up-to-date in depicting how the process co-production. Its director is the son of a Greek-American of finding love is becoming automated and increasingly- mother and his father was a Vietnamese refugee. The producer reliant on dating sites. Exactly! Jane chooses a husband and cinematographer are German and the writer is Scottish. upgrade by clicking through an on-line catalogue, whilst OK. And what about its title? What’s having a phone conversation with a call-centre operative. that got to do with anything? As the Prometeus Robotics company slogan says: Choose Again, this can be read at several levels. The title might refer Everlasting Love. So that’s what the film really means. to how time-consuming and demanding technology can be. Hey, careful there. Remember that the meaning of films can Also, some men describe their girlfriends as ‘high maintenance’ be ‘read’ or interpreted by audiences in a variety of ways. meaning that, like sports cars, they need lots of attention. That’s getting a bit deep, isn’t it? Yeah. Urban Dictionary says a high maintenance Perhaps. But it goes even deeper. The film challenges girl is an ‘excessively talkative, over-reactive, highly audiences to consider our social and ideological conditioning. emotional, attention-seeking female who requires It leads us to ask questions about the nature of contemporary a firm handler’. That’s proper sexist, ain’t it! society. Where might consumerism take us? Why are products Now, you’re getting it. bought, used and disposed of with little consideration So, don’t write: High Maintenance proves of the impact of this destructive process on the planet? that men are more powerful than women and Global corporations make such huge profits. Notice how will always win the battle of the sexes. the film draws viewers’ attention to the Apple logo on the Do write: Phillip Van’s short film foreshadows anxieties lap-top Jane uses to purchase her improved partner. about the future, as explored in the Oscar-winning movie Just hold on a minute, now! Surely the film’s meant Blade Runner 2049 (Dir. Denis Villeneuve, US, 2017).

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 66 03/12/2018 16:09 Phillip Van on the style of the film: In researching the look of the film, I decided that I wanted it to be softly lit but to have a high contrast ratio, with graphic lines and sharp, bold blacks. This dynamic aesthetic felt fundamentally related to the story, which I visually equate to an off-kilter mix between a romantic dinner, the film noir genre and a horror or scifi tale in a graphic novel. Soft light felt romantic, while dynamic contrast ratios came from the world of sci-fi and film noir and worked well with the uncanny and sometimes eerie tone of the film. The intermingling of the two was the way we married the visual world of the film with its narrative influences. Phillip Van on the meaning of his film: I made High Maintenance to touch upon behavious that I see in excess today among friends and in society; things like rampant consumerism, serial monogamy, lives predicated entirely on connections through technology or some sort of networking platform, and a real, new kind of loneliness. We’re more connected now than we’ve ever been before but somehow, also more disconnected. I think this relates directly to the filters that we use to reach out and connect to one another. The film was a way for me to turn those themes into a story and I did it through the characters of Jane and Paul. Jane is looking for a man by ordering designer robotic men online, tweaking them to accommodate her desires, and making sure the upgrade is better than the first version of the husband she bought. In that process, she tests the degree to which men are interchangeable. In one respect, the film comments on how programmatic love can be in human lives. We’re susceptible to a series of stimuli that induce chemical reactions. When we’re told what we want to hear, our response is mechanical on a certain level. In another respect, by attempting to demonstrate that love is replaceable, the film becomes a strong argument for the opposing truth. It pinpoints a kind of alienation, depravity and need for companionship that is all too human.

Further, fascinating facts for film geeks: Follow it up • Phillip Van attended New York University Film School where Director’s website: http:// he developed the script and cinematography for High www.phillipvan.com Maintenance, which won the Berlin Film Festival, BAFTA and Interview with the director: Sundance recognition and dozens of awards at film festivals. https://www.studentfilmmakers. • Phillip Van is fascinated by emerging technologies and how com/news/how-to/Interview- audiences interact with them, as well as what they say about the with-Director-Phillip-Van_High- nature of humanity. A theme that runs throughout his work is Maintenance-1.shtml the tension between present-day reality and future dreams. His online film Deja View offers viewers an opportunity to interact Film-maker magazine article: https:// with its characters and co-construct the direction of the story. filmmakermagazine.com/3405- • Phillip Van created a web series called Bright Falls for XBox as a taking-notes-on-van/#.WxaXwstMs74 prequel to the video game Alan Wake. This is a good example of how contemporary media companies create and promote their products through an inter-related process called synergy. • Phillip Van works in a freelance capacity, which means he takes contracts with various media companies rather than be tied down as an employee of only one organisation. For instance, he has directed commercials for XBox and music Symon Quy is Head of Media at Park videos for artists, such as Pepe Deluxe and Neighbours. Academy, London. Images courtesy of Philip Van Images courtesy of Philip

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MM66_3Dec_final-4pm.indd 67 03/12/2018 16:09 Thursday 24th January NFT1, BFI Southbank

STUDENT CONFERENCE2019

• Alex Hudson, deputy editor of metro.co.uk, discussing the challenges and transformations in online news.

• Emily Caston, professor of Screen Industries at the University of West London on the evolution of British music video.

• Q&A with young fi lm director, Alfi e Barker, plus a screening of his latest short fi lm.

• Q&A with writer, broadcaster and • Dr Anamik Saha, lecturer in editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop Race, Media and Social Justice at Goldsmith's University and author of the book Race and The Cultural Industries.

BOOKINGS • Imriel Morgan, CEO and co-founder NOW OPEN of the ShoutOut Network, and Tobi Oredein, Founder and Editor of Black Ballad.

englishandmedia.co.uk/conferences

MM66cover_3Dec_final.indd 3 03/12/2018 14:02 ISSUE 66 DECEMBER 2018