Reality goes online a MediaMag special supplement! goes online Reality a MediaMag special supplement! We had such a huge response to our Reality theme for MediaMag that we couldn’t fit in all the interesting ideas and issues. So for this issue we’ve produced a special extra bundle of MoreMediaMag articles as a downloadable PDF. A Special MediaMag Christmas Present for Teachers: On 18th December we’ll be launching Part One of our new online resource Doing Reality TV – ideal preparation for the AQA GCSE Unit 1 external assessment on Reality TV, or for classroom study whichever spec you’re following. It includes a Teachers’ Guide, classroom activities, embedded clips and articles, a quiz, a useful Powerpoint timeline, and all the ingredients to get started. Parts Two, Three and Four will be arriving in January. And it’s all there free for the taking on the MediaMag website. Happy New Year! MediaMagazine is published by Email for subscription enquiries: the English and Media Centre, a [email protected] non-profit making organisation. Managing Editor: Michael Simons The Centre publishes a wide range of classroom materials and runs Editor: Jenny Grahame courses for teachers. If you’re studying English at A Level, look out Editorial assistant/admin: for emagazine, also published by Rebecca Scambler the Centre. Cover image: from Desperate Romantics © BBC, 2009 The English and Media Centre 18 Compton Terrace London N1 2UN Telephone: 020 7359 8080 Fax: 020 7354 0133 2 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre The work of What’s Adam Curtis He who controls the present in the mix controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future (Orwell) online? AQA examiner Steph Hendry introduces you to the stimulating and provocative work of documentarist Adam Curtis, and walks you through his imaginative and controversial MediaMag installation event ‘It Felt Like a Kiss’. meets Marcus Bentley – the voice of Big Brother Before it bites the dust, read our Playing exclusive interview with the owner of with personas that laconic Geordie voiceover about BB Heath Ledger, Joaquin and its future, the role of a voiceover Phoenix and ‘real Life’ artist, and why he prefers to Sean Richardson deconstructs remain low profile. the epic narratives created around the lives of two very different but equally talented young The actors. surveillance society Hyper- What’s the relationship between reality reality television, new media, and a Rough Guide government policy – and how far are David Bell introduces the we becoming a surveillance society as complex and evoloving debates George Orwell predicted back in the around hyper-reality and the effect 1940s? Bev Fenner offers some of digital media forms on our real background. Me, me, me and virtual experiences of the why we’re all world. celebrities now Chandana Hall explores the impact of Facebook on our ideas Jean about celebrity, and the factors that Rouch – have made it one of the most father of Cinema popular social networking Verité sites in the world. Kevin Dunk introduces you to the work of this great, but little- known documentarist and his I don’t need impact on French New Wave cinema and beyond. a man (or do I?) How ‘real’ is the Pussycat Dolls version of empowerment? The Emma Clarke deconstructs a top five music video to suggest that lyrics of best-ever not- empowerment and feminism are yet-made reality TV often undermined by the imagery show of all time! Being and reality of a sexist music Owen Davey looks to the future normal industry. and proposes some un-made The Boo Radley paradigm When it comes to realism, shows which just might make the uncool sixth formers of How healthy is reality TV’s your fortune... Rudge Park Comprehensive enact focus on extreme or marginalised some of the typical failures and behaviour? Tony Gears argues that embarassments of teenage life so hyper-real shows increasingly rely on you don’t have to, says Robin the exploitation and humiliation of Makey. vulnerable people. english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine Reality Online Special 3 Adam CurtisSteph Hendry on the work of Adam Curtis. An important part of A Level Media Studies is For those unfamiliar with his work, Curtis has an ominous drone accompanies discussions the need to consider media texts in context. This made a number of documentary films and series about the rise in dominance of free market idea means that, rather than look at television (most of which can be accessed via yahoo video economic values in the West. This is a classic programmes, films, magazines etc as simple searches) which can be exceptionally useful for technique of montage and the visuals use this individual artefacts, they need to be viewed as Media Students who want to scratch beneath method of story-telling too. Curtis uses archive products of a culture. Whether the text is old the surface of the mediated world we live in. news and documentary footage to illustrate or new it is the way it is, not simply because a The documentaries consider how politics and his work but many of the images used are clips director or editor made personal choices, but economics have impacted on society in the 20th from a huge variety of sources which lead the because those choices were influenced by the and 21st Century; and they also deal with the role audience into making connections between the culture the text/producer came from. All media of the media. ideas in the narration and the images. He often texts in some way reflect their own contemporary uses advertising images and in a recent work, It issues and ideas and media students need to Style and presentation Felt Like a Kiss, media images are supplemented consider texts in this way. Some would argue Curtis has created a unique audio and visual by ‘home video’ footage and recordings of that when looking at texts this way there is a style within his documentaries. He uses a mixture psychological treatments/group therapy sessions. danger of attributing meaning and ideas to of ‘talking head’ interviews and archive montages At times the images are unrelated to the story a text that were not intentional. However, all which are accompanied by carefully selected being told within the documentary but, like media producers are themselves products of music and sound effects and, in most of his work, the music chosen, they add to the emotional their own cultural environment and have a a voiceover provided by Curtis himself. The sound responses felt by the audience. Even though the relationship to the dominant values of the time of Curtis’ voice is ‘typical BBC’ as he delivers the subject matter of the documentaries is always which will inevitably influence production. This stories he is telling in an RP accent that hold serious, sometimes the juxtaposition of sound fact leads us toward an approach to media connotations of tradition and authority. He tells and images creates a deliberately satirical effect. texts which necessitates considering them as his stories in a calm and reasonable tone and they cultural artefacts which reflect, respond to and are often presented more as spoken essays rather The texts (sometimes) challenge the ideas, attitudes and than conventional narrations. Each documentary Since 2000 Curtis has written and directed the values of the culture that surrounded them. has its own hypothesis and the films develop following: The Century of the Self (2002). A four Some commentators argue that in the modern their respective arguments by setting a historical hour journey through the 20th Century which age, the notion of history has been lost and context and drawing in selected evidence to looks at the influence of Sigmund Freud and that the culture is losing the ability to make support the ideas presented. other members of his family on US (and western) connections between the past and the present. The music and sound choices are often culture. The documentary looks at, amongst One contemporary film-maker who consistently carefully selected to lead the viewer to a other things, the influence of psychoanalytical tries to show connections between the past particular emotional response (although his ideas and their use in politics and advertising; and the present and the influence of politics ready use of clichéd music suggests he expects the cultural moves from a ‘citizen’ to a ‘consumer’ and economics on society is the award-winning his audience to recognise exactly what he is culture and from a culture of conformity Adam Curtis. doing). For example, in The Century of the Self, to individualism. The documentary takes a 4 MediaMagazine | December 2009 | english and media centre may be the first PR stunt held in 1922) and the and act in self serving ways; and that natural within what is probably best described as an art development of lifestyle marketing. It shows human emotions such as sadness and anger or installation project/theatrical event that was part how ideas that proved to be very successful personality traits such as introversion or certain of the Manchester International Festival in July for businesses when employed in marketing types of unruly behaviour have been identified 2009. A version of the video was screened in a US have been adopted in modern politics and within abnormal psychology and medications high school gym decked out like prom night and consequently changed the nature of politics prescribed in attempts to level out emotions and was situated in the middle of an interactive walk itself. behaviour. through theatrical presentation. Adam Curtis has contributed short films It is difficult to describe the experience of It The Power of Nightmares to two of Charlie Brooker’s programmes Felt Like a Kiss without giving up its secrets and (2004) Screenwipe (2007) and Newswipe (2009).