Catfish questions

Catfish (2010) 
An American documentary involving a man being filmed by his brother and friend as he develops a relationship with a family on Facebook. The film received an 82% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Time magazine did a full page article in September 2010 saying "as you watch Catfish, squirming in anticipation of the trouble that must lie ahead―why else would this be a movie?―you're likely to think this is the real face of social networking." At the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Alison Willmore of IFC described it as a "sad, unusual love story." At the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, Alison Willmore of IFC described it as a "sad, unusual love story."
 The Metro described Cat Fish as a film entirely based on facebok and were very positive towards the film, calling it an "ultimately compassionate exploration of how social media has warped our sense of identity and ability to form human relationships".


The theory of performativity relates to this through Angela assuming the the persona of someone she aspires to be: a flirty, young, attractive woman. The internet enables her to 'become' this person and live out her fantasy role as it lets you pretend to be anyone you wish. The internet facilitates and encourages performativity  

1. How has the Online Age revolutionised the film industry?

Questions

Another key feature of your answer in the exam needs to be recognition of the future. How will this collective identity go on to be represented?
Young people Nowadays have the stereotype of being rather rebellious and destructive. This bad reputation will probably continue to be exaggerated. Old people have said that they have become scared of young people due to the way they are represented in the media.       


Where are the representations of you? Where do you express yourself? (Facebook, personal blog, youtube, online worlds) 
Young people are able to express themselves nowadays in numerous ways, through talking, Art, Music, Social life, facebook, dance, sports, hobbies, personality, by posting youtube videos and blogs etc. Facebook pages tell your friends information that you might not have known otherwise like your relationship status, music tastes, film tastes, interests and hobbies. Teenagers can also express themselves visually by wearing different clothes. For example, by wearing a top that features one of their favourate bands, gigs etc. This is then taken away when teens have to wear uniform, they wear uniform because authority feel that by wearing their own clothes they will live up to the stereotypical teen in the media.


Who is currently in control of the modes of production for how young people are represented?
It's the producers who are in control of how the youth of today are portrayed in the media. This therefore means that its adults who make the programs according to how they view childhood. Their representations may not be accurate to the time period as they grew up with different views on young people.  
David Buckingham for example argues that childhood is a social construction is not given or fixed, it is always changing.


What examples of young people being in control of the construction of the way in which their collective identity is represented can you find?
The popular, youth aimed drama 'Skins' was, in a few episodes, written by young people. This laid back, realistic form of production, caused a lot of controversy due to the content of drugs, violence, sex and swearing.  
What are the implications of this?




What could happen in the future in terms of who is in control of representations? What evidence can you find that this could develop?

Essay question practice

What is collective identity and how is it mediated?

By definition, collective identity is an individuals sense of belonging to a group (part of a personal identity). These representations can dramatically alter peoples views on specific groups in society. Althusser spoke about the power of mass media and how that changes our own views on youth culture. In the film St Trinians, the writers represent youth as an unruley bunch of rebellious teens who set fire to their school. This disrespectful bahaviour reflects badly on how youths were viewed in that time. A more contomporary example of this is seen in Channel 4s series 'Misfits' where 5 young characters are taking part in community service which instantly reveals the troubled nature of the younger generation. From these examples we see that views on young people have stayed relitavely the same, both portraying.... Although in St Trinians, the younger characters are shown as heros in saving the school but in Misfits they are seen as


http://petesmediablog.blogspot.com/2010/03/media-and-collective-identity.html  

micro element detail in 'my summer of love'

Extract 1
Camera work:
POV shots
Long shot portrays loneliness in her bedroom

Editing:


Sound:
Begins with echoey nostalgic music becomes louder as scene becomes more intense

Mise en scene:
props-contrasts between plain mona and exotic Tammy. On motorbike and white horse
Clothing- Tammy looks very glamorous and beautiful with her bright feminine clothing whilst mona looks very scruffy (messy hair, cheap clothes). Tammy has a posh accent and lives in a grand house whereas mona lives in a run down pub with a Northern accent. Horse and motor bike on different levels, showing different class'

Extract 2
Camera work:
POV shots in taxi, hand held to give of being there

Sound:
Blow torch, dangerous, indicating the brother could be dangerous.

Mise en scene:



Red dress indicates older and sexy
Pink hoodie- immature and childlike.

Planning an essay

How does contemporary representation compare to different time periods?


brainstorming...

• stereotyping young people as rebellious and try to go against what higher authority think is right. 
• At that point in their lives they are trying to find out who they are as individuals and they don't like it when people tell them who to be or how to behave? < genetics
• Representation from an older time period (St. Trinians) less aggressive to elder people that are trying to help them but will break rules to people who are clearly in the wrong e.g. the arabs. when compared to a more contemporary example (my summer of love) the girls smash the window of their fathers car and someone whom hasn't done anything wrong.
• St. Trinians the elder teens wear more seductive clothing which contrasts with their childish, rebellious behavior. Same as in my summer of love, the girl wears a small red dress which connotes passion and romance, this also contrasts with their childish behavior when smashing the window.
• An Education - The perfume bottle has a big significance to the scene because it sparks the argument. The tennis ball kind of editing with the shot-reverse-shot when arguing shows the teenage girls rebellion and confidence to stand up to someone with such higher authority than herself (teacher).
• The cigarettes in Summer are quite iconic 

Reasearch: 1970s and 2009

In 1970s Britain, political awareness increased resulting in the economic liberation of women and the beginning of environmental movement with the hippie culture in full flow from the latter half of the 1960s. In the late 1970s Thatcherism began with the Conservative Party coming into power, Margaret Thatcher being the first ever female Priminister in Britain.   

Immigration was greatly restricted by the government in the 1970s, but had not stopped all together. Over 80,000 immigrants settled in the UK; mainly through gaining work permits or obtaining persmission to join relatives.  

Rising oil prices caused stagflation and unemployment began to rise but was still relatively low. In 1972 The number of people unemployed and out of work and claiming benefit had risen above one million for the first time since the 1930s. To be exact, the figure was 1,023,583. 

In the 1960s and 70s, crime rates began to rise dramatically with offenses such as burglary and car thefts peaking in the early 1990s. 

In 2009 the total number of people that arrived to live in the UK was 567,000. Meaning the popuation increased by 196,000 after 371,000 people had left the country. 

In 2009, unemployment dropped to the lowest it has ever been for 14 years; making the total number of unemployed 2.47 million. 

The clip from Minder portrays an exaggerated view of the crime situation in Britain at that time. The fact that they have chosen black people to play the criminals reveals the racial inequality present in the 1970s. They have depicted Black people as a very agressive section of society. Opptunities for black people at the time were rather unequal hence the reason they were forced to act so irrationally and desperately. However the way in which they put this across in the program displays prejudice. 

The way in which the characters act in Misfits corresponds with the huge surge of crime at the time it was made. especially in the area it was filmed.  

Misfits & Fish Tank

1. Who produced them?

Misfits: Howard Overman, Petra Fried, Murray Ferguson, Kate Crowe 

Fish Tank: Nick Laws, Kees Kasander, Christine Langan, David M. Thomspon

• 
  

2. Who directed them?

Misfits:

Fish Tank: Andrea Arnold

3. Who wrote them?

Misfits: Howard Overman, a television writer who has written scripts for a number of other dramas such as Hotel Babylon, New Tricks, New Tricks, Hustle and Merlin. He created the BAFTA award winning Misfits. He also created the police-procedural comedy Vexed.

Fish Tank: Andrea Arnold

4. What was the critical reception for them?

5. How far do they prove/disprove David Buckingham's theory?

1. Are there any cultural or fashion movements taking place in Britain now, that you think would be strong enough to form a 'collective identity'.
The main social groups of today seem to be 'chavs' and 'emos', like the 'mods' and 'rockers', these groups seem to have a great rivalry and don't tend to interact with one another.  We feel these are strong enough to form collective identities, because the stereotypical views of said apposing groups, differ so much from one another that they form very cut off groups or 'cliques', e.g. Fashion, music, attitudes, values and class.
     The characters from the film 'Fish Tank' are a good example of how sections of society- in this case lower class- act in a certain way and have similar interests. An example of 'acting in a certain way' in the film is when she has intercourse with her mothers boyfriend, she feels it is an okay thing to do as this is what she has been lead to believe by the people surrounding her. This is almost an exact opposite when looking at the film 'An Education' as they all are brought up to go to university and to
2. Argue ways that you could relate each theorists arguments to one of our case study texts