Monthly Archives: May 2015

VW – GETTING CLOSER

Our website is starting to come together quite nicely and cohesively. Over the period of time spent working on this assignment we have progressively honed in on themes of interpretation and re-contextualisation. The website is beginning to showcase signs of simplicity and cohesion, both important traits of advertising.

The progression of our website at the moment is as follows:

  • Home page – Introduces topic of Volkswagen advertising as text
  • Page 1 – Background info of DDB presented in an advertisement adapted from the original ‘Think Small’ advertisements, which made DDB and Volkswagen famous
  • Page 2 – Embedded ‘Great Escape’ commercial
  • Page 3 – Responses from people converted into a print advertisement with comments as tag-lines/slogans. Accompanying text discusses reactions and the use of music in the ‘Great Escape’ commercial
  • Page 4 – A cheesy Volkswagen commercial created by Chloe
  • Page 5 – Interpretations of this advertisement presented in a photoshopped advertisement featuring interpretations as accompanying text
  • Page 6 – Homemade abstract VW commercial using found footage
  • Page 7 – TBC
  • Page 8 – TBC

Some of our inspiration for the commercials has come from video’s created by adult swim. The way that they engage their viewers by toying with expectations is something we are trying to incorporate, whilst keeping a sense of cohesion about the website as a whole.

I am really happy with where we stand at the moment. We have a week before everything is due and i’d say we only have a few days of work left to complete.

– Gabriel

THE BEAST BECOMES THE PRODIGY

Dan showed us a seven-minute film exploring artificial intelligence, and it got deep, quite literally, emotional deep. For someone who feels quite distanced from this development, it still manages to sneak into the think-tank once in a while. For now, we seem to have a stranglehold on the development of artificial intelligence, but that is a pretty uninformed opinion. I have often found myself considering what would happen if someone ever so slightly messed up the specifics and led us into an age of computer-men and women who owned pet robotic dogs and cats and didn’t need to eat anything, just relaxed, but eventually declared a war or something…

It’s kind of funny to think about artificially intelligent robots being the next ‘species’ that inhabits the earth. It’s funny because as ludicrous as it sounds, it probably could happen and would be a huge kick in the face to all of humanity. To quote Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should”.

There’s no denying the usefulness of what AI can achieve, but it is certainly an area that requires some caution. Computer scientist Stuart Russel recently expressed his concerns in an interview with Quanta Magazine, which can be read here. Along with the interview was this video featuring DQN, an artificial neural network developed by researchers at Google DeepMind, which teaches itself to play Atari games such as Breakout. Over time it develops sophisticated strategies.

There is a lot of development required in artificial intelligence, and I think we are a long way off from constructing a robotified human as featured in the short video. But the mystery behind AI is still very intriguing. The technological world has its ways of surprising us, and can only continue to do so.

My friend Jack wrote this song inspired by Artificial Intelligence. Fittingly titled A.I.lien. “The beast becomes the prodigy…”

Kara:

Source

– Gabriel

VOLKSWAGEN UPDATE WEEK 11

As a group, the biggest difficulty we have faced so far is that we have been working in separate areas, eliminating the aspect of collaboration. We’re in the process of widdling down our ideas to focus on our key concept of interpretation so the collaborative aspect is restored. We have decided that over the next few days we will film some footage for a light hearted Volkswagen commercial.

After completion, we will receive feedback, both filmed and written. From here, we can use these responses in advertisements we have created ourselves.

This is just one idea of a few to come…

– Gabriel

REMIX CULTURE

Over the space of three years, my taste in music has changed significantly. This has affected the way I write music and shaped my opinions on how music is consumed and should be consumed. In the bands I used to play in, we wrote songs together in a setup of drums, guitars, keyboards and vocals. We had original copies of the songs to play in a live format before recording commenced. Now, everything is different.

When it comes to music production for me now, there is only a minimal amount of preconceived musicality that goes into a song. The writing occurs within the production suite, leaving questionable evidence of an original song. The song doesn’t exist until the final product has been produced and recorded. It’s strange to think that the recorded version would now more likely be considered the original and the performance is a copy. The complete opposite of my previous works created as a band.

This shift isn’t just something I have experienced. There is an obvious trend of solo electronic artists using tools such as Ableton to make their music. This relies heavily on the cut/copy/paste/sample techniques employed by Girl Talk as presented in class. Whilst I’m not a huge fan of Girl Talk, he is a pioneer of mashup culture and it’s hard for him to go unnoticed. I have since found myself slowly being immersed deeper and deeper in to a combination of mashup/megamix culture. Just like a lot of other artists.

Gregg Gillis’ techniques of production seem to be quite consistent with Dan’s views of originality. The opinion that there is no such thing as an original idea is somewhat confronting, but the message of twisting ideas to create something new allows the concept of ‘originality’ to breathe. I personally think we are too deep in to sampling culture to combat the issues of copyright, and thankfully enough, most of the people I know who sample music don’t intend to make a cent off their products anyway. They make music because they like to make music, and want to see people dance. Don’t stop the party, keep the tunes comin’.

– Gabriel

VOLKSWAGEN UPDATE

I feel like we are on the right track with Project Brief 4. We have a website in the works, have divided up areas and have been throwing around a bunch of ideas for the content aspect.

We are all for the idea of showing people advertisements (print and commercials) and recording their interpretations. Dan suggested taking a Gogglebox approach, showing people advertisements and filming their reactions. There is sure to be a diverse range of responses, emphasising the highly interpretable nature of text. My only concern though, is how riveting the responses will be and if this will quantify as exciting viewing. There’s only one way to find out, by actually doing it. So I think this is probably the next step.

Expanding on Dan’s idea, I want to convert the reactions into text and then construct a print advertisement with Shannon using the text as tag lines/slogans. I want to retain the audio from the commercial and have it playing in the background while viewing the constructed print advertisement. Depending on who we ask to view the videos, we could discuss the results in reference to cultural upbringing. A fair portion of reading completed so far has been on the topic of cultural interpretations so I would like to get this point across in our material.

Some advertisements I am considering using are:

Volkswagen Jetta 2015

Source

This has the great YouTube comment of: “Buy a jetty and you too could be a wanker!”

Thanks mugzy384

You cannot trust every old lady. But you can trust every Golf.

Source

What a fearless old lady. I have an article relating to gender studies in interpreting text which would be useful here.

The Force

Source

This commercial is just brilliant. The use of multimedia and pop culture references is a genius way of selling a product.

The thing with Volkswagen is that everything they produce is of a very high creative standard. We can thank DDB advertising agency for this, who have been responsible for a large amount of VW commercials since the 60s. I’ve got a few readings identifying DDB as responsible for their success, so this will no doubt be explored.

– Gabriel

HELLO BRIAN, TELL ME ABOUT YOUR MARRIAGE

Over the Summer I watched ‘Spaced’ for the first time. Have a geeze:

Source

But now whenever Brian gets up to speak in seminars, all that goes through my head is “oh hello Brine” (quote Marsha Klein). Every time. My girlfriend’s dad is also a Brian, and I can’t explain why he doesn’t elicit the same response… Fear? Nah I drink too many beers with him on the reg.

Anyway. Institutions hey. I realised I knew more about Institutions than I gave myself credit for prior to the lectorial. I gathered that an institution is more or less about the struggles between rules and constraints. In other words, this to me suggests that an Institution has a set of conventions to adhere to. Take these examples from ‘The Wire’ mentioned in class:

  • Police Force
  • Gangs
  • City Council
  • Education

I was surprised though when we started discussing social institutions. They consume our existence, and probably go unnoticed a lot of the time. The one that struck me down was Marriage, in all its glory. The qualities of Institution can be applied to marriage to some extent. It’s bound by law, enduring and the public is certainly made aware of the status.

In ‘Spaced’ however, the two central characters, Tim and Daisy, pretend to be a couple in order to rent an apartment for an absolute bargain. This provides a lot of comic value. And it falls under the category of a social institution. Tim and Daisy have to upkeep social values and perceptions in order for them to stay in their apartment. It’s a very funny take on the idea, but it does raise the question of how people perceive marriages to be.

It brings me back to a conversation I had with my girlfriend about marriage. She mentioned she read an article about marriage being a renewable contract. I haven’t had much to say about the concept, but I certainly agree that people’s views on marriage are shifting. This has already been noted in countries such as Japan, where conventions of marriage have become so far shifted from those of the western world.

I suppose what I’m getting at is that although we are surrounded by institutions, it’s not always about abiding by the rules instated. Challenging conventions is arguably just as important. Our government for example… Quote a middle aged woman on my bus: “Those liberals all had free education”.

– Gabe

PROJECT BRIEF 4 WEEK 9 UPDATE

For our project brief we are focusing on texts. We’ve decided to take on advertising as a form of text, and more specifically we will be creating a website relating to advertising used by Volkswagen.

Between the three of us this website will be broken down into:

  • Sponsorship (Promotional media (film/TV), Events, product placement)) – Chloe
  • Print Media (Magazine, newspaper) – Shannon
  • Television and Radio Commercials – Gabe

As a group we will discuss the influence of social media and the Internet on advertising, with a focus on facebook. Current and future trends of these methods will be discussed in a summary of sorts.

Each of the above sections will have a focus on:

  • The history
  • Importance and effectiveness (psychology)
  • Interpretation
  • Semiotics (Roland Barthes)
  • Which advertisements work best in different cultures
  • Creativity
  • Demographics of source targets
  • Culture targets

For the website, we would like to keep the aesthetic in line with that of the conventions of advertising. Therefore the layout will be:

  • Simple
  • Informative
  • Attractive
  • Clean
  • Easy to read

We want to emulate the style of Volkswagen advertisements and adapt this to the format of our website.

Before the next session, we plan to have more specific research relating to our delegated areas. As well as this, we will spend the next week or so finding Volkswagen advertisements that will aid in the construction of the website.

– Gabriel

WHO’S MY AUDIENCE?

I’m falling behind on this bloggin’ situation, there’s no doubtin’. It’s not that I don’t find it enjoyable, it’s more the fact that critiquing academic/scholarly pieces is something I don’t necessarily want on public display. See, if this was a blog that purely focused on my ramblings I would be happy to push it through the obvious stream of facebook for my ‘friends’ to read. But even still, how many people would read what I’m writing right now? 5? 10? 50? I’m not looking for an answer to be honest, but it’s interaction and engagement with “the people formerly known as the audience” that I and everyone else in this Media program should be seeking.

This blog post was an interesting read. Although it’s 9 years old, the message is probably more relatable now than it was back then. Technology will not stop improving and this means the desire and ability for consumers to become the creators will continue to increase. Everyone has a voice and the Internet is the driving force behind these voices attempting to be heard. For instance, 300 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube every minute. 12 and a half days worth, in 1 minute. That is a damning statistic, and arguably an over saturation in content, which only continues to overflow.

This isn’t a necessarily a bad thing though. I suppose it just means that the original, creative and ‘great’ content will rise to the top of consumption lists. But who’s to say this original, creative content will ever be seen or heard? If more and more people are focusing on creating than consuming, will there eventually be a point where consumption stops all together? In that case, who will the audience be then? Sympathetic mum…

Who am I kidding, there’s always an audience. Instagram and facebook are two of the most easily accessible platforms for dispersing information to huge audiences. It’s the process of ‘sharing’, ‘commenting’ and ‘liking’ in this age that ensures at least someone will be there to consume the content. I can’t guarantee anyone will be paying attention to me unless I make it so. This is the approach I want to take with this Media program from now on. We have the ability to engage in and share huge amounts of content amongst a huge audience of like-minded people, it seems stupid to not put it into practice.

– Gabriel

THE SUBSTANCE OF STORY

‘The Substance of Story’ discusses the role of the protagonist in Narrative. McKee’s checklist of creating a well-rounded character and story is helpful, but I think it’s best to keep it in mind as a list of pointers as opposed to strict guidelines. Yes it is important that the protagonist has a chance to attain his desires, but I don’t believe it is always necessary for a story to have closure for example. A few loose ends can leave it open to interpretation for the viewer, and is engaging. McKee touches on some solid points though.

It is important for the protagonist to be relatable or empathic, whereas being likable or sympathetic is an option, so McKee says. Macbeth being a ruthless killer, yet still an empathetic hero enhances this point. In McKee’s words, “in the hands of the greatest writers, even the most unsympathetic character can be made empathetic”. This empathy is created through a deep connection formed between the audience and the character. Take for example nearly every character on Game of Thrones. We feel empathy for each of them, but this doesn’t translate into sympathy.

When you think protagonist, generally speaking, you consider only one character. McKee’s explanation introduced me to various forms of protagonist/s within a story. The multi-protagonist approach employed frequently by Quentin Tarantino follows multiple individual story lines. This is evident in Pulp Fiction. And in fact, within Pulp Fiction we have the plural-protagonist approach in action, i.e. the story of Vincent and Jules played by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson respectively. Vincent and Jules experience some of the same highs and lows, but they also experience their own set of highs and lows.

I want to play around with this multi, plural protagonist idea. It’s something I haven’t paid attention to before.

Reference

  • McKee, Robert. (1997). ‘The substance of story.’ In Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York, USA: HarperCollins, pp. 135-154

– Gabriel