Digital Media Theory - Essay Example

CHANGING CONTEXTS: VIDEO MEDIA AND FORM Introduction Video media and form can be described as the evolved lesser forms of media such as photography, film and radio. With the aim of this project being to analyze the changes screen culture has gone through since its conception, this paper focuses on the video media aspect and what fundamental transformations in has experienced. Michel Gondry, the award winning French born film, commercial and music video director as well as screen writer began his media career by being discovered by popular musician Bjork, who discovered him making videos for his band and asked him to do the same for her. Michel’s career then sky rocketed making him one of the most respected music producers of all time. His gift has seen him produce music videos for major artists such as Icelandic popstar Bjork, the chemical brothers, daft punk who have earned him every existing video award. He has also done a number of features including commercials and animations. Furthermore he has been recognized in the Guinness book of world records as the director of the commercial holding the most prizes in the world (Partizan). Indeed Gondry is a legend in the revolution of screen culture. In regard to the evolution of video media and its forms, one of Gondry’s works, Daft punk’s video ‘Around the world’ (YouTube, 2007). The video performed by the French duo was released as a single in 2006 and appeared on their debut album titled ‘Homework”. The music video became an instant hit throughout the world and reached the number one spot in major music charts worldwide. The song is particularly known for its catchy phrase that makes it fun and easy for listeners to mime to. The key hook is a steady auto tuned voice that repeatedly chants the lyrics ‘all around the world’ in a continuous chain. It is the epitome of amazing cinematography and special effects (hubpages) and its high definition video displays Gondry’s major artistic talent. The video is shows ladies dressed in swimsuits, moving up and down stairs built on a platform that looks like a swimming pool in an organized fashion, it also shows three persons dressed as athletes, with extra heads on the upper part of their heads moving up and down another flight of stairs. There are people dressed as skeletons at the center of the group who are moving in uniform circular motion and mummies dancing at the front of the pack. The creativity and ingenuity in this video is much like the famed lady gaga videos but much more subtle. This video is meant to be a physical manifestation of the songs as all the differently dresses groups of dancers represent a certain aspect of music. It is a song that just grows and grows on you. A wonderful spacey intro and then one of their genius baselines kicks in and you're carried away. It has such an infectious tune, created in a robotic space age and electronic house music that entertains. This video was the maestro’s first attempt at bringing organized choreography into music videos, his previous video were mainly of plain artistic value and mostly dwelled on the artist himself but in this one he captured the viewers interest with his style and ingenuity. With proper video research and editing Gondry created a beautiful work of art that remains appreciated and valued by many in terms of artistic value and musical interest. Like Gondry’s many pieces, it was a clear case of ‘how did they do that?’ Gondry’s work invites the viewer into a realm of free and childlike imagination. One is taken to a place with no imaginary limits. He brings to life the wildest dreams and makes them seem abstract with the use of new age sophisticated media. The magic of his work is its ability to technically mature over time, from simple animations at the beginning of his career to complex award winning feature films. When compared, the videos he used to make in his days as a drummer of a band do not match up to the technical wizardry that is his current work. All of Gondry’s works depict his tireless quest for perfection and harmony between the song, artist and visual idea. In 2006, John Hanhardt was commissioned curator of film and video at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. He is the brain behind the inception and integration of video media within the Whitney museum. He has created a diverse program comprising of narratives, photography and feature films in history of both America and the entire globe. He is undoubtedly America’s most recognized video curator. He started his career in the film department at the Museum of Modern Art and went on to conceive the film program and study collection at the Walker Art Center. In 1974 he was appointed Curator and Head of the Film and Video Department at the Whitney Museum of American Art where he directed the New American Film and Video Series at the same time commissioning art projects and expanding the museum’s art collection to include video installation. In 1996 he was appointed senior film and media arts curator at the Guggenheim Museum developing its international exhibition program as well as video installation art collection. In an interview in March 1983 with Marita Sturken, Hanhardt quoted ‘We are always going to have books, but clearly the printed text is also going to be part of television and the home computer. How we distribute music and how we use radio will both be tied to the ways television develops and how new forms of records (by laser) are introduced’. Therefore his book ‘Watching television’ is generally a documentation of these thoughts and we see them brought to life as he bridges the gap between musical books and music videos. His current employers and us the general public are in a sense lucky for we are in constant supply of his artistic mind, we even tend to wonder where he gets his endless source of inspiration that makes him give out such exemplary ideas and works of art. Dr Jean Burgess is both a Senior Research Fellow in the Creative Industries Faculty, and an Associate Researcher with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation. From 2010 Jean is an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow, working with Axel Bruns on the ARC Discovery Project 'New Media and Public Communication'. Dr Jean researches and publishes different issues regarding cultural participation in new media contexts, focusing particularly on user-synthesized content, social networking sites, and creative media. Her recent work has included a study of YouTube undertaken in collaboration with Joshua Green. She has developed a number of applied research partnerships with institutions of culture and community-based organizations, concentrating on the uses of co-creative media such as digital storytelling for cultural concurrence, promotion and engagement. She has a background in music performance, cultural and Internet studies. Dr Burgess’ unique and diverse artistic talent has been depicted through her several written features that have been widely discussed and researched by media experts. Film often called a movie or motion picture, is an act or stage production recorded on a medium which can either be on VHS tape attached onto a camera or recorded on a memory stick on a digital or video camera. Television on the other hand is a medium on which news, music or films are compiled, edited and relayed over airwaves and output is displayed onto a television set. The tension between film and television has been a constant for over fifty years, with both representations being enriched by the often combative dialogue. There are number of differences between film and television, these include; a film is produced on set to be released onto a theater while television involves day to day activities displayed onto a television set. This occurs in real time while a film occurs after the event (recording). Another obvious difference is that cinemas display films projected onto a large screen in a darkened public auditorium compared to video, DVD and television broadcasts of film that are regularly viewed on a much smaller screen. Another difference is film produces large scale, highly detailed and photographic images while television broadcasts offer a smaller image with lower definition, to which sound is crucial in holding the audience’ attention. Many debates have suggested that watching a movie at a cinema captures you and has your undivided attention, whereas television does not (Google, 2006). This is somewhat true in some cases but in others, the viewer may have began watching TV to specifically view the film in which case it may then definitely capture the spectators’ undivided attention. “New media allows for random access. In contrast to film or videotape which Store data sequentially, computer storage devices make possible to access any data element equally faster (Lev Manovich). TV and film are often regarded as different media but his is often not the case as most people don’t know that their histories are deeply rooted and interconnected (Chandler, 2001). It is often ignored, but the family television screens in our homes have been the most common site of movie and film exhibition for more than half of the cinema's existence. Founded in February 2005, YouTube became the leader in online video distribution, and the principal destination to share and watch music videos globally through a Web familiarity. For many artists YouTube allows people to simply upload and share music videos on their website www.YouTube.com and across the World Wide Web through blogging, email, networking sites and mobile devices. YouTube therefore allows easy connecting and sharing among people by the use of free and simple video distribution (mahalo). The difference between videos distributed through you tube and those distributed through television and other media is that the ones on YouTube are more easily accessible and are free while those on television and film have to be purchased and permitted to be viewed (Aki, 2006). As Lev Maninovich (2005), media arts and digital culture mogul explains, this poses a disadvantage to television media owners as more and more people now tend to opt for YouTube as it is more faster, cheaper, easily accessible thus being more reliable. YouTube is easily accessible and one doesn’t have to wait for a particular time to watch their video of choice. Until very recently, another difference between media on YouTube and that on television was that, one can actually acquire their chosen media from YouTube and easily download it for future listening while one couldn’t acquire it from television; however with the current technological advancements one actually has the option of pausing, rewinding and recording live television. The world is surely becoming more and more complex. This paper pays attention to music videos which are showing signs of creating mediated reality, one of the best examples could be the film of music video guru Michel Gondry The Science of Sleep (2006). Unlike his, what many music videos are often showing is framework of making video and intermediate certainty of social surrounding as well. Point being: video changes references of its images to non-pragmatic in distorting straight forward meaning as well as reference to the song and usual artistic codes with a touch of variety of more or less extreme, shocking or unusual effects. With reference to motion pictures I think video media could be seen as internal judgment of film-making and an avenue for experimenting with art. In conclusion the core areas of my analysis are experiment and motivation. A music video is a self-responsive and analytical aspect of art. In this way, music videos have advanced way beyond television, in that they now occupy many other media and networking sites (Progholm, 2009). The success of social networking and media sites has mostly been due to their capacities of facilitating social relationships and connectivity among persons sharing similar interests or activities. Bibliographies Aki,H,2006. What Is The Difference Between TV And Film?.Retrieved October 23,2010 http://www.blurtit.com/q593598.html Chandler,D.2001. The 'Grammar' of Television and Film.Reteived Octobe 23, 2010 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/gramtv.html Daft punk - around the world,2009,video recording,YouTube,October 23, 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ6Y_jErC9c Google,2006. What Is The Difference Between TV And Film?.Web.October 23, 2010 http://www.blurtit.com/q593598.html Manovich,L and Kratky,A 2005. Soft cinema:Navigating the database.Retreived October 23, 2010 from http://www.softcinema.net/?reload Progholm,C.2009.Preliminary programme: The Music Video: Critical Potential and Aesthetic Innovation.Retreived October 23,2010 from http://circle4.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/preliminary-programme-the-music-video-critical-potential-and-aesthetic-innovation/ Simon,R.2010. Movie professionals and television.Retreived October 23,2010 from http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=movieprofess The science of sleep,2010,video recording,YouTube,October 23,2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FztoWhfdsA Web, 2010.Michel Gondry-music videos.October 23, 2010 http://hubpages.com/hub/Michel_Gondry_Music_Videos Web,2010. The relationship between film and television.October 23, 2010 http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Romantic-Comedy-Yugoslavia/Television-THE-RELATIONSHIP-BETWEEN-FILMAND-TELEVISION.html Youtube,2007.web. http://www.mahalo.com/youtube Read More