Nothing New

Intertextuality actually seems pretty awesome to be honest. Especially for me considering I've been looking out for these kinds of things ever since I got interested in Films.

The planet of the apes reference is a fantastic example of intertextuality as it has been reproduced in so much media. Another reference to Simpson's...

The classic 'Planet of the Apes: Musical' Starring Troy McClure! (Somehow I always relate something I hear back to the Simpson's)

...I had that song in my head for the rest of the day as well...

The Simpsons is a good example of using intertextuality as well as most episodes feature some kind of joke or pun that requires knowledge of media to understand.

Case-in-point:

However this can go too far when used as every pun or joke (I'm looking at you Family Guy...)

I also have a fascination for 'The Rock Drill' (which I studied twice for both my Art GCSE and A-Level) because of it's use of raw shape in unique ways. I'd never thought of it like Geiger's Alien however!

Reading the Signs

Semiotics is the study of meaning. I still don't know why we began the lecture with a drawing test though...

Denotation: Literal meaning

Connotation: What it suggests

Myth: The 'world-view' (ideological/political)

The fact that even fonts can change the meaning of a word (as evidenced in the Lecture with the various genres of music. I particularly liked the inclusion of the clothes that 'Alex' and the 'Droogs' are wearing and the meaning behind them.

The 'TeleShop' adverts also show the world we live in presenting guns in typical images of the common couple.

Malcolm's Lecture got us talking about semiotics in films. We naturally chose John McClane considering we were a group of 4 guys who love action movies. (Die Hard rates pretty high in out top films lists)

McClane's character wears the white vest throughout all four films which becomes a part of the image of his character.


Denotation: serious man, tattooed, receding hairline, exposed arms, gun clearly visible, hurt, stubble, dirty
Connotation: dangerous, old, rebel, angry, rushed for time
Myth: on the run, thief, terrorist, wrong side of the law

This shows that we can get the wrong connotation of someone by their image as John McClane is actually the good guy trying to stop someone with that description.

Can you tell what it is yet?

I can't help but thinking of this scene from the Simpson's after viewing the 'Ralph Going's image presented in the lecture.

anyway! after that quick interlude I want to to talk about the use of realism in 3d animation and how the synthespians replace actors in their roles.

Ivan gave the example of 'Final Fantasy: Spirits within' as synthespian's replacing actors in a fully animated film which was elaborated upon by Malcolm in the seminar afterwards. This led to a discussion on the animatrix film 'Final flight of the Osiris' which used the same technology (and some characters) from the Final Fantasy film.

He also talked about the use of synthespians and the film 'Simone' where a woman is modelled and shown to be real. This example of catharsis (what you take from assets you view) segued into the fact that actors effectively take a characters identity and almost become that character in the film (Erin Brokovich was used as the example)

Realism within our discipline

The first lecture was nicknamed 'This Rough Magic' which is a suitable title for Prospero's magic in 'The Tempest'. This suggested that his abilities would make the public be astounded and in awe of him and that the course we are on is an aim to do just that.

If you were to show someone from the middle ages anything created in the animation industry they would probably think it was some form of black magic and would burn you at the stake.

Starting a Blog...

Never thought I'd start my own blog but here it is and I'm sceptical as to how it will turn out. I'm not used to the whole blogging scene and quite frankly don't see the point, but hopefully after many months of blogging I'll be happy to share my thoughts with the world.

I am not expecting the greatest turnout to this blog as I wont be publicly advertising it (considering it's part of the course and will be mainly for my musings from the lectures/seminars)

But part of me wants to turn this blog into something amazing with my favourite music, games, films, TV .etc of the week. However at the same time I don't want it to turn into twitter or something where I am constantly updating to let people know what the favourite button on my shirt is.

I plan to update this thing once a week (generally on Thursday after the media histories lecture) but since I didn't start the blog till today I'll be doing the realism update in the future and carry on from there.