Section 1B - Representation

''Analyse one of your media productions in relation to Representation.'' 25 Marks

Stuart Hall explains that representation is ''shown through careful mediation'' this means that messages are 'encoded' somewhere in the production that I tried to show through various camera techniques to make sure my audience get the dominated or preferred reading from my music video. The message I tried to show through the video was that the main character is a subvert stereotype as this would usually be expected from male characters, however because she is a cannibal she has to have a dominant act over the males in order to get what she wants (their blood). The production I am going to talk about my A2 music video, I chose to focus on the artist Kesha and the song Cannibal, which is from the pop/dance genre.
When discussing how I represented each of my characters through my production of the music video I will refer to the ideas of theorists such as; James Baker, Dick Hebdige, Laura Mulvey, the idea of Post Modernism and Judith Butler.
James Baker explains that mediation works in 3 ways. Through a selection process, which is whichever scenes are chose to be shown on our screens in the final outcomes of the production, however this would mean that much more footage would have had to be cut out. It would then move onto the organisation
process which would consider looking at various elements carefully in the way that real life situations are not. for example many scenes in music videos are not about real life scenarios because the quality of the production wouldn't be as high. Finally it's all about focusing, which is all about the audience being encouraged to concentrating on one aspect of the production and forgetting about the other parts. This could involve concentrating maybe on the camera techniques or narrative and forgetting about editing techniques that have been included or the clothing worn.
Relating this theory to my own production would be the fact that when recording each scene I made sure I captured the same scene multiple times so I had a lot of footage to chose from, so when it came to the selection process I only put a side the best ones to then include in my final cut of the music video, the main reason I selected this type of story line to film is because I wanted to challenge the usual conventions   of a pop/dance video by having the female take full control of the scenes and making sure the audience knew about it. I then organised these clips into the order in which they would be shown through the video and this give me chance to realise if the clips I was using had any relevance to the representation of my female character or the story line. If this wasn't the case major chances had to be made. This would then allow the audience watching my music video when finished to focus on the dominance of the female and how she had major empowerment over what each of the male characters did, which is a shortened expression of my narrative. Aslong as these things where followed the rest of the music video would fall into place.
I do believe I followed Baker's three stages when putting my production together but I don't think the processes where something I intended on using, they each just happened when I was putting my video together. But if others didn't seem to use any of these processes then I don't think the idea of representation of their final product had been thought about and this could result in it being interpreted in a different way to what they had hoped.
Dick Hebdige had the idea of subcultures, that are used through production to 'develop a sense of identity of each of the characters used' . I don't think each of the characters in my music video production could be catergorised under any type of stereotypical group e.g chav, goth, indie because their dress sense was very 'normal' as well as the way they acted. So I don't believe any 'given' sub cultures where targeted, however the idea of my female character being seen as a strong dominant female would be a way of determining her identity to viewers, I tried to dress her typically like the artist Kesha because the short outfits and 'tramp' look is what they expect from her type of videos and I wanted to keep the conventions similar. Hebdige also talked about sub cultures being a 'ideological basis for fans'  this basically means making sure each of the characters are easy to describe and remember and by giving each of them simple attributes their identity would stand out and also make fans more interested. I do believe I made each character I had in my video, be made recognisable in their own way whether it be looks, clothing, personality e.t.c but I don't think that I thought about sub cultures in particular when thinking about ways to represent each of them, as I do believe they all looked like 'average actors'.
Laura Mulvey had the idea regarding the 'male gaze theory'  which is the objectification of woman that will stand out instantly to men and by using various attributes on screen will capture their eyes throughout. This theory is one that can link directly into my music production because my main character was in fact a female and had a dark secret, I wanted to give her the chance to wear revealing clothing to live up to expectations of 'pop/dance' conventions but also entice the audience (males especially) to want to watch her and hopefully find out her story. I believe the outfits where revealing but in a tasteful manner as her dignity was not taken away from her as these outfits where chosen to show her curves which would be seen as attractive through her performance via the way she moves herself around the male actors, but also the confidence she lets off throughout the scenes will be another point to attract 'the male gaze' into my production. Without adding these outfits to my main character or getting her to portray this fiery confident character, I don't think she would have been represented in the best possible way. But overall this theory was a constant thought throughout the process to keep the audience interested.
Post Modernism is becoming more common in music videos now and it's things like parody's (taking existing music videos and making them more comical to add USP's to your video or intertextuality, which involves referencing ideas from other music videos in your own but portraying them in a totally different light. For my own music video I don't believe these points where thought about in depth because I wanted my narrative to be shown clearly without any distractions from referencing other productions that had already been created. However I did look back to existing texts to include their story lines that would work along side mine. For example Alice in Wonderland's link to the tea party had no real link to the reason why I set up an 'Alice in Wonderland themed tea party' because mine was to give my female character chance to open up about her 'secret identity' to the world, however the males around the table are already dead so she is messing around with them and pretending to herself they are still here, the real adaptation of Alice in Wonderland had a more simple meaning which shows I have thought about post modernism in my own work, but only a small fragment as my story line was easy to follow and was a very unique thing to think about and I didn't want existing texts to take any real interaction away from that.
Finally Judith Butler had the idea of the queer theory, this linked to 'switching boundaries of masculinity and femininity' I think this means when one of the characters used in a production has the factors/features of both sexes. I believe this can be said for only one of the characters in my video. The female character is shown as a woman due to the revealing clothing she wears to attract the males attention by flaunting her curves, but she has the male attributes in the way that she is seen as powerful and dominant over the other males in the video. This would usually be a role played by a male character but she pulls it off well due to her strong performance.  However I don't think this theory can apply to the males used in the video because I think they cover more of the female features due to how scared and timid they are when the female character is ordering them around and attacking them and also how weak they are shown because they don't fight back, these are all points people would situate with females. So Butler's theory does play a part in the representation of the lead character in my music video and the points connect well.

Out of all these points I have discussed, my music video either links directly to what the theorists idea's linking to the representation are or challenge the ideas in some way. But either way they always link back to the variety of ideas each of the theorists talk about and I believe in a timed exam I would understand the points I would need to make in order to get the highest possible grade.