Re-presentation

TASK 1

On your blog, select the 'characters' from your video and/or magazine and screen shot each main 'character'.

The characters in my music video:

Artist- Sam Church

Love interest- Chloe Chapman

TASK 2

Next you you need to decide what 'type' of character you have represented, generally there are just three 'types' as described below

Character Typing

There are three different kinds of character typing:

1. An archetype is a familiar character who has emerged from hundreds of years of fairytales and storytelling.

2. A stereotype is a character usually used in advertising and marketing in order to sell a particular product to a certain group of people. They can also be used ‘negatively’ in the Media – such as ‘asylum seekers,’ or ‘hoodies’.

3. A generic type is a character familiar through use in a particular genre (type) of movie.

Explain which type of character(s) you have used and connect to existing texts (i.e. music videos or films)

Artist- Sam Church

I think the artist in my music video is a generic type of the pop genre as he is similar to a number of existing well known pop artists e.g. Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith etc. He could be seen as 'manufactured' as a number of pop artists are, styled heavily to appeal to the target audience. He is styled to look appealing to the audience, his clothing and mise en scene used to give him a good image. However I think that my artist is slightly different because I made his guitar a big part of his image, emphasising that he can play as well as sing. A number of artists develop a motif or image to make them more recognisable however it is usually some part of their outfit or styling rather than an instrument.

Love interest- Chloe Chapman

I think this is an archetype as the 'love interest' is a familiar character/concept used in a number of narratives. I also think it could be classified as a generic type as this is an idea seen in a number of music videos and lyrics to songs. Romance is one of the main themes of pop songs so it makes sense that the 'love interest' is used so much in the accompanying videos.

TASK 3

Annotate your character screen shots with answers to the following questions (the codes referred to are narrative codes)

Key Questions about Specific Representations

1. What is being represented?
2. How is it represented? Using what codes? Within what genre?
3. How is the representation made to seem 'true', 'commonsense' or 'natural'?
4. Whose representation is it? Whose interests does it reflect? How do you know?
5. At whom is this representation targeted? How do you know?
6. What does the representation mean to you? What does the representation mean to others? How do you account for the differences?
7. How do people make sense of it? According to what codes?
8. With what alternative representations could it be compared? How does it differ?
9. A reflexive consideration - Why is the concept of representation problematic?