How are social groups represented in the film Quadrophenia?

There are two main social groups or 'sub-cultures' in this film which are Mods and Rockers. Both of which have their own styles when it comes to clothing, and music symbols and language. For instance being a rocker is very mucg about being tough, having the fastest bike and wearing rougher looking clothing, whereas being a Mod is much more about wearing the smartest clothes, and looking very much neat and tidy.

Music is the thing that most widely splits the two groups. For instance Mods listen to bands which are more 'poppish' or indie (for their time) such as The Kinks, This is different to Rockers who just listen to music which is much more heavy and fast paced such as The Who (Obviosuly) and Led Zeppelin. A lot of the language used is specific to their own culture which authority figures could have taken as being insubordinate. even transport is a large part of the culture. For instance Mods have mopeds which they have modified to have as many mirrors on as possible and to basically look as good as possible, this is the opposite to Rockers who have simply tweaked their bikes to be as fast as possible for use in Cafe Races. In general terms Mods are all about the looks and how they appear to others whereas Rockers care much less about looks apart fom when it comes to the standard leather jacket and boots.

And as a whole both of the social groups are shown as violent mainly due to the beach riots which occurred throughout Brighton. and if we were to sum up both of the cultures in one word it would be rebellious.

Submarine and music.

- What sort of feeling and impact can music video have and what effect could a music video-style sequence achieve in a film?
A music video has the capacity to completely change someones mood by use of music alongside the use of video. For instsance it can tell a story whoch could be happy sad funny etc. An example of a happy music video (Just becuase it's a happy song doesn't mean I'm a fan...) would be The Lazy Song by Bruno Mars.

 

And a sad video for instance could be Dry Your Eyes by The Streets.

So a film with a scene that is similar to the ideas of a music video has the the capactiy to change the feel and mood of the movie. so they are a powerful tool when dealing with the emotions of it.

- Can you think of any other films which feature extended montage sequences that are quite like music videos?

There are hundreds of films with these sorts of montages most of which are ones which show you the star of the film getting ready for the 'final showdown' with something or someone, here is a particularly well known one:

But montages don't always have to be there to get you 'pumped up' and excited for the final part of the movie but a lot of them in fact have a more calming effect and can be much sadder, for instance in Funny People, George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is fighting an illness and his emotions are being brought through by the song and whats featured in it, sadly no clip was available on YouTube.

-Ayoade's 'Vlad the Impaler', to what extent is it cinematic?

This video is cinematic as it contains images that you could and would find in an actual film, for instance the blood and 'gore' seen at several different point is much heavier than one would expect for a muci video and perhaps the most I've seen in any music video. when it comes to a story it's limited to what we see from the beginning which is Vlad creating his weapon and from then on it's the same style of footage which is him chasing people and being stabbed, and lastly him surrounded by nuns with flaming torches which we can guess he escapes from as he is running around doing his usual afterwards. Although there is more of a sense of story as Vlad the Impaler was a real person who was the individual which Bram Stoker based his Dracual character on.

-Now watch the trailer for Submarine. Do you see any similarities in terms of visual style? Can you identify any stylistic or thematic motifs across these texts?

In terms of style one of the most noticeable things about the video was it's use of many different camera qualities ands styles between shots for instace switich from a normal moderrn day camera to a 'Super 8' grainy footage camera. Although this is just in the trialer in the film if it switches it doesn so for a whole scene not just every few seconds. Another main point is that most of the trailer is shown through a typewriter, for instance all of the credits are being 'typed' and every time there is a major shot change its the top slide being pushed back to create a new line. Also it's use of colors is shown as similar to Vlad the Implaer which mainly focuses of reds, whereas the colous of red, blue and black are highlighted in the trialer with such items as Jordana's coat and the blue of the shot where oliver jumps into the swimming pool.

Intertextual References

Throughout the lyrics of the song we are trying to put froward the idea that our characters life is spinning out of control. This is highlighted through our video and the abstractness of what's going on. Yet through this there is still the idea and story that comes through of this boys life. At first he is just fine with friends but later on he starts to spill out of control. We researched into other videos and found that Foster the People's video especially represented what we are trying to create as a whole, for instance the random video clips that themselves seem to create a story of what the group does/goes through every single day.  

Editing Processes

When it comes to editing the music video there are several different types of media we are using e.g. the obvious music, along with pictures and video, compared to just the usual video format. One of the main differences is the sheer amount of cuts that have to edited to the correct size, this would usually be the same as video but since we have to use pictures to match to the beats of the song this means a huge amount of detail.

Here you can see the amount of shots, pictures and video we have to use. This equals a huge amount of layers, which often leads to trouble rendering as it takes longer but luckily I can use this time to work on my blog. An important thing to remember is that this screen capture shot represents about 1:30 of the song and it the result of about 9 weeks work. Yay...




Also having to get used to the way s in which you have to control the direction of the video and speed for instance we have a scene where flour is pushed out of the way to create the lyrics to the song.This is an effect used to try and push the point nd lyrics of the song across in as many ways as possible, Steady progess is being made...

Editing Progress

So far the editing is going well and all of the pictures are falling into place, but  have found that struggling with Final Cut Express isn't worth the effort of learning the ropes of now that I have finished the one piece of editing I needed it for (the shaking words on black background) so I have spent a great deal of time, which feels like a slight waste of time) exporting the video so it can be used with imovie which should speed up the editing process as a whole.

Google Maps Location

We have used several locations within our video which we have previously not blogged about so...Here we are!

My House.

 Here is my house and we thought it would be a prime location not only because of the large amount of space that we had to play with but also we could create a the dark room necessary to try and create the light exposure effect. We tried to make the most of the area we had so we started around the back of the house and worked our way round to the front (as illustrated on the picture) We just took as many pictures as possible, but after a few hours of trying the light exposure we realised the gravity of the task that it was to write just 'superstitious' back to front with a laser while keeping it in the frame, so we left feeling downtrodden until we realised that when we had gotten back to college and imported all of the photos that if we played them along to the track and just skipped through them as fast as possible long to a track it gave a really good effect as the combination of single shots and action sequences of lots of shots taken in quick succession didn't distract from the video by hurting your eyes or making it too much effort to watch. We also replaced a lot of the light shots with lyrics just represented in different ways for instance in a large amount of suspicious white powder...

Filming Day

We have had several failed attempts at filming so far but they have been helpful in letting us get to know the techniques we need to be able to use for filming, but tomorrow we have everything planned so that we should be able to do it all in one day, we have to film the verses using our light exposure technique which will look great along with the lyrics, that will be the hardest part of filming as all we have to do after that is just run through the song once with a space for where the projection will be present, in relation to that we have decided that it wouldn't be worth the hassle to use the 8mm camera for the effects it 'might' have brought around, as we would have to order film which again means delaying filming, and seeing as we have very little experience with these cameras we decided it would be better to just digitally use Final Cut Express to edit this part in.