Q1a: Posts on Use of Conventions

THIS POST LAST UPDATED JUNE 8TH 2012
All of the 'Posts on...' series primarily gather together existing posts from this blog relevant to the particular 1a/1b topic, BUT may also feature below this list further 'wider reading' links following these posts, and possibly copied-in links lists from this blog. In some cases I've added further links from further DB blogs too. Ultimately, these are 30min questions so the important thing is you pick out some ideas/theories/examples you're comfortable with and know you can apply specific examples from AS and/or A2 to. Some of the posts are brief, others much longer; its well worth skimming through as many as possible though and looking for ideas that click with you.


This topic is particularly tightly linked to the issues of creativity and R+P (in turn, R+P and Uses... are tied to digital technologies: how you uncovered/researched conventions).

Characteristics of a Music Video; (bite-sized chunks of theory!)

Web 2.0 + Fan-made vids: Applying YOUR work; (any Q1a answer should cite web 2.0)

PoMo by louderthanwar blog; (accessible guide to this very key concept)

POMO Slasher sitcom Holliston @ FearNet.com;

POMO/NARRATIVE: HI v POP Cul: Austen v TOWIE!; (neat comparison of TOWIE + Jane Austen)

Creativity + MANGeR: Everything is a Remix?; you can't avoid the issue of whether there's any possibility today of originality

POMO/CREATIVITY: Warhol's impact and vision; (not JUST about his visual style: his groundbreaking use of looooong takes; prediction of today's we-media [everyone will have their 15 mins of fame]; pertinent to working within a group, his concept of factory production by a team but bearing one artist's [auteur...] name)

CREATIVITY: Tyranny of Genre; (snippet: 'The phrase "tyranny of genre" comes from genre theorist Richard Coe, who wrote that "the 'tyranny of genre' is normally taken to signify how generic structures constrain individual creativity"')

Does slow pace = boring?; (pace was an issue for you all at AS and A2, linked to aud feedback + genre conventions: are you virtually forced to surrender to market/audience/genre demands for fast pace?)

Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film; feminist Carole 'final girl' Clover's 1987 journal article

Final Girl: Carole Clover and critiques; 

Creativity sans la femme + Bechdel Test; feminist Bechdel flags up the tawdry way women are used in film, but also consider the wider lack of women in prominent positions: were you influenced by any female directors, for example, of film/video? Feminism is a theory you should address for this topic. To what extent are the conventions you've used sourced from male practitioners? Sexist? Or does post-feminist thinking end such debates?

Cultural Imperialism; this was tied to a previous exam topic but can still be used to explore how Britishness is subsumed by dominant American tropes - or even how S.Eng rep'ns overwhelmingly dominate UK media output; are your text/s normative or perhaps counter-hegemonic (challenging these normative representations, challenging whats seen as common sense and above questioning?). Have you managed a distinctive UK/Northern/Yorkshire/Ilkley 'voice' or have you overwhelmingly followed patterns laid down by US + London producers?

Coens on using Final Cut for Oscar-nommed True Grit; 

Slideshow on media terms;

The 'Britishness' of your work; rom-com eg but can be applied across the board. Are there distinctly UK conventions?
Hammer horror; any aspect of your work in this classic British tradition? 
British horror + budgets; bright future?;
The false scare; common slasher narrative device, links into concepts of audience pleasure + genre theories   

Researching recent genre egs + presenting this in vid;

Scream 4 + genre/METZ; the classic pomo slasher franchise + Metz's theory of genre cycles
Peeping Tom 50yrs on; one of two British proto-slashers from 1960 that set out key aspects that Halloween would later reintroduce to a global audience, this one largely disappeared while Psycho was hailed as a huge influence, but today is rightly seen as a masterpiece, and has a sharp commentary on audience pleasures with the killing weapon actually mounted onto the camera itself, giving us an early example of the audience sharing the killer's POV

Colin, the £45 film; this made it to the cinema despite being really rather poor, not least the lack of shot variety and excessively long takes - clever exploitation of marketing, not least online, helped the case and it continues to make decent money from DVD sales. Maybe worth contrasting your superior use of MLang

Times Top 20 Villains; a poorly thought out list but nonetheless highlights the central narrative + marketing role of an identifiable killer, and the curious audience response (delighting in the killing and enjoying killers' quips [eg NoESt's Freddie Krueger]); did you attempt any intertextuality with existing killers?

Audience Expectations in the ‘Slasher’ Formula; did you venture outside the typical expectations in any way? 

Horror music copies animals?; use of music/soundtrack from AS is worth considering, and this helps