theory signed a2 media

1. Jacob Bird

2.  Postmodern media rejects the idea that any media product or
text is of any greater value than another. All judgements of value
are merely taste.
 Anything can be art, anything can deserve to reach an audience,
and culture ‘eats itself’ as there is no longer anything new to
produce or distribute.
 The distinction between media and reality has collapsed, and we
now live in a ‘reality’ defined by images and representations – a
state of simulacrum. Images refer to each other and represent
each other as reality rather than some ‘pure’ reality that exists
before the image represents it – this is the state of hyper-reality.
 All ideas of ‘the truth’ are just competing claims – or discourses
and what we believe to be the truth at any point is merely the
‘winning’ discourse.

3.  We tried to confirm postmodernist theory
within Signed as we aimed to show that
independent productions can compete with
conglomerate backed film.
 We also aimed to show that artists don’t need
labels for success, if music is kept honest,
eventually via social media and below the line
marketing it will be heard.
 We confirmed that the audience want to see
pure reality, which is what unsigned artists
focus their music on.

4.  The term auteur originates from France which translates as
author, which means that a director’s film reflects their creative
vision. The Auteur theory was introduced in the 1950’s by French
film directors like Francois Truffaut who advocated a focus on
the contribution directors made on the style and form of film, he
quoted... “A true film auteur is someone who brings something
genuinely personal to his subject instead of producing a tasteful,
accurate but lifeless rendering of the original material”
 Producers of our documentary we will study different styles of
cinematography so that we can show that we have a distinct
style. This will show us off and give us a personality with in the
documentary that we produce.
 Studying other auteurs will allow us to recreate what they
achieved but also give our own individual flare to the
documentary. We will try to integrate different auteur styles
which will give us that unique style.

5.  We aimed to put our unique style/stamp onto the
production, we wanted to do this via cinematography
rather than theme
 Our style is shown within Signed via the handheld
camera work, we wanted this nature of production to
be the style we ran with as it connotes the personal
and honest nature of this production and ones we will
produce in the future
 We also wanted our style to be shown via sound
bridges and montage footage which we found
important due to conventional form of documentaries
but also due to genre conventions; due to it being
from the music industry.

6.  Hegemony is the way in which those in power
maintain their control.
 Dominant ideologies are considered hegemonic;
power in society is maintained by constructing
ideologies which are usually promoted by the
mass media.
 Hegemony tends to more often refer to the
power of a single group in a society to essentially
lead and dictate the other groups of the society.
This may be done through communications,
through influence of voters or of government
leaders.

7.  It could be argued, our featured artists are part
of a hegemonic process to join popular culture
 However, when producing signed we aimed to
challenge the culture industries by presenting
content which operates outside of the
mainstream industry. Signed demonstrates losing
creativity when you get signed, but also has a
more hopeful message about the creativity which
operates outside of the mainstream industry and
in challenge to the processes of hegemony.