Media Product

   For my final media product I am presenting a short video which more or less represents a video response to the Varsity clip uploaded by Huddersfield University against Bradford. For the main part of the video people representing different sport societies are going to be answering a few questions which concern Varsity.
   The action is static through most of the video, with a small spoof commercial at the end, which I am not going to divulge yet. enjoy the video, and I hope you have enjoyed the whole blog as well.

Caricature

Caricature by Sebastian Kruger

Basically a caricature is a portrait of a certain character or living person, that is distorted or exaggerated in some aspects.

Caricatures have multiple roles, they can be there just to amuse people, or like in recent years they have been used in political purposes. Caricatures have been around since the time of Leonardo Da Vinci. The point was to offer something similar to the original but more powerful than a simple portrait.

Now caricatures can be seen anywhere from politicians in editorial cartoons to movie stars which can be found in magazines. 

The narrative structure

A story has the traditional 3 parts we have all been accustomed to: beginning, middle and end. Some new elements of the narrative are being introduced to us now: enigma, snags, snares and cliff-hangers. They are there to keep the reader/listener interested, make him finish the book. The syntagmatic structure of a story is composed by kernels, which are key points that instigate, continue or resolve and satellites which have a role to maintain the tension in a situation. Since kernels are points of action that advance a sequence, they cannot be removed, reordered, or replaced without substantially altering the sequence. Satellites, by contrast, can be omitted, reordered or replaced without revising the sequence.’ (Cohan& Shires 1988)

Usually a story begins in a state of equilibrium, which is later disturbed by a force. Then a second force in the opposite direction comes and resets the equality.

There are several types of narrative, some have a story and no plot, and some have both. Other plots are character driven. In some cases the characters can be stereotypes, this was the audience can easily relate to it.

Stories have been a part of our lives since forever, and it would be hard to imagine living without stories. Everybody needs them, not only young people.

The power

I think everybody knows the story about this photograph and Kevin Carter the photographer. I will let it speak for itself, a picture if worth more than 1000 words.

The miracle of Music

I realise that I have wrote all these words about art and I haven’t mentioned music anywhere. Probably the most common form of art accessible to absolutely anyone, people have been singing long before they have been drawing. I honestly believe music is a miracle, it has the power to heal people, to bring them together, express feelings, it’s a catalyst for memories and so much more. Music is everywhere around us. I remember now, something that my music teacher told us when I was about 12. A long time ago some people made an experiment and actually wanted to see how much a person can stand without music. I don’t remember the exact numbers, and even though I have internet access now I don’t want to look it up, but I know results were surprising. Maybe in our everyday lives we don’t realise this thing, because you can easily listen to some music and not be aware of it, because the process is so familiar to us, it’s virtually made unconsciously.

Having said all this, I leave you with a very nice song and video, and never forget to “Sing!”

The Golden Triangle

Leonardo Da Vinci - Mona Lisa

Let’s refer to Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ to fully understand the golden triangle. As opposed to the rule of thirds, the subject here is placed in the middle of the painting. But we observe that Leonardo is using another technique here. The golden triangle is a way of arranging the elements of a composition, in such a way that they describe a triangle, with the base ta the bottom of the painting. Here, Mona Lisa’s hands constitute the base of the triangle. The colour is predominantly warm, with light gently being depicted on her shoulders, and hands. The lines are continuous and we can see the viewer is placed in the middle of the frame. The eye movement of the viewer is coming down from the top to the bottom losing a bit of detail at the end.

Railway

Maybe on of the classics when it comes to photography, the railway tracks going nowhere.  The composition is pretty much standard, the horizon line is almost 2/3^rd up following the rules of thirds. The viewer’s eye movement is captured by the top of the railway tracks and drawn to the lower right corner. As an effect the lower left corner is a bit more dark, as the viewer’s eyes will not pay much attention to that part of the photo.