Star theory is all about why we pay to watch films.
Reasons range from the film’s director, genre to the actors and trailers. To understand star theory, I will be talking about two key theories.
Christine Gledhill
A film theorist who was fundamental in the development of star theory, her study showed that stars can be defined four key points.
Stars as capital values, constructs, deviant and cultural value.
As capital values film stars will make more film than films without stars, they add monetary values to the film which reduces the risk of loss.
As construct film star are very much involved with their constructed image. According to Gledhill the audience are curious about the ‘real’ person as well as the ‘reel’ star.
As deviant, film stars are famous for their extraordinary lives, in media we hear about Hollywood stars breaking rules of behaviour. Which helps us identify (relate) to them.
For example, Christian Bale who was arrested for assaulting his own mother, he was also caught on tape verbally abusing the crew members whilst filming terminator.
As cultural values, stars can mould our way of thinking what is right and wrong, or how we should look and act.
Richard Dyers
He states that film stars can be defined in 4 elements
Promotion, publicity, films, and criticism and commentary
Promotionally, stars can be plucked from obscurity, this may give us details about their personal relationships and ideologies.
Publicly we see stars on newspapers, magazines, interviews, and many different media platforms.
In films we see them in their assigned characters and roles, they are attracted to roles that draw out or emphasise their star qualities. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger who is a famous star whose films heavily rely on his star qualities.
Lastly, the essential ‘currency’ of the value of stars. Critics often argue that a star is best defined by positioning them in between ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary’. In other words they are ordinary like everyone else but their talent in singing or acting is what makes them extraordinary.
It is difficult to define postmodernism do I am going to be using different characteristics that will help me define this term.
Postmodernism can be characterised as an artistic philosophy which is all about distrusting different theories and drawing attention to conventions. It is a region of any idea of objective truth.
It looks at recognising that everything is constructed, meaning that nothing is real, also telling us that we can have full control of it. It also recognises that we all see the world in different ways and have different ways of comprehending things (polysemy). Postmodernism is also playful, everything is a construct which means that you can play with signs, emotions, ideas and designs.
There is no objective truth
Postmodernism was discovered by Jean Francois Lyotard. He defined postmodernism as a ‘Condition’ in which the master narrates and claims universal truth is lost. For example, disrupt of universal theories of knowledge.
“incredulity towards meta-narrative”
Meta- narrative, which sometimes means grand narratives are large scale theories and philosophies of the world. For example, capitalism, Marxism, history, science, and the possibility of absolute freedom. In addition, one of these meta- narratives is a connect of the reality and truths. For example, good and evil, democracy, religion etc.
Everything is constructed
According to Jean Baudrillard we live in a world in which we are constantly bombarded with signs and information. He also wrote a book ‘Simulacra‘ and stimulation in 1985 to explain one of the key concepts of postmodernism. It talked about hat is real, what is a stimulation of the real.
He also stated that the border between reality and representation has collapsed into what he calls ‘Simulacrum’. In other words, we do not actually experience the real world, but the world that we see in media texts. These signs become more real for us then the reality itself. Additionally, simulacrum can also be described as a copy without an original.
So, reality has been replaced by a hyper reality which we cannot distinguish
An example is Disney world ad’s which we see on TV, in the ad’s they make everything look so magical however it’s not that amazing in real life. Or how Photoshop is used to make people look unreal.
Mediation
It is when media takes something which is real and represents it in a way, understanding our reality through the mirror id media.
Postmodernism questions the representation of history and cultural identity; it seeks to challenge who and what is being represented. Also, who is representing this idea (who’s point of view).
Reflexive and self-constructiveness
This is a key component in postmodernism, the idea that nothing is true. Therefore, a lot of postmodern texts play with their own status as constructed texts. They play with their own conventions, boarders and realities and may even reference itself and its characters
Fragmentation and discontinuity
Because every text is constructed their boundaries and structure can be broken and redistributed. Story lines and characterisations are broken and distributed, which means that they do not follow the usual pattern. For example, the butterfly effect and the TV show Twin Pearls.
Pastiche
We are all familiar with the forms of mass cultures which are impossible to be original, conventions can be recycled from early texts which is also known as the ‘Cannibalisation’ of the past.
A pastiche is a copy of something such as a painting, TV show. They are copied to use as a tribute or a compliment to the original. A good example is Andy Warhol’s Mona Lisa, which has a more modern touch to it.
Another example are all the new Disney films which are created from the original stories but have a slightly different story and meaning to it.
Parody
Mikhail Bakhtin saw parody as a natural development in the cycle of any genres. A parody is a version of something but with comedy, which makes it fun to watch. For example, a parody of twilight where they over exaggerate how the vampires act around humans which makes it funny to watch.
Irony
This is when a piece of art or literature is self-consciously doing the opposite of what it appears to be doing
Kitsch
Mass produced, tacky sentimental and cheap – for example lava lamps
Bricolage
Is when a smaller fragment is patched tighter to make a new piece of art or literature. For example, “I Love the ‘90s: Part Deux.” Bricolage takes something and transforms its meaning by linking it with other things to create new meanings from the old
Psychoanalysis is a way of understanding our subconscious and unconsciousness. It tries to show what makes us do certain things.
Although psychoanalysis was originally developed by Sigmund Freud, many academics apply it today through the work of Jacques Lacan. Lacan called this the ‘Mirror Stage’s‘ if it reflects who we are what our place in this world is.
We define ourselves with what we are not
The founder of Psychoanalysis was Sigmund Freud and others have developed his ideas through the years, Freud believed that dreams had meaning and that they could be interpreted. In other words, they showed all more about what is going around in your brain.
He believed that we are driven by a “pleasure principle” in which we want easy rewards. While this is permissible in babies, if this principle continues into adult life it will lead us to dangerous behaviours.
According to Freud our minds have 3 parts which had constant conflict
ID -> this is our animalistic self who wants gratification.
THE EGO
THE SUPEREGO – > our supreme self, the logical and intelligent part.
The Virgin whore Dichotomy
This theory was based upon men who were unable to find women sexually attractive if they showed that they were good, however they could not trust women who showed that they were bad. This put men and women in a position where women would have to adapt to either the Madonna or the whore persona, but not both. Which left men in anxiety.
“Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire, they cannot love” (Sigmund Freud, 1916)
The Oedipal/Oedipus complex
This theory is based on how we all prefer one parent over the other.
This is also based off a Greek tragedy of Oedipus who accidently killed his father and married his mother without knowing that they were his parents. This largely concerns male children who are completely dependent on their mother, as she fed them and nurtures them.
Infant want to have their mother’s attention, so they see the father as a threat, and want to remove them.
In addition, infant slowly become aware of the fact that later in life they will also have a companion much like their mother. This sexual confusion causes them to panic. Sometimes, the daughter resents the mother from the way the mother’s relationship with the mother.
The theory has been developed to suggest that men get ‘womb envy’ and women get ‘penis envy’.
These issues are often in films, not literally but symbolically. For example, the male character might become obsessive of female characters who represent a matriarchal figure, or they resent other male characters who represent patriarchal figures. For females, it is portrayed as a female character becoming obsessive over a patriarchal male character, and resenting matriarchal female characters.
Auteur is the French word for “author” and just as a book has an author so must a film. Every filmmaker has their signature style, an example is Alfred Hitchcock. His films can be easily recognised.
However, it can be a bit tricky to recognise peoples work, as books are written by one author whereas film is produced by collaboration of different teams such as cinematographers, costume designers, actors etc. Therefore, there is a touch of many different styles within one film, now it is important to be able to see the individual who have clearly left a mark of their personality in the film production.
Its mostly the director who has the most control over the creative aspects of the film, however it could be a writer or producer who can also make an impact on their individual work. A good example would be William Castle and Val Lewton. They walked with the zombies in a low budget horror film made in the late 1940’s.
The auteur theory became a method of evaluating people’s knowledge on film and its history.
The theory rose when some French critics associated with the French movie journal ‘Cahiers du Cinema’. They put the theory forward to raise cultural profile of film as a creative platform. Then in 1951 Andre Bazin founded the ‘Cahiers du Cinema’. He is seen as the father of auteurism due to his love for the world view and style of different artists. For instance, Charlie Chaplin who was a rising star in that time.
Later, the younger critics developed the idea of this theory further, drawing attention to significant directors from Hollywood and Europe. One of the critics was François Truffau, he became a great filmmaker of the French new wave.
With the help of auteur’s theory, the French started to appreciate Hollywood films, they also approached to criticise the respectable French mainstream, to tell that that they had become a bit un-cinematic.
This idea slowly drifted to America through Andrew Sarris, he turned this into a theory (the French did not claim this as a theory but more of a concept). He used this theory to show the importance of individual work in the industry.
“Over a group of films, a director must exhibit certain recurrent characteristics of style, which serve as his signature” (Andrew Sarris)
As this suggests one of the primary benefits for auteurism is the idea of ‘Director as Star’ for marketing and promotional reasons. But this did make it easier for filmmakers to sell their films before the new filmmakers.
But today this theory is not limited to filmmakers but also actors. In fact, due to how the marketing campaign works now, the theory is more beneficial to film actors then the filmmakers. But the key thing is that every film has a different style.
However, there are some problems with this theory.
Firstly, this enables any director to be an auteur. Which means that even a terrible director like Ed Wood can be an auteur. It is also possible for a director to personally carry out the whole production and every aspect of it, which could only give him/her the whole credit.Furthermore, the auteur critics were not interested in the history of films, but I personally think that this has changed now as I see it as different aesthetics for films. For example, retro aesthetics in films is seen a lot in films. Strangers Things a Netflix show, is based in the late 1990’s, along with a retro aesthetic.
Overall I think that this is a very interesting theory, and I would think that it is very important to have a style which can help make your film look very professional and also help others get inspired.
Never use wiki pedia its not always right as its not changed
Cross refrebncing resources is trianglatsaion
Balance of information
Micheal moor doent lket anyones elsew opion come on its all about the way he thinks, he also uses imagesthat he ewants to show as they will help him prive his point.
Or the documnetry about the act of killing by Joshua which is about native epoopel who get to film and show what the killing was like but it doenst shiow us why they got killed.
Black fish which si a documntry about animals abnd t=hwo they are kept. Its based off phycology it shows ho wthese animal tgaht are kept capitative and how they start acting because of the 3way are kept its because deethy are truamatised
Subjective information
Picks =certain points that can help support tehir opinion – not looking at all sdies of the argument
Opion based
Impartiality
Only looking at valid arguments and relies on educational facts
Contract with viewers
There is an implied realationahip between the documntry filmmaker and the audience we are asked toi trust them, wven though they might not be telling you the truth.
Repredsnntation – which is how people are represented
Mediataton – media takes ideas and issues which ios real and represents it in a particular way, we undertsnat our reality from the media.
(I had made a blog for this unfortunately my account had not been working well and didn’t save, I did go to the IT people however I couldn’t get it back.)
1920
This era was mostly about jazz music which is how the first music video was produced. The first jazz music video was filmed with a stationary camera and mainly focused on the singer. They did use lighting and in this music video the singer looks like he’s very used to being in front of the camera.
1940
Music videos became more abstract and creative, this started when Oscar Fischinger, a famous German – American animator and painter started creating animations for music videos. Additionally, music video was shot more creatively, things live backdrops and camera movements were being developed.
1950 – 60
At this point music had become very popular and many different genres had been introduced. However, 1950’s and 60’s was mostly about Elvis Presley, and music video were based of prisons, aesthetic.
Then in the late 60’s the Beatles came; a world-famous boy band with unique music videos for the time. Music videos ere also very popular at this point as MTV would stream them and the fans were obsessed.
1975
The most expensive piece of art (from that time) was produced in this year, it was a music video fir the rock band queen written by Bruce Gower. Additionally, this music video had the most elaborate music recording in the history of music.
1980 – 90
This was Michael Jackson’s and Madonna’s era, music videos were very choreographed and co-ordinated and very professional looking. Music videos also had a futuristic touch to them.
These are some experiments we did use a crane a week before our first filming day, we decided to also experiment our editing skills. By trying out overlays as well as colour grading some shots, this was very helpful a on the day we were quite good with the crane shots. As well as putting overlays on, experimenting really helped with better time management especially when editing.
We really challenged ourselves with our music video, we went out for the backdrops, costumes and even the colours.
For the sets we wanted them to look very trendy and aesthetic which is why we picked bright retro colours as that seems to be a trend in music videos. We also went with the cloud aesthetic which seems to very in, in clothes and backgrounds.
We made sure to have a specific colour palette which wasn’t there throughout the whole video ut can be seen in parts of it. For example, when someone is wearing red glasses r a red jumper and standing in front of the red backdrop.
I really liked how all the sets turned out they looked very good and go very well with our aesthetic and music altogether.
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