The Age of Stupid

Along side our project, in preparation for our exam, we are studying postmodern media. Yesterday, I got the opportunity to watch a screening of "The Age of Stupid" a new film about global warming by director Franny Armstrong. It is a post-modern film, about a man living in 2055, looking back at present footage of the factors that lead to global warming, practically destroying the planet.
http://www.ageofstupid.net/

The fact that the film was post-modern was beneficial to me, as we are studying post-modernism for our A2 exam. I noticed different aspects which made the film post-modern.

We watched the film in a local independent cinema, Cinema City. It's different from a major company cinema as it's smaller, meaning there is less distractions as there is less people. However, personally, I did not find it any different than in a larger cinema, but I acknowledge that for some people it would be preferable.
http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema_home_date.aspx?venueId=nor

Update

We have now received the completed questionnaires which we will upload and analyse. This will enable us to deconstruct a few current music videos which relates to the answers the band gave (artists mentioned etc.), in order to find out the conventions of a music video and other techniques such as lighting etc.

Band Questionaire Answers and Analysis

Here are the answers we received from the band and Alex added a small bit of analysis along side to help us understand the band more enabling us to produce a music video to suit their style and also to get a better picture about the band we are produng our entire media project around!

Grilling The Band

We were planning on conducting an interview with the band to find out their influences and more about their style of music. However, due to timing and work commitments this is not possible, so we are going to email each band member a questionnaire instead. These are the questions which we shall include in our questionnaire and send to The Carpet Monsters:

• How would you classify the music you perform?
• Who are your influences?
• Are there any current music videos which you like and would like your video to be like in any way?
• If you could compare yourself to any artist, who would it be and why?

We have made our questions quite open, giving the band the opportunity to elaborate their answers, giving as much detail as possible, so we can work to their ideals as well as our own.

The Carpet Monsters?

The band we are filming are The Carpet Monsters, the band members consist of:

Laura Hooper - Vocals
Matthew Castle - Guitar
Simon Durrant - Bass Guitar

They've been together since 2005 and play at local pubs, and beach festivals.

They have an album named 'Down to the Cuboid' and the song we have chosen in called 'Keep On Rolling'.

Check them out on Myspace!

A New Beginning

After discussing the options available to us, we have made the decision to join and work on the project with Alex Castle.
We came to this decision because we were finding it difficult to find an original artist who was able to commit to working with us as it would have taken up a lot of their free time. Alex, however already had a band in mind and as one of the members is her brother, we know he will be more reliable and easy to contact.

Together, we will now conduct research into music videos and begin drafting ideas for our own video.

The Best Place To Start Is The Beginning

The hard task of finding a suitable band to use in our production may be over but the hard work begins now!

Before we can even think of beginning our production, we need to research and plan first. As a group we decided it would be best to find out conventions of a music video to begin with as well as finding more about our band in order to create a suitable music video to suit their tastes and style.

We have decided to work together before giving out separate tasks so we can all receive the basics understandings before it gets too complicated.