Collective Identity Case Study: Cemetery Junction

Cemetery Junction on Prezi

Case Studies

The films and tv programmes i will be looking into as Case Studies for collective identity are:-

Atonement
This is England
Control
White Girl
Skins
Coronation Street

Collective Identity Notes

How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and ethnic/social/collective groups of people in different ways?

To what extent is human identity increasingly 'mediated'?

• International cinema
• TV drama and documentaries
• Child as symbol of collecitve identity specifically when a country or culture is in conflict
• gender
• ethnicity

Ideas for TV case studies

• childhood and adolescence
• World's strictest parents
• Bratcamp
• Appropriate soap operas (Eastenders, Coronation Street)
• Appropriate TV dramas (White girl, Skins)
• Teenage mums
• Panorama: Social services and more...
• Underage and pregnant

Focus on representation of ideology through construction of specific social groups. Investigate the directors politics. Close reference to mise-en-scene.

Investigate directors ideology for British texts, ask yourself what it means to be British, how does the text represent Britishness? British texts tend to focus on social class.

Terraced house - a convention of British social realism.

How do you construct your collective identity?

• family
• peers
• social class
• religion
• ethnicity
• community
• school
• social groups
• clubs
• e-community
• online gaming sites
• music taste
• clothing
• gender
• job
• popular culture

Think about how media communicates idealised images (magazines, tv programmes). Celebrity obsession offers idealised images. Think about who we identify with. An example of explicit collective identity is at football/rugby/cricket matches/olympics.

WHITE GIRL

social class -> demographic D -> region -> northern -> Bradford

British values that keep being pushed

• family
• community
• aspirations
• education
• religion/spirituality
• respect

Focus on the British working class and how the representation of the British working class has changed during the last 50 years

• Saturday Night Sunday Morning - what is important to Arthur Seaton? - work, women, family, pub, friendship
• Films from about 1990 onwards tend to focus on a crisis in male identity/masculinity (The Full Monty) - The closure of the manufacturing industry in the 1980's by the Thatcher government has put 1000's of blue collar workers out of a job. Through a job was how men established their identity, without it their identity is lost.

EASTENDERS - How Britishness is represented

• Queen Vic
• Cafe
• Argi Bargi
• Minute Mart
• Allotments
• Terraced houses
• "Underworld" - factory
• Community -> reminiscent of 1950's community -> everybody knows everybody -> no longer exists -> audience appeal -> nostalgia

White Girl, This is England, Sommerstown -> no community -> face of contemporary Britain -> characturs find their identity through old fashioned values/aspirations/sense of community loyalty. White girl = religion. This is England = social group (skinheads). Sommerstown = friendship.

In British social realist films the stealing of a book is a convention. It indicates the protagonists hinger for knowledge. Note White Girl, Kes, Billy Elliot.

Digipak Planning

Through researching the layout of cd packaging by similar artists i decided that i definitely wan't to use a cardboard digipak as opposed to the jewel case style packaging because i feel it reflects the earthy feel of the genre better, and i also think they are much more original than the jewel case and i personally find them more appealing.

I have decided upon the three panel style digipak mainly because of the idea i have for the inside panels. This idea is described below, and i feel it wouldn't work so well with a two panel digipak. Therefore for the front cover i decided to use a similar approach to the front cover of albums by artists such as Beth Orton, Tristan Prettyman and Colbie Calliat (these covers can be found in the collage on previous post). The front cover will be a naturalistic image of the artist in natural surroundings, this will promote the artists image, and in this style it will promote it positively avoiding objectification. Also in the style of Tristan Prettyman's cover for her album 'Hello...x' I have placed the artist name and title beside her face as it will appear as though she is speaking her album title. The artist name may end up in another placing on the front cover if there is a lack of space and the two titles look cramped together, but the album title will stay in the planned area. The artist name will be written in a clear, printed yet delicate font to keep it easy to read but that will reflect the delicate feel of the artist and her music. The album title on the other hand will be in a font that appears hand written, once again adding to that personal feel, and will be decorated with a small hand drawn flower flourish, this will become a type of signifier throughout the digipak that will be found on most panels and would be something that would be used on future albums, adverts merchandise etc. to create an identity for the artist.

This image will follow on onto the second panel so that when opened up the two panels create one elongated image. On the second panel will not be any part of the artist but it will just be a landscape image, personalised once again with the hand drawn flourishes. Hopefully due to the natural, earthy feel in combination with the genre convention it will be able to stand alone successfully as a single image taking up a whole panel. On the final panel will be the track listing, this will be kept simple with no photography to add variance to the view and texture of the digipak. But to avoid the panel being too simple the flower flourishes will be once again added to create a personal and naturalistic element.

For the inside of the digipak i decided to create a personal connection between the artist and the audience through the use of hand drawn cartoons, scribbles, phrases etc. including images that relate to the song 'Sail Away'. These will be presented as the artists own and as if they are snippets of her own personal thoughts., this makes the audience feel as though they have an insight into the artists personal life, ultimately giving them the impession that they feel a stronger personal connection to the artist. This idea i took from the Jason Mraz album 'We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.' To further emphasise the impression that these drawings are the artists own thoughts I decided to use photo images of the artist at both the left and right, framing the drawings, these images will be one half of her head each on each side, therefore it will appear as though these 'thoughts' are streaming directly out from her head. This is the reason for the requirement of 3 panels, as they wouldn't fit well on a two panel digipak without the 'thought' section being separated by a fold crease. The CD will slip in a pocket inside the centre panel of the digipak. This way it won't corrupt any of the album art. On the CD there will be hand drawn flower flourishes like what will be found throughout the digipak, it will also contain scribbles much like those found on the inside of the digipak alongside the artist name and album title.

Upon revising my original pan for my digipak above i realised there were some mistakes in the layout that needed reworking, being the order of the panels on the outside cover of the digipak. As they were the front cover would be found on the back of the digipak and the extended image would be seen as the front cover, also the track listing would be the inside panel, this would be an unconventional way of presenting the digipak and wasn't what i had planned as i want to follow the layout conventions to avoid confuzing the audience and putting them off purchasing the album. I also scrapped the idea of the extended image for fear it wouldn't stand strong enough alone, also it wouldn't work with the conventional layout as with the track listings in the centre panel the two panels containing the image would be separated. So on the third panel i decided to have a photo of the artist 'behind the scenes' in the drama studio setting of the actual music video. This gives a greater variance and once again adds to the personalised feel that the audience will appreciate. Therefore below is the revised layout plan.


Upon revision i also decided to move where the actual CD will be placed in the digipak, it will now be placed in the centre panel of the inside of the digipak. As the CD has quite similar images to that on the centre panel of the digipak i have decided to keep the image exactly the same on the CD as it would be found on the centre panel, this way with the CD placed in the centre it will still show the same image as will be found when it is taken out of the case.

I also forgot to mention the overall theme/ colour scheme of the image although it is mentioned in the hand drawn plan. There will be an overall colour scheme, of sepia/warm sandy colours and pastel blues to link once again to the earthy naturalistic convention of the genre, it is also the colours of summer and the sea which once again ties the digipak artwork to the song. There will be a sandy texture on the digipak panels aswell to give further variance and generally a nice look to the digipak. This also prevents the panel with track listings from being too plain.

Labels

Evaluation, G325, Planning digipak cover, Planning magazine advertisement for digipak, Planning music video, Research into the music industry, Research into target audience