Above is shown a quick rough drawn up idea for the front of our album cover, inspiration is given from a screenshot taken from our music video used on a number of occasions throughout the video, it shows the main actor Luke throwing the St George's over the edge of a large drop located in St James' Hill near Thorpe, Norwich. We thought that this particular image would be a strong representation of our music video as it can suggest that people have lost their hope with their country and our starting to repress the government and authorities shown through the lyrics in 'Fight Back'. The film 'This is England' set in a 1980's nationalist dominated section of England also gave us inspiration for this particular shot. The moment in the film where the main character of Shaun is pictured with the iconic St George's flag throwing it into the sea is where we got our inspiration from. I believe that a flag can represent a number of different things, not only does it represent an individual country but represents in more depth, for example it can represent a togetherness, a love or hope. In this instance in This is England Shaun is throwing away the flag as he has lost hope and compassion for those around him and feels he has been let down by his country and subculture he has joined as he no longer feels content and like he can put his trust behind anything anymore. By using a similar shot to this in our music video we create the sense of hope being lost in England and the state. Similar to our music video for 'Fight Back' the St George's cross is crumpled and not laid out flat as to reveal the full flag therefore implying that peoples sense of reality is perhaps distorted in that the protesters of the London riots thought that their voices were going to clearly heard and action would have been taken against their point directly and quickly whereas the opposite happened in that they were oppressed. In relation to This is England Shaun gets to see what the real world is like when he finally sees a African American individual get beaten up and die to reveal that some people in the world are racist and capable of many bad things.
Image from This is England of Shaun hurling St George's cross into the sea.
Effective research. Fred a couple of points need to be clarified when you do your evaluation and in the exams.
ReplyDeleteThe point of Sean throwing away the St George's flag in "This is England" is that he is cutting himself off from The National Front. The St George's flag has been adopted by The National Front and the far right and is associated with white supremacy. Whilst others suggest that the flag which is highly visible and England matches has been reclaimed from the racists and now signifies England.
You say "mindless minority", I'm not sure that those who protest about austerity, or student fees etc would like to be considered "mindless" though The Daily Mail may use this cliché. You could say instead your performer is an activist.
The throwing away of the flat on Mousehole may instead signify either disgust at the English establishment or a throwing away of an aspect of his identify. This action in your music video is ambiguous and the meaning can be interpreted in different ways. Thus this part of your text is "open":
Barthe's code re theory of narrative (in a power point you should have saved)
Barthes' Codes - Open & Closed texts
Open text is where the audience is able to create their own meaning from a tangle of threads. Ambiguity in a text gives audiences access to different interpretations.
A closed text is where meaning is explicit. For example in cinema action adventure films .
Well done Fred.