Monster Movie

I chose to deconstruct this episode to take a look if a short Thriller would be possible. But however much I enjoy thrillers, I won't be making one. I will be making a music video.
It's not that this process has gone to waste as I have still learned of the making of short films.

Media Theories

An Introduction to Christian Metz

Christian Metz was a French theorist.
Metz had the belief that that genres go through a cycle of changed through their lifetime.

1. Experimental Stage
   This is the first phase. The genre's foundation are created here along with its codes and conventions. 
2. Classic Stage
   The codes and conventions of the genre becomes recognized. Iconography becomes 'the guidelines' to creating the genre.
3. Parody Stage
   The audience has accepted the codes and conventions. Now a parodies are able to be made and mock the codes and conventions. To make the parody the audience would have to understand the codes and conventions from the Classic Stage.
4. Deconstruction Stage
   The chosen genre can evolve and merge with another genre to make a sub-genre. It becomes less 'clear cut' and the 'rules' can be broken.

To demonstrate Metz's theory, I'll show you through Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'.

The video the 'Thriller' was considered one of the first music videos ever made, especially of this genre. This is the experimental stage for the horror genre. Stretching to almost 14 minutes, we can see where romance was tried out. Nowadays this wouldn't be a conventional horror factor, but it was an experiment to figure out what works for this genre and what doesn't.

Stage Two is the Classic Stage. So now we have recognized the codes and conventions. As you can see above, horror usually has an element of the supernatural, like werewolves and zombies. From knowing the typical codes and conventions we can follow the 'rules' like super-naturalism, or darkness to create something else of the horror genre with these inclusions.

Having watched videos like 'Thriller' we are able to identify a mock of it. For example, comedian Lenny Henry made a parody of 'Thriller'. But we would not be able to see that this is a parody without accepting the Classic Stage. This would not be seen as a parody, if the original had not been watched.

In pop-star Rihanna's 'Disturbia' music video, it still follows the codes and conventions of horror. As the name 'Disturbia' connotes mental illness, it's fair to say that the genre of this is psychological horror. The above photos show supernatural, scary/uncomfortable and psychological features. By bringing in real life horrors such as spiders and captivity, this breaks the rule of there not being anything paranormal.


Met'z theory helps to understand what can become of a music video. Seeing how film can be subverted from a music video, to a short film is incredibly fascinating. I like how different media can interlink and make a longer narrative.
Personally, I want myself and Helen's video to be unique and have it's individual meaning. I do however like the idea of using stereotypes in the video, as we will be connecting with a stereotypical audience; age ranging from around 15-25.

Fall Out Boy Feat. Foxes, Just One Yesterday (Deconstruction)

In October 2013 Fall Out Boy released the 'Young Blood Chronicles'; 11 music videos to make a YouTube series. I will be looking at part 6: Just One Yesterday. This music video reminds me of 'the Fall' in the Bible with it's religious ideologies.

Stranded in a forest, the members of Fall Out Boy find themselves severely injured and looking for safety.

Starving, Pete comes across a tree with a pristine red apple and picks it.

The story of the original sin says that God told Adam and Eve to never eat the fruit because they are forbidden. Pete eats the apple, but it was poison.

He then vomits a snake. Many say that the snake in this Biblical legend was the devil in form of a serpent. The snake is as red as the apple that Pete ate. Dark red like you can see above connotes danger and blood.

In the Chronicles, there are flashbacks to what the men remember. As Pete is vomiting a snake, he remembers his 'last supper'. Another thing related to the Christian faith.

Patrick hitchhikes in a red car with a beautiful woman. In the Bible God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the forbidden fruit, and one of the punishments would be for women to feel pain during child birth. So the woman in the car, would subsequently be effecting by the men's actions.

Joe seeks for refuge, asking a woman for her help. As you can see the woman's left side of the picture in white, clean and pure. Possibly connoting that she has not sinned. Compared the right side that Joe is on, where it's shady, he's battered and bruised and he has sinned prior to this video.

Andy comes across a homeless man and is prepared to steel his only food. Jesus said the give to the poor and not to steel from this.

The same applies the above shots. Pete chases a little girl and her mother for help. But being the way he looked at the time, they thought it was an attack and sprayed him with pepper spray.
The young girl is wearing a tiara and pink dress, showing us that she is more fortunate. Also portraying that while she is young and think life is a fairy tale there is trouble out there, from what her mother wants to protect her from.

The snake is a recurring motif in this video. Connoting that the Devil is everywhere. The snake and apple are iconic as they have religious connotations and meaning. 

The gang find each other and share water. Foxes then takes them to the hospital. This is indexical; from there wounded make up we as an audience are able to recognize that these people are in trouble.

In the end it turns out that Foxes was the Devil all along.  We understand this through the semantics or how her eyes are black. We can assume that she plays a negative character.

Without any knowledge of the Bible, it would be difficult to label a meaning to a snake or apple or devil. Therefor these items make it difficult to be polysemic. Unless you were to factor in the idea of a wild animal and a natural fruit, then an element of survival could be the connotation.



Narrative is so important when constructing a video, and this video shows it clearly. I know I will have to make my video understandable.