Richard Dyers Star Theory applied to Pop Stars

Pop performer= someone who merely sings pop, and will probably be forgotten by all but there most avid fans within a few years.

Pop star= musicians who have an identity or persona which is not restricted solely to there musicianship. They have a lasting significance and brand awareness in a wider audience, making both sociological and cultural impacts

Dyer believes that a distinction between the two terms needs to be made, stating that pop performers are often quickly promoted to the status of a pop stars by there management, using tactics such as stories placed in magazines.

Stars= constructed, artificial images created out of a range of materials eg through characteristics created through styling eg Bono’s “fly” sunglasses. They have an advantage over film stars as there image may be much more consistent over a period of time, and not dependent on the creative input of others. They are manufactured by the music industry to serve a purpose of making money that responds to various elements of a star persona by buying records and becoming fans. Stars are shaped and nurtured by their record company to create an image that they think audiences want. Resulting in multiple artists trying to create the same image

 

The industry generally tries to produce artists who belong to a variety of genres to cater for the different age groups in a population. This is done by constantly mutating genres of music, or by creating a star with long lasting appeal.

 However a healthy music industry will develop both types of talent, as younger fans cannot identify with older, long lasting artists.

 Ideology and culture

 With similar cultural values and attitudes, promoting the same ideology whilst audience interest enhances their star quality. Through the rise of social media, now more than ever stars personal opinions are conveyed and establish their own values.

Character and personality

The star begins as a “real” human gender and race characteristic, however they tend to develop into a generalisation of a particular generation, providing the focus for ideas of what people are supposed to look like. Eg by either conforming or going against cultural hegemony. Eg displaying the women to be slim and beautiful or providing a difference eg being fat but still loveable. In other words stars are representations or persons, which reinforce legitimate or occasionally alter the prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human in society.

 

I could use this article when producing my own products by choosing stars that either conform or go against cultural hegemony of how a human should be, whilst giving the star a key feature which they can be associated with, which fans an try out to keep themselves engaged.

Ed Sheeran - Organic Act

Katy parry - synthetic act

Enrique Iglesias Hero music video

Enrique Iglesias hero music video from annabelhales

Amy Winehouse Lioness: Hidden Treasure

Blood of Purity feedback

Emma Smith thought the “plot of the thriller was about a crazy girl, or sacrifice, and she likes the way the photos were burnt” however feels that ‘The plot could have been more clear and the music builds up to  fast.” I feel that it’s a positive that she did not know exactly what the film was about other than something negative and uneasy, as it  indicates that we have created mystery.

Generally the majority of the feedback comments were positive.  Most people got an idea about what the film was about   suggesting that it was about a murder, religious horror however weren’t completely sure. This was the tone that we wanted to create after watching the sequence for the first time. We wanted the audience to be sure as the plotline of the sequence, however set an uneasy uncomphertable tone. Most people indicated that they taught the editing and special effects were especially effective “How the screen is washed away like the screen in being burnt by the candle” This is a major success for us as this was our main focus point for our thriller. As a negative the majority of the audience found it difficult to understand the plotline stating that we should “show the story more, as it’s not clear what’s happening”. However we created this atmosphere deliberately as we did not want to revel to much and sustain a mysterious tone, however next time we would probably make the background lighter, and film more zoomed-out shots in order to make it seem less claustrophobic.

what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from the prelim task to the thriller.

Looking back at our prelim, the camera work that we used seems extreamly basic compared to our thriller as when filming our thriller we took into account many different aspects of the camera to enhance the moods that we wanted to establish. For example, in many shots we filmed whilst zooming in quickly to give the illusion that we are the eyes of the artist. We have also filmed from a low camera angle to enhance the artists status, whilst we filmed Ellie from a high camera angle to exaggerate her lack of power and fragility. However for our preliminary task we filmed everyone from the same angle and did not experiment with moving the camera .

The mesenscene is also much more effective in our thriller than our preliminary task, for our thriller we wanted to create a rich and diverse, believable setting, which will help to heighten the atmosphere and reinforce the sinister “look” of the sequence.  For example for the artists studio we used sams previous artwork which we dripped blood onto, we also bourght in paints, paintbrushes and a variety of equipment that an artist would have. Fotr the girls bedroom we used a dark beam old fashioned bed with noting else in the room to enhace the disturbing amshpere. We considered the lighting by encluding a number of large candles to sustain the dark, creepy setting with an old, biblical atmosphere.   Hovever in or preliminary task, we filmed the boys purley in the outfits that they were alrady wearing, with no props, in the open day light. As a result there is not a very strong look to the scene.

The editing is also much more sucsessful in our thriller than our prelim task. For our thriller we all became confinadnt with knowing how to use final cut pro, whilst learing how to use the basic settings for example  zooming in and out, enlarging the text and rendering. We also experimented with many different settings for example we used crossfade to create a smoother transition between the shots and overlaying of two shots to create a distorted atmosphere. We also learnt how to use layering and to increase the artistic look that we wanted to create. However for our prelim, we created an extremely basic composition, we did not change the shots in any way, we merely learnt how to cut the scenes and compose them together.

The sound used in our thriller is also much more succesfull than the sound in our prelim. Our thriller contains distorted yet biblical sounding choir music, this is in order to enhance the disturbing atmosphere which is indicated throughout the live action, however for our prelim task we merely used the dialogue which was written out by the school.