'Amy' Review

The Oscar award winning documentary Amy, (2015)  was directed by Asif Kapadia and uses a mixture of home videos, magazine photographs, television interviews and audio interviews with her friends to tell her story of her rise and fall with fame.

The film reveals the lesser known story of how Amy Winehouse came into the music industry, and how relationships between her friends, family and her relationships caused her demise. The narrative of the film is similar to that of a Greek tragedy, and centres around Amy, the protagonist, and shows  both her own career decisions led her to a certain path and also the heavy interventions of characters such as her Father, Mitch Winehouse and her long term boyfriend, Blake Fielder. 

Kapadia demonstrates the massive influence/importance of music in Amy's life through the narration via her own song lyrics, both released recordings and captured on home video, that creates the illusion of that the film is some kind of diary make the whole documentary personal to Amy herself. 

Kapdia is a british filmmaker himself which makes the documentary feel more genuine with a British subject such as Amy Winehouse, other films he's made include Senna about the Brazillian Formula One race driver, which won 2 BAFTA film awards, and was nominated for a various other selection. 

Coursework proposal: Update

The idea behind my music video, following on from my research investigation of the representation is to try subvert the representation of women through the common theme of dancing (used in both Blurred Lines and Carry Out of my specific references)

Two of my friends from high school were part of the BGT 2015 finalist and World Champions dance group of Entity of Unity Academy.

 

I plan to have the twins dressed in 'masculine clothing' i.e hoodies and oversized tracksuits etc, dancing in different locations to a remix of 'This is a Man's World' by James Brown. 

At the end of the video the girls will remove their hoods and reveal that they are actually female, therefore subverting the stereotypes of both men and music videos, and showing that women can be assets and features in music videos without having to be sexualised.

Weekly News 34

Is volcanic rock the answer to global warming? Study finds it can permanently trap carbon dioxide in just two years

This story comes from the Daily Mail, 'Science and Tech' section and is written by Cheyenne Macdonald for the Mail Online. 

Most of the headlining stories on the Daily Mail and across the newspapers this week, I found quite trivial mostly talking about the lives of celebrities and uninteresting facts about X Factor or I'm a Celeb so I decided to look a little deeper into the sections of the Daily Mail where I found this story.

This article essentially goes into the science of a research investigation which has revealed that Basalt (rock made from cooling lava) has been found both in laboratory tests and in the field, to absorb and contain carbon dioxide. 

I think it is quite ridiculous to see this discovery so deep into the site, as it could mean big things in terms of the worlds growing Carbon Footprint which is massively endangering our planet, and the alternate headlining stories include an image of a pair of flip flops that have gone viral, and Cheryl Cole hiding her baby bump at her mum's birthday meal.



The layout of these articles demonstrate that mainstream society is in more sensationalist stories, ones that cause gossip and talking points, rather than events and discoveries, that could massively impact the way we live our lives.

Coursework proposal

Last year for my coursework production I did a DVD cover and film poster.

My MS3 statement for this year is to 'Explore the representation of women in popular music videos with specific reference to Blurred Lines, Carry Out and If I Were A Boy' therefore, this year for my media production I plan on creating a music video. I am still unsure on the specifics however I think I wish to include a generational concept for my narrative to show the different representations of women at different ages.

Weekly News 33

'Lego ends advertising with the Daily Mail after calls for companies to 'Stop Funding Hate'

This story comes from the Independent, and is written by Ben Kentish.

The decision comes following a story made by the Daily Mail, where they slammed 3 High Court Judges for postponing Brexit. 

(story available here)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3901170/The-three-judges-blocked-Brexit.html

Interestingly, I found this article through searching for the Daily Mail for a story for weekly news, as the paper often posts controversial content.

the article says 

"Stop Funding Hate urges advertisers to rethink their ‘support’ for rightwing newspapers over what it sees as misleading headlines about child refugees, and the recent ruling by High Court judges that Parliament must be consulted before Article 50 is triggered."

Other companies targeted by the campaign are the CO-OP group, John Lewis, Waitrose, and Marks and Spencers. This group of companies targeted suggests the class of people who are campaigning against the Daily Mail are of a middle class background, as these are more of the high end versions of high street stores. Which also relates to the Independent newspaper which is a more high brow/middle class newspaper. 

The campaign has also received celebrity endorsement in the form of Gary Lineaker who is the spokesperson for Walkers. Lineaker has backed the 'Stop Funding Hate' campaign from the beginning and has revealed he has spoken to the crisp company about removing their adverts from 'the Sun' newspaper'  

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