Wednesday, 7 April 2010

Shameless Series 7


In the previous post i spoke about the posion of the audience and what connotations it has. We saw a low angle shot, as we do here, which typically denotes power, authority and inspiration. However in this image, although we see a similar camera angle, we don't get the impression of hero and authority due to the character's appearance. However, for people who know Shameless, people may see Frank as a 'god like' character as he is the one who has carried the story along since day one, however, i'm just going to look at this single frame, focusing on audience position.
Due to this juxtaposition created, by 'going against the norm', Claire Johnston's 'Counter Cinema' theory can be applied. I first came across this theory whilst doing 'Media Histories' last semester and is described in Sarah Gilligan’s book, ‘Teaching Women and Film’ as - “cinema that that questions and subverts existing cinematic codes and conventions”. This could've been done deliberatly or accidently but either it creates a juxtaposition which leads to dramatic effect.
By them going againts the norm, it could be argued that this is an example of postmodernism, due to Shameless taking the convention of a low angle camera shot and adapting it for their
own use.
From the past two posts, I've learnt that the position of the audience in relation to the action on screen can tell us a lot about the character and even the story. However, just because there is what some people may call the 'norm' it doesn't mean you have to follow it, as this example of Shameless have done. Either way when it comes to making my own media product i know i don't have to stay within the border lines and can be creative.


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