What is postmodernism?

The Smashing Pumpkins video for 'Tonight, tonight'  is a good example of post modern, intertextuality. Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can refer to an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966. As critic William Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence”. Kristeva's ideas have been linked amongst others to Saussure's (1913) theories of semiotics and Roland Barthes. Barthes's many monthly contributions that made up Mythologies (1957) would often interrogate pieces of cultural material to expose how bourgeois society used them to assert its values upon others. Roland Barthes's incisive criticism contributed to the development of theoretical schools such as structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, Marxism and post-structuralism. While his influence is felt in every field concerned with the representation of information and models of communication, including computers, photography, music, and literature. Barthes’ work was ever adapting and refuting notions of stability and constancy means there is no canon of thought within his theory to model one's thoughts upon, and thus no "Barthesism". His works remain valuable sources of insight and tools for the analysis of meaning in any given manmade representation



and in a slightly more surreal manner, The Mighty Boosh's moon character

A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black and white silent science fiction film. It is loosely based on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells
The film was written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Méliès. A Trip to the Moon is the first science fiction film, and utilizes innovative animation and special effects, including the iconic shot of the rocketship landing in the moon's eye

It was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century 
Still influential today...
see Smashing Pumpkins video for Tonight Tonight

The Lumiere Brothers

The first films produced were short. Film was very expensive, they didnt have batteries to power cameras etc. 

The Lumiere Brothers were groundbreakers in the field. Each of these films are 17 metres long, when handcranked translates to 50 seconds. They mainly produced 'actualities', that reflected everyday life, or mini documentaries. Maybe you would like to produce an 'actualite' of your own? 

They toured with their work using a Cinematograph which effectively functioned as camera, projector and printer all in one.
The Lumiere Brothers have been credited with over 1,425 different short films and had even filmed aerial shots years before the very first aiplane would take to the skies.
The Lumières pioneered not just the technical attributes of the camera but also its artistic attributes, creating a dialogue of REALISM that has always been a crux of cinema.




These early, silent films are useful to look at, not only to give you some historical context into the development of film, but also to pin point the evolution of the visual language and grammar of film that has formed the codes and conventions we take for granted today.

The Great Train Robbery 1903

These films show film makers attempts at creating a 'narrative'. This one in particular shows how important editing and using different shot types is.

Almost an example of how not to do it! Needs faster editing and a wider variety of shot types and camera angles.

The film used a number of innovative techniques including cross cutting, double exposure composite editing, camera movement and on location shooting. Cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique. Some prints were also hand colored in certain scenes.The film uses simple editing techniques (each scene is a single shot) and the story is mostly linear (with only a few "meanwhile" moments), but it represents a significant step in movie making, being one of the first "narrative" movies of significant length

The Advanced Portfolio

Your task, you may choose from one of the following three option:

1. A promotion package for a new film, to include a trailer, together with two of the following three options:

a website homepage for the film;
a film magazine front cover, featuring the film;
a poster for the film.

2. A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:

a poster for the film;
a radio trailer for the film;
a film magazine review page featuring the film.

3. An extract/package from a local TV news programme, lasting approximately five minutes, together with two of the following three options:

two hyperlinked pages from the programme's website;
a generic radio trailer for the programme;
a short title sequence for the programme.