Intertextuality

Intertextuality
Intertextuality regards the relationship between texts, and within my piece I included many intertextual references, for many purposes. Including an intertextual reference has the benefit of including the audience more, for the target audience may identify with the intertextual reference regarding a particular subculture or interest depicted and hence find the associated character more relatable, which is ultimately what Althusser says in their theory regarding self-image in media. Other references make the video more intriguing or captivating, such as a reference to other videos, TV, film and literature.

Intertextual references I have included are:

• Posters in Elliott's Room

The purpose of this intertextual reference was a result of my audience research, feedback and focus group comments. I found that my target audience were interested in music of other genres and hence I have included 4 posters from different musical sub-genres that were all included in my audience research: Mayday Parade, top left, a pop punk band, Gnarwolves, a UK Punk band, The Word Alive, a post-hardcore band, and Real Friends, a Pop Punk/Emo band. This adds character depth to Elliott and makes him more accessible through referencing these other bands in the posters. In my focus group, when I asked about intertextuality and explained its meaning, members of my focus group picked up on the use of the posters and liked them, hence why I kept them. 

• CDs and other mise-en-scene in Elliott's Room

These screenshots show the other mise-en-scene I use in Elliott's room. Not only does it demonstrate the turbulence and has connotations of lack of control, the mess is stereotypical of representations of young people, particularly young males, that are unruly and have a lack of organisation. It is a common representation in most media texts, be it TV shows/other music videos, but it is a relatable/accessible one. The mess is not as bad as portrayed in other media texts too, being sure not to put off my target audience through them feeling discriminated. 

On the floor are scrunched up pieces of paper, pertinent to the narrative, but also CDs: the bottom image has the CD for pop punk band The Story So Far's album "Under Soil & Dirt", and I found this band to be one that my audience also supports from my audience research. The inclusion of this is also more subtle than the posters as it is perhaps harder to notice them compared to the posters which have more prominent positions in most shots. I also included other CDs around the room in the shoot, but not all of them are visible. The lamp shade in the background of the shot and in the video could also be referenced to the use of the lampshade by several artists in their artwork, notably the Real Friends poster and digipak, and recently by British band Moose Blood. 

• Posters in Ria's Room

The intertextuality in Ria's room is similar to that in Elliott's, but looks into a different audience demographic entirely. The posters in Ria's room reflect her own musical tastes, but also cater for perhaps the older section of my artists' fan base from my audience research. Bands such as Foo Fighters, Pink Floyd, The Sex Pistols and Guns N Roses have posters on the wall in the background of most shots including Ria's character, which would appeal to the older demographic and also younger audiences, like Ria, who are interested in music from previous generations. Also, there is a map of Mordor on her wall, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films, creating an intertextual link by including it in the video, again to make the characters more accessible to the audience. 

• Religious References - Literature - Dante's "Divine Comedy"

As mentioned previously, my artist has a religious influence and hence I portray religious ideologies in the video, namely the Church section with Elliott's character, and in my digipak design. From lyrical themes of hope and feeling lost in the video, I reference Dante's work, Inferno, Canto I, with the famous line "Midway upon the journey of our lives I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost". Throughout Tom's section, I show him looking lost within a forest, a reference to this famous piece of literature. 

(NB: Unintentionally, most of these shots happen in the middle of the video! After this, Tom is shown to exit the forest and come out onto a beach, and then move on to the final location with his friends - the Divine Comedy was split into three sections, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso - coming out of the forest, in the narrative, is Tom becoming less lost and discovering what he needs to do, and is re-united with his friends- the reference to Dante is he comes out of Hell, the forest, onto the barren never-ending landscape of the Beach, Purgatory, before being reunited with his friends, a metaphorical heaven.)