Media Theory Revision Guide
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Essential Film!
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That Boss Life
Hyper real inertia
Baudrillard
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That Boss Life construct a conventional transformation narrative. By doing so it position its audience to think that the use of their Big Shot product will ultimately lead them to an idealised metropolitan New York lifestyle.
The use of slow motion sequences - of flawless presenters - and the golden ambience of the product’s penthouse setting presents a dream-like tone that is both seductive and mesmerising.
Yet Baudrillard would also argue that audiences intuit that the world depicted in the advert lies beyond their reach: that its hyperreal gloss is both inauthentic and fake. Audiences might be seduced, Baudrillard argues, but they are also inert, and, more dangerously, that inertia carries into the readings made of all media consumed by audiences.
Idealised depiction
A media representation that constructs a perfected image of something or someone. Costuming. hair or make-up, for example, might be highly to styles to create an ideal character.
Media terminology used
Hyperreal inertia
A term coined by Baudrillard to describe the hypnotising affect of media, yet also the ever present sense of disbelief that audiences feel when they consume media products.
Ambient sound
Also known as room tone, these are incidental background sounds, often used to suggest a specific physical environment. These sounds play a subtle role in channelling the emotional subtext of a scene.