Mods and Rockers articles

Mods and Rockers articles  -Summary

 1964: Mods and Rockers jailed after seaside riots
 Many youths have been given prison sentences following a number of violent clashes between the Mods and Rockers at a number of resorts on the south coat of England. According to the article 2 youths suffered from knife wounds, 51 teenagers were arrested, 3 were jailed for up to 3 months and 5 more were sentenced to 6 months. Around 36 people were fined summing up to £1,900.

The article goes on to say that more than 1,00 teenagers were involved in skirmishes inn Brighton; allegedly throwing deckchairs and harassing pedestrians and shouting at each other. In Margate there were even instances that teens would attack the police and the authorities had to use horses and dogs to create order. The article also mentions that there were further clashes at Bournemouth and Clacton.

May 19 1964: Wildest ones yet
 The article refers to the youth as "the wild ones of whitsun". The article claims that there were knives involved at Margate and 3 teens were stabbed. At Brighton 75 teens were arrested, 20 youths were taken police headquarters at Bournemouth and 200 teenagers smashed windows at Bournemouth as well.  The article also mention a heroine called Mrs Ellen Green who routed the teenage youth with a mop.

Forty years ago pictures of Mods and Rockers shocked polite society.

On the 4th of April 1964 allegedly saw two youth cultures beating each other senselessly over a Clacton, Margate, Brighton, Bournemouth, Southend and Hastings. These two groups were known as the Mods and the Rockers. These acts of violence gave way to horrified headlines  in the paper such as "riot police fly to seaside" and many photographs of the fights which have become famous in their own right and have become stuff of pop culture legend represent Sixities Britain. However according to many Mods and rockers of that time there were no riots or fights in fact newspaper photographers would pay these young people 5- 10 pounds to stage a photo. According to rocker Phil Bradley "There weren't riots like in that film Quadrophenia". However  Mod, Howard Barker say there were acts of violence but there was still staged fights. In addition the Mods didn't just hate the rockers they also fought each other as well based on region such as Northern mod vs London mod. Also exaggerated by the papers were the fact that fights were drug fueled, according to Alfredo Marcantonio amphetamines the choice drug for mods would fuel the mods for dancing in clubs, afterwards they would be tired to fight anyone. Finally, it was possible to tell where a Mod lived based on there colour of clothing and also seaside towns were the domains of the Rocker.

Burnin fever - Update

 Burnin fever - Update

Below is an image concerning the look of the "infected" people (people exposed to the hackers video that I would feature in my music video. Keeping with the themes of whimsy and fun, I would like to dress up my "infected" people in masks similar to the ones below.

What Particularly informed my decision to consider dressing the "infected" was the music video Genesis - Land Of Confusion which features characters with rubber caricature faces which convey a comic feel as well as conveying a slight sense of creepiness due to there exaggerated yet lifelike look. The mix of comedic value/fun mood with a tinge of creepiness and horror is something I feel would work well for the infected creatures depicted them as a threat as well as something funny. The masks chosen above I feel show this successfully with their funny and "cartoonish" subject matter but  with almost lifelike texture to them causing a feeling of uncanny valley.

To acquire such mask due to my budget  I have ordered one so far but I am currently in talks with my teacher about possibly investigating if my school drama department has some to lend.

Possible Locations

Possible Locations

 Room C6 - In the college - office worker scenes/hacker scenes

For scenes concerning the office workers, Room C6 in my college would serve as a fitting location. I have chosen this place because its layout resembling a typical workplace office, with the arrangement of the computers and tables; if one were to film shot cropping out certain elements which alluded to an it class room I feel that this place would work as a convincing office. Furthermore the location is very convenient for both me and actors who go to the school as we can easily just walk to the class room and bring any equipment, props and costume with ease. In addition when thinking of the composition of the room, the nice neat layout of the room would be perfect in showing a contrast of the office prior to the robots infection via its video and afterwards with chairs and tables moved out of place and more colourful banners and objects to replace the muted colours of the room.

However, it could be possible to film the scientist/hacker here instead as the room features many computer which could convey a sort of lab just like the image below.

Computer science lab

Also the room isn't well lit or particularly colourful and could work to convey a sinister atmosphere to the room and scientist/hacker. This will also be good in showing a contrast with the colder hacker scenes to the more warmer and fun robot/robot infection scenes in the music video.

Science Labs- In the college

Just like the office I have chosen this location for its convenience but I have also chosen this location as an alternative to C6 as a location for the hacker scenes. This site would be suitable, as with a bit of work one could feature scientific apparatus such as Bunsen burners within the frame and other scientific images such as the flasks to allude to a more traditional mad scientist look for the hacker; connoting a more fun look for the hacker by using tropes and stereotypes people would easily identify with.

I believe if I was to shoot here first I would need to take down the class diagrams and drawings to make sure it doesn't look like a classroom. Secondly, I think I should find away to make the room much darker by closing the blinds to convey a more sinister look for the hacker. Additionally, the rooms older computer model would serve as a way of communicating the idea of a skilled computer hacker; someone who is working against the law therefore they can't afford fancy technology but are experts and can hack with anything.

Friends house/Front door - Frank Sinatra scenes

For scenes concerning the news broadcast of Frank Sinatra revealing himself as the robot, (mentioned in my visual timeline post) I envisioned a scene featuring the robot posing as Frank Sinatra in a trench coat leaving a big mansion or estate with the paparazzi harassing him, only to reveal himself as the robot with the shock surprise of the paparazzi. With this in mind I would first need to find a mansion or house with old architecture and brick work to suggest a sense of affluence, luckily after searching around local areas, I started to ask around my school for help and as it turns out one of my friends fronts features a similar aesthetic to what I envisioned. The front door has fairly old architecture and from the image it can convey a grand castle like look evidenced by the large arch and castle like towers on the side. With the right shots and framing, I would be able to convey a more grander housing structure such as one below.

Using only a mix of close ups of the door and mid shots I should be able to omit the size of the house and convey the illusion of an old mansion.

Props - Final Helmet- Flat template

Props -Final Helmet- Flat template

The image above is a flat template of the complete mask design for my robot created using Photoshop. I plan to print this template out and model it around a cardboard box to create the robots boxy head.

Props - Final Helmet Design + process

Prop - Final Helmet Design + process

 

Above is an image of various designs for the robots masks based on the blocky, game graphic theme I previously mentioned.  I was particularly inspired by the Dj's and similar musicians such as Daft Punk, Deadmau5,Cazzette and the Dj's from mars as well as the video game minecraft when designing the final look for the mask.

Visual elements which influenced my design

The Designs were mostly based on the idea of either looking like a typical 1950's idea of a robot or to make and intertextual reference to technology such as basing the face on the design of a boom box, or a VHS tape or a floppy disc in order to convey the sci-fi image my artist says was his intention in his music but keeping with the whimsical theme.

Finally one thing, that I thought should be consistent throughout the designs is that the robot must smile in some form in order to make the robot much more approachable to keep with the fun theme. However in some of my designs I did experiment with attempting to make the simile slightly creepy to show that the robot isn't exactly all good and fun.

Below is the final design of the robots mask created via Photoshop. I hope to print out the face and attach it to the front of the box as the face. I plan to apply similar methods all round the box to create the  full mask.

The robot

The Teddy boys

 The Teddy boys

The teddy boys or the Edwardian boys first appeared on the streets of south and west London in the 1950s. The gang were known for its extravagant dress code and defiant pose which made them popular subjects in the ever expanding media of magazines and television in the 1950s. Similar to the Spivs during world war II, the Teddy Boys became a media folk devil, however the same media also exposed numerous people to the Teddy Boy look and caused the spread of the gang until the Teddy boy became a nation wide style in the teen subculture as as well as being he first post-war teenage subculture.

 As inner city working class youth The group  would wear expensive Edwardian 'ted' suits designed for wealthy city gents in the early 50's or the 'drape' jackets favored by a number growing American rock 'n' roll artists.

They were once described as 'teenage terrorists' in a newspaper headline in may 1954.

The Teddy boy image was one which brought a powerful message. The acquisition of upper class dress by the working class was a defiant act. The media would constantly ridicule their exaggerated style, once even illustrating a typical teddy boy as a 'monkey in drape'.

In a 1954 article titled 'Get rid of them' a resident of brighton described them as "silly little self-advertising nincompoops" another resident went on to agree with this statement and add they are
"very nauseating specimens of English youth." and  "They are an awful disgrace to Brighton." 

Stop motion experimentation

Stop motion experimentation

In my intial ideas post I expressed an interest in using stop motion animation to feature people move in a robotic way. As I started to develop my ideas I started to persue an interest in presenting the idea of people lagging or glitching out as if they were in a video game as seen in the video below

Of course the video above was probably produced with editing techniques with video editting software i.e shooting two different shots and cutting between the two and then repeating the shots, for the purpose of an exercise I wanted to look at removing any fluidity found in movement to convey a robotic look as well as the way the producers of the video above repeat frames to show a lag or glitch effect.


Below is the outcome of my stop motion exercise using Photoshop. When it may come to the final product one can easily import the gif animation into after effects and then export it as video footage, however this may not exactly be advised as I would be creating more trouble for a process that could be done simply working with just video footage instead of images. In addition one may notice that I am currently wearing a jester hat to experiment with my chosen tone for the video.

To create this gif I simply took 3 photos of myself and then imported them to Photoshop. From there I created 7 frames and adjusted the visibility of each layer as the animation changed frame. To get the choppy look between each frame I timed the switchover to 0.1 seconds and then repeated certain images.After producing this exercise I believe that I may have stumbled onto a way to present the transformation of the office workers to the "zombie creatures" as mentioned in previous posts. Below is a mock up of how I think this would work.

Keeping with the glitching theme, the idea is to have these office workers glitch into these strange creatures by possibly filming footage of them normal, then employing stop motion techniques and at the last frame (which should look similar to the last frame) feature the worker wearing a mask or something to conceal there identity.

One may notice that I am currently wearing a jester hat to experiment with my chosen tone for the video. After producing the gif however I feel that instead of wearing the hat in the beginning save it for the last frame to add emphasis the strange tone to draw contrast between normality and the robots world.