Textual Analysis of Fujiya & Miyagi - Ankle Injuries

'Ankle Injuries' by Fujiya and Miyagi from their 2006 album, 'Transparent Things' used stop motion to create a clever visual display for the audience through an everyday, seemingly normal item; a dice. Genre-wise it's probably more of a soft-rock/indie combination than anything which at the time wasn't quite as popular as it is now, so made for an interesting song.

In terms of the relationship between the lyrics and visuals, at times they go together solidly and at others are completely afar from the song meaning as a whole. There are certain words which relate to the visuals, whether it be the dots on the dice or the concept of having lots of things build up into one picture such as 'pixilation' and 'spray'. The visuals are heavily linked to the concept of pixilation, which perhaps represents that sometimes the picture is clearer if you zoom out/ take a step back. 

The jittery style of the visuals matches that of the song, as it has a high-pitched and upbeat feel to it. Each cut is usually on the beat which makes the visuals fit to the music really well. I also find the colour arrangement interesting, as it uses simple, basic colours like black, red, blue, yellow and white yet still it appears as if there are shadows. This is mostly down to the ratio of the die background colour versus the contrasting dot(s). This gives the illusion of light  and the impression that the image is 3D when it is actually 2D. 

Overall I really like this music video's retro style and how well the visuals work with the track. Personally I would have added some form of narrative to the sequence, as it appears a little unorganised at times in terms of chronology which does make it less easy-going to watch. Despite this I really like this music video for it's unique and artistic approach to representing the song. 

Reflections

Today we discussed the nature of the A2 course and discovered it was very evaluative and will require us to reflect upon our previous AS work. using the following question prompts in our groups, we began to deconstruct our AS work:

1) How have digital technologies impacted your production work?

• Improved the quality of our work drastically
• Made our use of time more efficient

2) To what extent did knowledge of media products influence your media product?

• The conventions of genres we investigated helped us to develop our film
• Convergence: for example, using the iPhone to create content

3) What skills have you developed from the beginning of the course to the present day?

• Setting up a shot
• How to use a DSLR camera
• Storyboarding
• Shotlisting
• Screenplaying
• Further development of Final Cut skills, including colour grading
• Analysing moving image/recognising rerensentation

4) What new terms or concepts have you learnt this year? 

As well as many more, but these were the ones I could think of on the spot!