Tuesday 13 October 2009

Redundancy, Entropy, Convention and Genre

Redundancy is that which is predictable or conventional in a message...Redundancy is the result of high predictability.

Entropy is unpredictability, a text is entropic if it contains unpredictable elements.

Below I have inserted an image of a monkey drinking out of a coca-cole can. This image contains degrees of both redundancy and entropy, but it is more entropic. Monkey's are highly entropic animals as their actions are highly unpredictable and very random and they keep surprising man more and more by becoming more able each day because of their high degree of intelligence. In this particular image it contains a high degree of entropy as it is unpredictable that a monkey should be drinking a can of coca-cole which you would not normally asociate a monkey drinking with only a human.
On the other hand, the other image I have inserted of a monkey in a tree has a high degree of redundancy as the monkey is placed in a predicatble environment whilst doing what people would predict a monkey to be doing, swinging through trees in a rainforest.

Within my project I there are purposley different degrees of both redundancy and entropy but also some parts which i have only realised since learning about redundancy and entropy that contain degrees of both because of the way i am trying to communicate and attract my target audience.

One way I have done this is by realising that the way i am hoping to mix animation with real life images and video has a degree redundancy within it as there are real life children waving out of windows. But, there is also a degree of entorpy and the animations around the window are not things you would normally asociate of being around a window like stars flying around for example which are an unpredictable factor within the project and therefore contain a degree of entropy.


I have also noticed that I have used a high degree of redundancy within my project which enables me to interact with my target audience and make the genre clear to them as genre is dependant on high degrees of redundancy. This also helps to make sure it's clear and predictable of what to expect my project to contain in relation to other simliar children's TV dramas. For this I will use similar aspects used in other children's TV dramas to create a degree of redundancy.


I have also realised although I have made it easy to target my audince and to make it predictable and create expectations of my project I have not made any part of the project unique and to create this I will have to include a high degree of entropy at a certain point in my project and something unpredictable to make it more interesting for my audience.

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