You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2009.
Age
Sexuality
Ethnicity
Class and status
Physical Appearance
Regional Identity
Disability
in detail:
Camera Shots, Angle, Movement and Composition
• Shots: establishing shot,
master shot,
close-up,
mid-shot,
long shot,
wide shot,
two-shot,
aerial shot,
point of view shot,
over the shoulder shot, and variations of these.
• Angle: high angle,
low angle,
canted/dutch angle.
• Movement: pan,
tilt,
track,
dolly,
crane,
Steadicam,
hand-held,
zoom,
reverse zoom.
• Composition:
framing,
rule of thirds,
depth of field –
deep and shallow focus,
focus pulls.
Editing
Includes transition of image and sound – continuity and non-continuity systems.
• Cutting: shot/reverse shot,
eye-line match,
graphic match,
action match,
jump cut,
crosscutting,
parallel editing,
cutaway;
insert.
• Other transitions,
dissolve,
fade-in,
fade-out,
wipe,
superimposition,
long take,
short take,
slow motion,
ellipsis and expansion of time,
post-production,
visual effects.
Sound
• Diegetic and non-diegetic sound; synchronous/asynchronous sound;
sound effects;
sound motif,
sound bridge,
dialogue,
voiceover,
mode of address/direct address,
sound mixing,
sound perspective.
• Soundtrack: score,
incidental music,
themes and stings,
ambient sound.
Mise-en-Scène
• Production design:
location,
studio,
set design,
costume and make-up,
properties.
• Lighting;
colour design.
Hollyoaks: In the City
youtube.com/watch?v=-ryjf6MAvh0
All of the cast are quite young except the trolley-men at the beginning who were old which shows them as being unglamourous. Also the man in bed in the beginning is quite old which might be why he has to pay for sex. You don’t see much of his place, but it looks quite tidy compared to the younger people who seem quite messy. The scene also makes young people out to be partiers for example when the blonde girl comes home her flat mate makes a comment about how she’s been out all night and she moans about drinking too much tequila. The clip showed a lot of sex especially in the credits where you see s&m, kissing and girl on girl action. This stereotypes young people and makes them out to be going out and having sex all the time.
The clip showed diverse sexuality and the characters seemed quite open. There was a short clip of two girls kissing and also there’s also a man at the flat who seems gay. He’s wearing a bright silky dressing gown, has a generic gay voice and had very flamboyant body language. He also uses a lot of sarcasm and he says ‘Tell him to keep his hands off my semi skimmed’ which sounds like an innuendo.
Everyone in the clip is white except for one guy who is black. He doesn’t seem to be treated any different or act different from the characters except for when he pervs at the girls bum which you don’t see the other men doing.
In the credits everyone looks classy and loaded. It shows that these people are making a bit of money and they like to show it off. The man at the beginning seems to have a lot of money in his wallet and the fact that he is paying for sex could mean he has quite a lot of money to throw away and could be a busy business man who doesn’t have time for a relationship. The couple get a black cab to the flat which shows they’re in the city, but also shows that they either don’t have enough money for a car or have the money to spend on cabs. However, since they were arguing about living with other people you assume they must be quite skint because beggars can’t be choosers and they appear to be stuck with this flat. The prostitute goes to the fridge ad there is only bottles of champagne. This is a drink associated with wealth and celebrations and implies she makes a lot of money from what she does, yet there is no food or anything else in the the fridge.
The men were all very muscly and buff which shows that they work out and like to impress. Also the guy who gets out of the shower is completely hairless, which is very metro-sexual, but shows he makes an effort with his appearance. The prostitute is wearing sexy clothes and heels which fits in with her job. The other girl is quite under-dressed, but she doesn’t seem to want to impress any other guys because she’s happy with the boy she’s with. There was a lot of nudity in the clip which showed off how care free the characters are and links in with the sex thing.
Most the people in the clip were northern which gives the impression that northern girls are slutty with no shame.
Ashes to Ashes:
youtube.com/watch?v=RDQdixQAci0&feature=related
Everyone in the clip I watched was white which could be a representation of the police force at this time. The older constable had a lot of authority particularly over young men and the women. There were times when the camera was looking up at him which made him look very intimidating and also when there were close ups of him shouting. At the beginning he shouts at the young officer saying ‘You watch your lip constable’ and gets right in his face which is something that probably wouldn’t be acceptable in the police force anymore. It works though and the young constable opens up.
There is a lot of talk about undermining women and an ongoing debate about whether stripping is acceptable. The guy at the beginning says about sleeping with the Soho women that ‘everyone does it’ which shows that he thinks it’s ok to do and is something very normal for policemen to be doing. Yet when the main female character mentions male strippers the male officer replies with ‘Men! Stripping! Well, that’s disgusting!’ which is a representation of how people thought in those times and the big division in sexes.
The main male character talks to the women like crap and has no manners, but she puts up with it and seems to laugh it off. When someone of higher authority drives up to them in his flashy car the man is instantly respectful and even when the man drives off both the characters only subtly smile at the fact some of the mans coat is trapped in the door and flapping about, instead of taking the mick.
There aren’t many women in this and the ones you do see look very smart. The main character has her hair all done nicely and wears bright, attention seeking clothes. The men are all in suits or uniform and even the waiters at the restaurant are in shirts and bow ties.
There are three main divides in the ethnicity and regional identity of the cast. There are the higher classes constables who are well spoken and the typical London cockney younger officers. However, even the main male character who seems quite intellectual, turns to the women and demands she speak English when she talks about Date Rape, in which she replies ’somebody slipped him a mickey finn’ which is slang and shows a sense of unprofessionalism. The Italian waiter is very generic. He talks a-like-a thees and in broken English and is called Luigi.
At the begining the camera is filming from behind glass and it feels like your hiding and trying to eavesdrop especially as the officers are talking about something a bit secretive.
When the women in the kitchen is cutting her toast and the men are talking about if she was a stripper, the camera keeps cutting to the knife as she’s getting angrier and angrier and the cuts get shorter each time creating suspense as if any second now she’s going to stab one of them.
The Inbetweeners:
channel4.com/programmes/the-inbetweeners/catch-up#2872382
The clip showed typical teenage boys who like to watch porn and don’t shut up about sex. They also swear a lot and brag and lie to impress eachother and the girls. It gives the impression all teenage boys are crude and like this. At one point Will (the boy in the glasses) is wearing shoes far to big for him to impress his mates, because of the saying ‘big feet, big..ahem’. It shows makes him look stupid and shows boys will do anything to try and not look like a fool, but it backfires.
At the start you see the boys at school watching a video and one comments saying ’she’s not even naked’. He says it as if why on earth would you want to watch something with out nudity which represents boys as shallow and that they don’t care about anything else. Another typical teenage boy thing is that they are watching what seems to be a really disgusting video, but are also enjoying it a little and can’t seem to stop watching.
They take the piss out of eachother a lot to try and make eachother seem liek the bigger person and it is quite an animilistac quality which is common in boys especially teenagers who are full of testosterone.
One of the guys says ‘girls and everyone else’ showing girls are priorty in the boys lives which makes teenage boys look like all they care about is sex and girls.
To prove their sexuality the boys watch porn and talk about sex with girls including lieing about sex to eachother. This makes them seem unappealing and makes you think boys can’t have very good friendships if they have to make stuff up. They seem to think this is going to impress girls, but it also shows the girls as not being themselves.
All the people in the clip are white which could be a reflection of where they are in the UK.
The main characters are school children and in the beginning there is a voice over with Will saying his old posh school usde to start with prayers, hymns and an inspirational reading, whilst this school starts by watching porn. This shows diveristy within different classes and implies peopel at a religous, private school are innocent, good children whilst at a public school are the complete opposite.
For most the clip the characters are in school uniform. From the way the characters are it’s clear that it’s cool to have a short tie whilst not cool to have a blazer or briefcase. Also Will is the only person in glasses so by making him the minority it implies he’s quite geeky and doesn’t fit in.
The girls have long brown or blonde hair and wear short skirts which is quite slutty, but as this is based around four teenage boys it emphasises the point that they just can’t get any even though the girls everywhere seem slutty.
The boys seem to care what the girls think e.g. ironing their boxers, wearing bright white trainers. Whilst some people would think of teenage boys as spotty and never bathing this is contradictive.
When London is mentioned someone makes a point that if they go up there they will probably get ‘robbed, stabbed and killed’. Which is a genaralisation and doesn’t make the UK’s capital sound very nice. Most of the characters aren’t well spoken and use lots of slang e.g. ‘I fucked this girl’, ‘bitch mobile’ which is a representation of where they are from which sounds quite chavvy and Essex.
In the clip the camera makes you feel like you are sort of with the characters, but not with them as if you are watching from behind. It is at eye level so the characters don’t seem intimidating and there are lots of close up and reaction shots which help with the humour.
My brief for this project was to create the front cover, contents and a double page spread of a music magazine using original text and images. I recorded my research and construction on my blog as well as creating a production log.
This can be found at:http://welovezoe.wordpress.com/category/production-log.
My target audience was teenagers of both sexes aged 16-22. I thought that seeing as I fitted this criteria, I would be able to produce a magazine that knows it’s target audience.
I started by researching existing music magazines. I annotated front covers, content pages and double page spreads of the following magazines:
- BBC Music
- Kerrang!
- Mixmag
- NME
- Uncut
- Mojo
I used a structured template for my research looking at the good and bad points of the magazines:
- Colour schemes
- Use of images
- Language
- Layouts
- Font
I gained a lot from the research and it really helped me decide what I could do so that I could create my magazine to a professional standard.
My research can be found here: http://welovezoe.wordpress.com/category/foundation-production-main-task/research/
I found out that I should use tags and puns to grab the readers attention. Bold and different font help to create kickers making articles stand out amongst the page. Another good way to attract attention is to use box-outs by separating an article using a coloured box different from the rest of the page.
I looked at what the magazines had in common that made the magazine work and listed some conclusions I’d made.
These can be found here:
http://welovezoe.wordpress.com/2009/03/06/9-front-cover-analysis-060309/
http://welovezoe.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/production-log-170309/
http://welovezoe.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/production-log-190309/
I then went on to do some target market research. I created a questionnaire which I handed out to 15 girls and 15 boys between the ages of 16 and 22.
My questionnaire can be found here:
http://welovezoe.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/researching-my-audience-questionnaire/
Before looking at the results of my questionnaire I made some predictions. I thought that most people would be classed as Grade E income so wouldn’t want to spend much on a magazine. I also thought that those earning more would buy magazines more often. I predicted that boys would want to see males on the front cover of a music magazine and girls vice versa. I was quite surprised by the results of my questionnaire. Most of my predictions turned out to be wrong although some turned out as I expected.
From my results I decided I was going to create a rock/indie/ acoustic music magazine priced at £2.50, with a variety of articles especially on new bands and gigs, and with a mixture of sexes inside. I chose the genre because out of the five most popular, these went well together. £2.50 seemed like the average price most people would pay for and I decided I would make it a fortnightly magazine so that my readers were getting their moneys worth. I did ask whether my interviewees would want a magazine more if it had a free CD and majority said yes, however I thought it would be hard to sell a magazine so cheaply if it had a CD with it.
The results from my questionnaire can be found here:
http://welovezoe.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/production-log-120309/
Using my research and results from my questionnaire I produced three layout mock ups using plain fonts and images from the internet. I printed them off in colour and black and white (so that the colours didn’t distract the person from the layout) and did a survey of ten people to see who liked which ones best. I also got feedback and criticism which helped me plan my final design.
My polls can be found here:
http://welovezoe.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/front-cover-poll-130309/
http://welovezoe.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/13-contents-page-poll-180309/
One problem I did have was I accidentally deleted the poll for my double page spreads and regretfully was unable to retrieve the work I’d done and the images in time.
I used several sources to come up with my magazine name. I started by looking on the website for NME an existing music magazine. I looked at language and existing bands and brain stormed some ideas. I also used a dictionary and thesaurus to help inspire me. I chose to go with the name ‘Pick Up’. This was inspired by indie band The Dykeenies who have a song called ‘Pick you up’. I chose it because it’s a positive word which means a lift. It’s also a phrase for the effect of some drugs, which could be a good thing and also relates to the stereotypical lifestyle of a rock star. The name is a reflection of the magazine and could also be a subliminal message (pick up the magazine). I went on www.dafont.com and chose a cartoon font because it is quite childlike and I think it’s suitable for my genre as well as appealing to my target audience. I also got a lot of good feedback on the font.
Before I planned detailed content for my magazine I took my images. I took photos of a girl in the park. We didn’t have many props so we used a daisy and a park bench. I was happy with the photographs and how I had edited them, but I felt that the daisy pictures were too unoriginal and the park bench was depressing which wasn’t suitable for my genre. I also didn’t like all the green and my model was wearing quite punky clothes which weren’t suitable for the magazine I was making. I tried to create a magazine cover around one of my images, but it ended up looking really amateur and almost heavy and depressing which I didn’t like.
My second attempt for original images turned out really well and I was happy with them. They were simple because I used a plain background, but I used accessories to dress up my model and felt I would make the images more interesting using editing.
I created my front cover using an image of my subject standing up. I used a circular selective tool to create a spotlight effect on my artist which draws attention to the magazine. I then added other images I’d taken that day and previous images I’d taken of band a couple of weeks earlier and used plain text just to get the feel for the magazine.
The band names I used were all either just thought up, or from fake name and band name generators I’d found online.
My work for this can be found here: http://welovezoe.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/band-names-160409/
I used a mixture of boys and girls on my front cover and made sure they looked rock, but not like they were from a goth band.
For the contents page I used a lot of the articles from the front cover, but did variations on the text used and used different photos, I think this made it more exciting. I used a grey background because I thought this was quite safe because white was too boring whilst black too depressing, I also thought bright colours would distract attention.
I wrote my interview with a small paragraph at the beginning to set the scene for the readers. I it based on the generic ‘grew up on a council estate now I’m rich and famous’ music artist. I used question and answer format with not too much questions and focused mainly on the interview. I also added a bit of interest to it by talking about deep personal stuff and related to a quote I’d placed on the cover to entice readers ‘I once did crack out of a shoe’. I placed an image of my model looking up and decided that I was going to place the artists name above so it looked like she was looking up.
I got feedback from my peers about my magazine drafts and wrote down all the changes I had to make. I edited the main photo to perfect it and also changed another photo because it was too unprofessional. I changed some of the font to American Typewriter because it was simple, but fun and I kept consistency. I didn’t change much on my contents page, mainly the font and adding an editors letter. I did this because I found there was a lot of space which made it look amateur. My double page spread had the same problem as well so I solved this by adding three fun looking photos in boxes stacked up next to the main image. I also found it quite hard to recreate my mock up spread, but found other ideas came quite easily.
I am really pleased with my finished product I think the changes I made have made a massive difference. I think it would appeal to my audience because the bands and artists are young and fun looking. There also a bit naughty such as the photo where someone is smoking and the interview which talks about drugs. This might have a negative opinion from an older audience, but then again a safer magazine would be boring to teenagers who want to live dangerously, and if they can’t do it themselves at least read about others doing it.
I used fairly simple, informal language because I didn’t want to intimidate the reader, but I also used persuasive, positive language and tags such as ’sensational’ and ‘exclusive’ to catch their eye. I also didn’t make the magazine too text heavy because I wanted this to be a light magazine, not an essay.
When I made my first drafts I was content with them, but didn’t think they looked anything special or professional. Since making the changes I think my magazine now has the charisma to match an existing music magazine as well as reaching criteria set by the media. I think my target audience would enjoy my magazine because it’s for your average student who doesn’t have to be clever to read it and also the genre can be quite broad.
My magazine uses conventions that I saw in existing music magazine,placement of the masthead, edition, price and barcode because I wanted it to keep to these standards. I did try challenging some conventions such as not using descriptors on the contents page next to the images, but I wasn’t happy with how this looked.
My magazine represents teenagers as fun and determined. I think my interview showed that you can go from being a ‘normal’ person to a big artist and that you can overcome things. I used photos of teenagers in rock like clothing and hair styles as well as piercings to emphasise the genre of my magazine.
I think my magazine will appeal to my audience because it’s written by someone ho is like them and know them and what they want to see. Instead of talking down to them and telling them who some older people are listening to.
Through doing this project I’ve expanded on my photo editing skills and also learnt a lot more about the blog that I’m writing this on.
Overall, I’m really pleased with my magazine. I think I spent a little too much time on my research particularly the front covers and that affected the rest of my work. However, I think the research was a very important thing in this task and in order to create a good magazine I think audience research and looking at existing media is vital. If I could change anything in my magazine I would add more musical elements to it particularly images, but the reason I avoided this in the first place was because I didn’t want a magazine that looked like everyone elses, with a microphone, headphones and a guitar on it. However, I think my magazine suits its purpose and reaches the criteria set in the brief.
I had looked at my first drafts in detail and decided what I wanted to change.
I started by changing my background for my front cover altogether. I first tried a cream texture background.
Using the Elliptical Marquee tool I made a large oval.
I then inversed the selection, from the Select menu, and refined the edge by feathering it by 250 px.
Next I adjusted the curves to create a shadow around the edge of the page. I wasn’t happy with the first attempt, so I changed by background so it was lighter and without texture.
I added all the things I had on my last front page, changing some of the fonts to’ American Typewriter’.
I also changed the box out at the bottom to a red with a gradient to make it stand out.
Today I made my first drafts for my magazine. I’m happy with how they’ve turned out, but there is a lot to be changed to improve for my next draft. I spoke to some of my peers and they gave feedback and criticism which I’ve used to create this list.
These are what I’m going to to change on my front cover:
- The masthead needs to be adjusted because from where I rescaled it, it’s now pixelated.
- I think the greeny background looks a bit dingy and doesn’t make the magazine stand out.
- Some of the text is too plain so I need to look at a different text that’s still quite simple.
- The box at the bottom is too dark for the text. It also needs filling up.
- There is blurry parts on the edge of my main image which needs sorting out.
- The image of ‘Katie and Qudsia’ needs changing because it looks unprofessional.
These are what I’m going to change on my contents page:
- There’s too much space so I’m going to put some caption next to the photos, and rearrange the masthead so that I can include an editors note.
- I want to change the font for the contents and also give a fancier font to the text at the bottom.
- The photo of ‘Emilie’ has uneven skin (her face is pale whilst her chest quite orange), this needs to be edited.
These are what I’m going to change on my double page spread:
- The interview needs to be completed.
- There’s too much space so I’m going to try adding more photos and/or quotes from the interview.
This is the first draft of my double page spread:
This the first draft of my contents page:
This is my first draft of my magazine front cover.
