Exploring Music Video's

This blog includes short analysis's on 4 different music video's.

Starting with Fat Boy Slim's song- Weapon of choice. http
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7Ky5R-vxns&ob=av2e

I would say the genre for this video is Dance as it is an upbeat song and has mixing done in it which a JD would need to create.
The representation for this video shows how an audience may misrepresent the age group over (60's) as being boring or their physical ability being bad. As in the video we clearly see the actor is having fun and has very good physical ability.
The narrative for this video I think is showing that not all over 60 year old's are boring or are physically challenged. And that they can have a good time and enjoy life.
The audience for this video I would say is quite wide, it has not been niche marketed as it could attract people ranging from ages 10-70 for example. As I feel all these ages would enjoy the video as it is easy to listen to and visually interesting.
The meaning that is created in this video I feel is to show the audience that anyone of all ages can enjoy life and 'walk with rhythm' as said in the song.
This is a print screen of the part of the video when the actor Christopher Walken starts to dance unlike the typical stereotype of a 60 year old man.

The next video I have analysed is Britney Spears- Baby one more time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKo4fFVymqk&ob=av2e

The genre for this video is Pop.
I feel that the representation in this video is quite stereotypical in that the blond girl is 'stupid' as she is not paying attention in class.
The narrative is about a school girl crush that goes bad and feeling lonely. There is a sense of realism used in this video and this is portrayed through the mise-en-scene.
The target audience group for this video I feel is for young girls aged between 13-18. Niche marketing is used.
I feel the meaning of this video is that girls can feel lonely without love, which is all I got from the video.

This is a print screen of Britney Spears not paying attention in class.

The third video I have looked at is Madonna- Vogue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJQSAiODqI&ob=av2e

This video's genre is Dance/Pop.
The representation in this video is of model's I feel they are positive stereotypes.
The narrative is basically that music can help cure heart ache and by doing the vogue dance.
The audience target I feel is woman and men aged between 16-25.
The meaning behind the video is a bit hidden I feel as there seem to be quite a few, the meaning's I got from the video are that music can help to cure heart break, everyone is the same- against racism, it is filmed in black and white, I feel there is a strong anti racism message hidden in this video.

This a print screen of a model posing in the video.

My final video is by Eminem called Stan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSLZFdqwh7E&ob=av2e

The genre is hip hop.
The representation used in this video is of a bad stereotype of a hip hop fan who becomes aggressive and angry.
The narrative is about an obsessive fan who keeps being ignored, who turns crazy and angry and kills himself, his girlfriend and his unborn baby.
The target audience I think is for woman and men aged 18-25.
The meaning behind the video I feel is that you have to be careful about what you say as you don't know who is listening and how they may be effected. This is an example of the actor being aggresive towards his pregnant girlfriend.

A2 Media Coursework - Zara Kirkpatrick

The task I have been set for this year is to produce a media portfolio which will include 2 print items; a promotional package for the release of an album to include: a cover for it's release on DVD/CD digipack and a magazine advertisement for the digipack, along with this i will have to include a promo video. Then I must present my research, planning and evaluation in this blog as I go along.

This task is a development of my skills from my AS work, which will follow on into my A2 work.
This is a link to my AS blog: http://zarakirkpatrick.blogspot.com/

Preliminary Task college magazine Flat PLans-This blog was meant to be posted in October

These are my flat plans for the front cover and the contents page for my Vibe magazine which would replace the current Sussex Downs College magazine. These are just rough guides to show my ideas for my magazine, the designs may change through the making process, I will be using the programme Adobe InDesign to create my magazine.

In this plan of my front cover I decided to have a large tittle to capture my target audiences attention (young woman and men aged between 16-19) I also would like to used a large image of a young attractive woman which would attract mt target audience. On this plan I wanted to put a competition to win an Ipod as this would attract my target audience to want to read more about the competition and look into my magazine. As I feel not many students look at the current college magazine.

For my contents page I have planned to have quite a simple layout as people don't spend much time looking at the contents page and I feel the contents page needs to be easy to read. I plan to have a large image that covers half of the page to attract the attention of my target audience and then a few smaller images to show features that will be in the magazine, I will also have a list of what the magazine contents is.

Preliminary Task (Vibe)- college magazine- This blog was meant to be published in October

This is the magazine I made to replace the current college magazine. I feel that I have done well in making the magazine younger, more eye catching and more exciting than the current college magazine. My target audience being young woman and men aged between 16-19 as these are the ages of most people at college.

For my front cover I used a large tittle to grab the viewers attention, this will help people to recognise my magazine.
I have used a large image of a young attractive woman as I feel this will help grab my target audiences attention, her eyes are looking right at the camera which really stands out and makes you instantly look at the cover. I chose this image as I feel it is young, fun and cheeky which I feel my target audience would like. I used the colour red for my magazine as it is bright and eye catching it also compliments the model as she is wearing red lipstick.
I used large text in the colours black, white and yellow as these colours are all eye catching against the red background and work well together.
The competition on my magazine is there to attract my target audience into reading the magazine as I feel at the current moment not many students read the college magazine.




This is my contents page for Vibe magazine. I decided to keep the same colour scheme and text as I feel audiences respond better to a colour scheme or theme, as people like similarities.

I used the same size of text for the tittle (Vibe) as the cover and I added (Contents) in the same text but smaller and in white as the word is not as important as the tittle, I decided to make the word (contents) the colour white as this stand out against the red background and the black tittle.
I chose the main large image on this page because I feel it is inviting with the pose the model is doing and how she is interacting with the viewer by looking right into the camera.
I chose the other two group images to show an element of fun and friendship as the images are advertising (freshers night) which is a club night organised by the college for students to go to and meet new people.
I decided to list the contents down the right hand side of the page as i felt this made the page look better as it is easier to read and is attractive to the eye.

Overall I am very happy with how my Preliminary task has turned out, all though a few of my ideas have changed slightly from my flat plans to the finished product, I feel I made the right decisions and completed the task as best I could, using new software I had no previous experience in. I hope to learn more about the software InDesign in future and to improve on what I have done for my preliminary task.

Feedback

This is a questionnaire I made to ask my my target audience (woman and men aged between 16-34) I asked 6 people to fill in my questionnaire overall- 3 girls and 3 boys. I found this helpful in that it showed me whether I had made my magazine to fit my target audience for example I found that most of the people I asked really liked my magazine and all of them thought it suited my target audience. This is really helpful and makes me feel proud of my magazine.

The only comments I got from the questionnaire on areas to improve on where:
1) Make exclusive story more noticeable on the contents page and
2) To make the contents page more dotted around and not so gridded.
I feel these comments are very constructive and helpful and not necessarily bad. I decided to make the contents page quite gridded as it seemed easier to read and looked more pleasing to the eye layed out in that way. Overall I am very happy with how my final magazine has turned out, the only improvements I would have done was if I had more time to work on he magazine it would look more attractive to my target audiences eye as I would of had more time to research into what they liked more. I feel my target audience really liked my magazine and had some good constructive comments.

Evaluation of the finished magazine

These are the links to my magazine called Rap Sheet.

My front cover:
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4-5YKV5LgbpZWFlNzhjODgtOGMwOS00Y2YxLTg1M2QtY2VjMWMyYzE4ZTBi&hl=en

My contents page:
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4-5YKV5LgbpYzI0YjMzOWEtMjEyMi00Nzg1LTljYmQtMzg1Y2YzZDEyOWRl&hl=en

My double page:

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4-5YKV5LgbpYmI4MmU3OGYtYzNiMC00NjdlLTliZmQtN2Y3NmMyYTA0ODQy&hl=en

For my Hip-hop magazine Rap Sheet I chose a bold and stenciled type of font which I think gives an urban feel and stands out well to attract my target audiences attention (woman and men aged between 16-34). The Source magazine which is the same genre uses a similar font. See image below.

I feel my Hip-hop magazine is different to other types of music magazine as it is not targeted at one sex, it is suitable for men and woman and the age group it appeals to is quite vast (16-34year olds) Also my magazine doesn't conform to any kind of layout or grid, I tried to make the layout quite free but at the same time easy to read as I feel this would appeal to my target audience more than a very boring simple grid method on each page.

My magazine is similar to other magazines though in that my masthead is similar to for example The source and Vibe magazines and my main image is large and of one person making eye contact to catch the viewers attention, which is similar to other music magazines. I felt I should make a few similarities to other magazines as people like to see something familiar to relate to but also these types of idea-making the model have eye contact are the best way to catch attention.

I feel my magazine represents 'Hip-hop' fans well as it is quite open to anyone and the articles I have made would appeal to (16-34 year old men and woman) who are my target audience. Young people are often perceived as dangerous or not to be trusted but I feel my magazine represents the age group and the genre of music well. The images I have used are firstly of a mixed race attractive young woman which I feel would attract the attention of my intended target audience and Hip-hop lovers, I have also taken pictures of the highly popular game DJ Hero which has a range of hip-hop styled music on it which would also attract my target audience (woman and men aged between 16-34 who enjoy Hip-hop music)

I feel my magazine isn't discriminant of race or sex as I have used a mixed race young woman on my front cover and on my contents page and my target audience is woman and men.

My magazine has turned out to be more attractive to younger people rather than my preferred target audience of 16-34 year olds. Which I didn't mean to happen as I am not discriminant to age but because of the industries influence on magazines I have had to try and make my magazine fit under the popular bracket of (young attractive models with good figures, the type of text I have had to use and the articles I have used) I had to do this as it's more common that someone will get attracted to a young, fresh looking magazine and with the youth of today being the most likely to buy magazines rather than older people as they have more money to waste.

I think that the images and text I have used suggest fun and excitement about my genre of magazine and that Hip-hop isn't always bad or to do with gangs etc which a lot of people think. It is also very cultural, showing not only one culture. Real Hip-hop artists rather than the commercial artists have a love for the type of music where as commercial artist have a love for the money rather than the music, which you can tell when listening to the music. I feel that I have been fair and not on a particular side of Hip Hop like the new commercial artists or the older ones, as my magazine doesn't mind commercial or old Hip Hop artists.

I would use a big publisher for my magazine like Vibe magazine does, they use the Time Warner publisher which I would use, as Vibe was very popular and must of had a lot of help from a big publisher. I feel to make my magazine big and get it out I would need to use a large and well known publisher like Time Warner. This is their website: http://www.timewarner.com/corp/

I would get Major shops like WHSmiths, Tesco's, Sainsburrys etc.. to stock my magazine as this is where many of my target audience (woman and men aged between 16-34) would shop and see my magazine and I feel this is the best place to try and sell a magazine as it is more likely to be bought and liked if it is sold in a familiar, well known place. I would also stock it in specialist record shops as I want my magazine to look professional and important and that the music is important to the magazine. I feel these places would choose to stock my magazine as it is well presented, it represents the genre Hip-hop well and there aren't many Hip-hop magazines around, especially that will give you the culture and the music.

Th audience for my magazine are woman and men because I like to be equal and for my magazine to attract and please both sex's, The age group I aimed for was between (16-34 year olds) which I feel is quite vast so I am not being discriminant to age or sex. The type of race of the person that would buy my magazine wouldn't be a particular one but may be slightly more towards African and darker coloured people with some Caucasian people. The socio-economic group of people that would buy my magazine may vary between B-middle class, C1-Lower middle class, C2-Skilled working class and D-working class as my magazine is representing a type of music which many different types of people enjoy and follow.

I tried to attract my audience (woman and men aged between 16-34) by using informal language with slang and words that are easy to read, as younger people prefer this way of speaking and feel more comfortable reading something that is for them.

The image I chose for the front cover was chosen to attract my audience as the model is a young, attractive woman who both male and females like to see, as males may feel drawn more to a good looking person and woman the same but may feel they aspire to look like the model or connect to the model in some way. The models pose is also used to draw in my target audience as she looks comfortable, confident and proud which draws people in as they aspire to be like that person or they respect them more. The image on the left is the image I used for my front cover below and the image on the right is another example of an image I used in my magazine.

The type of text I used for my magazine for example the title is also used to attract my target audience as it is similar to other Hip Hop magazines that are in the market that have the same target group as I do and my target audience chose the text in a questionnaire I gave to them. The other magazines in the market that I looked at for inspiration where The Source and Vibe magazines, these are examples of their front covers below..

After constructing this project I have learnt a lot from technology such as Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop. For example I had never used InDesign before I started this project, I now enjoy working with the programme and feel i understand it more although I still have a lot to learn. This differs from my knowledge of Photoshop, as I luckily had used this programme before, doing photography which really helped me with this project as I feel my images look much better than they would without any re-touching or editing. I found that both programmes where very useful and fun to use once I got to know them. I am looking forward to learning more about both programmes in the future and hope to work on them again very soon.

InDesign and Photoshop helped a great deal in my idea process as they made many of my ideas come to life without too much difficulty, for example when I wanted to make my model look fresh faced and have no spots or blemishes I just used photoshop to help me do so. Another example is when I wanted to have a black background on every page of my magazine InDesign made this very easy for me.
I don't feel any of my ideas where compromised by the software as I am very happy with my final product and both software's worked very well together.

Looking back at my preliminary task I feel I have made huge improvements and have learnt a lot from the progression from it to my final product.
Elements of my design skills would be that I have a much greater knowledge of using both software's than I did at the very beginning and I have been able to think in a way that would suit the software I used to complete my final magazine.
I feel my language use is much better in that it suits my target audience of woman and men who enjoy Hip Hop aged between 16-34.
I planned much more thoroughly than I did for my preliminary task as I knew that this task was much more important and I had some knowledge of what was expected of me than I had at the very beginning of the course.
Overall, I am very happy with my final outcome for this project and I am looking forward to doing more in the future.

Planning and Evaluation of an article

For this task I looked at articles from the magazines Vibe and The Source.

The first article I looked at was from Vibe magazine, the article is on Rhianna the singer and how a director says she 'will try anything'. The article is quite short so I couldn't get very much information from it but what I did get from it was that the tone used is quite informal and friendly, it invites you in and is quite easy to read. It also grabs your attention straight away with the title, leading you in to see what it means. Making you ask yourself what will Rhianna try!?

The first line also has the same effect '(Even with controversy steaming from Rihanna's recently released music video, "Rude boy'')', the word controversy immediately attracts the viewers attention and makes them want to read more. This article is more of an interview with the director Melina Matsoukas giving lots of quotes and statements but you don't see what the magazine asked her.

Overall I found this article very easy to read and understand, I think this sort of article would suit my audience of woman and men of the ages of 16-34.

The second article that I looked at was from a magazine called The Source. The article is on an interview about how Hip hop's essential four elements- MCing, graffiti, break dancing and DJing have evolved over the years but some things never change. The interview is between veterans of the graft and the 'newschoolers'.

The article's use of language is quite informal, it appeals to younger people or people that are into the Hip-hop scene, there is a lot of use of slang, for example the word 'newschoolers' meaning newer/younger generation.
The tone of the article is on quite a serious note, the veterans are complaining about the way Hip-hop is today and how it's all about the money and not about the feeling or love for Hip-hop.
This article is an interview but you don't see what the questions are, the pages are just full of quotes from the veterans and the newer people. I find this quite an interesting way to present an interview and seems quite effective, you don't need the questions on the page to understand what the people are talking about. It flows more and seems like a conversation an a page, with the people being interviewed leading off one another. I like the way they chose to show the interview, I think it would appeal to my target audience (woman and men aged between 16-34) as it seems young and is for my genre Hip-hop and is very easy to relate to and read.

I think the second article from The source magazine is much better than the first article by Vibe magazine as it seems to flow more, it's easier to relate to and understand. The first article didn't have enough information in it to make you remember it, I feel an article being memorable is very important for magazines, so they are getting their point across to the reader.

This is an example of my review of the new XBOX360 game DJ Hero, Which will be on my double page spread.

Xbox’s new game (DJ HERO) released on the 27th October 2009 from Activision a follow up from (Guitar Hero & Band Hero) but for a different crowd has been very popular with all types of people and all types of ages. Different to (guitar hero) in that you are a DJ and have a turntable, but the actual game play being the same, they have kept the aims the same and the 4 coloured buttons the same. The full catalogue on the disc consists of 93 tracks covering several genres and appealing to all ages some examples of the tracks are; 50 Cent - “Disco Inferno” vs. David Bowie - “Let’s Dance”, Cypress Hill - “Insane In The Brain” vs. Classics IV - “Spooky”, Daft Punk - “Around The World” vs. Young MC - “Bust A Move” and Daft Punk - “Robot Rock” vs. Queen - “We Will Rock You”.

The makers of Guitar Hero introduce an entirely fresh and innovative way to experience your favourite music. ‘With DJ Hero, be the life of the party as you spin and scratch more than 100 songs into unique mixes. Get ready for a whole new phenomenon in music. ‘(A quote from the official XBOX 360 website)

When I first started up the game, the exciting and enticing music and phenomenal graphics really got my heart pumping and made me excited to see what the game had to show. There are a range of levels to choose from including a beginner’s guide explaining and teaching you how to use the controls to the most elite game player’s level. There are many songs to mix to including nearly all genres for example ‘hip-hop, rock and pop’.

The game play is much the same as guitar hero but with a twist in that you still have the same aims in the game and the coloured buttons are the same but you have to spin the turn table to get the targets rather than strumming like the Guitar Hero game. Another great thing about DJ HERO is that you can plug in the guitar from Guitar Hero and play along while someone else uses the turntable.

‘When I first started up the game, the exciting and enticing music and phenomenal graphics really got my heart pumping.’ (A line grabber to attract reader’s attention)

The one big letdown about DJ HERO is that there have been a lot of complaints with problems with people’s turntables sensor playing up, Luckily XBOX and Activisions are prepared to repair or replace any faulty turntables. But other than the minor technical difficulty I found no other problems or glitches to the game, it’s a great game for almost anyone.

To conclude I think JD HERO is a great game to play on your own or in a big group, the game is family friendly but may need PG because of some of the words in the songs, it’s entertaining and always keeps you on your toes. I had a lot of fun playing the game and would strongly recommend it to anyone; the music is really great and can suit almost anyone’s taste. I give it a 9/10 for being so entertaining and fun to play but the sensor problem is quite common so it doesn’t get a 10 from me.