Monday, March 11, 2013

Analysis of a magazine advert.


This is a magazine advert for the female artist of the alternative genre; Kate Nash. The imagery of the poster has a “do it yourself” vibe to it, which very much suits the alternative genre. The background of the shot has a gradation of blue that connotes early morning or late afternoon; sunset/sunrise, which could also be a connotation for being youthful and staying out late again a connotation frequently used in the alternative genre, or it could be seen a tranquil which would challenge audience expectations of this genre.

The audience is also presented with a dolls house in the background, along with some garden sculptures in the shape of horses. Which could connote a fantasy/ dream like effect, possibly representing to the audience that Kate Nash the artist has a dream to be a successful artist and through the house being a dolls house the audience could understand that the dream has been since she was a young girl-when she would have played with doll’s houses.

In the foreground we can see the artist in a red dress. This can be seen to be following Dyer’s theory as it is sowing the artist as a product, in order for the product to be consumed. Also, the fantasy feel to the poster adds to Dyer’s theory as Dyer also suggests that no artist is real, but creating upon what the audience will buy into.

The red dress, whilst being a prime color in order to attract the audience’s attention as it stands out also has many connotations. One connotation of the color red could be that Kate has passion for her music and fans, which would have been used to create a relationship between the two, in order to give the product the best chance for success in the industry.

The text of this advert is simple and short, allowing for the message to be conveyed within the magazine very easy, as magazine advert don’t tend to be examined and therefore would need to be able to be consumed almost instantly. The text includes the artist’s name, the album title t is promoting and the date of release, as well as a few extra comments.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Group Digipak (final)

Thank you slide
Front cover

CD slide

Back slide
Two slide image
















As a group we decided that my digipak was more conventional to the genre, however in order to provide a more complete product we replaced two of my slides with a dual image slide from Adam Taylor’s this made the product fit for industry.

The front cover of our digipak was a slide that has 3 sections to it; top, middle, bottom. The top segment is white, with a black font stating the artist’s first name; the bottom segment is the same except it has the second name of our artist. This enabled us to promote the artist’s name to create a relationship between the audience and the artist. The middle of the slide has an image in the foreground with greenery in the background. The background connotes the freedom of our artist, which adds to our image of the artist.

The second slide is a thank you slide. The purpose of this slide is to show the fans that they are appreciated in their support for the artist. It is an attempt to improve the relationship from the audience to our artist. The image of this slide is the hollowing of a guitar; a piece of iconography for the music industry, there is also an image of the artist intended to reinforce our artist’s image.

The dual slide is a picture of the houses of parliament. This was used because it is a stereotype for London, in which we believe, is important in the representation of our artist. We wanted the representation of our artist to be British, as we believe there is a gap in the market for this type of artist.

The CD image of the hollowing of the guitar continues the theme of instruments and music. This image was used to strengthen the connotations of our artist being talented in playing an instrument. It also gives the audience some continuity throughout the digipak to increase the cohesion of the product.

The back page is an image of a guitar body. The main colours of this slide are orange to connote happiness of the artist and his music. The bottom of the page includes the CD’s track list, with the record labels logo. Again the guitar image was used for the same reason as it has been throughout to strengthen the fluidity of the digipak and to display the artist’s talent with a guitar.

Group magazine (Final).


Upon completion of the magazine tasks, the group compared each other's work. We all agreed that  Olivia's magazine advert was more conventional to our genre i.e including images of our Artist and also images of the product, we also agreed that Olivia's was best because it displayed the best understanding of using Photoshop; increased opacity, the application of effects such as outer glow and also desaturation of the colours.


Monday, February 4, 2013

Jason Mraz Artist research


Jason Mraz’s songs I’m yours and Wordplay both belong to the alternative genre of music. I decided to use them as research into the genre as I believe that they achieve the purpose of a music video. They both include many shots that relate back to the artist, which ultimately links the artist and the music together and allows for a relationship to be formed between the audience and artist. The music videos are a mixture of Performance, concept and Narrative; with little to none concept in the song I’m yours- I judged the ratio to be 60:40 in the favor of narrative.


The song I’m yours connotes Jason to be a free and fun loving person, he spends a lot of time in the video out and about exploring nature connoting that he is a peaceful person that doesn’t believe in violence.

The cinematography of the song has a large range of shots, the most common shots used were mid shots and long shots which are conventional to the genre and especially music videos as it can draw focus to detail of the video. A low to high shot of an airplane is used as the establishing shot, this connotes that the artist has a jet set lifestyle.  Other shots that are used re extreme close ups, a pan shot and a point of view shot. The point of view shot is the main shot I think is significant, the reason for this is that a camera shot like this places the audience in position with the artist, which then could allow for a relationship to be formed.

The main type of edit in this music video is a Jump cut; it also has no examples of Computer generated imagery within the video. The editing style of this video follows the rules of continuity, which breaks away from the norm of music videos of this genre. The 180-degree rule is used throughout the video, allowing for the audience to understand what is going on in the shot. A match on action shot is also used within the opening of the video as Jason leaves his motel room. Other aspects of continuity that were used are an eye-line match and a sequence of shot reverse shot.

The mise en scene of this music video is very detailed and specific it is also high in verisimilitude .The settings within the video consists of an American airport, a motel, on board a plane, Hawaiian countryside, a forest and a waterfall. The three most significant of these in my opinion are the airport, motel and waterfall. All three of these can be linked to the connotation of travel, which represents the artist again in a positive and cool way. The motel could suggest that he is only briefly travelling, which could have a deeper meaning of Jason being confused by a situation and is a way to settle his emotions and he wont be staying for to long.  The waterfall is an amazing image, which could have been used to connote Jason’s extraordinary ability of music. The costume that Jason wears remains the same / similar throughout the music video; shorts, t-shirt, flip flops, trillby (hat) and sunglasses. The use of limited costumes reinforces the idea that he is not staying for long as is passing through. The lighting of this video fluctuates between low key and natural lighting, with natural lighting being the most common, making the video feel more authentic.

This video adheres to the theory suggested my Andrew Goodwin, there is an aspect of voyeurism within this video, or the notion of looking as it is also known. There are a sequence of shots of Jason mainly focused on individual facial features like the eyes, nose and mouth. Also there is a link between the lyrics and visuals when the line ‘open up your eyes and see your free’ is sung Jason is sitting on the ledge of a skate bowl with no shoes on looking like he has no worries.



Another song by Jason Mraz that I have decided to research is the song ‘Wordplay’- which was released far earlier than I’m yours.  Jason is portrayed to be more rebellious in this music video than he was in I’m yours, which suggests how he has developed throughout the years as his audience changed, suggesting to me that I need to thoroughly research the audience of the genre at the moment as it is prone to changing. The ratio % for this music video is concept-30 performance-60 and narrative 10,

The cinematography is relatively basic in this music video in comparison to the other. The range of camera shots within this video is seven; establishing long shot, low to high shot, mid shot, track / zoom, high to low, long shot and close up. The three shots I focused my attention to was the close ups, low to high and high to low. The close ups are a good way to show emotion of characters within the video- especially as further research has shown that the audience can relate better to an artist when they express emotions within their product. The low to high and the high to low shots represent the power Jason (as a character) has in the narrative of his music video, when he is playing with his band and enjoying himself the low to high gives him a higher status and suggests his importance. When the crowd of people starts hassling him the shots are changed to high to low to connote his character’s insignificance.

The editing style of this video is also basic in comparison to I’m yours. Similarities that both videos have are that they both use straight cuts as the main editing style. It difference to I’m yours is that it has a filter placed on some of the footage. When the old man is walking along the path toward Jason a time lapse is used- this is to speed up time but still express the same point to the audience.

The Mise en scene of this video is the more lenient of the two videos. The setting of the video is in a desert / savannah environment- it looks slightly biblical. There are also more costumes used; a band member is dressed as a wizard- it turns out to be Jason, Jason in the video keeps the same outfit on jeans and a t-shirt which is similar to that in I’m yours. There are also additional costumes for other actors; they looked to be wearing peasantry clothing  / robes which continues the biblical theme. The lighting is also limited to only using natural lighting. Props used in this video were the rocks being thrown to connote the disagreement of what Jason was singing about connoting controversial topics and different types of guitar, in which Jason plays- demonstrating his talent an d encouraging the audience to support him.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Record label research.


Sony Music Entertainment (SonyME) and Finders Keepers Records are two record labels of different calibers as a result of their size. An argument could be made that global institutions like Sony dominate the music industry, but smaller companies often can cater to Niche audiences more effectively through the better understanding of their audience than large global institutions have. I will be examining how models of production, distribution and consumption have changed from the past to the present and the implications of future developments. I will argue that technological convergence has had an effect on the music industry and how illegal downloading has put the industry into decline.

Sony ME is a large multinational global corporation, which is part of an oligopoly. There are 3 other major labels that dominate the music industry these being EMI, Universal and Warner. Song ME attaining 22% of the market Share, placing them 2nd out of the 4. They are a castle industry and a conglomerate with departments in Electronics, Films and Finance. They are an example of a converged multinational media institution as they control the music production and make the technology e.g. mobile phones, MP3 players and Blu-Ray discs. The audiences that Sony appeal to have a broad commercial appeal thus making Sony profit driven. Through the use of subsidiary labels Sony can appeal to their audience, three examples of subsidiary labels RCA, Columbia and EPIC Records. Each caters to a different target audience to the next. RCA appeals to a young R&B/Urban audience with artists like Shakira and Beyonce. Columbia Records appeal to a younger rock audience and have artist like Kings of Leon and Kassabian, and EPIC Record appeals to an older audience with artists like Michael Jackson.

Sony ME can also achieve Synergy to cross promote different products, the most frequently known example of synergy for Sony is Foo Fighters, a band signed to a subsidiary label of Sony ME, appearing on Guitar Hero, a video game designed for the Sony PlayStation. Sony artists also appear in films created by Sony pictures Will Smith, initially signed to Columbia records, was the star actor of the Men in Black trilogy. In the past Sony ME have merged with other subsidiary labels through horizontal integration A.K.A by buying them out.

A negative side of this approach to growing a record label is that Sony ME were recently sued by previously bought labels as a result have combine their subsidiaries into RCA Records.

The music industry as a whole is losing vast sums of money as a result of the increased rates of illegal downloading
Finders Keepers Records is the smaller record label I have learnt about. It has a staff of 3 people based in Manchester, in comparison to Sony who has thousands. Finders keepers have an advantage to Sony as they can cater to a small specific Niche Market that Sony ME will find hard to as Sony mainly care about the profits achieved, which is different to Finders keepers as their reason for being in the music industry is that they have a penchant in music. They are a re-issue label releasing obscure film soundtrack music, and other types of world music. Record collectors and music producers seem to be their target audience. Like Sony, Finders Keepers too have subsidiary labels and like Sony it allows them to cater for different audiences, Twisted Nerve is their leading subsidiary for local Manchurian bands in particular. Finder Keepers methods of obtaining records as they record little themselves is by finding songs out of the copyright laws, very old songs. Finders keepers often find themselves redesigning the album artwork to reinvent artists to best suite their audience. They realize that their audience prefers physical products (records and CD's) with detailed information of the artists and the songs rather than digital downloads from sources like iTunes.