Week 4 - Reflective post

This week, we created various blog posts which allowed us to get more inspiration for our magazine advert and for our digipak. We were asked to create analysis for various digipaks and for magazine adverts and we had to analyse their impact on the target audience. As we were doing this, we were able to get a more knowledgeable understanding of how different digipaks and magazine adverts can target different audiences and therefore, I need to take this into context when I am creating ideas for my own digipak and magazine advert analysis.

Digipak analysis

This digipak was created to advertise the band distorture. Just by looking at it, you can instantly see the intentions of the digipak due to its distinctive red and white colours which symbolize danger and pain. This is supported by the fact that there is blood on the focal point which allows the audience to understand that the album will be about suffering  as the band may have gone through some times of grief. As a result of this, the audience that will be appealed towards this album will be teenagers from the age of 13-18 who may be feeling emotional distress because of something that they have gone through and thus need something to relate to so that they can try and ease the pain away. Furthermore, the blood seems to be on the hand of someone which can connote that the person may have gone through a time where they have had blood spilled on them because they have assisted the death of someone or have caused the death of someone which can bring the feeling of guilt and thus can once again attract an audience who may have gone through the same rough periods as the artist .

This digipak was used to advertise the famous singer - Rihanna. This digipak can be attractive to an audience very quickly because of the focal point that is used - the singer themselves, Rihanna. Having Rihanna as the focal point can be attractive for an audience because how she appears to have been 'sexualised' in the set of images that come in the digipak. For example, the bottom pictures show Rihanna with her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open which is a symbol of where artists try to make themselves look "sexy". Therefore, the target audience that this digipak can attract would be teenage girls of the ages between 14-20 because they are the ones who use Rihanna as a role model and therefore would try to copy what she looks like in the digipak. Because of the digipak, you can understand what the album will mostly likely be about; her singing songs about relationships. This digipak can influence future music videos because Rihanna would most likely want to follow this image of sexualisation as people have already seen it in the digipak.

 In this digipak, the artist who is being portrayed is Marina and the Diamonds as it can be seen through the typography on one of the frames. The typography which is being used is bold on the first name of the band which is the focus point for an audience as they can easily find out who the digipak is advertising. Therefore, this is good for rhe digipak because the artist is clearly advertised, they can be quickly recognized and therefore, their audience would want to buy their album. The focal point of the digipak appears to be the artist. In the top right image, the woman is seen to to lying down with her hair flowing on the ground which shows that she is very relaxed and trying to look appealing to the audience. This can be successful for some audience members because they may feel attracted to the digipak because of the main image meaning that they would be attracted to buying the album. The target audience for this album would be females who are in their teens (16-24) as they are the ones who would want to look like her as she is looking very appealing to some people.

Music magazine advert analysis

This album cover is advertising Adele which is instantly recognisable because of the large focal point which is her face. Having her face as the focal point allows an audience member to get immediately interested as they quickly know who the magazine advert is about and so they would want to know more.
The target audience for this magazine advert will be females from the ages of 18-40 because Adele is a very popular artist who is known amongst all age groups. Despite begin very young, Adele is mature meaning that both young and middle aged people can relate to her. Furthermore, the main image is black and white showing Adele's sadness and distress which can attract people who are also feeling down which would make them want to listen to this song as they believe that they could relate to what Adele is singing about.
As a result of this, the representation that it gives is that Adele is in a dark zone as there is no sign of colour anywhere which can appeal to people who may also be going through rough times in their life and need something to relate to, making her sales potentially boost. The pack is also being displayed on the bottom left corner which is not very different to the main image of the advert showing that Adele's feelings will be displayed all throughout the album. It also allows for people to see clearly that this is an Adele album since they saw the magazine advert,  making the pack easily recognisable.
The message that the magazine advert is trying to convey is Adele's feelings which can be understood simply because of the overall advert. Its simplicity allows for the message to be easily spread because her emotions are easily portrayed.

This poster is advertising Eminem and his new album 'Recovery'. Firstly, the typography is different as his name is in black, but the title is in white. This can connote that Eminem's life was previously in the dark as he was going through a lot of troubles but however he is trying to turn it around and make himself better, hence the white font giving a contrast between Eminem's old life and Eminem's current life. His album title also has an hospital sign in replacement of the 'o' which can create the image of an hospital showing that he has required numerous amount of help to try and recover. Having this can attract an audience who may also be going through troubled times and need some way to recover which is why Eminem's music may be intriguing for them as they would want to feel some sort of personal identification. In both his name and in the album title, there are two 'E's which are backwards which can connote that Eminem has gone backwards a lot in his life which is why he may be going through recovery.

The focal point is Eminem walking down an empty road that doesn't look to have an end. This could be the road to recovery which connotes that to be able to recover you have to walk long distances before you can become better which shows how troubled Eminem is. Therefore, the target audience for this album would be any gender between the ages of 18-30 as this is the time where a lot of people have troubled times and as a result of this need to find some help. Also, the body copy includes some artists who are just as famous as Eminem such as Lil Wayne, P!NK and Rihanna. If an audience member sees these names then they will be automatically interested. Finally, the release date is very important as the audience needs to know when the album is going to be released so that they can buy it.

Eminem would be most suitable for the 'rap' genre because of the way he is being represented in the magazine cover. This is because a lot of rappers decide to rap about their lives and all the times where they have been deep down on the ground and as Eminem was on a similar position, this would be the most appropriate.

Therefore, the message that Eminem is trying to illustrate is that he is alone on his journey to become who he wants to be - someone divergent from who he was in the past.

The artist's name, Mika, is clearly displayed in very large bold writing which can allow audiences to quickly identify who the artist is which allows for people to want to find out more as they may know who the artist already is. Because of this, the advert can quickly gather popularity because audiences want to see more about an artist who they enjoy listening to.
The focal point is very attractive as it includes very bright colours as well as a section with black and white which can give a contrast in the music which will be played in the album - some will be very joyful, some will be serious. In the colourful part of the main image, you can see a table with work and a teenager holding a book to their face. This can suggest that the artist is showing that work can be stressful, and as the work is being sucked up, it can connote that the artist wants people to put away their stress in life and relax more showing that the artist's music is cheerful that can attract an audience who may need some cheering up.
On the other side of the main image, you can see planets which can connote that the artist's song is universal meaning that anyone can hear it which can suggest that the artist wants to be able to attract all audiences around the world.

Beachcombing Analysis

Costume

This song is called Alive by Empire of the Sun. This song's costumes helps to attract audiences because of how abstract the artists in the video look. For example,  the 2nd person from the left is wearing a very large crown which connotes that he is the one who is most powerful in the group and therefore, this can attract an audience who will want to feel some sort of superiority as they would like to wear a crown that big. Therefore, the target audience which this music video attracts would be mostly females from the ages of 16-25 because they are the ones who will find most attractiveness towards these obscure costumes as at this age, they always like to stand out when they are in a crowd. In addition, the artists look like they have costumes which relates to science-fiction because they do not look realistic as they would not be used out on the streets. Therefore, they could attract audiences who are fans of science-fiction because of their costume as it looks like something that could be used  in a science-fiction movie

Narrative

This song is called La La La by Naughty boy featuring Sam Smith. In this music video,  the narrative is very appealing especially to people to know the story behind it. The narrative behind it is based on the Bolivian oral legend which relates to the Wizard of Oz. This is successful because if people recognize what the music video is about then they will get a feeling of personal identification as they will be understanding what the music video is on about. Therefore, because of this the target audience where this music video would be aimed towards would be people of all ages or gender because everyone should be able to have more knowledge on past legends as it can help to educate them further.  In addition, as the music video is about a Bolivian legend, it will most definitely attract people from Bolivia as they would like to see their legend come to life.

Intertextuality

The song 'We made you' by Eminem is the perfect example of intertextuality within a music video as there are a lot of references which can be seen throughout. One of the references that can be recognised from the start of the video is towards  the video game Guitar Hero as it shows Eminem edited onto a huge Guitar Hero board. This can be very attractive for an audience because guitar hero is a very popular game and therefore if it is seen in the Eminem music video, it will gain more popularity as more fans would want to see it. Another reference that was made was towards Star Trek as you can see the 'Star Trek' crew inside their spaceship for the music video. This can attract a lot of audiences because Star Trek is the most popular science fiction TV show meaning that it can gather millions of views.

                                                                                                                                                                

 Editing  

In this music video, the editing that is used during the beat drop becomes very fast. This can be seen as a lot of different clips are used that mostly symbolize explosions which can relate to the drop as it can be called 'explosive'. Also, the music video includes extremely fast editing especially from 1:09 onwards which is when the actual song quickens itself. This was done to match the actual pace of the song but also to show a lot of things happening in a very quick succession. The target audience for this music video is most likely 16-20s because they are the ones who most likely enjoy this upbeat sort of music as it may no longer be attractive for them since the music is very recent.and most people above those are mostly not interested in modern music and thus would equally not enjoy the music video.

Week 3 - Reflective Post

This week we began our work for our main project which is to create a music video. Our first task was to go to a website with unsigned artists, such as "www.mp3unsigned.com" and find a song which we liked and could make a music video on. This was a fairly easy task because we could find songs from the charts who were pretty good and had lyrics which were fairly easy to understand. The song that I went for was called "Don't tell me what to do - V Dogg".This song is about a person who is very independent and doesn't listen to anyone's opinion.

After finding the song. we had to transcribe the lyrics and write their meaning, which was a straight-forward task because the lyrics were easy to understand. When that was done we had to write a letter to the artist asking for their permission so that we could use their song in our music video.

Overall, this was a productive week because we made very good progress in finding a song and so it would be quicker to get a move on the creation of the song.