Magazine Advert Ideas & Conventions

For our magazine advert to look as professional and authentic as it could be our group decided that we need to incorporate the following into it; the title of the album, the image of the album, reviews, the Artists website, a design similar to the Album, links to purchases places, ratings, an image of the artist, CD logo and a selection of cross media platforms. These are the common features of all magazine adverts.

The common conventions of Indie Adverts are normally that they have the appearance of being designed with a vintage feel and artistically which overall tends to be quite simple but creative. I believe that an image such as a photo of the artist with a vintage tint would really show that it is from this genre, which is used mostly in Indie. There is often a link to the Artists website or their twitter accounts so they can be easily connected with the artist. 

The two types of magazine advert are either artist or album focused adverts; meaning as our artist is still not hugely well known and is still very independently run, our advert will be artist focused. Our advert must link with the Digi pack and relate to each other, at best they can.When choosing the right image, font and content for our magazine advert, it is important we include and take into account the content above.

Male/Artist's Costume Ideas

Within my group, we started to think and research different clothing ideas for our music video. We intend to go down the Indie route for the male as it will match the genre (acoustic indie) of the song. Below demonstrates some ideas we researched on sites such as www.asos.com and on google images where different outfits have been shown in a 'Look Book' on various websites. 

This outfit above establishes the typical indie look with the all buttoned up shirt, the black skinny jeans and the black vans. Because on Asos it showed full male outfits, we didn't like the top half as much as the bottom half or vice versa, therefore we had to screenshot the top half (for example) and select a different bottom half that we thought would look more appropriate for our music video. I think the black skinny jeans work well as you see generally in the Indie genre artists wearing this sort of outfit but with a baggy or long top such as a shirt as we have shown. I also think that this outfit could be seen well with an acoustic guitar which we are including in our video.

Another outfit we thought worked well together was the one shown above, with the navy blue skinny jeans, brogues and a t shirt with a parker coat over the top, it represents again the
indie genre with a skinny bottom half and a baggy outfit on the top. I think the brogues work really well with the skinny jeans and due to research I found out that trends these days in mens clothing are very popular. I also researched various Indie artists such as Bastille (which is a indie rock group) who wear brogues sometimes when performing, doing interviews, photo shoots etc. As our artist is called Mike Dignam, I looked at his style to help ideas to incorporate together as he is an important part because his style will match his style and genre of music. I noticed from this research that he wears a lot of denim (e.g a denim jacket) and he goes for the all buttoned up shirt, sometimes short sleeved or rolled up sleeved.

<--Short sleeved all buttoned up shirt

Denim jacket used with indie acoustic guitar -->

 Brogues -->

Influencing Music Videos

Olly Murs - Dear Darlin'

As a group, we are interested in the effect that is used in Olly Murs music video for 'Dear Darlin' where he uses an identical location and overlays his image to therefore identify how him and his girlfriend acted when they were together and the good times they had. This was done with Olly in the room, sitting on the sofa whilst lip syncing. I really like this effect and I think it would work well with our music choice as its a similar narrative of looking back at the good times of the love story. In order to succeed with this idea, we would have to film it twice in the same location with the camera still running throughout the scene, then we would edit it on Final Cut Express and cut, overlay and alter the opacity of the image to make it subtle but effective.

Daughter - Still

I have selected this video for one of the music videos I am influenced by as it uses an interesting, subtle effect of including the artist's image being presented on the old fashioned TV in the flat/bedroom. Although it is a slightly different genre to our chosen song/artist, it demonstrates how we could have the artist lip syncing on the TV whilst the narrative is working around it but the song being used as diagetically. This effect is creatively used as it not only represents the artists image but presents a disturbing story around the TV. Another idea we liked in this music video was the telling of the story through some framed photos and the ways in which the couple act around each other, as though they don't notice one another.

Ben Howard - Keep Your Head Up

The reason I have chosen this video as another one I am influenced by for our music video is the fun aspect and the various, effective shots where the filter has been altered to create a warm effect as it's a happy and fun video. This video is cleverly made due to the interest of the water slide and how they have created the video using a range of effective shots to draw the listener into the music video and provide the most interest to the water slide. These shots include wormview shots where we can see the characters sliding down the water, it also looks as though the some of the characters have held the camera on their stomachs to capture a reaction shot of their faces and establish how much fun they are videoing this. Another shot is a birds-eye view of the water slide and the artists sliding down it. All these shots help make the video seem fun and all help to capture the listeners attention which is what we need to aim for. The video also looks as though it can be aimed at all ages as most people can relate to it and be inspired by it due to the creativity.

Ben Howard - Only Love

Although we mention Ben Howards music videos a lot on this blog, we really like the creativity he provides and how this attracts the viewers to watch more. In one of his other music videos 'Only Love', provides interest to the viewer due to the amount of different locations and shots, for instance we see Ben first riding his bike but looking from a low angle to capture not only the power but the sunlight shining through the trees to make the video more happy and enjoyable to watch. However then we jump to a shot of urban settings in which the cuts are in time with the beat of the song, including urban shots of a city allows the interest to build up in the audience as they want to know what city is being videoed and where Ben intends to end up at. I particularly like the high angled shots of the shadow of the bike as it shows a clear indication of what's happening at the beginning of the video and establishes the scene.

Similar Artists

Ben Howard
As suggested previously as one of the main artists that we are influenced by, Ben Howard establishes part of the look we are going for in our music video. He was born on the 24th April 1987, brought up in Totnes, Devon and is known as an English singer-songwriter. His genre is Folk Indie so it is similar to Mike Dignam's music with the upbeat tunes but provides a catchy chorus to the songs.

Unlike other Indie styled artists, Ben accomplishes the non "mainstream" approach by signing with quite an unknown record label called Island Records. Ben is known as unique in contrast to other Indie artists to his unusual style of playing the guitar as he places the guitar face up on his lap therefore providing an effective tapping beat along with the tune of the guitar.
His songs include singles 'Old Pine', 'Wolves' which were released in 2011, however the biggest hit song of his was 'Keep Your Head Up' released in 2010 and which his fame all started.



Joshua Radin
American singer-songwriter Joshua Radin known for his relaxing music but fairly upbeat songs masters the acoustic indie genre which is what Mike Dignam's music is classed as. He was born on 14th June 1974, born and raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio and taught himself to sing, write music and play the guitar in New York. His fame all started when 'Scrubs' TV star Zach Braff introduced one of Radin's songs 'Winter' to show creator Bill Lawrence, who ultimately used several of Radin's songs in the hit series.
Josh enjoyed success with his 2008 release, 'Simple Times' in the UK and his song 'I'd Rather Be With You' reached No.11 on the UK singles chart and No.2 on the US Top Digital Chart. Joshua Radin not only relates to the genre of Mike Dignams music but relates to him as they are both individual singers and not part of a band/group.




Mumford and Sons (Band/Group)
Mumford & Sons are a folk rock group consisting of 4 members; Marcus Mumford (lead vocals, guitar, drums, mandolin), Ben Lovett (vocals, keyboard, drums), Winston Marshall (vocals, banjo, guitar), and Ted Dwane (vocals, string bass, drums, guitar). The band formed in December 2007, emerging from West London with artists such as Laura Marling, Johnny Flynn and Noah & The Whale.


Mumford & Sons are similar to our chosen artist as they use a distinct beat to their music which uplifts the audience and provides a lively feel to the songs. They first recorded their first EP 'Love Your Ground' to get their music out there so it was up and running, which they then performed to medium-sized venues in the UK and the United States to increase the interest from their audiences for their forthcoming album. Their debut album 'Sigh No More' was released in the UK and Ireland in October 2009, and February 2010 in the United States. Since then Mumford & Sons have gained success such as winning some awards like a Brit Award in 2011 for Best British Album.

Mike Dignam Demographics

As our chosen artist is Mike Dignam, I decided to look into his demographics and get to know his audience and how he has developed his appreciation and type of audience. At now 23 years old, mike has received a lot of attention through his music and has highly developed his popularity through Web 2.0 as social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have been widely used by his target audience, therefore giving him an advantage in gaining followers. I first found Mike when I was scanning through Spotify where I was listening to some similar artists and Spotify suggested some artist that were related to his style of music. I watched a few videos of his work via YouTube, of him singing some covers of songs which I really enjoyed.

 Focusing on his way of gaining popularity through Twitter, he has over 11,500 followers, which shows that he is fairly known around the UK.

 From looking at his followers and picking a random a bunch of them, I found out that the majority of them are girls, perhaps due to the love songs he writes and his masculinity. It appears only a few males follow him.











I then looked at his YouTube page and discovered that he is fairly known through YouTube as he has gained over 8,000 subscribers and regularly updates his page with recent gig videos and covers that he has made of popular songs in the charts.
Looking at the representation of his YouTube page,  it seems that he has provided his fans with a UK "Heart to Heart Tour" where he travels around the UK not only performing to a small number of people but meeting and greeting them which gives the pleasure of him and his fans of gaining appreciation.

I also took a look at some of the comments some of his viewers and fans have made below his videos. I looked at one of his most popular songs 'Great Escape' which has gained over 56,000 views. The comments include positive opinions such as; "Wow this is amazing", "Can't wait for the tour!", "Quality" and similar others.

All these positive responses say that Mike is a popular musician with a reliable fan base and this shows that our audience is of a similar type and age.

Meeting and Early Planning of Music Video

In our most recent meeting in class, my group and I started brainstorming ideas for our music video which would decipher the image of the artist through this. We thought of a rough idea for the whole video and different effects and cuts that could be used. Due to media and technological convergence, artists need to promote and advertise themselves more harder than ever as a lot more of the population use media platforms to view them. Therefore we need to be positive about the structure of the music video as this will be viewed by the audience of Mike on YouTube.
We started to think about 'how are we going to market our product and provide the right image portrayal of our chosen artist?'

Below shows the brainstorming board we created in class to demonstrate our initial ideas for the music video:-

Music Video Analysis -Audience

The Funeral - Band Of Horses

'The Funeral' by Band Of Horses is a classic song of 2006 which has been highly used in TV Dramas such as the american hit TV Series One tree Hill, 90210 and Gossip Girl. The music video is very different to what the audience would expect from the Band Of Horses as it combines the black and white years of the 1950s by using a grey scale filter and filming in a particular style. Considering that the Band Of Horses are a male band, the general audience would be expecting a group performance or at least some of the members featuring in their music video. However this is not the case, in contrast to their other music videos and other similar artists such as Radical Face and Radiohead, 'The Funeral' uses a narrative of abusing alcohol after a special person has passed away in which many audience members can relate to. 

The genre that the band makes is known as indie rock, southern rock and alternative country as it brings across an unusual style which attracts a variety of different listeners and ages. Personally I would consider this band and song to be targeting 18-60 year old's as it not only links to the fact that these ages can legally drink alcohol but that these ages have experienced a lot more of grief due to how long they have lived. The slow, soft instrumental music also supports this as it brings an emotional feel towards the listener. Unlike teenage bands such as One Direction, Band Of Horses' music video presents an older lifestyle and tells an emotional narrative which draws the audience into their storytelling. 

Music Video Analysis

Mika - We Are Golden




'We Are Golden' by English singer Mika was released in 2009 which like his other music is known to have a very lively feel. It involves a variety of bright and bold colours throughout the video which tend to symbolise Mika as an artist and his unique style which always manages to attract attention. The main plot of the video consists of Mika dancing and singing about in his bedroom in which he expresses himself fondly by performing his music to the camera through lip synchronisation. He portrays the sense of 'fun' and 'freedom' whilst showing a collection of items and toys which seem to be vintage and old fashioned; representing the 'Golden Years' which the song is based on. The music video is cleverly done, as it successfully manages to attract a variety of people, from young to old through the bright colours and the contrast of currant and past times shown in the items and the design of the setting. 

Mika's genre is based on rock/pop music especially in this song which provides fast melodic music with the meaning of the lyrics being based around how to live life to the full and how our age group is the 'Golden' age therefore we should enjoy life. 

Camera:
- At beginning, first shot, close up of casset presenting 'Mika' on the front telling and reminding the viewers who the artist is. This also implies that the music video is based in the past, as cassets are known as old compared to Ipods or CDs.
- Establishing shot at beginning, showing the audience the setting of the video, you also see Mika jump of the bed implying he's like a child especially with the props in the room and the costume he's wearing.
- Another close up of the casset showing the name of the song to the viewers. -gives a long introduction to the audience, provides eager and interest.
- Low angle of camera to indicate powerfulness of Mika, child like as seems like camera is on the floor looking up at him.

- Aerial shot of him on the colourful carpet in his bedroom, showing the bold colours, he look up at camera, central and eye line is towards you as if he wants you to come and join.
- Shots displaying Mika (seeming to hang from the camera lens) and fly around when creating the sense of carelessness.



Mise En Scene:
- Gold boots shown in establishing shot at beginning, identifies the unique, adventurous and ambitious style Mika takes on. - recognition of a young feel to the video.
- Long shot of bedroom establishing the setting of the video. -shows the child like feel of the video, very bold and contrasting colours, individual style which creates the fun and freedom element of the video.
- Fairly messy bedroom, indicates the stereotypical boys bedroom.

Editing:
- Cutting rate fairly fast, cuts to each toy/item in room in time with drum/beat of song. -provides interest of toys for audience, -can't keep up, intriguing.
- Some shots are sped up demonstrating the child like approach that Mika is showing, like a kid running, full of energy.

Daughter

Daughter are an indie folk rock band originating from London. The band consist of the main singer Elena Tonra, guitarist Igor Haefeli and drummer Remi Aguilella. The trio are a very recent Indie band which only released EPs in 2010 and 2011, but in March this year (2013), they released their first full album 'If You Leave'. Their image is like other Indie artists' images, for example they use positive, light and natural colours in their album covers but make sure they seem personal to the target audiences. Their music is soft and slow yet has the natural beat of the drum with the acoustics of the guitarists. The target audience would be from teenagers aged 15 to adults that want to be relaxed with the soft vocals of Elena.

The trio tend present themselves as a solo artist with Elena Tonra (the main vocal artist) as the face of the band. In my opinion I think this because the name 'Daughter' is more feminine than masculine and from the listeners point of view you guess that the band consists of a feminine vocal which is apparent in the songs. As the face of the band, Elena presents herself in an old fashion but natural way, with her short black hair and innocent face; this attracts the young and old.

To the right shows the EP cover for 'The Wild Youth' which features only a few songs compared to an album. When this was released in 2011, the trio decided to link the title of the EP to the cover of the digipack, therefore they chose to include some children in the cover. This portrayed their indie style as by not placing themselves as a band or Elena on the cover shows that they want to hide their image in some way and be original in their artwork.

However when looking at their recent full album called 'If You Leave', it features more of a natural and light coloured style to the front cover. They have also used an effect that looks youthful as it looks like a young girl is running in the woods due to the fading of the cream clothing. But if you look closely at the album you can see under the trees on the left, it seems like there are two men standing which indicates that they are part of the band.

This music video by Daughter called 'Still' was released from the album 'If You Leave' and is generally about how two people falling out of love of one another, but still clinging onto the ghosts of the love they once shared. Daughter show this through a narrative in the evening making it more depressing and can relate for the audiences.
-Diegetic sound is used at the beginning to emphasise the use of heels walking up some stairs to a flat, the non diegetic sound also starts at the same time. This helps to draw the audiences into the narrative of the music video.
- Low angle of the camera at start of the stairs and the girl walking up, underlines the late night and the clothing of the girl and how provocative she comes across as. The low angle of the camera also shows that a cat is there and emphasises how late at night it is.
- Having the tv on in the bedroom with Daughter performing highlights the use of non diegetic sound and that those images on the tv are the band.
- Aerial shot near the end shows two emotions and creates a longing effect for the audience.
- Behind the shoulder shot of the girl as she undresses shows how the pain of the relationship is hurting her as through the camera you can see how thin she is. Also showing the tattoo on her back supports this.

Kings Of Leon

Kings Of Leon (KOL) is an American band which was formed in Nashville, Tennessee in 1999. This band are particularly unusual due to the formation of brothers and cousins, the group consist of the main singer/guitarist Caleb Followill, bassist Jared Followill, guitarist Mathew Followill and drummer Nathan Followill. In contrast to today, during the beginning of their success their music was a mixture of an upbeat blend of southern rock and garage rock influences but today we see them expanding their sound to include a variety of other genres such as alternative rock.

Like other boy bands, throughout their album releases KOL have chosen to add mystery to their image by not posing on the front of their albums in an obvious way. Although they have included images inside the digipacks, the front cover is a different image that would reflect the particular album in some way. For example, one of their first albums 'Aha Shake Heartbreak' features the famous band Queen's 1975 album 'A Night at the Opera' but KOL have edited the image to give it more of a floral look but eye catching at the same time. 'Aha Shake Heartbreak' includes their southern rock styled music which compared to their recent songs is very different due to the twang of their origin in their early days.
From having this album myself, I can see inside the digipack that the album has included an image of them all standing alike staring at the camera. Compared to their recent image, they all seemed to have the look of long hair which emphasises the contrast, their youth and also how they were brought up in Tennessee. Although it can come across as quite feminine by having a flower looking image on the front of this album, they have made it more masculine by making the background black but it also becomes more bold with the contrast of colours and sophisticated.

In 2010 when KOL released their 5th album called 'Come Around Sundown', their audience noticed a change in their image. Although on the front cover of this album they hid themselves like their earlier covers, inside the digipack you can see how they wanted to represent themselves individually to bring a more personal appearance to the audience. Another contrast between their recent albums and their earliest ones is that 'Come Around Sundown' is shown as more positive with the light colours and sepia effect on the photographs whereas their 3rd album, 'Because Of The Times' is more of a mysterious album cover with the black background again with a white image on the front.

 In terms of Mise En Scene, Kings Of Leon have been styled in a typical boy band way but that would attract a wide range of audiences:
- From looking at this photograph to the right, you can see that by Caleb wearing a cross necklace symbolising his religion which will attract audiences from different religions and societies.
- Having no expression on their faces and just looking at the camera brings out their rebelious side, their boy image and their southern look.

Recently, KOL have released a song called 'Supersoaker' along with a music video. Compared to their previous music and videos, this music video brings their alternative rock genre as well as their interpetation of the lyrics through the ages of the 1950's. The music video features a love story set in the 1950's using the rock and roll culture to reveal the angst of teenagers and the sensual ideas of them. They do this by using different effects to the lighting and colours, for instance they tried to get the look of pop art and did this by hand tinting and technicolour film. 

The music video involves the band performing in a concert styled format but with shots of the love story. The video includes long shots of the band to identify the surroundings, set the scene and to emphasise the mise en scene such as clothing and props. Medium shots are also used to identify the band individually and in some shots the camera is tilted upwards, for example when the camera focuses on Jared Followill on the bass, the camera is tilted upwards to make him look bigger and powerful with his bass guitar.

Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus is known as a teenage icon through her acting and singing career. From the age of just 11, she rose to fame as a Disney Channel star by casting the role of Hannah Montana, a children's television series about a teenager who runs two lives; one normal and one as famous pop star. Now at the age of 20 years old, she is building up her own unique style and image to attract an older audience rather than the Hannah Montana image and young audience that she left behind a while ago. Being the daughter of the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley has been in the starlight of America from a very early age.

Throughout Miley's career, she has been represented through various media texts in all kinds of approaches such as photo shoots, music videos, album covers, posters, magazines/newspapers, film and TV. During her time at Disney she was known to be represented as a young innocent 12 year old with her young role in the children's TV series Hannah Montana. The Disney series helped her to make the move towards the music industry by bringing her own songs and voice into the series, which then became so popular they were made into an album. Miley then began to explore the representation of other texts, for example she started to do photo shoots to influence the image of innocent, young, Disney star to her fans and audiences ranging from the age of 7-15 years. As she progressed through Disney, she took on the role as Hannah Montana more seriously with the various released albums and a film which demonstrated her maturing into a teenager. Her soundtrack of the film introduced her to country and adult contemporary markets which helped lead to her adult image.

During the past few years, Cyrus has developed an adult image and mainstream pop sound with the album called 'The Time Of Our Lives' (2009) and her maturing image progressed with the film 'The Last Song' and her third album 'Can't Be Tamed' in 2010. These albums featured more prominent dance elements than her earlier releases and was promoted through sexually-themed performances. In these texts, Miley presents herself as a teenage icon and shows that she has matured from the Disney stage of her career to a more adult career. However she also promotes sex appeal to the audiences due to the long hair, revealing tops, the eye line in photos and the shorts and other clothing she wears to show off her figure.




Throughout the past year, Miley has progressed through a different route as she has developed the ability to perform more revealing and provocative music videos, photo shoots, interviews etc. Her audience first noticed this change when she bought out her latest songs "We Can't Stop", "Wrecking Ball" and when she performed with Robin Thicke at the VMA Awards earlier this year. Her image makes the audience feel like she has moved on from her Disney days to a fun, young adult but some believe the change could be bad due to her younger audiences who were big fans of Hannah Montana, becoming influenced by her actions of drink, drugs and sex.



I decided to analyse one of Miley's older music videos to demonstrate the contrast of her image from 2009 to now. Here is her video for 'Party In The U.S.A' which was released in 2009.

- Sex appeal shown through the camera angles and medium shots of the hips and legs which are shown through the mise en scene of the tight shorts. -revealing top also supports this.
- Cutting rate of the camera in sync with the beat of the song helps involve the audience into the video.
- Master shot of Miley singing with a vintage microphone on a stage with the American flag which supports the title of the song. - Just her on stage brings across a rebellious side as she has no backing singers, instruments or band members.
- Establishing shot at the beginning to identify the desert styled scene and the typical teenage rebellion especially when the friends and Miley are dancing and singing on the back of cars.
- Mise en scene of Miley roughing her hair up with her hands throughout the video supports the sex appeal but indicates the innocents she still holds within her.
- Particular shots of her getting out of a car in style showing that shes the spotlight of the video especially with the cowboy boots.